Trousson, Raymond / Vercruysse, Jeroom (dir.), Dictionnaire general de Voltaire. (Champion classiques, references et dictionnaires 18) 1272 p. 2020:10 (Champion, FR) <670-9>
ISBN 978-2-38096-016-7 paper ¥7,064.- (税込) EUR 38.00

科学の歴史記述ハンドブック
Conde, Mauro L. / Salomon, Marlon (eds.), Handbook for the Historiography of Science. (Historiographies of Science) 617 pp. 2023:11 (Springer, GW) <710-66>
ISBN 978-3-031-27509-8 hard ¥68,064.- (税込) EUR 279.99

This book aims to perform a critical and broad assessment of the historiography of science produced from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. It presents its main authors, concepts, ideas, conceptions, and schools. It also analyzes the historical circumstances of the rise of the discipline history of science and the relations of the historiography of science with related areas. These chapters do not understand the historiography of science as a mere description or record of the history of science. Instead, they understand the historiography of science from the epistemological criteria and choices that guided the writing of the history of science in its different contexts. In other words, more than describing the record of the various possibilities of historiographical approaches to science, the chapters carry out an epistemological reflection to assess the bases, possibilities, scope, and limits of different historiographical conceptions, authors, and traditions that have established the writing of the history of science. This book can be conceived as a reference work not only for professional historians and philosophers but also for academics from different backgrounds who are initiating themselves in the universe of history and philosophy of science, be they scientists from different fields or young researchers from different backgrounds who want to start studying the history and philosophy of science.

Whitehead, Hunter W. / Lickliter-Mundon, Megan (eds.), Strides Towards Standard Methodologies in Aeronautical Archaeology. (Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology) 170 pp. 2023:10 (Springer, GW) <710-1127>
ISBN 978-3-031-40962-2 hard ¥26,737.- (税込) EUR 109.99

Forland, Tor Egil / Mitrovic, Branko (eds.), The Poverty of Anti-realism: Critical Perspectives on Postmodernist Philosophy of History. 246 pp. 2023:9 (Lexington Books, US) <710-1371>
ISBN 978-1-66693-362-8 hard ¥22,440.- (税込) US$ 100.00 *

Due to the influence of postmodernism, historical anti-realism has come to exercise a massive influence in contemporary philosophy of history. Edited by Tor Egil Forland and Branko Mitrovic, The Povery of Anti-realism: Critical Perspectives on Postmodernist Philosophy of History presents perspectives that oppose anti-realist understanding of historians' work. The first part of the book gives an overview of contemporary anti-realist philosophy of history and shows that its claims are either so wide-ranging that they apply to all scientific knowledge, or pertain only to a select part of historians' work. In the second part, the authors criticize major anti-realist tenets. These include: the assertion that the colligatory concepts historians use are without reference in the past; the idea that historical facts are theory-dependent and therefore unable to upend prevailing theories; Paul Roth's application of Nelson Goodman's "irrealist" theory of worldmaking to suggest a plurality of pasts; and the belief that multiple describability prevents historians from providing true and testable accounts of the past. The third and final part shows that the political implications of anti-realism are often other than left-leaning anti-realists think. Their reactions when confronted with the consequences of their theories indicate the inconsistency and untenability of postmodernist philosophy of history.

G.スカール著　過去を判断する－倫理、歴史、記憶
Scarre, Geoffrey, Judging the Past: Ethics, History and Memory. 240 pp. 2023:9 (Palgrave Macmillan, UK) <710-102>
ISBN 978-3-031-34510-4 hard ¥26,737.- (税込) EUR 109.99

This book presents an extended argument for the thesis that people of the present day are not debarred in principle from passing moral judgement on people who lived in former days, notwithstanding the inevitable differences in social and cultural circumstances that separate us. Some philosophers argue that because we can see things only from our own peculiar historical situation, we lack a sufficiently objective vantage point from which to appraise past people and their acts. If they are correct, then the judgements passed by twenty-first-century people must inevitably be biased and irrelevant, grounded on moral standards that would have seemed alien in that 'foreign country' of the past. This book challenges this relativistic position, contending that it seriously underestimates our ability to engage imaginatively with people who, however much their lifestyles may have differed from our own, were our fellow human beings, endowed with the same basic instincts, aversions, desires and aspirations. Taking a stand on a naturalistic theory of human beings, coupled with a Kantian conception of the equal worth of all human members of the Kingdom of Ends, Scarre argues that historical moral judgements can be sensitive to circumstances, fitting and fair, and untainted by anachronism. The discussion ends by examining the implications of this position for the practice of historians and for the ethics of memory and commemoration.