The Reality Effect: On Adam Timmins’ Towards a Realist Philosophy of History

Abstract

In Towards a Realist Philosophy of History, Adam Timmins sets out to develop a non-naïve form of realism that can account for the majority of the practices and products of historiography. In particular, he claims that we should be realists about facts, colligations, and narrative. While being sympathetic to some form of realism about all of these, this review essay critically discusses both Timmins’ actual arguments for historiographic realism and the approach that should be taken to the philosophical issue itself. The wider argument is that realism in historiography is a question of justification and that we therefore must turn to the empirical analysis of actual historiographic texts and debates to make any real headway on this issue.