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Historical explanation reconsidered
Hirfmy of European Ideas, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 79-97, Pergamon Press Ltd. Printed in Great Britain.
1985.
BOOK REVIEWS
Historical
Explanation
Reconsidered,
Gordon
Graham
(Aberdeen:
Aberdeen
Uni-
versity Press, 1983), 82 pp. The topic of historical explanation has been a central concern of philosophers of history and science for the last thirty years. Various models of distinctively historical explanations have been proposed. On the covering law model of Popper and Hempel, historical explanations tie explanandum-events to initial conditions by means of laws. tie On the rational model of Collingwood and Dray, historical explanations explanandum-events to agents’ beliefs and intentions by means of principles of action. On the narrative model of Gallie and Danto, historical explanations tie exphuzndumevents to other events by means of plot-like structures. Are historical explanations appropriately specified by any of these models? And, once an appropriate model of historical explanations has been found, how, if at all, are they different from scientific explanations? On Gordon Graham’s view, the failure to make the right distinctions is the reason why the debate surrounding these questions has not been resolved. The aim of his book seems to be to provide the right distinctions and thereby to arrive at an appropriate way of qualifying explanations as historical. By distinguishing between historical explanations and explanations in history, Graham effectively eliminates covering law explanations, rational explanations and narrative accounts as possible models of historical explanation. Each of these may be a type of explanation in history, but none of them seems to pick out specifically historical explanations. The covering law model purports to encompass all explanations, whether in natural science or in history. The rational explanation model applies indifferently to actions in ordinary life and in history. The narrative model functions as well in fictional literature as in history. For Graham, the debate among proponents of these traditional models of historical explanation ought to terminate with the realisation that none of them is really talking about explanations that are strictly historical. By distinguishing between theoretical and historical explanations rather than between scientific and historical explanations, Graham reveals his own model of historical explanation and makes an interesting point about the methods of the natural and the human sciences. Historical explanations explain particular events in terms of other events which occur at some preceding point in time. Theoretical explanations, by contrast, explain given, atemporal regularities in terms of more general theories. Since particular events are preceded in a time series by other events both in nature and in history and there seem to be observable regularities both in nature and in history, there seems to be no good reason why we should not expect to find theoretical and historical explanations in both the natural sciences and the human sciences. Therefore, whatever else seems to separate them, the natural and the human sciences seem to share at least these two modes of explanation. Graham admits that his line of argument has one very disturbing implication: namely, that there is no essential difference between nature and history. This conclusion, which he rightly believes is the most controversial of the book, contradicts the assumption, commonly held among intellectuals at least, that there is an essential difference between nature and history. But according to Graham, if his argument 79
80
Book Reviews
overthrows a common assumption about nature and history, so much the worse for the common assumption. Collingwood is cited as an example of a thinker who, in order to bolster the traditional distinction between scientific and historical explanations, attempts a philosophical defence of our intuition that nature and history are essentially different. Graham rejects Collingwood’s argument for begging the question about this alleged difference, and he may be right in this particular case. But one wonders whether Graham has merely picked on a relatively weak, though admittedly influential, opponent of his position, and how his own case would stand up against a stronger but equally influential adversary. One might think here of Hegel, for whom the split between nature and history could not be more radical, and who seems to find independent grounds, in the political state, for discriminating the historical from the natural. While he might grant that there is a place for historical explanations of Graham’s sort in history, Hegel would probably claim that they fail to capture what is essential about historical events. Graham nevertheless seems to allow that history differs from nature, at least to the extent that understanding is required for the study of the former but not for the study of the latter. He does not discuss what he means by ‘understanding’, except for asserting that understanding in history is radically independent of historical explanation. But some philosophers’ have argued persuasively that understanding, in a specified technical sense, is internal to historical explanation. If this is so, then we have one more reason for retaining the traditional distinction between scientific and historical explanations. Perhaps it is best to say that Graham has presented us with two minimal respects in which nature and history are similar: each exhibits particular events in a time series and displays regularities to the observer. But on this basis, Graham has shown at most that the natural and the human sciences share two types of scientific explanation: ‘the theoretical’ and ‘the historical’ in his senses of the terms. Whether there is yet another sort of explanation in history, deriving from a peculiarity of history and our understanding of it and thus properly deserving the label ‘historical’, seems to be a question that Graham’s book does not decisively settle after all. Kenneth A. Lambert Rutgers University
NOTES 1. See R. Martin, Historical Explanation (Ithaca: Cornell University
Reason’s Disciples: Seventeenth-Century
Press, 1977).
English Feminists, Hilda L. Smith (Univer-
sity of Illinois Press, 1982), 237~~. Feminism in Eighteenth-Century
England, Katherine
M. Rogers, (Brighton:
Harves-
ter Press, 1982), 291~~. Feminists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries differed radically from more modern ones in that they did not create a mass movement or formulate concrete demands for political change. The category ‘feminist’ is modern - the word is not recorded until the 1890s - but it can legitimately be applied to some writers in earlier
1985.
BOOK REVIEWS
Historical
Explanation
Reconsidered,
Gordon
Graham
(Aberdeen:
Aberdeen
Uni-
versity Press, 1983), 82 pp. The topic of historical explanation has been a central concern of philosophers of history and science for the last thirty years. Various models of distinctively historical explanations have been proposed. On the covering law model of Popper and Hempel, historical explanations tie explanandum-events to initial conditions by means of laws. tie On the rational model of Collingwood and Dray, historical explanations explanandum-events to agents’ beliefs and intentions by means of principles of action. On the narrative model of Gallie and Danto, historical explanations tie exphuzndumevents to other events by means of plot-like structures. Are historical explanations appropriately specified by any of these models? And, once an appropriate model of historical explanations has been found, how, if at all, are they different from scientific explanations? On Gordon Graham’s view, the failure to make the right distinctions is the reason why the debate surrounding these questions has not been resolved. The aim of his book seems to be to provide the right distinctions and thereby to arrive at an appropriate way of qualifying explanations as historical. By distinguishing between historical explanations and explanations in history, Graham effectively eliminates covering law explanations, rational explanations and narrative accounts as possible models of historical explanation. Each of these may be a type of explanation in history, but none of them seems to pick out specifically historical explanations. The covering law model purports to encompass all explanations, whether in natural science or in history. The rational explanation model applies indifferently to actions in ordinary life and in history. The narrative model functions as well in fictional literature as in history. For Graham, the debate among proponents of these traditional models of historical explanation ought to terminate with the realisation that none of them is really talking about explanations that are strictly historical. By distinguishing between theoretical and historical explanations rather than between scientific and historical explanations, Graham reveals his own model of historical explanation and makes an interesting point about the methods of the natural and the human sciences. Historical explanations explain particular events in terms of other events which occur at some preceding point in time. Theoretical explanations, by contrast, explain given, atemporal regularities in terms of more general theories. Since particular events are preceded in a time series by other events both in nature and in history and there seem to be observable regularities both in nature and in history, there seems to be no good reason why we should not expect to find theoretical and historical explanations in both the natural sciences and the human sciences. Therefore, whatever else seems to separate them, the natural and the human sciences seem to share at least these two modes of explanation. Graham admits that his line of argument has one very disturbing implication: namely, that there is no essential difference between nature and history. This conclusion, which he rightly believes is the most controversial of the book, contradicts the assumption, commonly held among intellectuals at least, that there is an essential difference between nature and history. But according to Graham, if his argument 79
80
Book Reviews
overthrows a common assumption about nature and history, so much the worse for the common assumption. Collingwood is cited as an example of a thinker who, in order to bolster the traditional distinction between scientific and historical explanations, attempts a philosophical defence of our intuition that nature and history are essentially different. Graham rejects Collingwood’s argument for begging the question about this alleged difference, and he may be right in this particular case. But one wonders whether Graham has merely picked on a relatively weak, though admittedly influential, opponent of his position, and how his own case would stand up against a stronger but equally influential adversary. One might think here of Hegel, for whom the split between nature and history could not be more radical, and who seems to find independent grounds, in the political state, for discriminating the historical from the natural. While he might grant that there is a place for historical explanations of Graham’s sort in history, Hegel would probably claim that they fail to capture what is essential about historical events. Graham nevertheless seems to allow that history differs from nature, at least to the extent that understanding is required for the study of the former but not for the study of the latter. He does not discuss what he means by ‘understanding’, except for asserting that understanding in history is radically independent of historical explanation. But some philosophers’ have argued persuasively that understanding, in a specified technical sense, is internal to historical explanation. If this is so, then we have one more reason for retaining the traditional distinction between scientific and historical explanations. Perhaps it is best to say that Graham has presented us with two minimal respects in which nature and history are similar: each exhibits particular events in a time series and displays regularities to the observer. But on this basis, Graham has shown at most that the natural and the human sciences share two types of scientific explanation: ‘the theoretical’ and ‘the historical’ in his senses of the terms. Whether there is yet another sort of explanation in history, deriving from a peculiarity of history and our understanding of it and thus properly deserving the label ‘historical’, seems to be a question that Graham’s book does not decisively settle after all. Kenneth A. Lambert Rutgers University
NOTES 1. See R. Martin, Historical Explanation (Ithaca: Cornell University
Reason’s Disciples: Seventeenth-Century
Press, 1977).
English Feminists, Hilda L. Smith (Univer-
sity of Illinois Press, 1982), 237~~. Feminism in Eighteenth-Century
England, Katherine
M. Rogers, (Brighton:
Harves-
ter Press, 1982), 291~~. Feminists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries differed radically from more modern ones in that they did not create a mass movement or formulate concrete demands for political change. The category ‘feminist’ is modern - the word is not recorded until the 1890s - but it can legitimately be applied to some writers in earlier