Table Of ContentPostnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography
Postnarrativist Philosophy
of Historiography
Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen
University of Oulu, Finland
© Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen 2015
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To Akseli
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments viii
1 I ntroduction: The Narrativist Insight 1
2 F rom Analytic Philosophy of History to Narrativism 14
3 T hree Tenets of Narrativist Philosophy of Historiography 30
4 R epresentationalism and Non-representationalism 5 0
5 R easoning in Historiography 6 8
6 C olligation 9 7
7 U nderdetermination and Epistemic Values 1 16
8 F rom Truth to Warranted Assertion 1 31
9 T he Tri-partite Theory of Justification of Historiography 148
10 H istoriography between Objectivism and Subjectivism 1 68
11 C oda: Postnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography 1 98
Notes 2 02
Bibliography 2 19
Index 231
vii
Preface and Acknowledgments
Writing this book has been like trying to climb to the top of a moun-
tain to get a clear view of the terrain below. Many monographs in the
humanities are actually collections of articles published elsewhere,
supplemented by an introduction and a conclusion. While I do not deny
that some article collections result in balanced accounts, I pointedly
wanted to create a connected and progressive chain of reasoning, which
takes the reader from the starting point to the end so that the path, the
turns on it and the reasons for those turns become evident. Obviously,
what the reader has in her or his hand is not the documentation of
all the twists and turns of reasoning, but the outcome of this activity.
I hope that the book functions like one coherent and comprehensive
piece on its topic and that all its parts appear justified. Achieving some-
thing like this has been my aim ever since I entered academia, although
this dawned on me only much later.
It has not been easy to reach the mountaintop. There have been many
false awakenings and attempts to force a path through impenetrable
terrain. On a number of occasions I have realized that the elevation on
which I was standing, and which I thought was the top, was actually
only a small hill next to a much bigger one. And it has even happened
that I have had to go back down and try another side after finding that
an approach would not provide that clear vision that I was after. Now
I believe that I am on the top of a mountain and can see far. I am not
claiming that this is the only mountain, the highest peak or the only
clear view to be had. Far from it. There are innumerable potential visions
to be laid out and it is my belief that every author attempts to provide
one.
The metaphor has its limitations too, as I do not think that the terrain
below is or can be ordered only in one way. It is composed of philosoph-
ical ideas after all. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to think of the
ground below as Lego blocks, which can be ordered and combined in
innumerable ways. Some arrangements certainly are more robust than
others and some reach higher and are more creative than others. But
once there is order, there is clarity. Perhaps someone can arrange the
blocks better, or use blocks that I have ignored, but now I have finished
my job and am ready to offer my view to the reader.
viii
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
The planning of this book began implicitly when I decided to teach
a course on the philosophy of history and historiography at Leiden
University in 2009, which was then repeated the following year in
modified form. My participation in the research project ‘Philosophical
Foundations of the Historiography of Science’ in 2008–2011 in Leiden
prepared my mind for reflection on historiography. Actual research and
writing were made possible by two academic grants. The Emil Aaltonen
foundation provided a Young Researcher’s Award for 2011–2012 and I
was the recipient of a EURIAS fellowship at the Helsinki Collegium for
Advanced Studies in 2013–2014. I would like to thank both funding
bodies for their generous support. Parts of my paper ‘Representationalism
and Non-representationalism in Historiography’, published in J ournal of
the Philosophy of History , 7(3): 453–479, are reproduced in Chapters 3
and 4. I am grateful for Koninklijke Brill NV for permitting the reuse of
this material.
There are a number of people with whom I have had discussions
on the theory and philosophy of history and historiography or whose
comments on my texts have helped to draft the final manuscript. I
warmly thank all of them and especially the following people: Frank
Ankersmit, Aviezer Tucker, Herman Paul, Lisa Muszynski and James W.
McAllister have all read some chapters or plans for the book. I am grateful
to Kalle Pihlainen, who tirelessly went through the entire manuscript
and helped to make the text more readable. I also thank Erika Servin
who designed Figure 10.2 in Chapter 10 for me. Jorma Kalela deserves
a special mention as he first formulated the idea of historiography as
argumentation, which subsequently provided the central inspiration for
this book.
