Philosophy and History

518 LLOYD GERSON One major virtue of this book is that the author is anything but condescending in regard to his subject. On the contrary, he argues hard for the relevance of Sceptical insights to contemporary debates in epistemology. And since Epistemological questions are inextricably bound up with virtually every human intellectual enterprise, Groarke has good reason to urge readers to take seriously the few remaining documents of a relatively obscure ancient philosophical school. Groarke is less successful in his defence of the Sceptical approach. He is seduced by the Sceptics' uncritical conflation of all the arguments and doctrines of their opponents under the pejorative rubric 'dogmatism.' In fact, most of the technical arguments directed against 'dogmatism' pertain to Stoic epistemology. This is understandable, since Stoicism dominated the philosophical scene in the heyday of the Sceptics. Nevertheless, Stoic realism has little to do with the reaHsm of Aristotle or Plato. Before pronouncing anti-realism triumphant, Groarke in all honesty should confront the far more subtle varieties of realism that his ancient mentors just ignored. Philosophy and History C.T. MC INTIRE William H. Dray. On History and Philosophers ofHistory E.J. Brill 1989. 237. us $67.50 ProfessorDray, now retired in Toronto, offers us here a worthy selection ofhis short writings on philosophy of history since 1967. Two pieces are published for the first time and the remaining eight are reprinted with at least some revisions. This is not a volume of collected works, and he leaves us guessing why he chose these essays and not others. He shows himself to be a philosopher of history who tries to do his philosophy in contact with things that historians would recognize as relevant to them. One recent piece on generalization, value-judgment, and historical causes is written specifically with historians in mind. The tired example of Caesar crossing the Rubicon is in here, but on the whole he uses examples which historians would find valid and offers worthy observations about the way historians talk about causes. Most of the essays, nonetheless, are comments on or addenda to things already said by other philosophers of history. Dray's favourites are R.G. Collingwood and W.H. Walsh, although he also refers often to A.C. Danto and Morton White. His topics include colligation, point of view in history, importance, narrative, presentism, historical individualism, and a 'specifically historical past.' The collection lets us see how this philosopher proceeds with his work. At least four features of his approach come to the surface. First, he engages other authors in criticism, rather than undertaking his own analysis of events and processes and causes and time-sequences. Second, he seeks to modify what he calls the 'fruitful approaches' taken by these others, rather than simply defeating what others say, SCEPTICISM 519 making his own thought a branch of another author's proposal, which in turn was probably an offspring of a third author's proposal. Third, he makes distinctions, manyJ many distinctions, and often creates new and big tenns: e.g., 'projective presentism,' 'pragmatic presentism,' 'necessitarianism.' Making a distinction is sometimes a beginning of a thought and sometimes the end of a thought. Fourth, he commonly clinches an argument by ceasing to offer argument and by giving an assertion instead: e.g., 'it simplyisn'tplausible.' 'it would surely bestrange,' 'clearly there is something right about it.' Even with a philosopher as close to historians and historical study as Dray, it is easy to see from these four points why historians so often think that what philosophers have to say about history is irrevelant to them. Analytic philosophers of history appear to be working at three and four removes from the history they wish to understand, and to be doing things that send them in circles - from philosopher back to philosopher. One does not have to be a historian to suggest that philosophers of history and historians could have more in common than they now think they do. It would be nice to see movement in two directions simultaneously. Let the analytic philosophers , like Dray, in at least one essay, resist the tendency of talking simply to themselves and use their talents to contribute to understanding the...