PoznanPoznan UniversityPoznan Interdisciplinary SeminarsArchive

workshop / guest lecture
Department of Philosophy, Department of History,
Adam Mickiewicz University 

Program [ abstracts and bionotes]

13:00-13:15 – Introduction
13:15-13:45 – Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen (University of Oulu)
Yes, We Need a Philosophy of Historiography. But should it be Analytic?

13:45-14:15 – Eugen Zelenak (Catholic University in Ruzomberok)
Non-representationalism in Paul A. Roth's Philosophy of History

14:15-14:45 – Krzysztof Brzechczyn (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan)
Narration and Explanation in Paul A. Roth’s Philosophy of History. An Attempt of Comment from Perspective of Poznań School of Methodology

14:45-15:15 – discussion
15:15-15:45 – coffee break

15:45-16:15 – Rafał Paweł Wierzchosławski (University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poznan)
The Method of Antinomies and the Past

16:15-16:45 – Ewa Domanska (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan / Stanford University)
Paradigm Shift in the Contemporary Humanities and Social Sciences

16:45-17:15 – discussion
17:15-17:30 – coffee break

17:30-19:00 – Paul A. Roth (University of California at Santa Cruz)
Reviving the Philosophy of History

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Paul A. Roth
Reviving the Philosophy of History

A call to revive philosophy of history will, I expect, quickly prompt at least the following two questions: first, what exactly would this revival revive; and, second, why bother? Those skeptically inclined might counsel indefinite postponement, inasmuch as this subfield has remained mostly deserted since the 1970s. My primary concern will be to outline the current status of key issues raised by the first question, for the purpose of identifying those aspects within philosophy of history that both merit and demand renewed philosophical consideration. In particular, my paper reconsiders questions tied to the use of narrative as a form of explanation. Specifically, I focus on those features that make historical explanation distinctiveand yet belonging on any satisfactory catalogue of explanatory strategies. I directly address an epistemic question that I take to be of central philosophical concern, viz., in what respects explanations in narrative form can be said to offer credible justifications. Answering this requires a turn away from narrative theory and back to neglected works by Arthur Danto and Louis Mink. For they understood in a manner now lost or forgotten the question of narrative explanation as an epistemic issue. Examination of some recent reflections on narrative explanation reveals how disconnected discussion has become from their concerns. Moreover, their work provides important and still crucial insights that can be deployed to fashion answers to philosophical concerns about narrative explanation. I conclude with two examples of what I claim to be explanations in narrative form—Raul Hilberg’s The Destruction of the European Jews and Michael Friedman’s A Parting of the Ways—that should motivate philosophers and others to attend to narratives as a mode of explanation in philosophy of history. and the other These examples indicate as well how answering the first question noted at the outset also answers the second of my initial questions.

Paul A Roth, Reviving Philosophy of History (unpublished manuscript)

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Paul A. Roth

Paul A. Roth is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Roth writes on the philosophy of social science, philosophy of history, and the history of analytic philosophy. He is the author of Meaning and Method in the Social Sciences and co-edited with Stephen Turner The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. He co-founded (with Alison Wylie and James Bohman) and continues to co-direct the annual Philosophy of Social Science Roundtable. He is completing a book on the metaphysics and epistemology of historical knowledge, The Pasts (forthcoming, Northwestern University Press.)

For a representative list of Roth’s publications, see here

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Paul A. Roth - wykłady gościnne na Wydziale Filozofii KUL w Lublinie - 16-17 październik 2015