The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Part 42. The book is alphabetized by the whole headings of entries, as distinct from the first word of a heading. Hence, for example, abandonment comes before a priori and a posteriori. It is wise to look elsewhere if something seems to be missing. At the end of the book there is also a useful appendix on Logical Symbols as well as the appendices A Chronological Table of Philosophy and Maps of Philosophy. | 390 history problems of the philosophy of approaches to the philosophy of history may be illustrated by considering the different sorts ofproblem to which they respectively give rise. Thus speculative theorists have sought to answer substantive questions dealing with such matters as the significance or possible purpose of the historical process and the factors fundamentally responsible for historical development and change. In doing so they have been inspired by the conviction that history raises issues which transcend the mostly limited concerns of the ordinary working historian and which pertain to perennial demands for an intellectually or morally satisfying overall perspective on the human past. By contrast the questions that preoccupy critically orientated thinkers are of a radically dissimilar type these tending instead to be directed to such subjects as the nature of historical understanding the possibility of objectivity in historical writing and the kind of truth ascribable to historical interpretations or accounts. So conceived the problems involved invite comparison with those investigated by contributors to other branches of contemporary philosophy . philosophy of science in being essentially second-order ones that here have to do with the distinctive features of history as a particular discipline. It is accordingly to outstanding issues of the latter sort that this article is chiefly addressed. At the same time however we should remember that work in this domain has often been influenced even if only indirectly by developments in epistemological hermeneutics that are more readily associated with continental writers than with analytical philosophers representative of the English-speaking world. It is therefore not surprising that tensions due to the impact of divergent traditions ofthought should from time to time find expression in some of the discussions which problems in the critical philosophy of history have provoked. Historical explanation. One
