The relationship between philosophy and history has long been a matter of contention. Philosophers have claimed that their pursuit of universal law and eternal verities elevated them beyond historians, who merely dabbled with the vagaries of the particular and the contingent. Historians responded with the argument that philosophy was important only in relation to its contribution to concrete, historical truth. A greater challenge for both philosophers and historians than the defense of either of these positions has been to understand the convoluted issues surrounding the intersection of their respective disciplines. In At the Nexus of Philosophy and History, Bernard P. Dauenhauer has collected eleven essays that explore the relationship between the two disciplines and provide a significant, innovative response to the problems created by such exploration. The original essays collected in this volume challenge the artificial distinctions and disciplinary parochialism that have too often characterized traditional academic debate. Instead of advancing any one elaborate theory, At the Nexus of Philosophy and History seeks to encourage a balanced approach toward the exploration of the two fields by demonstrating that a full understanding of the one is impossible without knowledge of the other.

Philosophy of History is an essential introduction to a vast body of writing about history, from classical Greece and Rome to the modern world. M.C. Lemon maps out key debates and central concepts of philosophy of history, placing principal thinkers in the context of their times and schools of thought. Lemon explains the crucial differences between speculative philosophy as an enquiry into the content of history, and analytic philosophy of history as relating to the methods of history. The first two parts of the book trace each of these traditions, whereas the third part revisits both in the light of recent contributions to the discipline. This guide provides a comprehensive survey of historical thought since ancient times. Its clear terminology and lucid argument will make it an invaluable source for students and teachers alike.

This radical analysis of the role and importance of historiography interprets the philosophy and theory of history on the basis of historicity as a human condition. The book examins the norms and methods of historiography from a philosophical point of view, but rejects generalisations tht the philosophy of history can provide all the answers to contemporary problems. Instead it outlines a feasible theory of history which is still radical enough to apply to all social structures.

Pursuing this objective, Alex Callinicos critically confronts a number of leading attempts to reconceptualize the meaning of history, including Francis Fukuyama's rehabilitation of Hegel's philosophy of history and the postmodernist efforts of Hayden White and others to deny the existence of a past independent of our representations of it. In these cases philosophical arguments are pursued in tandem with discussions of historical interpretations of, respectively, Stalinism and the Holocaust.

A COMPANION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY The philosophy of historiography examines our representations and knowledge of the past, the relation between evidence, inference, explanation and narrative. Do we possess knowledge of the past? Do we just have probable beliefs about the past, or is historiography a piece of convincing fiction? The philosophy of history is the direct philosophical examination of history, whether it is necessary or contingent, whether it has a direction or whether it is coincidental, and if it has a direction, what it is, and how and why it is unfolding? The fifty entries in this Companion cover the main issues in the philosophies of historiography and history, including natural history and the practices of historians. Written by an international and multi-disciplinary group of experts, these clearly written entries present a cutting-edge updated picture of current research in the philosophies of historiography and history. This Companion will be of interest to philosophers, historians, natural historians, and social scientists.

The theological implications of the philosophy of history, traced through the works of Buckhardt, Marx, Hegel, Proudhon, Comte, Condorcet, Turgot, Voltaire, Vico, Bossuet, Joachim, Augustine, Orosius and the Bible.