Recently, I’ve been acquainting myself with the Philosophy of History. The main driver for this is so that I can engage further with my Mum, who is a historian. I’m a Philosophy graduate, so engaging with the philosophy of history naturally seemed like the easiest way to reach towards what my Mum studied and find some common ground.
The philosophy of history is a fascinating branch of our respective fields. In broad strokes, it asks questions about what exactly history is, how history functions, what it means to be a historian, and what the role of history is in society.
One of the areas in this subject that I’ve recently been gripped by is the debate around what the major drivers are in history. Is history best understood through physical actions and structures, or is it best understood through ideologies and concepts? I’m going to briefly examine this question, and then provide an answer of sorts that kinda circumvents the question.
Historical Materialism: Action Frames History
The idea that history is best understood by the actions and activities of the people of that time is known as historical materialism. A.V Carus defined this broadly as the concept that “an understanding of history consists in identifying the underlying or fundamental features of large impersonal structures (societies, economies, cultures, institutions)”.
It is an idea that has been around for some time, but it was given its specific name of historical materialism by Karl Marx. In a nutshell, the underlying idea is that history is best understood by following technological, structural, and overall physical actions. This means the physical effects of wars, natural disasters, legal decisions, economic circumstances, and violence are the best ways to frame history.
For instance, when studying WWII at school, it is viewed as a timeline of physical events that took place. The same is said about modern situations such as the 2008 Financial Crisis.
This sounds like a relatively simple means of engaging with history– and it is. Historical materialism has received a great deal of favour within the world because framing things as physical events is relatively easy, as source…
