Description
Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1977. In this major work, an overview of the structure of historical writing, Maurice Mandelbaum clarifies some of the problems concerning the nature of history as a discipline, of what constitutes explanation in history, and whether historical knowledge is as reliable as other forms of knowledge. The work is divided into three parts. The first part provides an analytic account of different types of historical inquiry. The second treats at length the nature of causal explanation in everyday life and in science and considers the relation between causes and laws. The final part analyzes the concept of objectivity and estimates both the extent to which the inquiries of historians can be said to be objective and the limits of that objectivity in some types of historical accounts.
Table of ContentsPreface
Part I: History and its Modes
Chapter 1. Unity and Diversity in Historical Studies
Chapter 2. Varities of Structure in Historical Accounts
Part II: Causation
Chapter 3. Casual Beliefs in Everyday Life
Chapter 4. Causes, Necessity, and Laws
Chapter 5. On What and Why in History
Part III: Objectivity
Chapter 6. Objectivity and Its Limits
Chapter 7. Objectivity, Causation, and Laws
Appendix A: Home
Appendix B: Hart and Honoré
Notes
Index
