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Wiley InterScience | ||||||||||
  History and TheoryVolume 45 Issue 2, Pages 204 - 228 Published Online: 4 May 2006 © 2010 Wesleyan University
Abstract | Full Text: PDF (Size: 203K) | Related Articles | Citation Tracking  LEON GOLDSTEIN AND THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF HISTORICAL KNOWING 1. Leon Jay Goldstein (1927–2002) was for thirty-nine years Professor of Philosophy at Harpur College, Binghamton University, SUNY. I am grateful to M. Witty and Karen Hornick of the Gallatin Faculty, New York University, for providing me with a copy of Goldstein's article "The Present of Our Past,"Gallatin Review 12 (1992–1993), 121–129. I would also like to thank Professor D. D'Avray, Mr. Jon Barton, and Professor Reba Soffer for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. Copyright 2006 Wesleyan University ABSTRACT
Leon Goldstein's critical philosophy of history has suffered a relative lack of attention, but it is the outcome of an unusual story. He reached conclusions about the autonomy of the discipline of history similar to those of R. G. Collingwood and Michael Oakeshott, but he did so from within the Anglo-American analytic style of philosophy that had little tradition of discussing such matters. Initially, Goldstein attempted to apply a positivistic epistemology derived from Hempel's philosophy of natural science to historical knowledge, but gradually (and partly thanks to his interest in Collingwood) formulated an anti-realistic epistemology that firmly distinguished historical knowledge of the past not only from the scientific perspective but also from fictional and common-sense attitudes to the past. Among his achievements were theories of the distinctive nature of historical evidence and historical propositions, of the constructed character of historical events, and of the relationship between historical research and contemporary culture. Taken together, his ideas merit inclusion among the most important twentieth-century contributions to the problem of historical knowledge. | 
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