This article, written originally for The Oxford History of Historical Writing, vol. 5: Historical Writing Since 1945 (2011), offers an analytical overview of Western historical theory since 1945, but starts with some general reflectionsonthemeaningandfunctions of theory in history writing. Theory of history consists of the philosophical examination of all the aspects of our descriptions, beliefs,
... [Show full abstract] and knowledge of the past and is both descriptive and normative. Theory of history poses (epistemological) questions concerning the characteristics of our knowledge of the past, (methodological) questions concerning how this knowledge is achieved and what counts as 'quality' and as 'progress' of historical knowledge, (ontological or metaphysical) questions concerning the mode of being of 'the past', and (ethical, legal, and political) questions concerning the uses of the past. Many historians touch on, or pose, 'theoretical' questions without being aware of it. Theoretical reflectionaboutthe'truenature'ofhistory fulfilsthreeinterrelatedpracticalfunctions.First, theory legitimises a specifichistoricalpractice-aspecificwayof'doinghistory'- asthebestonefromanepistemological and a methodological point of view. Second, theory usually sketches a specificprogrammeof doing history. Finally, theory has a function of demarcation. Theoretical reflections usually demarcatea specific way of 'doing history' from other ways of 'doing history', which are excluded or degraded. So the third function of theory is the drawing of borders to determine who is included within and who is excluded from the community of 'real' historians. The institutional place of theory in history has always been marginal at best, and many practising historians with empiricist leanings have had mixed feelings about theory. This resistance to theory is historically rooted in the opposition that Leopold von Ranke himself constructed between the methods of history and of philosophy. In this view, theory is something like an uninvited visitor who is always asking the wrong questions at the wrong time and at the wrong place and, perhaps worse in the eyes of empiricist historians, too often offering bad answers. Seen from a philosophical point of view, debates about theory in history also have been marginal at best. Although there have been quite a few philosophers - from Kant and Hegel over Nietzsche and Heidegger to Foucault and Habermas - who have philosophised about the nature of history, in most parts of the world the philosophy of history did not develop into one of the recognised philosophical specialisations, and remained a reserve of the happy (and hardly institutionalised) few. Theory in history has therefore largely remained a specialisation of a small number of philosophers and of 'reflexivepractitioners'ofhistory. Due to the double meaning of history as res gestae and as historia rerum gestarum, theory in history can refer both to history as an object and to the knowledge of that object. Therefore the firstbasicdistinctiontomakeis the distinction between (a) theories that deal with characteristics of history as an object, and (b) theories that deal with the characteristics of knowledge of history. Theories of type a can be called material or ontological theories of history because they posit some mode of being of history, while theories of type b can be called epistemological in a broad sense because they posit characteristics of historical knowledge. Ontological and epistemological theories are interrelated, because presuppositions about what history consists of (ontology or metaphysics) are linked to presuppositions of what historical knowledge is (historical epistemology) and to how historical knowledge can be achieved (historical methodology). Although there is little consensus in the domain of theory of history there at least appears to be considerable agreement as to its history since 1945. Most recent overviews agree on a threefold periodisation. Between approximately 1945 and 1970 analytical philosophy of history was dominant, to be superseded by narrative philosophy of history from the 1970's to approximately 1990. This latter shift is often seen as a consequence of the 'linguistic turn' in history and is also called 'representationalism'. Since somewhere in the late 1980's a third period has begun in which the themes of 'memory', 'trauma', 'the sublime', and 'the presence of the past' are the most salient topics. There is no agreed-upon philosophical label as yet for this tendency, although recently the label of 'presence' has been suggested.