William Herbert Dray

William Herbert Dray (23 June 1921, in Montreal – 6 August 2009, in Toronto) was a Canadian philosopher of history. He was Professor Emeritus at the University of Ottawa.^[1]

He is known for his version of anti-positivist Verstehen in history, in Laws and Explanation in History,^[2] and his work on R. G. Collingwood.

Publications

• Laws and Explanation in History (1957) with chapters:

• The Covering Law Model
• The Doctrine of Implicit Definition
• Explaining and Predicting
• Causal Laws and Causal Analysis
• The Rationale of Action
• Explaining Why and Explaining How

Notes

1. Official page
2. Michael Martin, Verstehen: The Uses of Understanding in the Social Sciences (2000), p. 103.

References

• Canadian Encyclopedia page