William Herbert Dray (23 June 1921, in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

– 6 August 2009, in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

) was a Canadian

philosopher of history Philosophy of history is the philosophical study of history and its discipline. The term was coined by French philosopher Voltaire. In contemporary philosophy a distinction has developed between ''speculative'' philosophy of history and ''critic ...

. He was Professor Emeritus at the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (french: Université d'Ottawa), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ottaw ...

. He is known for his version of anti- positivist ''

Verstehen ''Verstehen'' (, ), in the context of German philosophy and social sciences in general, has been used since the late 19th century – in English as in German – with the particular sense of the "interpretive or participatory" examination of socia ...

'' in history, in ''Laws and Explanation in History'',Michael Martin, ''Verstehen: The Uses of Understanding in the Social Sciences'' (2000), p. 103. and his work on R. G. Collingwood.

Selected publications

* Dray, William H. ''Laws and explanation in history''. Oxford University Press, 1957. *Dray, William H. ''Philosophy of history''. Prentice-Hall 1964. *Dray, William H. ''Holism and individualism in history and social science''. 1967. *Dray, William H. 'On the nature and role of narrative in historiography', in ''History and theory'' 10.2 (1971): 153–171. *Dray, William H. ''On history and philosophers of history'', vol. 2 of ''Philosophy of History and Culture'', ed. by Krausz, Michael. Brill, 1989. *Dray, William H. ''History as re-enactment: RG Collingwood's idea of history''. Clarendon Press, 1996.

Notes

References

''Canadian Encyclopedia'' page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dray, William Herbert 1921 births 2009 deaths 20th-century Canadian philosophers Analytic philosophers Canadian philosophers Philosophers of history Alumni of the University of Oxford Canadian expatriates in the United Kingdom