Von Baer, the intensification of uniqueness, and historical explanation

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Rust
Keyword(s):  
Historical Explanation

Historical explanation reconsidered

1985 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-80
Author(s):  
Kenneth A. Lambert
Keyword(s):  
Historical Explanation

Historical Explanation and the Study of Politics

1969 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. H. Birch
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Michael Oakeshott ◽  
Sociological Explanation

MY STARTING POINT IS THE RATHER PLATITUDINOUS PROPOSITION that political science is a branch of scholarship which can be defined in terms of the activity studied but not in terms of the method adopted, which is to say that it is not a discipline like history or physics. To say that these subjects are disciplines is to indicate that historians and physicists are committed both to a certain method of acquiring data and to a certain mode of explanation. Because political scientists are not so committed they are inevitably involved in controversies about method and explanation, and the view I propose to discuss here is the view that, although several modes of explanation are open to students of politics, only the historical mode, and on a different level the philosophical mode, are appropriate. Those who hold this view lean heavily on the writings of Professor Michael Oakeshott and I shall begin with a very brief reference to Oakeshott's account of the main modes of experience and explanation. Subsequent sections will discuss the relevance of this account to students of politics, the nature of historical explanation, and the possibility of alternatives such as sociological explanation.

scholarly journals Slovak thinking on audiovisual translation and the issue of the second-hand translation of Russian documentary films

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Cultural Space ◽  
Audiovisual Translation ◽  
The Russian Language ◽  
Limited Diffusion

The paper, in its first part, outlines the Slovak research into audiovisual translation (AVT) from the 1950s up to the present, paying attention to the most important scholars as well as publications that helped to shape and establish the discipline within Slovak translation studies. It is based on the ongoing bibliographical research and the historical explanation mapping the development of AVT research in Slovakia by I. Tyšš – e.g. his publication Myslenie o audiovizuálnom preklade na Slovensku: 1952 – 2017 (Thinking on Audiovisual Translation in Slovakia: 1952 – 2017, 2018) – as well as on own findings covering the last two years. In more detail, the first part of the paper highlights that it was primarily thanks to a younger generation of translation studies scholars – especially E. Perez (née Janecová), L. Paulínyová (née Kozáková) and J. Želonka – that in 2012 the Slovak research into AVT finally became systematic. The second part of the paper is devoted to the phenomenon of the so-called second-hand translation of originally Russian audiovisual works that may be observed in Slovakia in recent years. The questionable nature of this phenomenon is stressed since the Russian language is not a language of limited diffusion and definitely not remote in relation to the Slovak cultural space. On the example of two documentary films – Под властью мусора (Held Captive by Rubbish, 2013) and Дух в движении (Spirit in Motion, 2015), the author discusses and analyses the problems that occur when translating originally Russian AV works into Slovak through the English language, i.e. the negative shifts resulting from mis-/overinterpretation of the source text, translation by omission, wrong order of dialogues, cultural specifics and incorrect transcription.

scholarly journals O Rus, Where Are Thou?

Politeja ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (5(62)) ◽  
pp. 223-235
Author(s):  
Aleksandr Shirinyants
Keyword(s):  
National Development ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Vicious Circle ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Political Myth

The article attempts to define the role of a myth and mythical thinking in the society. It shows a relationship between a socio-political myth and ideology, politics, and historical remembrance. Based on the myth about the progress, the article discusses an issue of choice faced by Russia of the 20th c., namely national development or European advancement? It describes interpretations of economic, socio-political and cultural aspects of Russia’s backwardness, aspresented by representatives of various trends of Russian thought of the 19th c. It lists examples of a paradoxical agreement among conservatists and revolutionaries that a move “forward and up” is not always progressive, whereas the development should always be “national”. Therefore, Russia should not copy all forms of development that have taken place in European countries – from lower to higher. It argues that there is a possible historical explanation of the myth of progress. Namely, attempts to explain diversity and originality of national variations of development (Whither, then, are you speeding, O Russia of mine?) have proved historical differences of the Russian path, as an independent Russian-Orthodox civilisation, towards a better understanding of the “vicious circle” of the modern civilisation: “We are poor because we’re stupid, and we’re stupid because we’re poor.”

Event and Portent: the Fall of Old Oyo, a Problem in Historical Explanation

Africa ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 186-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Smith
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Main Issue ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Covering Law ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphExplanation, or the identification and assessment of the causes of events and situations, occupies the central place in nearly all historical writing in the present century. It is also the aspect of history which is most keenly debated by philosophers, and is the main issue today in the unending, wearisome, but seemingly inescapable controversy as to whether history belongs, or belongs more, with the sciences or with the humanities. The scientific or positivist school, numbering among its recent exponents Popper and Gardiner, emphasizes the extent to which historical explanation attains a regularity akin to, though not identical with, that found in the physical and other sciences, Hempel adding the contention that such explanation can always, and often should, be reduced to a ‘covering law’, or single universal statement subsuming the whole explanation. The idealists, among whom Croce, Collingwood, and most recently Oakeshott are prominent, stress conversely the uniqueness of history, and Dray has reinforced their position by his attack on the covering law thesis. The debate is one in which historians themselves have taken little part, and African historians none at all, despite its crucial importance for almost every aspect of their profession. Yet it is a debate which needs continuous illustration from the historiographical process, a need which historians are best able to meet. The aim of the present article is to contribute to the debate by examining as a problem in historical explanation the fall of Oyo, the powerful state of the northern Yoruba, in the early nineteenth century.

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