David Černín

The future of the philosophy of history is inescapably intertwined with the future of history and historiography itself. Thus, philosophers of history should be ready to explore new approaches to structuring and gaining historical knowledge that are stirring passions among historians and theoreticians. By doing so, philosophers of history may hone their theories and tools. This paper focuses on the Big History project initiated by David Christian. Rather than discussing its possible historical ties, the paper analyses its narrative structure and epistemological and ontological assumptions. It addresses the description of Big History as a modern creation myth, its posthumanist features, synergies with an originary approach to historical knowledge, and its use of complexity theories.

Historical video games are uniquely tied to the scientific practices of professional historians, archaeologists, and many other experts. However, since video games are an interactive medium and the most common-sensical view of history is that the past is fixed, it is clear that, at least from a representationalist point of view, there is some unresolved tension. The article explores this predicament and draws heavily from contemporary historical non-representationalism – a position that shifts focus from the idea of representing the real past to the close examination of historical discourse as a complex argumentative practice, relying on evidence and robust theoretical background. To complement the theoretical examination of the problem, the paper examines three examples from historical discourse (the Late Bronze Age collapse, cliodynamics, and Big History) and juxtaposes them against two examples of historical video games of a strategic genre that deal with related topics. It is argued that what makes video games historical is their complex relation to the ongoing historical discourse.

The entry aims to explore the idea of prehistory from numerous angles. While apparently unproblematic and mundane, prehistory has accumulated numerous philosophical issues since its "discovery" in the 19th century. First, the entry explores the epistemological issues associated with the idea that documentary sources are qualitatively different and more informative than material record. It follows both philosophical and historiographical discourse and demonstrates issues with the epistemological definition of prehistory. The second part explores ontological consideration and the discredited idea that there is a substantial difference between civilized literate cultures and illiterate prehistorical people.

This entry aims to explore Big History, tries to determine its relation to historiography and sciences, and evaluates its narrative structure. Following the brief recapitulation of Big History idea and its history, the text proceeds by analysing David Christian's recurrent saying that Big History is "a modern creation myth," revealing numerous philosophical assumptions about the project. The entry introduces common criticisms of Big History, revolving around its alleged misunderstanding of the essence of history or by highlighting the failures of supposed predecessors of the idea. The final part explores the viability of Big History as a research programme and not only educational or narrative framework, by looking at other representatives or supporters of the Big History project.

Big History expands the scope of historiography to study all the past, from the Big Bang to the present. Big History is decidedly non-anthropocentric, recognising that humans appeared only very recently from a much deeper past. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Big History brings together an international cast of leading and emerging scholars from a range of disciplines to provide the first comprehensive and balanced exploration of this new and increasingly significant field. The handbook considers the ways in which Big History broadens the scope of evidence historians use. It reveals how Big History allows for the use of information signals from the past, such as material remains, languages, ancient DNA, and fossils, using recently discovered techniques such as carbon-dating, the extraction of ancient DNA, and the analysis of background radiation from the origin of the universe. Understanding Big History requires an examination of the ontology and epistemology of the past and its scientific inference and representation; chapters on the ontology of the past, historical information, historiographic experiments and predictions, the origin and the end of history, historical counterfactuals, contingency, necessity, and determination and under-determination of the past are included to facilitate this understanding. The handbook also provides a sustained analysis of the theoretical assumptions associated with synthetic historical science: the syntheses of genetics, linguistics, and archaeology to infer human prehistory, quantum physics and cosmology to infer the origin of the universe, and environmental science and biology to infer the history of life; as well as the distinct historical sciences and their methods: cosmology, evolutionary biology, geology, archaeology, historical linguistics, and human historiography. This ground-breaking volume is vital reading for all historians, philosophers and historical scientists interested in becoming more scientifically self-conscious when adopting philosophical, theoretical, and methodological approaches to the past.

The post-truth era is plagued by numerous pseudoscientific theories and narratives that took root in various disciplines. History and historical knowledge belong to the enterprises abused today. The output of historical inquiry in a narrative form is often considered as a correct description of the real past from which we may draw normative conclusions about society. However, the endemic plurality of historical narratives and theories presents an opportunity for intentional misinterpretation. This paper aims to sketch a solution to this threatening situation with the help of contemporary philosophy of historiography. It is argued that it is necessary to move from historical narratives to the process of historical inquiry itself. The historiography developed over its existence many useful tools on how to guard itself against various logical fallacies, cognitive biases, and pseudoscientific methodology. The situation of a historian encountering contradictory sources about the same subject is strikingly similar to the situation of an inquisitive person confronted by pseudoscientific articles and fake news. The paper highlights a strong synergy between fully developed methods of scientific historiography and critical thinking that is considered as a possible cure to our current predicament. We should teach history as critical thinking, not as stories.

Knowledge of philosophy is commonly imparted in various philosophy courses, and the teaching process may take multiple forms, ranging from a historical overview to interdisciplinary approaches. However, the theoreticians of education across different subjects and disciplines often turn to philosophy, and they adopt some philosophical assumptions about their field to set up warranted goals and methods of teaching, delineate subject matter, and identify skills they hope to impart. Due to this process involving lengthy theoretical discussions and intellectual exchanges, teachers pass on specific philosophical attitudes even if they are not explicitly teaching philosophy. This paper examines an intersection between history education and philosophy in particular. The focus is on philosophical theories of history that history educators directly address. The paper navigates a specific roadmap portraying the development of the philosophical approaches to the knowledge of the past, discusses diverging traditions, and shows their potential contribution to reaching educational goals.

This paper focuses on the discipline of history, its methods, subject, and output. A brief overview of contemporary analytic philosophy of history is provided, followed by critical discussion of historical realism. It is argued that the insistence on the idea that historians inquire into the real past and that they refer to the actual past entities, events, or agents is widely open to sceptical objections. The concept of an abstract historical chronicle of past events which are explained or retold by historians is identified as misleading. The idea of historical antirealism is then introduced. It is argued that in the centre of historian’s attention are present phenomena that are identified as historical evidence and require historical explanation. Historical explanation consists of constituting an historical past—a fictional model that accounts for present data. The identification process of historical evidence and the discursive nature of historical enterprise are analysed and accompanied by several concrete examples. According to historical antirealism, historians are not interested in the real past, but in the present empirical data. In their pursuit of historical knowledge, they produce fictional models—an historical past. Lastly, several common caveats against historical antirealism are addressed. The historical antirealism is presented as a viable fictionalist account of the historical inquiry that is capable of avoiding sceptical attacks on historical method and it is argued that antirealism allows history to retain its worth as a distinctive kind of scientific discipline.

This paper examines the methodological propositions of Quentin Skinner, whose influence on intellectual history, including the history and philosophy of science (HPS), cannot be disregarded. It is well known that Skinner’s method is based on John L. Austin’s theory of speech acts. Nonetheless, the very idea of applying ordinary language philosophy to the subject matter of history rests on other assumptions that form Skinner’s philosophy of historiography. The paper focuses on reconstructing this philosophy of historiography and especially on R. G. Collingwood as a primary source of inspiration. This famous British philosopher, historian, and archaeologist authored many inspirational texts concerning the historical craft. The complex and sometimes contradictory structure of his posthumously published texts requires careful interpretation, and many philosophers see Collingwood as an obscure thinker. The paper argues that even though Skinner openly denounces Collingwood’s central concept of re-enactment, his philosophy of historiography is deeply influenced by a specific understanding of Collingwood’s legacy.

Jaká je role historie v době post-faktické? Může nám filosofie historie pomoci bránit se proti cílenému zneužívání historických narativů na ideologickém základě? Tento článek zkoumá filosofické reflexe historie a jejich vztah k ideologiím. Je ukázáno, že na počátku této filosofické disciplíny filosofové jako Karl Popper nebo C. G. Hempel usilovali o eliminaci politického a ideologického zabarvení historie. Avšak narativistické bádání Haydena Whita naznačuje, že takový cíl je nedosažitelný. Antirealistická filosofie historie, zastoupena L. J. Goldsteinem, dokonce odmítá reálnou minulost jako cíl historického bádání a zdůrazňuje situovanost historiků ve vztahu k důkazům. Představená verze historického antirealismu chápe historii jako současné zkoumání, které sdílí řadu rysů s kritickým myšlením a zaměřuje se především na zkoumání empirických dat, jež vyžadují postulaci nepřístupné minulosti. Tato podobnost by měla být zdůrazněna skrze výuku historie jako zkoumání, nikoliv jako pouhého příběhu.