Historical Explanation (Reenactment and Practical Inference)

Author: Rex Martin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: "Historical Explanation: Reenactment and Practical Inference" addresses two common issues in the philosophy of history. One is Collingwood's assertion that historians explain the past through "reenactment" or the process of reenacting it in thought. The other is the view held by many since Aristotle, which aims to reconstruct the practical inference process from the actor's situation to their actions in order to gain an understanding of human actions, whether in the past or the present. Martin is concerned not only with the nature of reenactment but also with making practical inference as clear as possible. He proposes a middle stance: an "acceptable reflective consensus concept" for historians, which is "an explanation of a specific behavior that is acceptable by referring to the actor's intentions, motivations, background, means/end beliefs, and so on."