Abstract
In our universities, separate departments of history and of the various sciences attest in practice to the distinction between history and the sciences.1 The ease with which practice appears to distinguish disciplines is not readily transferred to the delineating of theoretical differences. Generally, theoretical differentiations have been drawn from two major philosophical positions. One view, usually that of philosophical idealism, maintains that differences are found in the objects and the methods of the study. The other view does not admit these distinctions and suggests that differences lie with the objectives of the researcher.
Special thanks are due to Richard H. Lineback, Shephard Braun, Janis Pallister, and Peter Spader who read earlier drafts of this essay and made several helpful suggestions.
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References
In the context of this essay, the term “history” will mean written accounts of the past.
R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (New York, 1956 ), pp. 213–217.
Ibid., p. 302.
Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (New York, 1964), p. 158 and Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York, 1933), p. 35.
Collingwood, pp. 300–302.
Collingwood, p. 287.
Ibid., pp. 304–305.
“The Problem of Uniqueness in History” first appeared in History and Theory, I (1961), pp. 150–162. The essay is also reprinted in Philosophical Problems: An Introductory Book of Readings which is edited by Maurice Mandelbaum and others. The quotations from the article by Joynt and Rescher will be taken from History and Theory.
Joynt and Rescher, p. 150.
Joynt and Rescher, p. 150.
Ibid., p. 154.
Ibid., p. 158.
Joynt and Rescher, pp. 157–158.
Arthur Danto, Analytical Philosophy of History (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 107–III.
Joynt and Rescher, p. 152.
W. H. Walsh, Philosophy of History: An Introduction (New York), 1960), pp. 59–64.
Morton White, Foundations of Historical Knowledge ( New York, 1965), Chapter VI
W. B. Gallie, Philosophy and Historical Understanding (New York, 1964), Chapters 2-4.
Danto, p. 236.
Aristotle, On Poetry and Style, trans. G. M. A. Grube (New York, 1958), p. 53.
Danto, p. 236.
Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (New York, 1929), Vol. II, pp. 5–6.
James Ford Rhodes, Lectures on the American Civil War (New York, 1913), pp. 41–44.
Beard and Beard, pp. 10–13.
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© 1969 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Cormier, R. (1969). History, The Sciences, and Uniqueness. In: Epistemology II. Tulane Studies in Philosophy, vol 18. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3197-4_1
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