The theory of possible worlds has been minimally employed in the field of theory and philosophy of history, even though it has found a place as a tool in other areas of philosophy. Discussion has mostly focused on arguments concerning counterfactual history’s status as either useful or harmful. The theory of possible worlds can, however be used also to analyze historical writing. The concept of textual possible worlds offers an interesting framework to work with for analyzing a historical text’s characteristics and features. However, one of the challenges is that the literary theory’s notion of possible worlds is that they are metaphorical in nature. This in itself is not problematic but while discussing about history, which arguably deals with the real world, the terminology can become muddled. The latest attempt to combine the literary and philosophical notions of possible worlds and apply it to historiography came from Lubomir Doležel in his Possible Worlds of Fiction and History: The Postmodern Stage (2010). I offer some criticism to his usage of possible worlds to separate history and fiction, and argue that when historiography is under discussion a more philosophical notion of possible worlds should be prioritized over the metaphorical interpretation of possible worlds.

中文翻译：

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历史的可能世界

尽管可能世界的理论在哲学的其他领域中占有一席之地，但它在历史理论和历史哲学领域的应用却很少。讨论主要集中在关于反事实历史的有用或有害地位的争论上。但是，可能世界的理论也可以用来分析历史著作。文本可能世界的概念提供了一个有趣的框架，可以用来分析历史文本的特征和特征。但是，挑战之一是文学理论对可能世界的概念是它们本质上是隐喻的。这本身不是问题，但是在讨论历史（可能会涉及现实世界）时，术语可能会变得混乱。LubomirDoležel在他的《小说与历史的可能世界：后现代阶段》（2010年）中，将可能世界的文学和哲学概念结合起来并应用于史学的最新尝试。我对他使用可能世界来分离历史和小说的方法提出了一些批评，并指出，在讨论史学时，应将对可能世界的更多哲学概念优先于对可能世界的隐喻解释。