Herodotus and the Strength of Freedom
Irene Coltman Brown begins this series on the historian as philosopher by taking a look at the Greek historian known as the Father of History.
'History is philosophy from examples' taught the literary historian, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who worked in Rome some years before the birth of Christ. Some historians have particularly desired to emphasis the philosophical implications of the examples of human experience revealed in their reconstruction of the past. Unable to write coherently without some general conception of the probable causes and effects of human behaviour, these historians have thought it possible to extract from their knowledge of what has been done, advice on what should be done, and even to aspire to predictions of what will most probably be done in the future.
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