Pluralism and history
This chapter begins by considering the ways in which history and historical writing can be understood in pluralist terms. Drawing on the writings of Isaiah Berlin, it examines pluralism as it applies to whole cultures (cultural pluralism), as well as pluralism as it applies to historical methodology (methodological pluralism). It then places the historian Herodotus in his proper intellectual context, looking at links with his Ionian predecessors, the sophist Protagoras, and the tragedian Sophocles. Finally, the chapter touches upon the relationship between Herodotus and the other best‐known Classical Greek historian, Thucydides. The monism of the younger writer as it manifests itself in his scientific history and tendency toward reduction is analysed in detail.
Keywords: pluralism, cultural pluralism, methodological pluralism, Isaiah Berlin, Herodotus, Thucydides, Monism, scientific history
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