Volume 16
Written By Elizabeth Boyle
ARTICLES
Jean Seznec, “Michelet in Germany: A Journey in Self-Discovery," History and Theory 16, no. 1 (1977), 1-10.
Michelet's historical writings blend the romantic characteristics of the erotic, the funereal, and the demoniac. These writings formedthe artistic expression of a personality obsessed with the erotic fantasies of death - particularly the death of women. Michelet believed that he was beckoned by the dead to resurrect their existence and to understand them better than they had understood themselves. He endeavored to identify himself with the dead in order to relive, rather than simply to collect, their experiences. Though called to his art, he feared its tendency to isolate him from nature, from common men, and from himself. He began to resolve this conflict in 1842 at the shrine of St. Sebald in Nuremburg, where he meditated upon Peter Vischer's self-portrait depicting the artist as a laborer. Michelet found harmony between his artistic nature and the world of common men by understanding history, his art, as his toil.
Guy Oakes, “The Verstehen Thesis and the Foundations of Max Weber's Methodology," History and Theory 16, no. 1 (1977), 11-29.
The Verstehen thesis is Weber's method for identifying and understanding sociocultural phenomena. He assumes that, as the study of meaningful human conduct, the social sciences (unlike the natural sciences), must recognize that the actor who participates in cultural activities has already defined those actions. Only actions which have meaning for the agent can count as sociocultural phenomena. Weber's exposition of the Verstehen thesis is scattered among many of his essays and criticisms in the form of illustrations and examples, consistent with his belief that sociocultural investigation requires flexible programs rather than a permanent conceptual scheme. He observed that the Methodenstreit of his day created a crisis of the social sciences because of the excessive emphasis on methodological issues, and he proposed the Verstehen thesis as a solution to this early twentieth-century crisis.
Carl E. Pletsch, “History and Friedrich Nietzsche's Philosophy of Time," History and Theory 16, no. 1 (1977), 30-39.
Though Nietzsche never developed a theory of history, his comments on time yield a radical approach to historical interpretation. Central to this philosophy is the concept of eternal recurrence. Time, with neither boundary nor purpose, returns from the past to repeat itself in its same form. This generates a psychological and moral problem for men, as it fails to provide the elements of meaning which Nietzsche considered essential to the human psyche. Men survive the aimlessness of history by living in the unhistorical consciousness of the immediate present. Nietzsche's ideal is the suprahistorical man, whose awareness of history, and his disgust with it, lead him to find meaning in the structure of time-a structure of meaninglessness. The value system of history is this will to power and precludes the extension of historical judgment to situations beyond the sphere of inquiry.
John C. Eckalbar, “The Saint-Simonian Philosophy of History: A Note," History and Theory 16, no. 1 (1977), 40-44.
The Saint-Simonians viewed man's history as a process of progressive moral development which paralleled the growth of the human body; political and social institutions served as the realization of this moral order in the world. When these institutions were consistent with men's moral state, then unity and harmony prevailed and the period was referred to as an organic epoch. As men progressed, in accordance with the law of human perfectibility, morals became incompatible with existing institutions. This situation generated chaos and conflict and was called a critical epoch. The Saint-Simonians identified two occurrences of this process in history, and considered themselves the bearers of the third and final organic epoch. They shunned the competitive organization of laissez-faire capitalism and argued that moral, aesthetic, and industrial progress within the "Final State" would occur within a universal and hierarchically arranged social system.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Patrick Gardiner on Vico and Herder. Two Studies in the History of Ideas by Isaiah Berlin, History and Theory 16, no. 1 (1977), 45-51.
Karl-Georg Faber on Geschichte und Soziologie by Hans-Ulrich Wehler; Geschichte und Okonomie by Hans-Ulrich Wehler; Soziologie und Sozialgeschichte by Peter Christian Ludz; and Geschichte Heute. Positionen, Tendenzen und Probleme by Gerhard Schulz, History and Theory 16, no. 1 (1977), 51-66.
J. L. Gorman on Historical Knowing by Leon J. Goldstein, History and Theory 16, no. 1 (1977), 66-80.
ARTICLES
John P. Diggins, "Animism and the Origins of Alienation: The Anthropological Perspective of Thorstein Veblen," History and Theory 16, no. 2 (1977), 113-136.
Veblen used anthropological data as evidence to support and to develop his economic theory. He adopted many of Marx's categories and assumptions to explain the problems of modern capitalist society. Among them were class, alienation, and the essential benevolence of man. Unlike Marx, however, Veblen believed that man has to comprehend before he can act. Man can also not tolerate the disenchantment caused by a purely scientific and rational understanding of the world. Thus, man has a propensity to view the world anthropomorphically, and this separates him from reality. In addition, the instinct toward workmanship which enables man to produce goods to improve his world, also generates new perceptions of and desires for ownership and status. From his study of emulation and comparison among primitive peoples, Veblen concluded that alienation results from the forces of production rather than of consumption.
Rodney J. Morrison, "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Supreme Court: An Example of the Use of Probability Theory in Political History," History and Theory 16, no. 2 (1977), 137-146.
Quantitative methods are not only useful but sometimes crucial to historical analysis. They can, for example, demonstrate that Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. is wrong in his conclusion that Roosevelt had no choice but to fill the federal courts with his supporters in 1937 and thus to incur public wrath. The Supreme Court had ruled consistently that programs of the New Deal were unconstitutional. To that point in his presidency, Roosevelt had had no opportunity to appoint new members to the Supreme Court and Schlesinger argues that he saw no prospect of any in the future. On the contrary, statistical analysis shows that Roosevelt had a great probability of making future appointments. Even if he had acted only on the basis of informal information, Roosevelt, a man predisposed to risk, would have seen the favorable odds.
Werner J. Cahnman, "Toennies in America," History and Theory 16, no. 2 (1977), 147-167.
The American reaction to Toennies's macrosociological approach was critical and often misunderstood in the first years of the twentieth century. Through the present, American sociology has been concerned primarily with the individual and the relationships of individuals as they are set within a social structure. Toennies, on the other hand, considered the corporation the fundamental unit of sociological studies. He argued that though the corporation is not, in fact, an independent self-activating entity like a person, it is so treated by human volition and in human action. The Toenniesian concepts are evident in the works of American sociologists including Ross, Loomis, Heberle, Sorokin, MacIver, and Wirth. Most importantly, his work influenced the two major schools of American sociology, the Parkians and the Parsonians.
Thomas Burger, "Droysen's Defense of Historiography: A Note," History and Theory 16, no. 2 (1977), 168-173.
During the nineteenth century, positivists charged that since historical accounts did not uncover the laws involved in human behavior, they were devoid of significance and should be replaced by sociological studies. Theorists, including Droysen, responded that man has a dual nature. Man's biological self is the inalterable substance of his life, while his spiritual self enables him to create its form. The objects of this creation, social institutions, embody the ideas and ideals of a social order and are transformed when these values change. Remnants of the past are always contained within the new order and thus history both records the past and is embraced by the present. Since man is responsible for his progress he must know the past in order to fully understand and to act in the present. Droysen called this understanding of history Verstehen.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Lewis Perry on Fathers and Children. Andrew Jackson and the Subjugation of the American Indian by Michael Paul Rogin, History and Theory 16, no. 2 (1977), 174-195.
W. H. Walsh on Kant and the Problem of History by William A. Galston, History and Theory 16, no. 2 (1977), 196-204.
Helen P. Liebel on The German Enlightenment and the Rise of Historicism by Peter Hanns Reill, History and Theory 16, no. 2 (1977), 204-217.
Hans Kellner on Jules Michelet. Nature, History, and Language by Linda Orr, History and Theory 16, no. 2 (1977), 217-229.
ARTICLES
Dominick LaCapra, "Habermas and the Grounding of Critical Theory,” History and Theory 16, no. 3 (1977), 237-264.
The introduction and appendices to Habermas's texts reveal, both explicitly and implicitly, some inner contestations within his social theory. Habermas attempts to ground critical theory in a philosophical anthropology based upon quasi-transcendental cognitive interests and an ideal speech situation involving a consensus theory of truth. Unlike other expositors of dialectical theory, Habermas fails to address systematically the notion of supplementarity. Thus the dichotomous typologies of his analysis appear frozen within the existing ideological framework and some are in conflict with the emancipatory aspect of his theory. Habermas must clarify the overlapping character of his categories and recognize the logic of harmony implicit within his analyses in order to make his theory compatible with his criticism.
Donald McIntosh, "The Objective Bases of Max Weber's Ideal Types," History and Theory 16, no. 3 (1977), 265-279.
Weber's methodological writings reveal an epistemological tension between an interpretative and a scientific conception of knowledge. He argues that social action has to be understood in terms of its subjective meaning for individuals, and that this action is not necessarily consistent or logical. On the other hand, however, this action can only be scientifically studied through the use of categories and models based on logic. In theory, this creates a tension between his concepts of the "method of understanding" and of "adequacy at the level of meaning." In practice, Weber resolves this methodological conflict. As he uses them, the categories of value and of knowledge derive from and reflect a universal structure of noological. substratum of human thought. The thoughts and ideas of both social actor and social scientist are formed from a single objective basis.
Gerald A. Press, "History and the Development of the Idea of History in Antiquity," History and Theory 16, no. 3 (1977), 280-296.
The predominant scholarly opinion argues that, for the ancients, the idea of history held no meaning because time was regarded as a circular pattern in which events are repeated. Only human thought and art were meaningful. This opinion, however, is based on an a priori definition of history as the whole temporal process. If the term "history" is examined from the standpoint of its use during antiquity, the analyses of the notions of time and history change. Rather than being regarded as circular and repetitious, time had no pattern at all. Though this concept posed some philosophical problems for ancient thinkers, including Aristotle, time was not discussed as a medium of history. The interest in history as an academic discipline and its view as a linear process with an origin and an end independent of human thought occurred only with the gradual and rhetorical transition to Judaeo-Christian belief.
Joseph F. Byrnes, "Suggestions on Writing the History of Psychological Data," History and Theory 16, no. 3 (1977), 297-305.
Psychological theories can be used by historians to bring conceptual order to otherwise random psychological data. Unlike the psychologist, the historian is not required to adopt any single psychological theory, because the explanation of historical events does not depend upon the discovery of a general covering law. Historians, rather, use causal language to describe the linkages, both rational and nonrational, of particular sets of events. Though this form of historical explanation, called the continuous -series approach, can provide a coherent conceptual theory of behavior, it cannot be considered a deductive proof. It is the historian's responsibility to judge both the empirical justification of a psychological theory and the appropriateness of its application to a particular historical context.
REVIEW ESSAYS
J. H. Hexter on The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Political Thought and Atlantic Republican Tradition by J. G. A. Pocock, History and Theory 16, no. 3 (1977), 306-337.
David Braybrooke on Causal Explanation and Model Building in History, Economics, and the New Economic History by Peter D. McClelland, History and Theory 16, no. 3 (1977), 337-354.
Richard Wollheim on Art and Act. On Causes in History: Manet, Gropius, Mondrian by Peter Gay, History and Theory 16, no. 3 (1977), 354-360.
Peter Loewenberg on The Distorted Image. German Jewish Perceptions of Germans and Germany, 1918-1935 by Sidney M. Bolkosky, History and Theory 16, no. 3 (1977), 361-367.
The Constitution of the Historical Past
P. H. Nowell-Smith, “The Constructionist Theory of History," History and Theory, Beiheft 16 (1977), 1-28.
The constructionist thesis of history states, in general, that the historian must construct a theory to explain the past. Some, including Leon Goldstein, attempt to push this formulation beyond a description of historical methodology. They argue that since the real past is inaccessible to present observation, the real past can have no relevance for historiography. The distinctions made between the present, the real past, and the historical past generate problems with the concepts of past and present knowledge, theoretical infrastructure and experience, verification and truth, conflicting historical theories, and observation and knowledge. Goldstein's formulation of the constructionist thesis assumes the conflicting positions that experiential perception is paradigmatic of all methods of acquiring knowledge, and that knowledge is itself a kind of experience. As well as conflicting with commonsense views, his thesis is internally incoherent.
Leon J. Goldstein, “History and the Primacy of Knowing," History and Theory, Beiheft 16 (1977), 29-52.
Knowledge, including historical knowledge, is dependent upon the procedure by which it is acquired. Nowell-Smith attempts to drive a logical wedge between the assertion of historical statements and the objects to which they refer. This distinction between assertion and referent, however, does not exist in the practice of history. In historical study there is no way to acquire knowledge except through the construction of theory. The brute sensory data which form an essential part of an understanding of the present are not available to historians. As far as the epistemology of history is concerned, the real past has no influence on historical knowledge. Though truth may be the object of the historical enterprise, it cannot be obtained except through theory, and is, therefore, inseparable from the infrastructure of that enterprise.
W. H. Walsh, “Truth and Fact in History Reconsidered," History and Theory, Beiheft 16 (1977), 53-71.
Goldstein attempts to establish a middle position between the idealist and the realist arguments concerning truth and fact in history. Though fact serves as the touchstone of truth, we cannot verify propositions, especially historical propositions, in terms of fact. Nowell-Smith argues that Goldstein cannot acknowledge the importance of reality for everyday affairs, while denying its importance in history. Goldstein could have avoided such problems by realizing that if he is an opponent of historical realism, he must be a supporter of historical idealism. He could resolve Nowell-Smith's objections by adopting the Kantian argument which contrasts two types of judgment; judgment proper and particular attempts at judgment. Statements of objective fact, including historical facts, would be considered judgment proper. This would still allow for some judgments which did not fulfill objective criteria, but could count as knowledge.
Cover image: “Rosafarblauen-6,” by Jr Korpa (5 February 2020)
