The Nature of Historical Explanation

Author: [British] Gardner / Jiang Yi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: Gardner's views were influenced by Oxford philosophy in the UK, particularly during the 1940s and 1950s when Austin and Ryle's linguistic analytical philosophy was at its peak in Oxford and throughout the English-speaking philosophical world. His work represents the main tendency of Oxford philosophy in dealing with the nature of historical interpretation. The author is renowned for emphasizing the relativity of historical interpretation through linguistic analysis and is also an international authority on the thought of Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard. In this book, he abandons the view that the task of historical interpretation is to study the nature of history, regarding the historian's interpretive work as an analytical activity rather than a descriptive explanation of historical facts, thereby strictly distinguishing the characteristics of historical research from those of scientific research. The book is regarded as one of the classics of contemporary Western historical philosophy.