HISTORY AND LOGIC
THE MEANING OF HUMAN HISTORY. By Morris R. Cohen. L11 S11lle,
Illinois: The Open Court Publishing Compony. $4.00.
The late Morris R. Cohen was singularly well-qualified by
critical intelligence, judicious temper, and enormous learning to clarify
the philosophical study of civilization. The present book, part of which
was delivered in 1944 as the Sixth Series of the Paul Carus Lectures, is
the outcome of years of reading and reflection on the nature of historical
change and on the fundamental problems of historical knowledge. It
exhibits Cohen's characteristic acuity and sagacity, and communicates
the essentials of his general philosophy and of his vision of man's place
in the scheme of things. He was a vigorous spokesman for the authority
of logic and scientific method in all matters of intellectual concern, a
penetrating critic of irresponsible romantic irrationalism, and a valiant
champion of a genuinely liberal outlook upon life. Much of the book
is
indeed a trenchant exposure of intellectual excesses committed by
writers on human affairs; and it punctures effectively attitudes toward
history which are sentimental, brutally cynical; or sceptical in a whole–
sale fashion.
Three major theses are clarified and supported by Cohen's analysis.
In the first place, though the historian's primary concern
is
with the
singular, the historian cannot escape using universal assumptions about
causal dependencies whenever he advances any factual claims. Accord–
ingly, the study of the past must proceed on the supposition that there
are objective limiting conditions for historical changes, and the logic of
evidence plays as crucial a role in that study as it does in any applied
science, such as geology or medicine. The field of history is not a domain
in which anything might happen, for most of the possibilities that are
logically conceivable are in fact excluded by the actual character of a
given historical situation; and while the past may be viewed from alter–
native perspectives, the validity of any specific causal imputation de–
pends on the presence of objective connections between events. This
disposes of views like those of Croce and Beard which deny the pos–
sibility of objective causal judgments in historical inquiry.
In the second place, while historical changes illustrate determined
orders of happenings, most historical occurrences are determined by a
plurality of causal factors that are only contingently conjoined. Those
who pretend to explain the past and present in terms of some single
factor are confusing what may be a necessary condition for an event
with its sufficient conditions; and Cohen shows in connection with
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