Volume 7
Written By Elizabeth Boyle
ARTICLES
Louis O. Mink, "Collingwood's Dialectic of History,’" History and Theory 7, no. 1 (1968), 3-37.
Collingwood shows that history is the science of mind that gives selfknowledge by asking how historical knowledge is possible. Critics claim he over-intellectualizes the subject matter of history and the historian's process of thinking. The dialectical theory of mind, the theory of absolute presuppositions, and the logic of question and answer-all developed in Collingwood's works other than The Idea of History-show these objections to be mistaken. In his theory of mind, the "thought" reenacted by historians includes feelings, desires, perceptions, and imagination. History differs from current practice, and counter-examples from what are chronicles, not history, do not discredit Collingwood's theories. History provides necessary and complete answers only to specific questions as they reflect a set of absolute presuppositions (a priori conceptual systems); it is re-enactment, not representation, of the past.
Rudolph H. Weingartner, "Some Philosophic Comments on Cultural History,’" History and Theory 7, no. 1 (1968), 38-59.
Philosophic reflection should consider more and different kinds of historical writing than it generally has; the logical features of cultural and intellectual history are important. Certain highly selected features of products of human activities-not individuals or actions-are the subject matter of typical instances of intellectual history; and these features are singled out by the historian's abstracting imagination. In the "stories" which such historians tell, not only are events placed in sequential order, but the relation of reasons to products are traced above all in such a way as to show how some later result is composed of various earlier components. Causality is not the central unifying theme; tracing the relations that hold among the features of various human products is worthwhile even where knowledge of causes remains obscure.
W. Den Boer, "Graeco-Roman Historiography in Its Relation to Biblical and Modern Thinking,’" History and Theory 7, no. 1 (1968), 60-75.
For ancient man, including the Graeco-Romans, every moment was a revelation of divine workings in time; archetypes of life in mythical representation had general validity as ways of consciously taking cognizance of the past. Reliable myths which qua talis were experienced became history. Thucydides dismissed pseudo-myths told only to hold the interest of listeners, but retained myths that placed events in broader frameworks to solve the riddle of history. His history claimed eternal validity as an account of the struggle for power in all- ages. Greek historians saw repetition of identical patterns in history. The Jews saw history as realization of God's revealed plan for the future. The Jewish-Christian historians gave "witness" to this plan, while the Greek was a creator who gave "accounts" by placing events in broader frameworks.
Stanley Paluch, "The Specificity of Historical Language,’" History and Theory 7, no. 1 (1968), 76-82.
Morton White shows that history has essential terms whose replacement in statements may change the truth value of the statements. But White's reduction of historical statements fails to make clear that there are terms specific to history (i.e., terms used first in history, not borrowed from another discipline it presupposes), although in a weak sense, since other disciplines can use the terms without borrowing from history. History is not the last of the sciences-strong in borrowed concepts but weak in independent theory-since a great deal of history is unlike natural sciences that have specific technical vocabularies. History applies natural language and common-sense concepts to past actions; it has moral and aesthetic dimensions.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Kenneth E. Boulding on The Dynamics of Modernization. A Study in Comparative History by C. E. Black, History and Theory 7, no. 1 (1968), 83-90.
William H. Halewood on Mannerism: The Crisis of the Renaissance and the Origin of Modern Art by Arnold Hauser and Eric Mosbacher, History and Theory 7, no. 1 (1968), 90-102.
Richard T. Vann on The Revolution of the Saints. A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics by Michael Walzer, History and Theory 7, no. 1 (1968), 102-114.
Klaus Epstein on Walter Frank Und Sein Reichsinstitut für Geschichte des Neuen Deutschland by Helmut Heiber, History and Theory 7, no. 1 (1968), 114-139.
Denys Hay on The Vision of History in Early Britain. From Gildas to Geoffrey of Monmouth by Robert W. Hanning, History and Theory 7, no. 1 (1968), 139-144.
Charles T. Wood on Memoirs of My Life by Edward Gibbon and Georges A. Bonnard; Edward Gibbon the Historian by Joseph Ward Swain; The Transformation of the Roman World: Gibbon's Problem after Two Centuries by Lynn White, Jr., History and Theory 7, no. 1 (1968), 155-151.
George Huppert on The Life and Works of Louis Le Roy by Werner L. Gundersheimer, History and Theory 7, no. 1 (1968), 151-158.
Wolfgang J. Mommsen on Logik der Sozialwissenschaften by Ernst Topitsch, History and Theory 7, no. 1 (1968), 158-164.
ARTICLES
Paul J. Dietl, "Deduction and Historical Explanation," History and Theory 7, no. 2 (1968), 167-188.
Neither strict deduction nor high expectability is a necessary condition for historical explanation. Explanations that separate history from mere narrative are necessary, but deduction from causes is not a priori the only source. Explanations in terms of reasons, emotions, and motives of actors are essential and are satisfactory when an agent's reason for an action is made convincing and believable. The principle of action must make evident the appeal of some human good in the action with which we can empathize or which is rationally understandable; there is an intimate connection between historical explanation and moral evaluation. The alternative account of historical explanation sacrifices the simplicity of the deductive model but gains several advantages in exchange, including greater descriptive fidelity to actual historical explanations.
David A. Hollinger, "Perry Miller and Philosophical History," History and Theory 7, no. 2 (1968), 189-202.
Miller's formulation of problems was controlled by tensions between conscious" and "mechanical" and between "understanding" and "mystery." The mechanical world, devoid of morality and purpose, was incompatible with conscious beauty and ethics; within the "conscious" the optimistic drive for knowledge about an intelligible universe conflicted with belief in an unknowable, awful universe. Miller's history was also informed by his sense of development: history proceeds in a continuing series of interactions between inherited cultural forms, and immediate environmental circumstances. Culture is never merely the "product" of environment, but an active agent in the interaction. The search for "historical knowledge" itself proceeds on the terms of this interaction. Here Miller rejected both positivism and the capricious relativism of Becker for the harder relativism subsequently articulated by Kuhn and Toulmin: "forms" are neither wholly arbitrary nor entirely discovered in "the facts," but are instead the inheritance and creation of the historian, altered and confirmed by his experience.
C. J. Arthur, "On the Historical Understanding," History and Theory 7, no. 2 (1968), 203-216.
Gallie contends that historical narrative differs from the generalizing natural sciences and can be understood with peculiar directness. In following a story through contingent events to its conclusion, explicit explanation is needed only rarely. But although history is in some sense a narrative, Gallie fails to see that a story can be followed only if one has a fund of generalizations. Judgment about acceptable contingencies rests on prior appreciation of a framework of generalized expectations that are not falsified by particular incidents. Contingencies are unique only because they are counter to. this framework - which serves to limit outcomes and the possible role of contingent happenings, not for deducing events. History is not entirely like art; we are interested in the connections of events, not only in the outcome of a story.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. on American Intellectual History and Historians by Robert Allen Skotheim, History and Theory 7, no. 2 (1968), 217-224.
Edward J. Nell on Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science by Carl G. Hempel, History and Theory 7, no. 2 (1968), 224-240.
Rudolph H. Weingartner on Foundations of Historical Knowledge by Morton White, History and Theory 7, no. 2 (1968), 240-256.
David Lowenthal on Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore, Jr. , History and Theory 7, no. 2 (1968), 257-278.
ARTICLES
Cushing Strout, "Ego Psychology and the Historian,'" History and Theory 7, no. 3 (1968), 281-297.
Ego psychology, more existential than scientific in tone, has made psychoanalytic theory more congenial to historical studies, especially when they deal with creative and conflicted leaders. Erikson's concept of the identity crisis points to the intersection of family-centered conflicts with social and cultural history. It also orients the historian to the reanimation of problems in earlier stages of the life-cycle, the importance of work to identity formation, and the neurotic function of over-identification with a troublesome parent. Phenomenologically descriptive rather than causally explanatory, psycho-biography mediates between Freud's naturalism and Collingwood's idealism by relating conscious and unconscious purposes. It establishes congruences and resonances, helping to explain in narrative form the meaning, timing, and urgency of a leader's characteristic ideas.
Douglas J. Stewart, "Sallust and Fortuna,'" History and Theory 7, no. 3 (1968), 298-317.
Sallust used Fortuna to give his story specialized political meaning and to incorporate materials and judgments that extend the purview of his narrative to all of Roman history. Fortuna is a configuration of events that appears at certain moments in a state's existence and presents demands for careful application of intelligence, virtus, animus or ingenium, if things are to proceed well and a new era is to begin (e.g., Marcus Cato and Gaius Caesar). If virtus is not present, fortuna rages and destroys (as with Catiline). Admirable men seek gloria through virtus, but also require an historian to reconstruct actions. Fortuna offers men of leisure the opportunity to apply intelligence to a course of events and to write and therefore to create history in a secondary but more lasting sense.
Romila Thapar, "Interpretations of Ancient Indian History,'" History and Theory 7, no. 3 (1968), 318-335.
Nineteenth-century Orientalists stressed other-worldly, unchanging qualities in ancient India and accepted almost unquestioningly the Sanskrit tradition. James Mill condemned village societies and despotic rulers, and formulated the Hindu, Muslim, and British periodization. of Indian history. Nationalist historians of the 1920s accepted and glorified the Sanskritic tradition and gave primacy to political and dynastic history. However, by raising controversy they created the need for more precise historical writing relating to social history, economic organization of land and commerce, and local history. The precise nature of social relations, political power, and economic organization are now the concerns, and old assumptions about a static and homogeneous Indian society and about Mill's periodization are being rejected.
Jurgen Herbst, "Theoretical Work in History in American University Curricula,'" History and Theory 7, no. 3 (1968), 336-354.
Theoretical courses are offered by nearly ninety percent of universities and colleges; ninety percent of schools offering courses have courses in history departments, forty percent in philosophy departments. Theoretical work is largely the province of graduate departments in large public universities. More than half the courses offer vaguely defined mixtures of historiography, philosophy and methodology, and more eclectic courses are the most favored. Support of theoretical courses by history departments is high, but one-fifth of departments have complaints about vague subject matter. Philosophy departments offer occasional lecturediscussion courses, usually the responsibility of one member; they are less controversial but regarded by departments as less central. Theses in theoretical work are rare.
REVIEW ESSAYS
M. I. Finley on Terzo Contributo Alla Storia Degli Studi Classici e del Mondo Antico by Arnaldo Momigliano, History and Theory 7, no. 3 (1968), 355-367.
Louis Bergeron on Les Paysans de Languedoc by Emmanuel Le Roy-Ladurie, History and Theory 7, no. 3 (1968), 367-376.
C. A. O. van Nieuwenhuijze on The Economic History of the Middle East, 1800-1914 by Charles Issawi, History and Theory 7, no. 3 (1968), 377-384.
David Levin on A Loss of Mastery: Puritan Historians in Colonial America (The Jefferson Memorial Lectures) by Peter Gay, History and Theory 7, no. 3 (1968), 385-393.
David Jordan on Un Historien à l'École de Port-Royal: Sébastien LeNain de Tillemont, 1637-1698 by Bruno Neveu, History and Theory 7, no. 3 (1968), 394-403.
On Method in the History of Religions
J. S. H., “Introduction,” History and Theory, Beiheft 8 (1968), 1-7.
The history of religions is grounded in a hermeneutic situation, an interpretative framework that establishes possibilities of creative analysis. The situation of historians of religions often fails to permit an alien world of meaning to retain its integrity because the scholars' ultimate values are threatened. Methodological solipsism - the requirement that descriptions rest on the researcher's own observations - is common. Otto, van der Leeuw, Eliade, and Zaehner are examples of men whose conclusions are too clearly functions of what they assume to be limits of understanding; ultimacy situates scholarship and determines it.
Morton Smith, “Historical Method in the Study of Religion,” History and Theory, Beiheft 8 (1968), 8-16.
History can determine neither the origin nor the nature of religion, but it can provide individual histories of individual religions among civilized peoples (with generalizations about patterns perhaps possible later). It can examine the content of the evidence, investigate the background and then interpret and judge reliability. Atheism-the belief that the gods never intervene in the world-is methodologically necessary, for history must try to find the most probable explanation, and this will always be some set of natural causes. Sympathy with the subjects is necessary, but objectivity must be maintained and historical explanation must reckon with the possibility- indeed, the likelihood-of fraud.
Robert D. Baird, “Interpretative Categories and the History of Religions,” History and Theory, Beiheft 8 (1968), 17-30.
The history of religions is divided into phenomenological and historical branches: the former has no definite interpretative categories but the latter does, namely the "religions" - Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and others. But the "religions" are misleading and preclude understanding, for these categories were imposed before historical research and are neither historical nor religious. A definition of religion is needed to. begin, and Tillich's suggestion - religion is ultimate concern -is functional, enables us to identify what we are looking for, and is non-judgmental. The "religions," on the other hand ' imply an essence of each religion and preclude the examination of the religious experience of each individual in his own terms. The historical study of religion should be undertaken according to areas, not "religions," and the final step should be determination of the "types" of concern-the task of phenomenology.
Jacob Neusner, “Judaism in the History of Religions,” History and Theory, Beiheft 8 (1968), 31-45.
Jewish studies comprehend history, theology, law, and practices. It is analogous to an area study; experts in different fields are necessary. Specialists in Jewish history are useful in a history department but must have expertise in a particular time or place. Judaism can be a significant subject for the phenomenology and morphology of religions. Theological concern about the validity of a part of the Judaeo-Christian heritage can be suspended, and Judaism subjected to the sort of study of structures appropriate to Oriental religions. Examination of the transmutation of religion in modern times is especially appropriate. A loss of engagement of feeling is possible today. Non-Jews can study the religion and can depend to a certain extent on translations. Appropriate methods and issues for a study of Judaism must be determined.
Hans H. Penner, “Myth and Ritual: A Wasteland or a Forest of Symbols?” History and Theory, Beiheft 8 (1968), 46-57.
Anthropology is unabashedly reductionist, seeks "expianations" for ritual, and uses psychology and sociology; the historian of religions seeks understanding" of myths without reduction. Anthropological work is based on Taylor, Spencer, and Frazier and stresses the function of myth for social solidarity, unity of society and the psyche, or as symbolic expression of social relations. But functionalism fails to explain myths since social solidarity is an unintended consequence of myths. History of religions sees myths as encounters with Ultimate Reality. Symbols serve as a framework for rational thought and provide coherent unity to the world. But myths are described as symbols of symbols that refer to the sacred and get lost without a reference. Both methods reject or suspend the cognitive content of myth, and the referent of symbolic myth remains the problem of both disciplines.
Cover image: Plaster cast bust of Thucydides, photo by Shakko on Wikimedia Commons (uploaded 2008)
