ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how biography, as a branch of literature, has tried to relate itself to science and history in its work. Doubtless biographers differ in the sense of their craft. But the great powers to which they have to frame their relations—explicitly or in practice—are science, history, and literature. Take, for example, what Kennan, looking on biography as a historian, said to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters: “Some of the classic works of history have long been regarded as great literary achievements as well. The chapter suggests some of the central changes that are taking place as philosophy turn to continuity rather than discontinuity, and to raise questions about parallel or consequent changes that can be found or may be expected in attitudes to biography. The philosophical changes have been striking in both metaphysics and epistemology.
