Volume 10
Written By Elizabeth Boyle
ARTICLES
M. D. King, "Reason, Tradition, and the Progressiveness of Science," History and Theory 10, no. 1 (1971), 3-32.
Most sociologists of science have accepted R. K. Merton's view that there is no intrinsic connection between the ideas scientists hold and the way they behave. Merton based his approach on an extended analogy between science and economics. He assumed a division between the scientific "product" governed by an inflexible a-social logic and the processes of scientiftc "production" propelled by "non-logical" social behavior. Kuhn rejects this "divorce of convenience" and argues that "local" traditions which resist rationalization characterize both the theory and practice of science. Politics, law, and religion provide more apt analogies for scientift activity than economics. However, Kuhn's attempt to replace epistemology with sociology in order to retain the notion of progressiveness in science blunts his contribution. His sociological approach would be most fruitful if he adopted "epistemological agnosticism."
Paula Sutter Fichtner, "History, Religion, and Politics in the Austrian Vormärz," History and Theory 10, no. 1 (1971), 33-48.
Intellectuals in post-1815 Austria were divided into liberal Josephinians and conservative Catholic Romantics. The former supported Enlightenment-inspired reforms, especially the maintenance of government controls on the exercise of religion. The latter, convinced by the French Revolution of the destructiveness of Enlightenment ideas, sought to reestablish a version of the medieval German Empire where the Church would play a leading role. As historians, both the liberal HammerPurgstall and the conservative Bucholtz used their discipline as a tool to win others to their points of view. However, the historians' shared belief that truth depends on wide consultation of sources allowed Chmel to emphasize the mechanics of history rather than its interpretation and accounts for the fact that Austrian historiography was distinguished for its technicians rather than for its thinkers throughout the second half of the nineteenth century.
Leon Pompa, "Vico's Science," History and Theory 10, no. 1 (1971), 49-83.
According to Vico, philosophy and history had been too narrowly conceived. Philosophy had ignored the historical and empirical conditions which affect human nature, while history had ignored the metaphysical conditions. Vico therefore developed a science which would wed the two disciplines. Philosophy would provide a theory of human nature and an empirical theory about the determinate historico-sociological laws which govern human history. An "ideal external history" would be deduced from these and confirmed by its capacity to provide the systematic assumptions required for the conversion of historical evidence into historical fact. Since neither knowledge of laws nor knowledge of facts could be established independently, historico-sociological theory and historical investigation would be revealed as necessary aspects of a single epistemological enterprise.
Norman Rudich and Manfred Stassen, "Wittgenstein's Implied Anthropology: Remarks on Wittgenstein's Notes on Frazer," History and Theory 10, no. 1 (1971), 84-89.
Wittgenstein's criticisms of Frazer reveal a subjective theory of the social sciences. Wittgenstein refuses to accept Frazer's contention that customs are rooted in interpretations of nature, and feels that this genetic approach does not lead to either empirical or formal knowledge outside the natural sciences. His attack on Frazer's work is really an attack on the very idea of a causal account of history. In the tradition of Humean skepticism, Wittgenstein sees plausible description, not scientific explanation, as the highest aim of the social sciences. Yet Wittgenstein's method is a futile dogma in that it rules out cross-cultural comparison from the start.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Bruce Mazlish on The Iron Cage: An Historical Interpretation of Max Weber by Arthur Mitzman, History and Theory 10, no. 1 (1971), 90-107.
Louis O. Mink on Historians' Fallacies. Toward a Logic of Historical Thought by David Hackett Fischer, History and Theory 10, no. 1 (1971), 107-122.
David Braybrooke on History and Social Theory by Gordon Leff, History and Theory 10, no. 1 (1971), 122-134.
Herbert Arnold on Idee und Ideologie. Eine Zeitkritik aus universalhistorischer Sicht by Erwin Hölzle, History and Theory 10, no. 1 (1971), 134-147.
Kenneth E. Boulding on Industry and Empire: An Economic History of Britain Since 1750 by E. J. Hobsbaw , History and Theory 10, no. 1 (1971), 147-149.
ARTICLES
W. H. Dray, "On the Nature and Role of Narrative in Historiography," History and Theory 10, no. 2 (1971), 153-171.
There is no necessary connection between the ideas of history and of narration. The historical work should be explanatory, but a narrative is not itself a form of explanation. Walsh, despite Danto's objections, is correct in distinguishing "plain" from "significant" narratives. Both White's causal-chain model and Danto's model of causal input suggest that an historical narrative can be eq~planatory only if it offers causal explanation. But Gallie's followable contingency model contains several structural ideas which bring him into logical conflict with the claims of these causal models. According to Gallie, explanations are intrusive, required only by failure of narrative continuity. A narrative becomes explanatory when it can incorporate contingencies, which may be necessary conditions instead of causes. History, unlike science, strives for synthetic unity rather than for the removal of all contingency from its subject matter. The role narrative plays in achieving this unity deserves increased philosophic attention.
S. C. Humphreys, "The Work of Louis Gernet," History and Theory 10, no. 2 (1971), 172-196.
Gernet (1882-1962) was a classical scholar who worked closely with Durkheim, Granet, and other members of the Ann~e sociologique school. Study of his treatment of Greek myth, religion, and social institutions shows him to have been a pioneer in the structuralist approach to semantics and the study of myth as a form of language. In his work on law, he applied Durkheim's idea of the creative power generated by mass religious assemblies to the mass juries and political assemblies of ancient Greece. Reacting to social crisis by the establishment of organized justice, Greek society developed consciousness of its structure and powers, and the capacity for abstract reasoning about institutions and policy.
Nathan Rotenstreich, "The Idea of Historical Progress and Its Assumptions," History and Theory 10, no. 2 (1971), 197-221.
The idea of historical progress, despite its many variations, is anchored in a coherent structure of thought which implies a cumulative advance toward an all -encompassing encounter with a universal norm and its realization. The phenomenological structure of history is, however, inconsistent with the theoretical assumptions on which the idea of progress is based. Because meaning is not immanent in history but introduced by human beings, no total merger between reality and meaning is possible. The fact that equality, freedom, and humanity have all been suggested as the ultimate goal of historical progress illustrates that the very idea of a universal norm oversimplifies the complex structure of history. Furthermore, those who try to parallel scientific advancement with historical progress do not recognize that historical deeds cannot be depersonalized like natural events.
Hayden V. White, "Note: Croce and Becker: A Note on the Evidence of Influence," History and Theory 10, no. 2 (1971), 222-227.
Destler [History and Theory 9 (1970), 335-342] is incorrect in claiming that Becker was guilty of "ideological plagiarism" from Croce. This claim rests on a misundersthriding of Croce and on a failure to realize that most of the alleged points of resemblance between Becker and Croce are so general that they could refer to the majority of leading thinkers about history at that time.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Hans Medick on Bismarck und der Imperialismus by H. U. Wehler, History and Theory 10, no. 2 (1971), 228-240.
W. H. Walsh on A Behavioral Approach to Historical Analysis by Robert F. Berkhofer, History and Theory 10, no. 2 (1971), 241-246.
Arnold Toynbee on The Nature of Civilizations by Matthew Melko, History and Theory 10, no. 2 (1971), 246-253.
G. R. Elton on Tudor History and the Historians by F. Smith Fussner, History and Theory 10, no. 2 (1971), 253-258.
Guy E. Swanson on The Sociological Interpretation of Religion by Roland Robertson, History and Theory 10, no. 2 (1971), 258-265.
ARTICLES
Lawrence Rosen, "Language, History, and the Logic of Inquiry in Lévi-Strauss and Sartre,'" History and Theory 10, no. 3 (1971), 269-294.
Though engaging in little mutual polemic, the two men may be fruitfully compared. Sartre's dialectic is both a logic of investigation and an ongoing relationship between man and his total environment; Lévi-Strauss analyzes culture and reserves dialectic for the interaction of fundamental structural features. Sartre sees language as not yet fully dialectical, thus as constraint to self-knowledge; for Lévi-Strauss language reveals to us the direct workings of the mind, in its structure of binary opposites. Whereas Lévi-Strauss works down past the individual, emphasizing the deep structure of marriage exchange systems, Sartre points out that men freely consent to remain in such groups and abide by these rules. For Sartre history is disorder made rational by the operation of the dialectic; for Lévi-Strauss history has no predetermined order and consists only in its method, exhibiting the mental structures polarized around the conceptions before and after. Beyond mutual misunderstandings, Lévi-Strauss may be faulted for contriving some of his dyads and ignoring the ambiguities in them; his system is prone to misplaced concreteness and to interpretations which only confirm its own existence. Sartre has not produced his promised ethical system and gives only a vague guide to contemporary problems. But one need not become either a "Sartrian" or a " Lévi-Straussian" to appropriate important concepts from each man; there is a phenomenological middle ground in which the two - and others - might be synthesized.
George Dennis O'Brien, "Does Hegel have a Philosophy of History?,'" History and Theory 10, no. 3 (1971), 295-317.
Hegel is usually regarded as a "speculative" philosopher of history, claiming to discover a pattern or meaning in the historical process as a whole. On the contrary, he held that history deals only with those events of which there are historical accounts; the distinction between "speculative" and "critical" philosophy of history thus has no meaning for Hegel. In "original" history, written by participants, subject and object are one; in "reflective" history they are divided, and the historian's attitudes and beliefs themselves become uneliminable constituents of the history of historiography. "Philosophical world history" is not about the totality of events and deeds, but is the dialectical product of reflective history including the history of historical interpretation. It is, in fact, the history of historical consciousness, the history of ideas seen in its internal principle.
Rex A. Lucas, "A Specification of the Weber Thesis: Plymouth Colony,'" History and Theory 10, no. 3 (1971), 318-346.
Plymouth can be regarded as a test case of the relationship Weber posited between the Protestant ethic and Capitalism. Although the Plymouth experience confirms Weber's idea that Calvinism made labor an absolute end in itself and that religious belief gave a direction to practical conduct, it gives little support to the notion that it also encouraged individualism. In a small isolated society dominated by a congregational church, Calvinism generated an agreed-upon code of social behavior which was strictly enforced and which inhibited the. freedom of individual expression. The Protestant ethic fostered individualism and consequently the development of capitalism only where congregations maintained themselves within larger societies controlled by non-Calvinists.
REVIEW ESSAYS
J. H. M. Salmon on Écrits sur L'Histoire by Fernand Braudel, History and Theory 10, no. 3 (1971), 347-355.
C. Hartley Grattan on The Death of the Past by J. H. Plumb, History and Theory 10, no. 3 (1971), 355-359.
Peter Munz on A Sociology of Sociology by Robert W. Friedrichs, History and Theory 10, no. 3 (1971), 359-369.
Rosalie L. Colie on Medievalism and the Ideologies of the Enlightenment. The World and Work of La Curne de Sainte-Palaye by Lionel Gossman, History and Theory 10, no. 3 (1971), 370-373.
George Boas on The Spartan Tradition in European Thought by Elizabeth Rawson, History and Theory 10, no. 3 (1971), 374-379.
Enlightenment Historiography: Three German Studies
Günther Pflug, "The Development of Historical Method in the Eighteenth Century [1954]," History and Theory, Beiheft 11 (1971), 1-23.
The development starts with post-Cartesian skepticism, with Bayle's opposition of historical to logical certitude, his separation of being from thought, his reduction of systems to historical facts. Since factual analysis, incapable of comprehending what is generalizable in history, led nowhere, a more complex structure was needed. Voltaire, combining the factual with the systematic, used the supra-historical concept of bon sens as a tool of analysis. In causality, he conceived of the hypothesis of a common cause of phenomena, the espirit de temps, but had to derive it from the phenomena rather than the phenomena from it. Montesquieu's forward step was to take man himself as the supra-historical concept. While this separation of historical from human established lawlikeness for historical facticity, his deterministic theories proved too restrictive, and the uniqueness and the generality of historical facts remained too sharply divided. It was Turgot's conception of development (derived from Bossuet), his idea of progress (derived from scientific, moral, and economic thought), that finally put the concept of time itself into the sphere of the general, establishing law-likeness for the sequence of historical happenings.
Paul Sakmann, "The Problems of Historical Method and of Philosophy of History in Voltaire [1906]," History and Theory, Beiheft 11 (1971), 24-59.
Voltaire's reform program for history-writing emerges when his scattered utterances on method are collected under three headings: I. Details. Voltaire objects to tedious details, but characterizing detail can be used. There must be selection, and its criterion is significance to large-scale trends. II. Falsehoods. Most historians are to be distrusted. Falsehoods arise from relating very ancient or mythical elements, a matter Voltaire comprehends only superficially; also from partisanship, exaggerations, and traditions. Criteria of probability and for the evaluation of testimony are explained. III. The new history. Unlike crude, pedantic historiography of dynastic and political affairs, the new history must deal with leading ideas, cultural, ethnographic, and economic factors. Voltaire's universalism, his stress on humanity and mankind, is limited by his patriotic and monarchical bias and by polemical and stylistic concerns. - Other Voltairean observations are assembled under judgments on his predecessors (IV.); and under his evaluation of historical figures and events in ancient, medieval, and modern history (V.), marked by correct insights but also by occasional naivety and credulity.
Rudolf Unger, "The Problem of Historical Objectivity. A Sketch of Its Development to the Time of Hegel [1923]," History and Theory, Beiheft 11 (1971), 60-86.
The problem of historical objectivity repays study to counter the subjectivism of the neo-romantics and the arbitrary factual structures of recondite specialization. The ancients did not develop a theoretical distinction between objective and subjective in their conception of his tory. In the Renaissance, individualism impinged on the ancients' conception, but no philosophic view of historical objectivity evolved. The history-minded eighteenth century likewise failed to provide the necessary philosophical categories of historical understanding, though with Voltaire an approach- to them emerged. The solution to the problem came only with the Kantian and post-Kantian concern with the epistemological problems of transcendentalism, especially from Humboldt's notion of ideas as inner forms of historical manifestations. These tendencies found their summation in Hegel's philosophy of history. Among other Hegelian insights, the concept of the realization of a concrete, objective reason in our subjective understanding solved the problem of how philosophical, i.e., objectively true, knowledge of history is possible.
Cover image: Map of Ancient Greece, by Fielding Lucas Jr. (1823)
