Impressive! I read both books too many years ago, but as you know, especially Dialectic is a tough nut (and pretty out there in many respects). I got into Bhaskar via the philosophy of social science, so my go-to books were The Possibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation.
Thanks for the reminder! I used to be very much into Bhaskar and Critical Realism before I got into the philo of history. I even met him a few times in the early 2010s, while he was already in a wheelchair. I should really have a look at his work again, after so many years. A great mind!
Thanks for this, Arthur! I obviously agree on Danto's centrality for the philosophy of history & history ed. Speaking of the centrality of philosophies of history, White's included, to history education, do you this paper by David Cernin: apcz.umk.pl/RF/article/v...? I found it rather interesting.
I tried to put some of Danto’s insights to work here - in a handbook for teachers on interpretation (www.academia.edu/30525006/Cha...): “The past has a future and the future keeps rewriting the past…” 2/2
prevented history as a school subject to be replaced by social science studies in Germany. The reason was that APH showed that historiography is not reducible to the social sciences.
P.S. I have written here on Danto’s 1985 retrospective text on analytical philosophy of history as a book, approach, and era: x.com/GanglGeorg/s.... P.P.S. In his 2013 text, Danto also lets us know that Habermas told him that it was the German translation of APH that...
philosophy and logical analysis à la Hempel as *the* philosophical approach, questions surrounding the logic and rhetoric of narrative are still very much with us. Both Danto and White therefore still deserve our attention. (20/20)
of the book, championing narrative as a proper form of explanation, was decidedly beyond both Hempel and ordinary language philosophy. This makes “APH” and Danto’s philosophy of history into the complex affair that it is. And while today we are beyond ordinary language...(19/20)
during his philosophical formation in the 1950s he was strongly influenced by the ordinary language philosophy that was du jour at the time. Some of this understanding of philosophy is still palpable in “APH”, though couched in Hempel’s terminology, while the main point..(18/20)
that I never fully understood this point of Danto’s, but it is part and parcel of his idea of the time to furnish a “descriptive metaphysic of historical existence” as he calls it in the preface of "APH", with which I am sympathetic. Finally, Danto also states that...(17/20)