The historical process and its explanation

Karl Popper and his debtors

pp. 132-151

in: Nathan Rotenstreich, Philosophy, history and politics, Berlin, Springer, 1976

Abstract

A schematic classification of different directions of philosophies of history could point out that "classical "philosophical views are concerned with the nature of the historical processes, its components, its meaning, and its goal. In the classical approach, historical understanding is related to an assessment of the historical process. The philosophical problem of history is twofold; both aspects of the problem emerge also in Hegel's discussion of the two sides of the term "history" as the course of events and as its understanding. The classical tradition, in this sense, refers to Hegel, Marx, Comte, Croce, Bradley, etc. who shaped its image. Measured by the general trend of the classical tradition, the more recent interest in history seems to take a different direction which might be characterized, loosely, as methodological.