ABSTRACT
In the last forty years historical explanation in a positivist mode has been rejected in favour of that of narrative.1 I have suggested how, apart from the diehards, most reconstructionist and constructionist historians have become aware of this development. Although most mainstreamers may still not yet accept that narrative is the peculiar form of historical explanation – imposed stories – all accept narrative as the dominant form of historical reporting, while maintaining that the six principles that form the bedrock of empiricist hermeneutics remain fundamental to the study of the past. Practical realists, while acknowledging the culturally provided nature of knowledge, still insist on the sanctity of the source (evidence) as offering an adequate correspondence to what actually happened in the past. While they accept that figuration exists in the representation of historical knowledge, they will not deny the ultimate legitimacy of empiricist epistemology. For historians of the deconstructive turn this is the flaw in their argument. History, rather than being a projection of the content of the past, is a projection of its form. In this chapter I will address the implications of this for the established empiricist paradigm through the four headings of history as a separate epistemology, historical evidence, the historian and social theory, and the significance of narrative to historical explanation.
