The Dilemma of Contemporary Anglo-Saxon Philosophy of History

My thesis in this introduction will be that contemporary Anglo-Saxon philosophy of history is confronted with a dilemma and that the future of philosophy of history depends on the choice that is ultimately reached. I have deliberately avoided the word crisis and used the word dilemma, as the two alternative standpoints in this dilemma do not share a common past in the way that is suggested by the word crisis. Rather, two different forms of philosophy of history, each with an intellectual ancestry of its own, are opposed to each other, while having remarkably little in common. The choice will therefore be between two different tracks, rather than between the two bifurcations of one and the same track we have all been following up to now. The two sides to the dilemma can be described in a number of different ways. One could speak simply of new philosophy of history versus traditional philosophy of history, of interpretative versus descriptivist philosophy of history, of synthetic versus analytic philosophy of history, of linguistic versus criterial philosophy of history, or, as does Hans Kellner, 1 of postmodernist versus modernist philosophy of history. All these labels have their advantages and disadvantages and they all capture part of the truth. Nevertheless, for reasons that will become clear in the course of this introduction, I prefer the terms narrativist philosophy of history versus epistemological philosophy of history. Epistemological philosophy of history has always been concerned with the criteria for the truth and validity of historical descriptions and explanations; it has attempted to answer the epistemological question as to the conditions under which we are justified in believing the historian's statements about the past (ei-