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Analogical Reasoning in Victorian Historical Epistemology
- Journal of the History of Ideas
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 64, Number 3, July 2003
- pp. 445-464
- 10.1353/jhi.2003.0035
- Article
- Additional Information
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The usefulness of “analogy” as an epistemological tool was at the center of a Victorian debate over the nature of historical knowledge. While researching one of her novels, George Eliot combined her obsession with historical veracity with a belief in the efficacy of analogical reasoning in the generation of historical knowledge to create a method of imaginative representation that was meant to advance our understanding of the past. Her work, along with that of her companion, G.H. Lewes, constituted a rejection of the ascendant view that history needed to become an austere, inductive science, advanced by J.S. Mill, H.T. Buckle, and William Stubbs.