Debates in science seem to depend on referential language-games, but in other senses they do not. Language works in more complex ways, even in work that purports to be purely scientific. This article investigates the scope and limitations of language-games in educational history and theory. The study addresses concepts and pictures as examples of…

Debates in science seem to depend on referential language-games, but in other senses they do not. This article addresses non-representational theory. It is a branch of newer approaches to cultural geography that strive to get a handle on spatial relationships not by representing them, but rather by presenting them. In this case, present connotes…

Presentism is generally regarded as a necessary evil in historiography. This paper explores the upside of that inevitability. Using a philosophical approach to discourse analysis in the tradition of new cultural history, the paper distinguishes between a strategic use of presentism on the one hand, and a rationalistic approach to history on the…