  Oakeshott’s conclusion that history is central to the human sciences results from reflection on the limitations of the natural and social sciences in explaining individual performances. Scholars in the humanities and humanistic social sciences typically interpret such performances in relation to historical practices such as religious ceremonies, musical genres, culinary traditions, or legal procedures, each of which may be understood as a “language” of human performance. But the understanding thereby gained is incomplete, Oakeshott argues, because what it reveals is not the individuality of a performance but rather its “conventionality” (OHC 99–100), the type of conduct it illustrates. As explanation, this kind of interpretation help to understand contexts, situations, and types of action (practices), but it cannot explain the occurrence of particular acts (performances): why a particular person did such and such a thing on this or that occasion.