After First Philosophy: The Case of Historical Knowledge 

Abstract

Naturalism is certainly one of those “isms” that collapses under the weight of its own popularity. My book Dissolving Naturalism and Historicism Into Each Other (2025) can be read as a long argument for an ecumenical and non-scientistic version of naturalism. Such naturalism, as I understand it, does not need a qualifying adjective: it is not a local doctrine, but a methodologically and metaphysically opportunistic meta-theoretical stance. In my talk, I will ask what follows from this view for historical writing and historical knowledge. I will do so chiefly by engaging with W. V. O. Quine and Paul A. Roth, two figures who, each in their own way, make it possible to think naturalism and historicism not as rivals, but as mutually entangled orientations. Against the background of the arguments developed in my book, I will address some of the questions that currently animate philosophy of history, while also suggesting possible new orientations for future inquiry.