MORE
Arthur Danto
01 January 1924 – 25 October 2013
Part of a Series on the Philosophy of History
https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/Arthur-Danto-2
Today is the centenary of the birth of Arthur Danto (01 January 1924 – 25 October 2013), who was born one hundred years ago today in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on this date in 1924.
Danto’s Analytical Philosophy of History (1965), expanded and reissued twenty years later as Narration and Knowledge (1985), had a profound effect on analytical philosophy. Danto argued that history consists of narrative sentences, which can only be formed retrospectively when we discuss an event in the light of later events that were the outcome of the earlier event. As further consequences of a given event unfold, new histories must be written that take into account later outcomes of earlier events, thus, as we well know, every generation re-writes history for its own purposes, and justifiably so.
Danto makes a distinction, drawn from Popper, between prediction and prophecy, and finds prophecy in all speculative philosophies of history, which he does not believe have anything to do with philosophy proper than does history itself (“…the substantive philosophies of history, insofar as I have correctly characterized them, are clearly concerned with what I shall term prophecy”). Like Löwith, he considers speculative philosophies of history to be little more than providential accounts that make a pretense to seeing history whole, and knowing the outcome beforehand ("...this way of viewing the whole of history is essentially theological, or that it has, at all events, structural features in common with theological readings of history, which is seen in toto, as bearing out some divine plan.”). Danto holds that history, as an account of past actuality in terms of narrative sentences, excludes the very possibility of a speculative philosophy of history.
