3 ms·
"supposed to be" is perhaps not quite the wording I would use. My understanding is that these kinds of materialist explanations are out of favour because they
by funklute 4y ago
"supposed to be" is perhaps not quite the wording I would use.
My understanding is that these kinds of materialist explanations are out of favour because they have some genuine shortcomings: 1) they are largely untestable/unfalsifiable, so they veer into pseudo-science, 2) they have a tendency to cherry pick data, and 3) related to the second point, they tend to ignore the importance of the precise historical context (e.g. whether a certain king is particularly ambitious or not, could in certain cases shape the history of a region for decades or centuries to come - this is difficult to accommodate in more systemic theories).
- allturtles 4y ago(1) applies to pretty much any kind of historical argument, and historians who emphasize contingency are by no means immune to (2) (I'd say this is a weakness of humanity generally!). (3) is a reasonable argument, but the converse can also apply. I think we should be open to the idea that some historical developments hinge on individual human action, but others don't.