philosophy of history – Page 4 – manwithoutqualities

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May 12, 2007ancient philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of history

Polybius, Tyche and Causality in Historical Explanation

[Note: There are some formatting issues that still need to be attended to] Polybius believes that the historian’s task is to identify the causes of past events, making these events intelligible and therefore functional to an educative (practical and moral) purpose. This conception of historical activity has to a great degree informed historical thinking ever…

May 10, 2007ancient philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of history

Thucydides as a ‘Scientific’ Historian?

[There are still some formatting and character issues to be resolved in the following text] That the question which is the subject of this discussion was posed at all, primarily reflects the concerns of the modern and only secondarily those of Thucydides. The possibility of a ‘scientific’ history while certainly suggestive in Thucydides is very much a…