Volume 9
Written By Elizabeth Boyle
ARTICLES
Leon J. Goldstein, "Collingwood's Theory of Historical Knowing," History and Theory 9, no. 1 (1970), 3-36.
Collingwood's well-known dicta about history and its practice are not expressions of a perverse idealism but are rooted in reflection on his own work as historian. The problem which informs his writings on history was to make sense of the discipline of history without opening the way to historical skepticism. The early view of his Speculum Mentis, rooted in an external philosophical stance and not in the actual practice of history, was actually skeptical. In his middle years he regarded history as the science of historical evidence, but this view left obscure the interest of history in the historical past. In his most mature view, as expressed in The Idea of History, Collingwood comes to see how the discipline of history, judged in terms of its own procedures and not by external norms imposed upon it from other sources, is able to make responsible knowledge claims and avoid the threat of skepticism. His well-known views about the historian's re-thinking past thought, the autonomy of history and the historical imagination all play roles to that end, and are entirely reasonable when it is understood what Collingwood intends by them. They are part of his theory of historical knowing, not of historical explanation.
Paul R. Sweet, "The Historical Writing of Heinrich von Srbik," History and Theory 9, no. 1 (1970), 37-58.
Of all Austrian historians of this century, Heinrich von Srbik made the greatest impression upon his contemporaries. Srbik identified himself with the tradition of German idealism, and was the outstanding spokesman for the all-German point of view in the years of resurgent German nationalism. In adopting the view that the German Volk provides the unifying theme for German history, Srbik did not feel he was "politicizing" history, for the tradition of German idealism, as exemplified in Ranke, had demonstrated (he thought) that one could be both scholarly and politically engaged. Srbik's most ambitious work, Deutsche Einheit, placed him in close proximity to the National Socialists even though he tried to distinguish Austrian universalism from imperialism. While he never lost faith in the idealist version of history, Srbik's confidence in national values was shaken by the Nazi experience.
Roger W. Wescott, "The Enumeration of Civilizations," History and Theory 9, no. 1 (1970), 59-85.
In view of the popularity of scholarly books and academic courses on civilization, it is surprising that few scholars have given an explicit enumeration of the civilizations which are described and compared. Enumeration, already accomplished in biology and linguistics, is certainly also possible in history. The first step is to standardize the multifarious terminology used in the classification of civilizations. Nomenclatural harmony would enable comparisons of substance by removing the possibility that problems of wording would lead to conceptual mistakes. The typologies of some historians could be accounted for in terms of a "scale of cultural vitality," but such a schema is too reminiscent of the "Great Chain of Being," which became at best supplementary and at worst superfluous after the advent of Darwinian biology. Instead, a non-genetic hierarchy of five successively contained categories can accommodate all types of civilization.
I. A. F. Bruce, "Theopompus and Classical Greek Historiography," History and Theory 9, no. 1 (1970), 86-109.
Though no substantial part of any of the work of Theopompus has survived, more than four hundred references to him or quotations from him by other ancient authors indicate his importance and offer the possibility of assessing his work. Because Theopompus incorporated most of the earlier varieties of historical research, his work may be called the crowning achievement of classical Greek historiography. His grouping of events by subject, references to geography and ethnography, and encyclopedic range of interest suggest the influence of Herodotus, while his decision to write a contemporary political history owes most to the example of Thucydides. However, by enlarging the traditional view of the world, by adding utopianism and philosophy to mythography, and by introducing moral judgments and instruction to biography, he also became the forerunner of Hellenistic historiography.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Paul F. Bourke on The Comparative Approach to American History by C. Vann Woodward, History and Theory 9, no. 1 (1970), 110-116.
Maarten C. Brands on Op het Breukvlak van Twee Eeuwen by Jan Romein, History and Theory 9, no. 1 (1970), 116-121.
Benjamin G. Kohl on From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni. Studies in Humanistic and Political Literature by Hans Baron, History and Theory 9, no. 1 (1970), 121-127.
Morse Peckham on Music, the Arts, and Ideas. Patterns and Predictions in Twentieth-Century Culture by Leonard B. Meyer, History and Theory 9, no. 1 (1970), 121-127.
ARTICLES
Arnaldo Momigliano, "J. G. Droysen between Greeks and Jews," History and Theory 9, no. 2 (1970), 139-153.
J. C. Droysen was the first to use the term "Hellenism" to designate the civilization of the Greek-speaking world after Alexander, and much of the confusion over what the term is intended to signify derives from Droysen's own difficulty in relating the political to. the cultural aspects of that period. Droysen defined Hellenism as that stage in the evolution of paganism which led from classical Greece to Christianity. The most convincing explanation for Droysen's abandonment of cultural history is that his close personal ties with Jewish converts to, Christianity made the problem of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity taboo. When Droysen started his History of Hellenism, the emphasis was on the encounter of Greek and non-Jewish Orientals; but after the work of the TUbingen school, it was impossible to talk seriously about the origins of Christianity without a prolonged study of the' Jewish background.
Haskell Fain, "History as Science," History and Theory 9, no. 2 (1970), 154-173.
Previous criteria of narrative coherence have failed to come to terms with narrative intelligibility. The principle of chronology is only a negative criterion. The one entity-one story criterion, which requires every episode to~ refer to one and the same entity, fails both in its positive and negative forms. The Aristotelian concept of necessary connection is useless for historians because there are no natural beginnings or endings in history. Yet genetic relationships in narrative, though they cannot be reduced to causal or probabilistic relationships, do give coherences. History becomes science when historians transform stories into histories by seeking the mechanisms which underlie the genetic relationships between historical incidents. The construction of history in narrative form does not, therefore, cut the historian off from science, as positivists contend.
Donald R. Kelley, "The Rise of Legal History in the Renaissance," History and Theory 9, no. 2 (1970), 174-194.
While the study of legal history grew up largely within the confines of the legal profession, it was equally the offspring of Renaissance humanism. Legal humanism, a branch of philology developed by lawyers rather than historians, laid the foundation for the study of legal, institutional, and even some social history. These lawyers based their work on the humanist method of critical reading of original sources, but soon realized that a truly historical view of law also required a systematic understanding of jurisprudence. Their method led them to explore canon and feudal as well as Roman law. Although the legal humanists had no intention of allowing the science of law to be governed by the liberal arts, they did professionalize the study of legal history and thus reshaped historical scholarship in general. This experience demonstrates the importance of interdisciplinary work in history.
Ruth Finnegan, "A Note on Oral Tradition and Historical Evidence," History and Theory 9, no. 2 (1970), 195-201.
The assumption that "oral tradition" is unitary and somehow impervious to influences which historians consider when analyzing written sources is mistaken. Oral tradition falls into three broad categories - formalized oral literature, informal historical knowledge, and personal recollections - and each has its own particular dangers or limitations. Critical assessment is even more important for oral sources than for written ones because, as shown by a number of African examples, oral sources are less permanent and more dependent on the performer, audience, and social situation.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Philip Pomper on Gandhi's Truth by Erik H. Erikson, History and Theory 9, no. 2 (1970), 202-209.
W. von Leyden on Time in Greek Tragedy by Jacqueline de Romilly, History and Theory 9, no. 2 (1970), 209-229.
Cushing Strout on The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington by Richard Hofstadter, History and Theory 9, no. 2 (1970), 230-236.
Henry R. Winkler on English Historians on the French Revolution by Hedva Ben-Israel, History and Theory 9, no. 2 (1970), 236-241.
ARTICLES
Robert William Fogel, "Historiography and Retrospective Econometrics,'" History and Theory 9, no. 3 (1970), 245-264.
In the past ten years, econometric history has changed from a novelty into the predominant form of research in American econometric history. Cliometricians have not introduced mathematics into economic history, but have made explicit the implicit mathematics which has always been embedded in the discipline. Rather than narrowing the range of issues treated by economic historians, econometric research has raised substantial challenges to such classic issues as the profitability of the slave economy of the ante-bellum South and the developmental impact of transportation improvements. Though some are alarmed at the prevalence of counterfactual conditional statements in this new approach, to ban such judgments would transform history into mere chronology. Furthermore, verifying the typical counterfactual poses no special epistemological problems. The only real problem with counterfactuals is determining the correct descriptive equation.
Frederick A. Olafson, "Narrative History and the Concept of Action,'" History and Theory 9, no. 3 (1970), 265-289.
Danto and White, alone among philosophers who emphasize the narrative structure of historical writing, attempt to reconcile historical narrative with the regularity theory of explanation. Their efforts fail because neither realizes that the concept of intentional action lies at the root of historical understanding. Danto's insistence that historical events can under some description be subsumed under universal causal laws forces him to disallow and thus to sacrifice the integrity of explanations that are intelligible to the historical agents themselves. White does not see that "action" not "thought" or "underlying condition," may be "the decisive cause" of an event. Though the attempt to square historical narrative with the regularity theory is not doomed from the start, it has no chance of success until the concept of action, now being intensively analyzed by philosophers, is better understood.
J. L. Herkless, "Meinecke and the Ranke-Burckhardt Problem,'" History and Theory 9, no. 3 (1970), 290-321.
At various times in his career Meinecke discussed the differences between Ranke and Burckhardt regarding their ideas about such things as mass democracy, the nation state and its power, and the importance of material development. But his assessment of the fundamental difference underlying these particular differences changed. By 1948 he concluded that it lay in two opposing views of the world and of history implicit in nineteenth-century German idealist philosophy. One view, represented by Ranke, maintains that the world and humanity have a rational sense which manifests itself objectively in institutions like the state. The other, the subjective view, represented by Burckhardt, is an "idealism of freedom" (Dilthey), which seeks to preserve individuality from an irrational and hostile external world. By this excessive intellectualization, Meinecke really obscured the fundamental similarity between Ranke and Burckhardt.
Martin Siegel, "Henri Berr's Revue de Synthèse Historique,'" History and Theory 9, no. 3 (1970), 322-334.
During the two decades preceding 1914, French academic historians were confident in the maturity of the historical craft. The academic philosophers at Paris, however, felt that French historiography suffered from the general trend toward specialization of knowledge. They argued that only a partnership between science and philosophy could combat this trend and lead to the "Synthetic Stage," the "truly progressive" stage of scientific work. Earlier "philosophers of history" were correct in their efforts to create laws and systems, but were unscientific because they resorted to metaphysics and a priorism. History could correct this flaw and make the synthetic stage possible. Henri Berr and his Revue de Synthèse Historique became the spokesmen for these philosophers. Despite the initial hostility of many scholars, Henri Berr and his journal became influential and along with Bloch and Febvre played a role in the development of the modern French historical school.
Chester McArthur Destler, "The Crocean Origin of Becker's Historical Relativism,'" History and Theory 9, no. 3 (1970), 335-342.
Though students of Becker's thought have asserted that his relativism was independently derived from the influence of pragmatism, they have not specifically identified these pragmatist sources. It appears that Becker derived his views from Benedetto Croce, although he did not acknowledge this source; there are seven substantial identities between Croce's and Becker's theories of historical relativism. In fact, Becker's earliest statement of his position.is so similar to Croce's previously published Estetica that Becker can be accused of ideological plagiarism.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Hayden White on Idealism, Politics and History. Sources of Hegelian Thought. (Cambridge Studies in the History and Theory of Politics) by George Armstrong Kelly, History and Theory 9, no. 3 (1970), 343-363.
Alan Donagan on Mind, History, and Dialectic. The Philosophy of R. G. Collingwood by R. G. Collingwood and Louis O. Mink, History and Theory 9, no. 3 (1970), 363-375.
Frederic L. Holmes on The Concept of Equilibrium in American Social Thought by Cynthia Eagle Russett, History and Theory 9, no. 3 (1970), 375-390.
David A. Hollinger on Pastmasters: Some Essays on American Historians by Marcus Cunliffe and Robin W. Winks, History and Theory 9, no. 3 (1970), 390-397.
Leonard B. Meyer on In Search of Cultural History by E. H. Gombrich, History and Theory 9, no. 3 (1970), 397-399.
Bibliography of Works in the Philosophy of History, 1966-1968
COMPILED BY LEWIS D. WURGAFT AND OTHERS
“Bibliography of Works in the Philosophy of History, 1966-1968,” History and Theory, Beiheft 10 (1970), 1-46.
“1965: Addenda. A Supplement to Bibliography of Works in the Philosophy of History, 1962-1965,” History and Theory, Beiheft 10 (1970), 46-52.
Cover image: Aerial photo of the Great Barrier Reef, by USGS (23 January 2020)
