ABSTRACT
Explanatory uses of history may invoke bits of narrative, but the context is what gives them explanatory significance. Some theory about historical order underlies any ethical theory; and in particular an ethical theory that rejects a determinate order of moral development is itself a theory about order that requires as much justification as a linear theory of development. With these preliminary distinctions about narrative, context and historical order, we can proceed to the historical assumptions of 08 and 32. The changed approach to history can be seen in the specifically historical chapters of 32 as compared to 08. The revisions of 32 are not a retreat from history but a movement from one way of doing history to another way. Dewey's emphasis on the reconstructive power of a people's awakening may seem to have a romantic tinge by contrast with the theories of historical determinism that he pushes aside.
