A. Coleman D. and Herbert P. G: the conspirators of history

Doctorow was wondering about the Griceian causes of the Russian revolution. Here is Danto:

from

http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php/Narration_in_Various_Disciplines

"Starting with Athur Coleman Danto in his classic (1965) "Analytical Philosophy of History. Cambridge: Cambridge UP",

the concept of “narrative explanation”

--- vide Paul A. Roth (1989). “How Narratives Explain.” Social Research 56, 449–78) --

has emerged as a critical position that
challenges the influence of positivism
and logical empiricism on the philosophy
of science in the humanities."

"According to the positivist-nomological

position, the humanities, too, are

governed by a process of

logical deduction whereby

individual events

must be explained, i.e. the event

to be explained (the explanandum) is deduced

from certain a priori conditions

and empirical laws which, together,

constitute the explanans. A critique of

this model hinges mainly on the concept of

“cultural laws,” although these laws are not

to be understood as analogous to the laws

of nature."

"In the humanities, we do not expect

explanations to be founded on laws. We

expect them to be founded on

(a) motives,
(b) reasons and
(c) aims, --"

"in other words, on the

[Griceian]

intentions of persons who take

part in given scenarios."

---- Next lesson: How Stalin misconstrued the reflexive status of Lenin's implicature.