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Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
  
  
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An examination of substantive theories of historical
causation shows that many of the problems raised by
them tend to shade into others that concern, not so
much matters of fact, as the meaning and implications
of various key terms or ideas. This aspect of the subject
first began to attract widespread attention during the
latter half of the nineteenth century, when a certain
skepticism regarding the feasibility of large-scale in-
terpretations of the historical process on allegedly
scientific lines set in, and when it was felt to be neces-
sary to consider more carefully the actual structure of
the concepts by which the explanation of historical
phenomena was customarily attempted. It was clear,
for instance, that the program of elevating history to
scientific status presupposed that historical events
could be subsumed beneath laws and hypotheses of the
type that had been employed with success at the level
of natural phenomena. How far, though, was such an
assumption really justified? Was it not conceivable that
the whole notion of explanation and understanding
within the field of the human studies precluded the
adoption of such an approach, with the consequence
that some of the grandiose attempts which had been
made to set history upon the “sure path of a science”
could be regarded as mistaken in principle, the prod-
ucts of a profound categorial confusion? In any case,
was it not reasonable to investigate the logical charac-
ter of the explanations which historians in practice used
before embarking on projects whose relevance and
applicability to the subject matter of historical enquiry
had been taken for granted not critically ascertained?