1942/01/15 by Carl G. Hempel · 1,054 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Analytic philosophy #Biology #Contemporary philosophy #Epistemology #Evolutionary biology #Function (biology) #Historical Studies in Latin America #Historical Studies on Spain #Law #Philosophy #Political science
paper · doi:10.2307/2017635
published in The Journal of Philosophy 39(2), 35 (Philosophy Documentation Center)
openalex publication_date 1942/01/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03
1. It is a rather widely held opinion that history, in contradistinction to the so-called physical sciences, is concerned with the description of particular events of the past rather than with the search for general laws which might govern those events. As a characterization of the type of problem in which some historians are mainly interested, this view probably can not be denied; as a statement of the theoretical function of general laws in scientific historical research, it is certainly unacceptable. The following considerations are an attempt to substantiate this point by showing in some detail that general laws have quite analogous functions in history and in the natural sciences, that they form an indispensable instrument of historical research, and that they even constitute the common basis of various procedures which are often considered as characteristic of the social in contradistinction to the natural sciences.