Volume 6
Written By Elizabeth Boyle
ARTICLES
J. H. Hexter, "The Rhetoric of History,’" History and Theory 6, no. 1 (1967), 3-13.
An examination of footnotes, quotations, and name-lists shows that historians try to follow the reality rule - to tell about the past the most likely story that can be sustained by the relevant existing evidence. But this is modified by the maximum impact rule - stories must have evocative force, and the reader should actively confront the past. The maximum impact rule may require the historian to sacrifice some completeness and exactness for evocative impact; and there is no parallel to this sacrifice in scientific explanations. History, as it is practiced, is a rule-bound discipline, with rules and a rhetoric different from those of scientific explanation. There is no need for historians to structure their explanations according to the pattern of the sciences.
G. G. S. Murphy and M. G. Mueller, "On Making Historical Techniques More Specific: "Real Types" Constructed with a Computer,’" History and Theory 6, no. 1 (1967), 14-32.
Programming computers to construct "real types," generally descriptive of a class of societies, makes explicit all steps in the thought process of such constructions because unambiguous instructions to, the computer are needed. The historian uses his judgment to choose a data field and variables that may be relevant in forming a type. He then looks for matches; he divides the data field into groups according to one variable and sees if the other variables differ significantly according to these groups. In this process, he may discover new variables of importance. The selection of interesting types from among the matches can be determined only by the pragmatic interest of the historian; analysis of this selection process involves some of the most difficult problems in the study of historical technique. The computer using a "real type" program may be useful as a quick means to scan data.
Isaac Kramnick, "Augustan Politics and English Historiography: The Debate on the English Past, 1730-35,’" History and Theory 6, no. 1 (1967), 33-56.
Bolingbroke, a Tory, adopted Whig history and stressed the ancient constitution and the age-old heritage of Commons and freedom in England in order to show that people were less free under Walpole than they had been in ancient times. Walpole, a Whig, made Brady and Tory history respectable to counter this partisan use of history. Walpole said that Commons developed as a result of feudal obligation; freedom began with the Glorious Revolution and was based on Locke's natural rights as supported by the Whigs. This was a reversal of the Old Whig position that, used the ancient constitution to support the rights of parliament against the claims of the Tory kind. The reversal began when Whig clergy used Tory history to support their position in the Convocation Controversy after 1697. By making Brady's history respectable, Walpole performed a great service to English historiography.
CLASSICS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Wilhelm von Humboldt, "On the Historian's Task,’" History and Theory 6, no. 1 (1967), 57-71.
Humboldt postulates that historiography is the narration of what has happened, yet claims that the historian must have an intuition into ideas and must make use of his sense of humanity. History must give a vision of man's fate in its complete truth and enliven our sense of acting on reality. Claiming that there are hidden determining forces in history, he still stresses the role of free, creative energy. While he rejects final causes in history early in the essay, he returns to the notion at the end: All of the apparent contradictions are resolved in the attempt to reveal truth, the form of history, by the simple narration of events, by applying preexisting general ideas to new and specific cases.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Louis Kampf on Literary History & Literary Criticism: Acta of the Ninth Congress International Federation for Modern Languages & Literature by Leon Edel, Kenneth McKee, and William M. Gibson; Confrontations: Studies in the Intellectual and Literary Relations between Germany, England, and the United States During the Nineteenth Century by Rene Wellek; and The Third Dimension: Studies in Literary History by Robert E. Spiller, History and Theory 6, no. 1 (1967), 72-88.
Paul F. Bourke on Historians against History by David Noble, History and Theory 6, no. 1 (1967), 88-96.
Kurt Kluxen on Pamphlets of the American Revolution 1750-1776. Volume I, 1750-1765 by Bernard Bailyn, History and Theory 6, no. 1 (1967), 96-105.
R. W. Southern on The Letters of Frederic William Maitland by C. H. S. Fifoot, History and Theory 6, no. 1 (1967), 105-111.
Georg G. Iggers on Historisme Als Ideologie. Het 'Onpolitieke' en 'Anti-normatieve' Element in de Duitse Geschiedwetenschap by Maarten Cornelis Brands, History and Theory 6, no. 1 (1967), 112-117.
Christopher Hill on The World We Have Lost by Peter Laslett, History and Theory 6, no. 1 (1967), 117-127.
Frank E. Manuel on Utopia (The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, Volume IV) by Edward Surtz, S. J. Hexter, and J. H. Hexter, History and Theory 6, no. 1 (1967), 127-130.
ARTICLES
Robert C. Stalnaker, "Events, Periods, and Institutions in Historians' Language," History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 159-179.
In the same way that it is possible - by a loosely specified class of more or less well accepted statements - to know the referent of an ordinary proper name, we can understand a name like "the Renaissance." But names of events and periods have an indeterminacy not shared by names of men; with holistic names, the criteria of identity for the kind of thing are fluid, while the analogous criteria for being a man are not. Despite this indeterminacy, the conceptualization of events and periods is useful in historical inquiry, where general statements about events, periods, and institutions can be reconciled with statements about particular facts, and with the evidence. Holistic terms cannot reasonably be prohibited on philosophical grounds; their legitimate use is a problem historians must judge case by case.
M. J. Gefter and V. L. Malkov, "Reply to a Questionnaire on Soviet Historiography," History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 180-207.
Marxism provides regularities needed for a scientific basis for scholarship and completes the search for general meaning and a mechanism in historical change that is the only alternative to skepticism. Social-economic formations, autonomous organisms, show links in the historical chain and lead to a study of revolutions as focal points of change. The direction of history is determined-the potential of a more perfect stage is contained in the imperfect actuality. But the form of change depends crucially on human action and "accident." Marxist laws, like all scientific laws, are based on facts and yet guide selection of problems; there are no neutral unbiased historians; and Marxists strive to serve progress. There are no abstract truths, only concrete truths that embody the reality of the general; the Russian Revolution is an example of a specific form of a general regularity.
William H. Sewell, Jr., "Marc Bloch and the Logic of Comparative History," History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 208-218.
The comparative method can be used to find explanatory relationships between phenomena, to discover the uniqueness of different societies and to formulate historical problems. The same logic is always used; if phenomenon A is said to exist because of the existence of condition B, we look for other social units where A occurs without B. If we find none, confidence in our hypothesis increases. Units of comparison vary not only with the aspect of social life being studied, but also with the experimental hypothesis used for comparison. Units need not be geographical, but may be any social systems. Spatial and temporal proximity of units is helpful, but not necessary. Comparative logic offers only a set of rules for gathering evidence for tests, and hypotheses must be supplied by historical imagination.
REVIEW ESSAYS
T. H. von Laue onn History the Betrayer. A Study in Bias by E. H. Dance and The Historian's Contribution to Anglo-American Misunderstanding. Report of a Committee on National Bias in Anglo-American History Textbooks by R. A. Billington, C. P. Hill, A. J. Johnstone II, C. L. Mowat, and C. F. Mullett, History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 219-230.
Geoffrey Barraclough onn Die Geschichtsphilosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts. Kritischer Abriss. Volume I by I. S. Kon and Die Geschichtsphilosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts. Kritischer Abriss. Volume II: Philosophie und Geschichtsschreibung: Geschichtsphilosophische Fragen der Heutigen Burgerlichen Historiographie by I. S. Kon, History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 231-236.
David Thomson onn Introduction to the Study of History by C. V. Langlois, C. Seignobos, G. G. Berry, F. York Powell and The Historian and Historical Evidence by Allen Johnson, History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 236-241.
Paul L. Ward onn Christianity and History by E. Harris Harbison, History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 241-247.
Charles Tilly onn New Ways in History, History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 247-252.
Theodore R. Marmor onn The Political Economy of Slavery. Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South by Eugene D. Genovese, History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 253-260.
W. M. Simon onn Vernunft und Geschichte. Die Bedeutung der deutschen Akademien für die Entwicklung der Geschichtswissenschaft im späten 18. Jahrhundert by Andreas Kraus, History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 261-264.
George Boas onn History and Truth by Paul Ricoeur and Charles A. Kelbley, History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 265-270.
Rosalie L. Colie onn Opposition to Louis XIV. The Political and Social Origins of the French Enlightenment by Lionel Rothkrug, History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 270-274.
Stanley Humenuk onn Primenenie Vychislitel'nykh Mashin v Istoricheskoi Nauke Dlia Analiza Massovykh Istoricheskikh Istochnikov [The Application of Computers in the Science of History for Analyzing a Multitude of Historical Sources] by Valentin Alekseevich Ustinov, History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 274-286.
Eric Dardel onn Démythisation et Morale. Actes du Colloque organisé par le Centre International des Sciences Humanistes et l'Institut d'Etudes Philosophiques de Rome, History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 286-292.
Sidney Ratner onn The Inner Revolution. Essays on the Social Sciences in History by Thomas C. Cochran, History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967), 293-296.
ARTICLES
Gert Müller, "History as a Rigorous Discipline,'" History and Theory 6, no. 3 (1967), 299-312.
Analytic history is the legitimate successor of philosophy of history. To speak of laws that predict historical succession ("dynamic laws") no longer seems justified. Nonetheless, generally valid statements about "invariances" ("static laws") continue to be necessary conditions of any objective analysis. Historicism has often confused formal methods and material content and thus erroneously denied important generalizations. A close examination of historical action shows the need for rules, or codes, as frameworks for any action. Such rules or codes condition but do not cause, or determine, individual actions. Since these rules are subject to rational scrutiny, they are able to provide an objective understanding of history. Among all conceptual tools, the founding function is the most powerful one. Thus, the vague statement that culture (C) is dependent on society (S) becomes amenable to a strict logical formulation, which culminates in a formula expressing the categories of historical description.
Edward J. Nell, "Economic Relationships in the Decline of Feudalism: An Examination of Economic Interdependence and Social Change,'" History and Theory 6, no. 3 (1967), 313-350.
Eleventh-century Europe was dominated by a single political and economic elite with position based on control of the means of coercion; by the end of the fifteenth. century there were various elites with power based on control of some form of production. Theories based on trade, population, and the class struggle have been advanced to account for this change but are inadequate because they posit causal relationships running from some single independent factor. A different form of explanation emphasizes the network of relationships among economic and political units. Here economic power is crucial. The development of new technology shifted the economic leverage of the nobility to the mer chants, then to town craftsmen, with detailed effects on all other economic relationships. The argument is primarily theoretical, not a reconstruction of events, and a mathematical model is provided.
Kins Collins, "Marx on the English Agricultural Revolution: Theory and Evidence,'" History and Theory 6, no. 3 (1967), 351-381.
Marx claimed that the Agricultural Revolution in eighteenth-century England-as he presented it-is explained by his general theory of history. By this he meant that sentences describing the Revolution are logical consequences of his theory. But according to Popper's theory of falsification, if these statements are false (a possibility Marx never considered), then Marx's theory itself must be false as well. Recent research shows that Marx's statements about the Agricultural Revolution are indeed false, in particular Marx's contention that the enclosure movement drove the yeomen from the countryside and thereby created the urban proletariat. Marx erred because he applied the historical and scientific methods badly: he relied on inadequate sources, was swayed by emotion, immunized statements against disconfirmation, and committed errors of logic.
Georg G. Iggers, "The Decline of the Classical National Tradition of German Historiography,'" History and Theory 6, no. 3 (1967), 382-412.
Since Ranke, German historiography has been dominated by historicism. History defies conceptualism and systematic analysis; it requires empathetic understanding (Verstehen) of the individualities which compose history, a narrative account of the intentions and actions of great individuals and states. Value judgments are to be suspended; military power and foreign policy are stressed. Defeat in World War I had little impact on German historical scholarship. Hintze's attempts at structural analysis and Kehr's efforts to study foreign policy within the framework of domestic history met opposition. Traditional methodological and political assumptions remained important after 1945 in the work of G. Ritter, H. Rothfels, and others; at the same time these assumptions were increasingly questioned by a new generation of historians committed to democratic values who sought to integrate the methods of political science, sociology, and economics with those of history.
Maurice Mandelbaum, "A Note on History as Narrative,'" History and Theory 6, no. 3 (1967), 413-419.
The belief of Gallie, Danto, and others that history is constructing narratives is too simplistic and neglects the role of inquiry and discovery. Teleology in history - only events relevant to a known outcome find a place in a work -while similar to that in narratives is not decisive, since in any explanation the explicandum controls the explicans to some extent. History is not recounting a linear sequence of intelligible human actions but is an analysis of a complex pattern of change into factors that served to make it what it was. Social backgrounds and conditions that are influences but not actually parts of the story of actions are crucial; the fundamental relationship is part to whole, not antecedent to consequent.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Henry M. Pachter onn Grundbegriffe der Geschichte. Fifty Contributions toward a European Conception of History by Emile Lousse, History and Theory 6, no. 3 (1967), 420-430.
Alan Donagan onn Analytical Philosophy of History by Arthur C. Danto, History and Theory 6, no. 3 (1967), 430-435.
Bernard Cazes onn History and Futurology by Ossip K. Flechtheim, History and Theory 6, no. 3 (1967), 436-450.
Marin Pundeff onn Istoriia I Sotsiologiia, History and Theory 6, no. 3 (1967), 450-456.
R. V. Sampson onn The Riddle of History: The Great Speculators from Vico to Freud by Bruce Mazlish, History and Theory 6, no. 3 (1967), 456-464.
O. H. K. Spate onn The Ecological Perspective on Human Affairs by Harold Sprout and Margaret Sprout, History and Theory 6, no. 3 (1967), 464-468.
Bibliography of Works in the Philosophy of History 1962-1965
Bibliography of Signed Works by Elie Halevy
Lewis D. Wurgaft, “Bibliography of Works in the Philosophy of History-1962-1965,” History and Theory, Beiheft 7 (1967), 1-45.
Melvin Richter, “A Bibliography of Signed Works by Elie Halévy,” History and Theory, Beiheft 7 (1967), 46-71.
Cover image: Labors of the month, Salzburger Hs. (818 AD)
