Changing the Past?

Abstract

The value of the notion of ‘indeterminacy in the past’ continues to be contested. Ian Hacking’s claim that the notion is perspicuous in the examination of historical instances is questioned through discussion of the possibility of retrospective application of the relatively recent diagnostic category ‘Post-traumatic stress disorder’. Kevin McMillan maintains that there are deeper philosophical merits to the idea–particularly with respect to questions of truth–but neither Hacking’s treatment of historical cases nor McMillan’s directly philosophical elaboration of Hacking’s position sustain this claim.