1. The document discusses several philosophers and their approaches to writing and understanding history. It covers thinkers from Herodotus to Will Durant and their varying methodologies. 2. Key approaches discussed include Herodotus' reliance on first-hand witnesses, Augustine's theological "Ages of the World" theory, Ibn Khaldun's concept of "Asabiyyah" and cyclical theory, and Hegel's notions of the Zeitgeist and dialectical progression of history. 3. Later philosophers like Durant and Toynbee emphasized additional factors like religion, economics, politics and culture in analyzing civilizational rise and fall, moving beyond single-factor theories of the past.

1. Historical Method
Philosophy of History: from Herodotus
to Will Durant
By
Nadwan Rosetta

2. Branches of Philosophy
Philosophy
Metaphysics
Ontology
Philosophy
of Religion
Epistemology
Etc
Philosophy of
Science
Philosophy of
History
Axiology
(Value Theory)
Logic
Ethics
Esthetics

3. Definition and distinction
Philosophy of History: the philosophical study of
history and its discipline, a term that was coined
by French philosopher Voltaire.
According to C.D. Broad, it is divided into two
distinct branches:
1- Speculative Philosophy of History: which
questions the meaning and purpose of the
historical process.
2- Analytic (critical) Philosophy of History: which
lays the foundations and implications of history
and the Historical Method (which we will focus
on here).

4. Herodotus (484-425 BC) and Basic Documentarianism

5. Basics of History
According to Herodotus:
1- History should be recorded by relying on firsthand witnesses (despite the
fact that he himself has rarely mentioned some of those witnesses’ names
in his Histories) or based on what is socially established in a geographical
region (in regard to folklore and religious beliefs, not historical events).
2- A true historian should distinguish between observable factual historical
events and the mythological implications and interpretations of such events.
3- And historians should be pluralists in regard to the beliefs of others rather
than judging them according to the historians’ beliefs, or as how he
originally put it:
“If anyone, no matter who, were given the opportunity of choosing from
amongst all the nations in the world the set of beliefs which he thought
best, he would inevitably -after careful considerations of their relative
merits- choose that of his own country. Everyone without exception
believes his own native customs, and the religion he was brought up in, to
be the best; and that being so, it is unlikely that anyone but a madman
would mock at such things. There is abundant evidence that this is the
universal feeling about the ancient customs of one’s country”

6. Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and Ages of The World

7. Theological impositions on History
According to Saint Augustine, history is divided into
Six Ages:
1- First Age: from Adam to Noah and the Flood.
2- Second Age: from Noah to Abraham.
3- Third Age: from Abraham to King David.
4- Fourth Age: from King David to The Babylonian
captivity.
5- Fifth Age: from Captivity to the advent of Jesus
Christ.
6- Sixth Age: from Jesus Christ until now.
While the “Seventh Age” starts with the Second
Coming of Jesus Christ.

8. Basis and unpopularity of the Ages theory
This “Ages” theory was based upon the seven
days of creation and was discredited due to its
dogmatic non-philosophical implications and
lack of critical thinking in regard to history and
the generalizations that are both insignificant
and impractical to the historical method.

9. Al-Tabari (839-923) and Systematic Documentarianism

10. Credibility and Chain of Narrators
According to Al-Tabari:
1- History can be recorded, not only by firsthand
witnesses, but also by relying on a chain of narrators
that have passed down the record of event either
orally or on paper (they should also be mentioned
by name so that the chain can be visible to the
reader).
2- The credibility of each narrator in that chain should
be questioned and investigated thoroughly
(Biographical Evaluation).
3- All the variations of the same event should be
archived and at the same time, the results about the
credibility of the narrators should be mentioned.

11. Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406):
Historical Skepticism and Cyclical Theory

12. Reasoning of The Narrative
According to Ibn Khaldun, historians should
not only focus on the chain of narrators and
their credibility, they should also focus on the
content of narratives with a skeptical eye that
filters historical exaggerations (e.g. overstated
numbers of armies especially in ancient
history) and investigates the motives of both
the narrators and historical figures rather than
discrediting narratives altogether because of
the infamy of one of the narrators or due to
historical bias by the historian himself based
on his cultural or national origin

13. Asabiyyah
Ibn Khaldun has seen that the history of states is moving
and directed in a cyclical manner in which the dynasties
(at his time, in a context of tribalism or clanism) and the
societies (at our time) are controlled by “Asabiyyah” or
Social Solidarity and Group Cohesiveness which creates a
cycle of Ascending (Renaissance), The Peak (State of
Equilibrium) and Decline whose features can be
discovered, assessed and updated empirically and are
affected by multiple factors that interacts with each other,
the thing that would either slow down or accelerate this
cycle (e.g. the Laffer Curve which was influenced by Ibn
Khaldun’s observation “At the beginning of the dynasty,
taxation yields a large revenue from small assessments,
while, at the end of the dynasty, taxation yields a small
revenue from large assessments”)

15. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831):
Zeitgeist and Dialectics

16. Historical Relativism
Hegel has developed the concept of “Geist der Zeiten (Spirit of The Times)”,
as how he originally put it, which suggests that judgment of a historical
event or historical figures should be based on their own Zeitgeist (Spirit of
The Age) rather than the era in which the historian is living to preserve the
sense of progress in regard to history and to judge those figures fairly
according to the standards of their time, the thing that would spotlight
those who have been ahead of their time whether in their moral choices or
achievements, in addition to those who stood on the progressive side
rather than the reactionary side when their historical situation was on the
border of two Zeitgeists (the border of two generations’ mentality).
e.g. 1- A medieval military leader has killed his prisoners of war, according
to the medieval Zeitgeist, this is considered to be a normal action in regard
to his time, while if he has spared (or even released) them, this action is
considered ahead of its time and thus its doer should be held as a pioneer
in the ethics of his profession.
2- A contemporary officer has killed his POWs, this officer is considered a
war criminal according to Hague Conventions and Geneva Conventions.
3- A law that would give the right to vote to women (suffrage) was
discussed in a parliament, those MPs who voted in its favor should be
historically held in high regard due to their strife for justice and civil rights
while those who voted against it should be historically condemned.

17. Triad of Change
Based on an original abstract concept by Fichte, Hegel suggested
that historical progression (not progress) throughout its cyclical
pattern is controlled by a dialectical process that has three
features:
1- The Thesis: a formal statement that illustrates a point (e.g. the
French Revolution).
2- that would lead to the creation of the Antithesis: which is the
idea that contradicts or negates the first (e.g. Reign of Terror).
3- And that eventually leads to the Synthesis: the new idea that
would resolves the conflict between the Thesis and Antithesis (e.g.
the Constitutional State of free citizens).
However, this dialectical dice does not necessarily always produce
constructive results and can also produce destructive results based
on both the stage of Cyclical Theory that is taking place and the
Zeitgeist (e.g. Thesis: Mongolian Expansion, Antithesis: Weak
military defenses, Synthesis: downfall of the Song Dynasty and rise
of the Yuan Dynasty in China and fall of the Abbasid Caliphate)

18. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) and The Great Man Theory

19. Shapers of History
Thomas Carlyle has suggested that all the historical
achievements of humanity and world’s history itself can be
reduced to the “History of The Great Men” who worked on
them shaping history in the process, and thus Carlyle has
classified those “Heroes” to six types: The hero as divinity
(e.g. Odin), Prophet (e.g. Muhammad), Poet (e.g.
Shakespeare), Priest (e.g. Martin Luther), Man of Letters (e.g.
Rousseau) and King (e.g. Napoleon), the thing that have made
such historical figures the central factor of the rise of their
civilizations, because it rests on two assumptions (according
to Villanova University):
1- Every great leader is born already possessing certain traits
that will enable them to rise and lead, on instinct.
2- The need for them has to be great for these traits to then
arise, allowing them to lead.

20. August Comte (1798-1857), Herbert Spencer
(1820-1903) and Positivist History

21. Incoherence of Carlyle’s Heroism
Herbert Spencer has criticized The Great Man
Theory, considering the attribution of historical
events to the decisions of these so-called “great
men” as unscientific and that these “Heroes”
were merely the product of their social
environment, or as how he has put it:
“You must admit that the genesis of a great man
depends on the long series of complex
influences which has produced the race in which
he appears, and the social state into which that
race has slowly grown. Thus before he can
remake his society, his society must make him”

22. Sociocultural Evolutionism
From his work on Positivist philosophy, August Comte
has concluded that since the growth of mind
progresses in stages, so must the societies. So he
suggested that the history of society could be divided
into three evolutionary stages (which he called “The
Law of Three Stages”): 1- Theological , 2- Metaphysical
and 3- Positive, which is brought upon by modern
science. Or as how he originally has put it:
“The law is this, that each of our leading conceptions –
each branch of our knowledge- passes successively
through three different theoretical conditions: the
Theological, or fictitious; the Metaphysical, or abstract;
and the Scientific, or positive”

23. Anthropological Considerations of Franz Boas (1858-1942)

24. Cultural Relativism
Cultural relativism: is the idea that a person’s beliefs, values,
and practices should be understood based on that person’s
own culture, rather than be judged against the criteria of
another. This concept was established as axiomatic in
anthropological research by Franz Boas who declared:
“Civilization is not something absolute, but it is relative, and
our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our
civilization goes”
This concept was founded as a response to Ethnocentrism
(which means the belief or assumption of the superiority of
the social or cultural group that a person belongs to),
however, this concept is only used in the context of
understanding different folklores, arts, religions, cultures
and customs around the world and does not promote or
justify any human rights violations in the name of diversity
(like female genital mutilation in Africa and the Middle East
or funerary cannibalism which was practiced by the Fore
people of Papua New Guinea)

25. Toynbee and Durant’s adoption of Cultural Relativism, in addition to the
already established Zeitgeist, the Evolutionary Dialectical Cyclical Theory and
Reasoning of The Narrative

26. Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975) and his central interest

27. Stages of Civilization and the Religious Factor
After his study of 28 civilizations, Toynbee classified them into 19 major
civilizations, 4 abortive civilizations and 5 arrested civilizations, and
concluded that they rose by responding successfully to challenges
under the leadership of creative minorities of elite leaders, and that all
of them have passed through five stages: Genesis, Growth, Time of
Troubles, Universal State (when the dominant minority seeks to
preserve its privileges, power and influence by phony reforms stifling
political creativity in the process while the schismatic commoners or
what he called “Internal and External proletariat” and in the middle of
their disenfranchisement, social alienation, polarization and loss of the
sense of loyalty, the “Internal Proletariat” would form a collective
spiritual bond or what he called “Universal Church” to preserve the
social values due to their distrust towards the dominant minority,
during which they would either idealize the past or idealize the future
in order to detach themselves from the reality of decline and then they
would try to transcend by trying to find new insight like following a
new religion, in other words, Civilizational Bankruptcy as how Malek
Bennabi has put it) and finally the stage of Disintegration would come.
Throughout his study of history, Toynbee has emphasized the impact of
the Religious Factor as the central triggering factor of civilization upon
which he has based all his theses and theories about history.

28. Will Durant (1885-1981)
and his Sub specie totius (from the perspective of the whole)

29. Integral History of The People
Will Durant, throughout his encyclopedic
endeavor, has tried to create what he called
“integral history” which instead of focusing
on dreary impersonal dates and reigns, it
focuses on the history of people (not only the
leaders) and the biography of civilization
including not only the usual wars, politics and
the lives of great men and villains, but also
the cultures, arts, philosophy, sciences,
religions and the rise of mass communication
spotlighting the living conditions of everyday
people throughout known history.

30. Multifactorialism
In contrast to Toynbee’s Religious Factor, Will Durant has seen that
the historical course of civilization is influenced by multiple factors
which interacts with each other moving civilization in the process
and that each civilizational situation has its own triggering factor
and the Religious Factor has not always been the main triggering
factor for all civilizations, so he pointed out these factors that
control the direction of civilization:
1- Authority and political system.
2- Tolerance, interdependence and cosmopolitan vision.
3- Justice System (Jurisprudence, legislation and enforcement of
laws).
4- Economic factor (which provides the necessary financial
resources for development in different fields)
5- The nation’s reactivity (population X the individual’s efficiency).
6- The religious factor, social solidarity and group cohesiveness.

31. References
1- “The Histories” by Herodotus
2- “On The Catechising of The Uninstructed” by Saint Augustine
3- “History of The Prophets and Kings” by Al-Tabari
4- “Prolegomena (Muqaddimah)” of the “Book of Lessons (Kitab Al-’Ibar)”
by Ibn Khaldun
5- “Phenomenology of The Spirit” by G.W.F. Hegel
6- “Science of Logic” by G.W.F. Hegel
7- “On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History” by Thomas
Carlyle
8- “Course of Positive Philosophy” by Auguste Comte
9- “The Study of Sociology” by Herbert Spencer
10- “The Methods of Ethnology” by Franz Boas
11- “A Study of History” by Arnold J. Toynbee
12- “The Story of Civilization” by Will Durant and Ariel Durant
13- “The Lessons of History” by Will Durant and Ariel Durant

32. Further readings
• Contextual theories:
1- Karl Marx and Economic Determinism
2- Michel Foucault and Historico-political Discourse
• Narrative History and the rebranding of Documentarianism:
1- Paul Ricœr and Narrative Identity
2- Louis Mink and the Linguistic Turn
3- Hayden White and Metahistory
• Sidney Hook and the rebranding of Heroism

33. Good Luck
with your historical researches