Internal History versus External History

Philosophy 92 (2):207-230 (2017)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to generalize a pair of concepts that are widely used in the history of science, in art history and in historical linguistics – the concept of internal and external history – and to replace the often very vague talk of ‘historical narratives’ with this conceptual framework of internal versus external history. I argue that this way of framing the problem allows us to see the possible alternatives more clearly – as a limited number of possible relations between internal and external history. Finally, I argue that while external history is metaphysically prior to internal history, when it comes to historical explanations, we need both.

Author's Profile

Bence Nanay
University of Antwerp

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-01-30

Downloads
3,116 (#2,885)

6 months
479 (#2,379)

Historical graph of downloads since first upload
This graph includes both downloads from PhilArchive and clicks on external links on PhilPapers.
How can I increase my downloads?