IN HISTORY WE TRUST?
Piotr Kowalewski Jahromi in conversation with Verónica Tozzi Thompson
PIOTR KOWALEWSKI JAHROMI
University of Silesia, Katowice
Piotr Kowalewski Jahromi is Assistant Professor at the University of Silesia (Katowice, Poland). His main interests are in the analytical philosophy of history, philosophy of science, history of historiography, modern aesthetics, and history of law in Europe. Recently, he published “Analytical Philosophy of History in Poland: Inspirations and Interpretations,” Historyka Studia Metodologiczne 51 (2021), 39–63.
Verónica Tozzi Thompson is Associate Professor of philosophy of history at the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina). Her main issues of interest are philosophy of history and social sciences, epistemology of testimony, and politics of memory in the Argentine recent past. Among her main publications are “Narrativism,” in The Routledge Companion to Historical Theory, ed. Chiel van den Akker (New York: Routledge, 2022); “A Pragmatist View on Two Accounts of the Nature of Our ‘Connection‘ with the Past: Hayden White and David Carr Thirty Years Later,” Rethinking History 22, no. 1 (2018), 65–85; and “The Epistemic and Moral Role of Testimony,” History and Theory 51, no. 1 (2012), 1–17.
Cite this post: Piotr Kowalewski Jahromi and Verónica Tozzi Thompson, “In History We Trust?,” One More Thing… (blog), History and Theory, October 2023, https://historyandtheory.org/omt-poznan/kowalewskijahromi-tozzithompson.
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Piotr Kowalewski Jahromi: I have a question connected to the central theme of this Congress: Quo vadis historia? How do you see the current state of historiography inside and outside academia and philosophy of history today?
Verónica Tozzi Thompson: It is difficult for me to talk about the whole world. I have experience of South America, especially Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, where the academic history is very strong. It is a huge and well-organized community. But it is also a unique situation since we live in a post-dictatorship era in Argentina. And this does influence all researchers who want to investigate the past—not only the recent past, but I also mean it does not matter if you are a historian studying nineteenth-century or classic history. Most historians in my country are completely involved in the present time and they cannot avoid thinking about the role of academic history during the dictatorship and the democracy. Why? Because, during the dictatorship, many historians, students, and professors were outside the university for political reasons or became political prisoners. The subject didn’t matter as much as which theoretical approaches were permitted.
PKJ: Are there still some topics that are not permitted or are just underrepresented?
VTT: No. Democracy returned to Argentina in 1983, but there is a lot of what we can name “haunting past.” Society cannot return from dictatorship to democracy in one day. In the end, it is a long process. And today, because of reoccurring economic crises during these forty years of democracy, there are still people trying to revindicate the “order” during the dictatorship—not [many], but still enough to remind the community of academic historians to know that they are not working in a bubble. They are aware that current political stance plays a role in one’s perspective on the past. I want to emphasize that historians have always played an important role in the public sphere, and this has not changed. Even if the engagement is not directly seen in academic writing, it is almost impossible for a historian to be outside the situation.
PKJ: My impression during that Congress is that there is a strong representation of scholars from Latin America who are engaged in environmental historiography. Do you think this region is more open to new trends in historiography?
VTT: Maybe in Brazil. I feel [that], in Argentina, social and political history is the main subject. Still, during the last two decades, younger historians were very interested in memory studies to see how society was coping with the authoritarian past. For traditional historians, that is not history because it is contemporary. They say that you must wait some fifty years for it to become history. Still, many younger historians want to work on those subjects or new subjects like feminism. There has been a turn toward more cultural history and our contemporary engagement with the past.
PKJ: Is it also a move toward more practical and engaged historiography?
VTT: Well, I don’t think there is a very sophisticated theoretical framework behind it. It is still discussed in classical terms of truth, facts, and reality. It is about the new generation trying to understand the former generation. In Argentina, we have, compared to Europe, a very short history because our independence was in the nineteenth century. That’s why we are constantly rewriting this relatively recent history for new generations, and there was always a demand to rewrite national history, and with the radical change of the society, those demands also became more radical.
PKJ: And what about the indigenous people’s history in Argentina? Does it play an important role in the country’s historiography?
VTT: Maybe not the same in the whole country, but it is very important, probably more for anthropologists than [for] historians, who are dealing mainly with the sort of European history in Argentina—the revolution and independence. On the other hand, in the last fifteen years, a new specialization has emerged—ethnohistory. These new ethnohistorians are trying to work with the indigenous communities.
PKJ: Let us move to more philosophical issues. It is a standard assessment that the narrative turn started a “new philosophy of history” sometime in the 1970s. Do you still think it remains relevant to us, or do we need a radical change in our theoretical approach since these narrativist theories have become old? I am asking these questions because you have organized, with Kalle Pihlainen, a panel titled “Reassessing Historical Methodology: The Value of Experience in Historical Knowledge.”
VTT: The name of the panel was a struggle. I would never use the word “method” because of the implication in the philosophy of science, especially after Paul Feyerabend’s book Against Method. [1] A method in philosophy brings us to the tradition of Descartes fighting with skepticism [2]—it is an utterly modernist word. Using it in the philosophy of science means that you have a strong criterion of (universal) justification. In this sense, there is no method in the philosophy of history, and in historiography, method is related to the techniques of research. We also know that historians are skeptical about the philosophy or epistemology of history, so that is why we have used the word “historical methodology,” not to get rejected by ICHS.
PKJ: I agree about the method and would even say it was central to the analytical approach. Does it mean that, in order to discuss new topics in the philosophy of science, we still have to use the older terms from the analytic philosophy of history?
VTT: The discussion during the times of Carl Hempel, Karl Popper, and Rudolf Carnap was certainly about the method, especially the method of distinguishing science from pseudoscience. This method was logic, and it was used to determine whether certain sentences belong to the scientific language. This was interesting in the context of the nascent new physics (relativity and quantic), how to connect high sophisticated theoretical sentences to empirical sentences or discussions about general laws for explanation in history. But it was a philosophical discussion that did not attract historians given that too many historians are not interested in philosophy of history because they don’t really know what it is. Indeed, they think that the philosophy of history is something related to Hegel’s speculation about the meaning of history. Moreover, in many universities, there is no philosophy of history in historical studies. In general terms, historians don’t know much about analytical philosophy of history, and epistemology of history, or they do not find them interesting. Perhaps, I should say, there are some specific issues and theses from the [post-empiricist] philosophy of sciences concerning the impossibility of a clear distinction between “interpretation-description” or “theoretical-empirical” that lead to the assumption [that] the meaning of a descriptive sentence is determined by its linguistic context (the theory or narrative that contains it). However, these philosophical theses do not mean that science and history cannot reach rational consensus about their theories or historical accounts. I believe that, most of the time, philosophical explanations of these issues [are] not clear or [are] quite abstract for historians. Perhaps philosophers should review their argumentative strategies in order to develop a more dialogic interaction with scientists (historians included).
PKJ: Modern philosophy of history under the analytic umbrella was trying to explain historical epistemology in terms of the philosophy of science. The narrativist philosophy of history was trying to do so with the terms of philosophy of language and literary theory. You are familiar with both traditions. I read Paul Roth’s recent book [3] as an attempt to overcome this dualism. Does your recent work on the epistemology of testimony have similar goals, or are you trying to achieve something entirely new? To be even more specific, I wanted to ask you if we need a new epistemology of history, and if you think it can be based on the epistemology of testimony.
VTT: There is an important paradox. Since the nineteenth century, everybody knows that we are historical beings and not divine beings. We belong to our historical situation, and there is no escaping from that, not even in science. That is the lesson of Thomas Kuhn: you cannot understand any scientific theory if you don’t study the history of that theory. And if you try to evaluate it, you cannot do it only in relation to an older or younger scientific theory. This is the one of the most important theoretical contributions that the study of history gave to the world. The paradox is that historians are afraid of their own discovery because it brings the shadow of relativism—if everything is a historical phenomenon based on a specific historical-social context, then we have to abandon the universal truth. But I am not criticizing Paul Roth. I try to expand his philosophy of history by bringing it closer to new developments in social studies on knowledge and social epistemology: Steven Shapin, David Bloor, and Sheila Jasanoff. Specifically, we should pay attention, on the one hand, to the coproduction thesis of the order of knowledge and the social order and, on the other hand, to the epistemic values of “trust” and “authority” as they have been raised by the epistemology of testimony. [4]
PKJ: Yes, I wanted to ask you about the emphasis of the notion of trust. Do you think it brings us away from the logical epistemology of knowledge and more into the sociology of knowledge?
VTT: I follow a social concept of epistemology inspired by Wittgenstein. It is based on a philosophical concept of language as a social game that you can only truly learn by playing it. You cannot understand a scientific paradigm if you don’t understand which rules govern that paradigm. But what does it mean to understand the rules? Well, you must observe the playing community and see how they differentiate the good and bad, right or wrong.
PKJ: Ok, but how do you move from the trust as a social value to trust as a fundamental epistemological value? Can we build epistemology that is not based on truth but on trust?
VTT: I am not saying that we should abandon truth in favor of trust. Epistemology of testimony is an interpersonal theory of knowledge in a way that [those] who are in our communities [are] those agents in [whom] we trust [to] tell the truth. Let us think of epistemology of history. First, we must acknowledge that historians are not isolated epistemic subjects. People (including historians) belong to epistemic communities. How do people know all the things they know? They know because somebody told things to them and, in turn, they told everybody else. So, the first step is understanding that trust shapes those epistemic communities. On the other hand, historians, like all humanities or social sciences researchers, emerge from social demands. Historians are confronting the results of their work within the epistemic community of historians and their nonacademic audiences. The difference between lay people and experts is not completely clear because, for example, both groups have some shared epistemic values, such as the necessity not to stigmatize people or exclude others. The main point of the epistemology of testimony is that informers are not only evidential tools used by the historian. They also contribute to the production of knowledge.
PKJ: Do you think that they have their own agenda?
VTT: It is disputed. Witnesses don’t just want to be listened to; they also want to intervene or take part in the production of historical accounts and, usually, have their own interests. There is a cooperation between historians and witnesses in Holocaust studies and in memory studies, where historians cannot put the witnesses only in the place of the evidence. They have some agenda, and historians have their own. They have to negotiate.
PKJ: And you see trust as a basis for those negotiations? The witness has to trust the historian, and the historian has to trust the witness. But if they also know that both sides have an agenda, do they also have to remain critical? So, how can the epistemology of testimony help us to deal with the current crisis of truth that is sometimes also described as the crisis of trust? Do you think it can advance us into better, more resilient knowledge?
VTT: Yes, my ongoing project is about this very issue. First of all, the epistemology of testimony assumes that, in our everyday life, most of our knowledge is not source-based knowledge but rather a second-hand knowledge. This is the standard way of acquiring knowledge, and trust is required here from the very beginning. Therefore, trust—rather than distrust—is our natural attitude in ordinary life. This is very different from what Descartes was proposing with his method of doubt. Epistemology of testimony is not based on dubito ergo sum. We gain knowledge with trust in our colleagues from our own community and from other expertise communities. You, as an individual historian of some specific subject, are depending on the expertise of other communities of specialists. Even the concept of [true] and false is based on social trust that all of us gain knowledge thanks to the cooperation inside an epistemic community of experts. Trust is something that builds social tissue.
PKJ: Yes, but how would you falsify a statement and distinguish between true and false if your method is trust?
VTT: It is your responsibility to dedicate some time to choosing your informers carefully. In terms of Benjamin McMyler, you and I have the right to defer the defiance to our own beliefs to our informers. I have the right to defer the defiance to my beliefs in vaccines to the specialist. I believe in vaccines because I learned about them from the words of scientists.
PKJ: So, you choose who is more trustworthy as the producer of knowledge? I see the risk here that you will judge the information not based on the content but by its author. I think we do it all the time, but the considerable part of why and how science is successful was exactly because it decided to eliminate this religious concept.
VTT: Yes, but nobody can show the truth. There is no “real truth” and no content without the author or agenda. If we don’t have access to ultimate truth, all we can do is tell good stories and use good arguments to justify them.
PKJ: And how to decide which is good and which is better?
VTT: Well, you cannot do it without discussing your ideas and stories, can you? We don’t have that in advance. You must always have conversations to decide which arguments and stories are good. That is my pragmatist approach. You have to accept all challenges. It doesn’t matter if it came from the worst person in the world. You must take all contra arguments seriously and try to dismantle them with good narratives. You cannot leave fake news alone. There is no other way and no universal method to guarantee good stories for all topics. Social epistemology and epistemology of testimony give an important lesson; in the discussions about truth, when we build reasoning to support what we think is true, we appeal to the knowledge we have because somebody we trust told us. We would be naive or ineffective if each of us would try to build a reasoning only with knowledge obtained by our own sources.
PKJ: So, are we left with the pragmatist approach to epistemology?
VTT: Yes, but the pragmatist [approach] in the sense that there is no end to the research. You will always find questions and challenges to deal with. You always have to confront your story with other challenges. With fake news, you have two options: kill the source or challenge their story. Violence is not a real choice, so you always have to produce better arguments and bring them to the public.
PKJ: Yes, constant public discussion is crucial for science and democracy. We accept that this discussion is a constant process in the political sphere, but I think many would find it problematic in science. Do you think we can at least falsify a fake statement or story? Can we at least say, “this is not true”?
VTT: Yes, but to say “this is not true” alone doesn’t mean anything. I will immediately ask you to explain why it is false, and you must produce an answer. Then I will challenge this answer, and this exchange never ends. In the pragmatic communication theory, truth is an adjective, just like honor or something else. It does not mean anything alone. You have to give a good story (or a good argument appealing to different resources) in order to show why it’s not true.
PKJ: Ok, I may agree that there is no end to the discussion, but there surely have to be limits to our discussion. Unfortunately, the end of our meeting today is approaching, and I wanted to ask you about the most important recent contributions to the philosophy of history. What books or articles do you see as crucial for contemporary discussion?
VTT: I would recommend Paul Roth’s recent book, [5] especially the first four chapters, where you can find a very good reconstruction of Danto’s and Mink’s philosophy of narrative knowledge and historical narrative. I also think Hayden White’s spirit is in the whole book, even if he does not appear there directly. For epistemology of testimony, the best is Benjamin McMyler’s book. [6] The first chapter is a history of the notion of testimony in the history of philosophy from antiquity to modernity. And it is very interesting because you understand how, for example, a testimony was important for the witnesses of miracles. So those would be the essential books for me. Of course, you can ask what analytic philosophy of history has to do with hermeneutics that you find in the philosophy of testimony, but I think they are very close.
Notes
[1] Paul Feyerabend, Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge (London: New Left Books, 1975).
[2] René Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences, transl. John Veitch (La Salle: The Open Court, 1957).
[3] Paul A. Roth, The Philosophical Structure of Historical Explanation (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2020).
[4] David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imaginary, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); Sheila Jasanoff, ed., States of Knowledge: The Co-production of Science and the Social Order (London: Routledge, 2004); Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
[5] See also Verónica Tozzi Thompson, “Historical Irrealism: Paul A. Roth and the Epistemic Value of Narrative Explanation,” Rethinking History 27, no. 1 (2023), 144–57.
[6] Benjamin McMyler, Testimony, Trust, and Authority (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
