No prominent pragmatist philosopher to date has offered us a fully developed theory of history or historical interpretation. Nevertheless, a number of pivotal arguments and suggestions made by the pragmatists appeared to many both insightful and pertinent enough to offer a distinctive promise of a cohesive and distinctive general pragmatist perspective in historical theory. The present contribution is intended to secure some advances in this direction, focusing on the relationships between objectivity and perspective; between representation as an accurate correspondence to reality and the social, cultural sense of representation as being represented and being representative; as well as the relationship between individualizing comprehension and generalizing abstraction in historical contexts.
This Element aims to advance the understanding of history by focusing on the relationships between objectivity, perspective, representation, and individualizing comprehension in historical contexts. It acknowledges that no pragmatist philosopher has developed a fully developed theory of history, but their arguments and suggestions are insightful.
