EXPLANATION AND ANALYSIS IN HISTORY / הסבר וניתוח בכתיבה ההיסטורית

The paper discusses William Dray's recently published book Laws and Explanation in History, containing a thorough criticism of the positivistic theory of historical explanation as the subsumption of the historical particular event under a general empirical law or a set of such laws. An attempt is made to show that Dray's argument while being fatal to the above mentioned theory, contains assumptions on the nature of historical thinking which fail to do justice to the actual investigation procedure of the historian as well as to certain general considerations of philosophy of history. It is suggested in the critical remarks of the paper that instead of regarding explanation of historical events as the historian's main task, it would be preferable to define as such analyses of historical situations. In such a case the historian's aim would not be subsuming a particular event under general laws, but rather analysing a particular situation in terms of its determining factors. Thus the theory of historical explanation, of which the positive side of Dray's argument is but a part and which seems to be heavily loaded with elements borrowed from the methodology of natural sciences, would have to be substituted by a general theory historical of determination.