In Real History, Martin Bunzl brilliantly succeeds in bringing together two schools of thought at the forefront of the philosophy of history: that of realism and objectivity. He shows us how the realism debate is inhabited by philosophers, whereas the objectivity argument lies in the hands of historians. In his lucid and direct style, Bunzl proposes a synthesis between these two parallel traditions. We see that what historians say they are doing is not necessarily what they are actually doing. Bunzl draws on recent work (from the likes of Foucault to Rorty) to develop a new model for...

If "slavery" is defined broadly to include bonded child labor and forced prostitution, there are upward of 25 million slaves in the world today. Individuals and groups are freeing some slaves by buying them from their enslavers. But slave redemption is as controversial today as it was in pre-Civil War America. In Buying Freedom, Kwame Anthony Appiah and Martin Bunzl bring together economists, anthropologists, historians, and philosophers for the first comprehensive examination of the practical and ethical implications of slave redemption.

While recognizing the obvious...

Martin Bunzl considers the prospects for a general and comprehensive account of explanation, given the variety of interests that prompt explanations in science. Bunzl argues that any successful account of explanation must deal with two very different contexts - one static and one dynamic. Traditionally, theories of explanation have been built for the former of these two contexts. That is to say, they are designed to show how it is that a finished body of scientific knowledge can be put to explanatory use. Real explanation also occurs in a dynamical context in which questions are asked and...