ABSTRACT
In the last chapter I explained how descriptions of particular historical events can be true. Some philosophers of history are willing to admit that descriptions of particular events can be true, but deny that generalizations and classificatory descriptions can be. They say that general terms do not refer to any particular things in the world, but just represent an historian’s way of conceptualizing things that have happened. This is particularly the case, they say, when historians use metaphors to describe events, likening them to something else. They argue that metaphorical descriptions lack any particular meaning, and so cannot possibly be true.
