Volume 18
Written By Elizabeth Boyle
ARTICLES
David L. Hull, “In Defense of Presentism," History and Theory 18, no. 1 (1979), 1-15.
Historians must have an understanding of the present both to reconstruct the past and to explain that reconstruction to a contemporary audience. One criticism of presentism is that it is an interpretation of the past in terms of current values and ideas, and fails to provide a complete picture of the historical context. Regardless of such practices, however, the historian is limited to the methodological and archival tools available during his own time. Meaning, reason, and truth are different for different periods and peoples. The clarity of his language, the consistency of his logic, and the validity of his proofs are relative to the historian's time and culture. The act of historical inquiry is influenced by the contrasts between past and present. Only by consciously addressing his dependence on the present can the historian adequately understand the past.
F. M. Barnard, “Natural Growth and Purposive Development: Vico and Herder," History and Theory 18, no. 1 (1979), 16-36.
"Growth," a term borrowed from biology, is often used to describe change in human history. The use of such terms, however, tends to obscure the fundamental differences between historical and natural causality. Vico and Herder were among the first to make a radical distinction between our understanding of events in nature and of those in human affairs. They argued that man can make conscious decisions which make his actions different from events in the nonhuman world. Yet, they also believed that human history has a purpose of its own, which man cannot alter. However, if human choice is to be truly free, then the outcome of human history cannot be entirely predetermined. Though Vico and Herder, like many other writers, attempted to merge these two notions, they failed to provide a satisfactory theory.
CLASSICS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Helmut D. Schmidt, “Schlözer on Historiography," History and Theory 18, no. 1 (1979), 37-40.
August Ludwig Schlözer, “On Historiography [1783]," History and Theory 18, no. 1 (1979), 41-51.
In 1783, during the height of the German Enlightenment, August Ludwig Schlözer published this essay on history as an autonomous critical science. Schlözer had helped to establish history as an independent academic discipline at Göttingen University. His essay outlines four criteria for criticizing historical work. Such pieces should be true, complete, broad in scope, and well written. Though the Greeks were fine painters of history, their accounts could not match the first three of these ideals. The most thorough history would probably require separate individuals to undertake the collection, verification, and editing of usable information. Only then could the results be written by a "historical painter." Schlözer undertook all of these tasks himself in his five-volume work on ancient Russia, entitled Nestor.
B. C. Hurst, “A Comment on the Possible Worlds of Climo and Howells," History and Theory 18, no. 1 (1979), 52-60.
Climo and Howells argue that a comparison of counterfactual statements is the best approach to causation in historical analysis. In historical explanation, it is often difficult to distinguish causes from effects, real causes from potential ones, and epiphenomena from either causes or effects. The symbolic statement "A causes B" describes the actual world. Two statements using the parameters A and B may be formed which do not describe the actual world. By determining which of the statements, "If not-A then B" and "If not-A then not-B," is closer to the actual world, one can conclude whether A is a cause of B. Despite their claims, however, Climo and Howells do not prove that their method is superior to others in dealing with effects and preemption. Their method also has internal difficulties when dealing with epiphenomena and relations to the actual world.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Adrian Kuzminski on The Shapes of Time. A New Look at the Philosophy of History by Peter Munz, History and Theory 18, no. 1 (1979), 61-84.
Albrecht Wellmer on The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory by Richard J. Bernstein, History and Theory 18, no. 1 (1979), 84-103.
Alan MacFarlane on The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800 by Lawrence Stone, History and Theory 18, no. 1 (1979), 103-126.
Gillian Rose on The Origin of Negative Dialectics by Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Frankfurt Institute, and Susan Buck-Morss and The Frankfurt School. The Critical Theories of Max Horkeimer and Theodor W. Adorno by Zoltan Tar and Michael Landman, History and Theory 18, no. 1 (1979), 126-135.
ARTICLES
Willard A. Mullins, "Truth and Ideology: Reflections on Mannheim's Paradox," History and Theory 18, no. 2 (1979), 141-154.
Mannheim held a paradoxical position when he acknowledged that since all ideologies are false, yet all systems of social, political, and historical thought are ideologies, it followed that his own sociological perspectives were false. To escape from the implications of this relativistic position, he stated that historical perspectives must be viewed as part of a dynamic world. Though there exists an objective historical reality, historical knowledge is relative to the social circumstances of a particular time. However, Mannheim's theory rests on two assumptions which state that social -historical thought is determined by group economic and political interests and that there is a reality distinct from what language describes. However, by rejecting Mannheim's view and considering language an essential component of reality, ideology is freed from questions of objective validity and made available for rational inquiry.
William H. Shaw, "’The Handmill Gives You the Feudal Lord’: Marx's Technological Determinism," History and Theory 18, no. 2 (1979), 155-176.
Many contemporary Marxist scholars consider technological determinism a "vulgar" interpretation of Marx's theory of history. They argue that though Marx may have made such statements, they were inconsistent with many other aspects of his paradigm. However, a more fundamental analysis illustrates that the themes contained in the Preface to the Critique of Political Economy pervade Marx's scholarship and letters. Though the term technology may be a misnomer, Marx believed that productive forces form the material basis of society and determine its economic, political, and religious structures. He did not argue that the superstructure has no effect on social relations, but considered these secondary to economic factors. Regardless of the empirical validity of his historical predictions, his theory derives its value from its role as a coherent research program which promotes new hypotheses and empirical discoveries.
John D. Milligan, "The Treatment of an Historical Source," History and Theory 18, no. 2 (1979), 177-196.
When faced with a primary source which seems to refute received historical knowledge, what should the historian's response be? The first step is to determine the truth of the statement. The source must be examined for its authenticity, date, and place of inception. It is also necessary to examine whether the witness meant what he literally said, whether he was physically and mentally capable of telling the truth, and whether he had any motivation to lie. In the case of a letter by Charles Ellet accusing Grant, Porter, and Sherman of treason, the testimony loses its credibility when the circumstances of Ellet himself were inspected. But validity is only one use of an historical source. For example, Ellet's story reveals the intraservice rivalry present during the Civil War. What answers an historical document provides depends upon the questions asked.
REVIEW OF REVIEWS
Hans Kellner, "Disorderly Conduct: Braudel's Mediterranean Satire," History and Theory 18, no. 2 (1979), 197-222.
Braudel's Le Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe Il (1949) has been hailed as a classic of twentieth-century scholarship and criticized as "an exhausting treadmill," without coherence, unity, or form. However, Braudel has used a form, that of the Menippean satire, which, though troublesome, is the work's innovation. One characteristic of the genre is its contrast of verse and prose. Braudel altered this by considering verse and prose together and opposing them to quantification. A second characteristic is that the form satirizes abstract ideas and attitudes. Finally, the mode uses facts in an encyclopedic way, thus tending to give the piece a stuffed and saturated quality. The purpose of Braudel's form, from a structuralist's standpoint, is to write a history which will not overemphasize particular events, as does the traditional narrative style.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Ian Hacking on The Essential Tension. Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change by Thomas S. Kuhn, History and Theory 18, no. 2 (1979), 223-236.
Georg G. Iggers on I Maestri Della Germania. Göttingen 1770-1820 by Luigi Marino, History and Theory 18, no. 2 (1979), 236-243.
Edward R. Tannenbaum on Methodology of History by Jerzy Topolski, Olgierd Woitasiewicz, History and Theory 18, no. 2 (1979), 243-250.
ARTICLES
Daniel H. Calhoun, "Continual Vision and Cosmopolitan Orthodoxy,” History and Theory 18, no. 3 (1979), 257-286.
Since the 1930s, social scientists have used and developed increasingly complex methods of quantitative explanation which have not necessarily made reference to similar developments in logical theory. The "Continuum Hypothesis" problem for logicians was whether higher orders of complexity were accessible to human intuition. Gödel argued in 1931 that systems of logic rest on assumptions which exist outside their axioms. For some this meant that complexity is beyond intuition. Others argued that intuitive visualization does not require necessary proof. Set theory and probability theory are constructs which enhance the visualization of infinity. The most recent development has been the notion of a non-CH model which states the conditions under which vision can "compute" a phenomenological universe. It is not a system of proof but a logical program for probabilistic research.
W. J. van der Dussen, "Collingwood's Unpublished Manuscripts,” History and Theory 18, no. 3 (1979), 287-315.
Collingwood said that mind is always in development, and his now accessible unpublished manuscripts exemplify that statement. Prior to 1926, he held a realistic philosophy of history which regarded knowledge of the past as being based on concrete fact. By 1926, however, he began to reveal a Kantian influence by considering philosophy a universal and transcendental body of concepts which arise when anyone thinks about a subject. History is, then, transcendental as well as empirical. Collingwood then argued that only the present is real, and thus history can only be an ideal reconstruction of the past. He continued to explore until his death the implications of this last notion in studies of the relationship between philosophy and history and the problem of historical interpretation. He also made elaborate studies of folklore, anthropology, and cosmology. Appendix: a descriptive list of the Collingwood mss. in the Bodleian Library.
Adrian Kuzminski, "Defending Historical Realism,” History and Theory 18, no. 3 (1979), 316-349.
Formerly, history was considered a discipline which attempts to arrive at a description of how the past really was. The truth of historical arguments could then be verified by evidence. This Rankean notion of historical realism is currently rejected by many historians because the evidence upon which it depends is itself theory-bound. This critical or "ironic" perspective, however, like the realist descriptions it criticizes, cannot provide a single method of accounting for events. The structuralist theory developed by Hayden White attempts to resolve this conflict by taking as its object not experience, but men's various representations of experience. However, to claim that truth depends upon criteria outside of the evidence renders the historian subject to either relativism or dogmatism. Only through a nontheoretical faith in the power of evidence to prove can historical inquiry uncover the true past.
Michael Frisch, "American Urban History as an Example of Recent Historiography,” History and Theory 18, no. 3 (1979), 350-377.
At its inception during the 1940s, American urban history displayed a tension between the traditional emphasis on American democratic ideals and the new scientific approach characteristic of the Chicago School. Some advances in this methodological conflict were made in the mid-1960s. Then, works such as Thernstrom's Poverty and Progress used a "bottom-up" approach to social history which was dependent upon evidence obtainable only from quantitative scientific methods. The attraction of Thernstrom's model was its simplicity and its subject, social mobility, which encompassed a variety of classic American issues including the tension between freedom and equality. Despite these syncretic breakthroughs, American urban history remains steeped in the American historiographic tradition and suffers from the lack of a dialogue with Marxist scholarship. New research must be directed toward the development of categories adequate to explain its broad and complex subject-matter.
Robert Southard, "Theology in Droysen's Early Political Historiography: Free Will, Necessity, and the Historian,” History and Theory 18, no. 3 (1979), 378-396.
During the revolutionary mid-nineteenth century in Germany and Prussia, Droysen advocated political change from the standpoint of a neo-Hegelian scholar. He justified his commitment to both political partisanship and historical scholarship through the use of a theological conceptual base. Droysen believed that free will and necessity exist as interdependent forces in the world. Whereas God's divine purpose can only be realized through acts of free will, such acts occur when necessary. Christian faith and historical understanding ensure free will. History is not a conservative force as it has the right to create and to destroy. Droysen favored the rise of the modern state and argued that the modern drive for power would eventually lead to political freedom. Through unity and participation, the state enables individuals to realize their moral potential.
REVIEW ESSAYS
William E. Connolly on The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas by Thomas McCarthy, History and Theory 18, no. 3 (1979), 397-417.
Carol Wallace on Has History any Meaning? A Critique of Popper's Philosophy of History by Burleigh Taylor Wilkins, History and Theory 18, no. 3 (1979), 417-427.
Bruce Kuklick on Theoretical Methods in Social History by Arthur L. Stinchcombe, History and Theory 18, no. 3 (1979), 427-433.
Bibliography of Works in the Philosophy of History, 1973-1977
”Bibliography of Works in the Philosophy of History 1973-1977,” History and Theory, Beiheft 18 (1979), 1-94.
”Index of Subjects,” History and Theory, Beiheft 18 (1979), 95-97.
”Index of Names,” History and Theory, Beiheft 18 (1979), 98-111.
Cover image: Untitled, by Milad B. Fakurian (11 April 2020)
