Abstract:
The defense of realism in philosophy of history has not received a sistematic attention. Differently from philosophy of social sciences, where the realist accounts are a consistent program of research, in our discipline the realist arguments. In this paper I will consider the so called Critical Realism in order to demostrate how a critical realist philosophy gives a better explanation to certain aspects of historical knowledge that have been always misunderstood as signs of antirrealism. Critical Realism gives an account, in realistic terms, of the unavoidable coexistence of multiple interpretations of the past as well as the unavoidable coexistence of multiple interpretations of the past as well as the unavoidable complexity reveled by each of them. The paper critics the naturalistic compromise that Critical Realism assumes by showing that the reality of present and past societies can be established without that compromise.