Critic: Historians purport to discover the patterns inherent in the course of events. ███ ██████████ ████████ ███████ ██████ ████ █████ ████ ████████ ██ ████████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ █████ ██████████ ███████████ █████ ████████ ███████████ █████████ ██████ ████ █████ ███ ███████████████ ██████████ █████████ ███████████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ████ ████████ ████ █████ ████ ████████ █████████
Historians don’t find but rather create patterns in history by choosing what events to focus on. History therefore tells us more about the presuppositions of the historians analysing it than about history itself.
The argument moves from a general claim about where the patterns in history come from to a specific analysis of what purpose history is therefore capable of serving. There are two parts to that specific analysis - a claim that it provides information about the presuppositions of historians, and a claim that it does so more than it provides information about what actually happened. Each of these requires an assumption. There is one assumption that looking at the patterns historians impose on history tells us about those historians’ presuppositions, and a second that looking at the patterns historians impose doesn’t tell us much about what actually happened.
The critic's argument depends on █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████████████
Historians have many ███████████████ ██ ██████ ████ ███ ████████
There is no ███ ██ █████████ ████ █████████ ███████ █ ███████ █████████ ██ █ █████████ ██ ████████ ███████ ██ ███ ███ ██████ ███████ ████ ███ ███████
Historians presuppose that ███████ ██████████ ████████ ██████████ ████████ ████ █████████ █████
Most historians cannot ██████ █████ ██ ███ ███████████████ ████ ████ █████ ██ █████ ███████████
Which pattern a █████████ ███████ ████ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ████ ███████████ ████████████████