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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
The historical literature of the past two centuries testifies to disputes about what historical knowledge is and the relationship of the historian to it. The disputes have been fierce enough for each side to declare that any position other than its own is untenable. It would be futile to try to convince those who so staunchly defend their own ground that the other side might have a legitimate contribution to make. Yet, it might be worthwhile to classify the positions so as to focus the arguments on legitimate issues, and, in some measure, to begin to resolve them.
1 Most Western treatments of the historical discipline in the Soviet Union deal with historiographical problems. For a brief survey of the background of historical writing in the Soviet Union, see Cyril E. Black, "History and Politics in the Soviet Union," Rewriting Russian History, ed. by Cyril E. Black, New York, 1962, pp. 3-33. For more detailed accounts of developments in the 1950's and early 1960's, see Merle Fainsod, "Historiography and Change," in Contemporary History in the Soviet Mirror, ed. by John Keep and Liliana Brisby, New York/London, [1964] pp. 19-42 and S. V. Utechin, "Soviet Historiography after Stalin," in ibid., pp. 117-129. Two articles that do touch upon aspects of the discussion of historical theory are: Arthur P. Mendel, "Current Soviet Theory of History: New Trends or Old?" American Historical Review, vol. 77, 1966, pp. 50-73 and James P. Scanlan, "From Historical Materialism to Historical Interactionism: A Philosophical Examination of Some Recent Developments," in Windows on the Russian Past, ed. by Samuel Baron and Nancy Heer, Columbus, 1977, pp. 3-23.
2 Harriet Gilliam, "The Dialectics of Realism and Idealism in Modem Historio graphic Theory," History and Theory, vol. 15, 1976, p. 233, fn. 6.
3 Historical study, whether idealist or materialist, has concentrated on past politics. For example, the traditional idealist model for the causes of the French Revolution emphasized the impact in the political realm of ideas of the Enlightenment philosophes. This model was replaced by a class-struggle model that empha sized the political aspirations of the bourgeoisie, which had already arrived economi cally. These models are now giving way to less simplistic notions. See William Doyle, Origins of the French Revolution, Oxford, 1980, pp. 7-40. In the idealist tradition Darnton focuses on the impact of the "Grub Street writers." See Robert Darnton, "The High Enlightenment and the Low Life of Literature in Pre-Revolutionary France," Past and Present, vol. 51, 1971, pp. 81-115 (reprinted in French Society and the Revolution, ed. by Douglas Johnson, Cambridge, 1976, pp. 53-87. In social terms, Mousnier argues that during the French Revolution the society of privilege was replaced by a class society. Roland Mousnier, Social Hierarchies: 1450 to the Present, London, 1973, pp. 127-138.
4 For a discussion of "the idealist conception of history" and its relationship to historical materialism, see B. A. Haddock, An Introduction to Historical Thought, London, 1980, pp. 106-134. See also Alban G. Widgery's chapter, "Idealist Treat ments of History in the Nineteenth Century and After," in his Interpretations of History: Confucius to Toynbee, London, 1961, pp. 178-202. Widgery groups Marx ism with "naturalist treatments," ibid., pp. 203-230.
5 See, e.g., William H. Dray, Philosophy of History, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1964, pp. 23-24.
6 See, e.g., Morton White, Foundations of Historical Knowledge, New York, 1965, p. 3.
7 For discussions of "relativism," see Maurice Mandelbaum, The Problem of Historical Knowledge, New York, 1938, pp. 17-37, and Dray, Philosophy of History, pp. 21-23.
8 J. H. Hexter, "The Historian and His Day," Political Science Quarterly, vol. 69, 1954, pp. 219-220; reprinted in J. H. Hexter, Reappraisals in History: New Views on History and Science in Early Modern Europe, New York, 1961, pp. 1-13.
9 Jack Meiland, Scepticism and Historical Knowledge, New York, 1965, pp. 3-4.
10 Leon J. Goldstein, Historical Knowing, Austin, Texas, 1976, pp. 67-82.
11 Gilliam, "The Dialectics," p. 232. Postan gibed historians for their "philoso phical absent-mindedness" in that they "find it only too easy to avow their allegiance to philosophical idealism, while conducting their own studies on the simplest realist assumptions." Michael Postan, "Fact and Relevance in Historical Study," Historical Study, vol. 13, 1968, p. 411, reprinted in Michael Postan, Fact and Relevance in Historical Study, Cambridge, 1971, pp. 48-64. Postan uses these terms in the same sense as Gilliam.
12 For a discussion of "the discovery of activist elements that are placed in knowledge" (Entdeckung des aktiven Elements, das im Erkennen steckt), see Karl Mannheim, "Wissenssoziologie," Handwörterbuch der Soziologie, ed. by Alfred Vierkandt, Stuttgart, 1931, pp. 671-672. A typical contemplator would be the French historian who declared "It is not me who is speaking; it is history speaking through me."
13 See Ihor Sevcenko, "Two Varieties of Historical Writing," History and Theory, vol. 8, 1969, pp. 342-345.
14 I share Professor Gilliam's awareness that "very few theorists [if any] exemplify precisely all the components" of ideal models. (Gilliam, "The Dialectic," p. 233). She herself explains very well why this is so (ibid., p. 232). Historians, being human after all, are often contradictory in their statements and have eclectic philosophies.
15 As Michael Postan pointed out, "In keeping with the traditional unself consciousness of their profession, most historians prefer to be unaware of their epistemology." Postan, "Fact and Relevance," p. 411. While mechanical application of theory would be horrendous, some awareness of epistemology might be beneficial. On some of the consequences that result from the preference for ignorance, see Ch. V. Langlois and Ch. Seignobos, Introduction aux études historiques, 5th ed., Paris, 1897, pp. [67-69]; Harold N. Lee, "Theoretic Knowledge and Hypothesis," Psycho logical Review, vol. 57, 1950, p. 31; and David Hackett Fischer, Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought, New York, 1970, p. xii.
16 I am aware of Heussi's warning about the term "historieism": "Such confusion prevails in its use that no one should apply it without saying exactly what he understands by it." Karl Heussi, Die Krisis des Historismus, Tübingen, 1932, p. 15. This confusion has been aggravated by Popper's bandying of the term. K. R. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, London 1957. Carr's claim that "Professor Popper's widely read writings on the subject have emptied the term of precise meaning" is a bit overstated, since the term was not used precisely even before Popper. See E. H. Carr, What Is History? New York, 1962, p. 119, fn. 8. Hayden White may have provided the key to what Popper was really attacking in his book when he stated that it "consists of little more than a sustained indictment of Mechanistic and Organic modes of explanation in historical thought." Hayden White, Metahistory. The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Baltimore, 1973, p. 20. See also Dwight E. Lee and Robert N. Beck, "The Meaning of ‘Historicism,' " American Historical Review, vol. 59, 1954, pp. 568-577; and Georg G. Iggers, "Historicism", Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, 4 vols. and Index, New York, 1973-1974, ed. by Philip P. Wiener, vol. 2, pp. 457-464. Here I will be using James Feibleman's definition of historicism: "The view that the history of anything is a sufficient explanation of it, that the values of anything can be accounted for through the discovery of its origins, that the nature of anything is entirely comprehended in its development." J.K.F. "Historicism," Dictionary of Philosophy, ed. by Dagobert D. Runes, New York, 1942, p. 127.
17 Leopold von Ranke, Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1514, [1824] 3rd ed., Leipzig, 1885, p. vii.
18 von Ranke, Geschichten, p. viii.
19 von Ranke, Geschichten, p. vii.
20 von Ranke, Geschichten, p. vii.
21 Henry Thomas Buckle, History of Civilization in England, 2 vols., London, 1857-61, vol. 1, p. 3.
22 Buckle, History, p. 6.
23 Wilhelm Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, 12 vols., Stuttgart, 1957-60, vol. 7, p. 213. For a distinction between Dilthey's use of "der objektive Geist" and Hegel's use of it, see H. A. Hodges, Wilhelm Dilthey: An Introduction, London, 1944, pp. 30-31.
24 Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 4, p. 250.
25 Dilthey, Gesammelte Schrifien, vol. 7, p. 138.
26 Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 7, p. 309.
27 The first part of this statement is reminiscent of Descartes' "clear and distinct idea," while the second part is reminiscent of Georgias of Leontini's third proposi tion : even if we were able to know anything, we would not be able to communicate it to anyone.
28 Benedetto Croce, Primi saggi, Bari, 1919, p. 21-24. See also Atti della Accademia Pontaniano, 1893, 1894.
29 Benedetto Croce, Teoria e storia della storiografia, Bari, 1917, p. 3.
30 Croce, Teoria e storia della storiografia, p. 5.
31 R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, Oxford, 1946, pp. 282-302. It has been suggested that, as of his writing the Essay on Metaphysics (1940), Collingwood had adopted "a liberal form of historical materialism." See Stephen Toulmin, "Conceptual Change and the Problem of Relativity," Critical Essays on the Philo sophy ofR. G. Collingwood, ed. by Michael Krausz, Oxford, 1972, p. 219. If so, this transition from idealism postdates his writing the essays contained in The Idea of History (1936-1939).
32 Collingwood, The Idea of History, pp. 282-283.
33 Collingwood, The Idea of History, p. 214. For a thought-provoking essay that attempts to put Collingwood's views on history in the context of his general philosophical views, see Louis O. Mink, "Collingwood's Historicism: a Dialectic of Process," Critical Essays, pp. 154-178.
34 Collingwood, The Idea of History, p. 115, where he explains Hegel's concept in the same terms as his own. For a comparison of Collingwood's views with those of Dilthey, see Hodges, The Philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey, pp. 317-360.
35 Dray raised this same question. See V.H. Dray, "Historical Understanding as Rethinking," University of Toronto Quarterly, vol. 27, 1958, p. 209. See the more serious objection in Fischer, Historians' Fallacies, pp. 196-197. Donagan, in at tempting to defend Collingwood from the charge of propounding intuitionism, compared his work as a historian with his philosophical views, and found that verification occurred "only after repeated imaginative reconstructions, successively corrected in the light of evidence, have resulted in a conclusive demonstration." Alan Donagan, "The Verification of Historical Theses," The Philosophical Quarter ly, vol. 6, 1956, p. 199. Goldstein, like Donagan, examines Collingwood's historical practice in light of his philosophy, but Goldstein rejects Donagan's view that Collingwood was saying the historian must use re-thinking to explain past actions. Leon J. Goldstein, "Collingwood on the Constitution of the Historical Past," in Critical Essays, pp. 254-267. Elton implicitly rejects Goldstein's and Donagan's findings by arguing that it is not possible to analyze… [Collingwood's] history in terms of …[his] philosophy: it is just ordinary sound history." G.R. Elton, The Practice of History, New York, 1967, p. 58. If Donagan is right that Collingwood's practice explains his theory, then we are no closer to explaining "ordinary sound history" than we were before, because of the very need to dip into Collingwood's practice to explain what he might have meant.
36 Carl L. Becker, "What Are Historical Facts?" Western Political Quaterly, vol. 8, 1955, p. 330; reprinted in The Philosophy of History in Our Time: An Anthology, ed. by Hans Meyerhoff, Garden City, New York, 1959, pp. 120-137.
37 While the influence of Croce on Becker is not in doubt (see Becker's own acknowledgment of it in "Books That Changed Our Minds," New Republic, vol. 97, 1938, p. 135), there has been some question about when and how it occurred. See Charles McArthur Destler, "The Crocean Origins of Becker's Historical Relativ ism," History and Theory, vol. 9, 1970, pp. 335-342 and Hayden V. White, "Croce and Becker: A Note on the Evidence of Influence," History and Theory, vol. 10, 1971, pp. 222-227.
38 Becker, "What Are Historical Facts?" p. 332.
39 Becker, "What Are Historical Facts?" p. 339.
40 E.H. Carr, What Is History? p. 7. Carr has been criticized for making this distinction. Goldstein takes aim at Carr's use of success as a criterion of history by contending that the distinction is "intended to serve the purposes of a tendentious conception of history according to which only those are historical facts which lead to what he takes the outcome of history to be." Goldstein, Historical Knowing, p. 221, fn. 9. Lukacs argues that "Carr was circling the circle by speaking of two kinds of facts, historical ones and nonhistorical ones," that there is no criterion by which to distinguish the two, and that "the problem which we face is what is a fact, not merely what is a historical fact…" John Lukacs, Historical Consciousness, p. 102. Croce had previously criticized Hegel for making a "pernicious distinction between two kinds of facts, between historical facts and non-historical facts, essential facts and unessential facts…" Whereas Hegel, in Croce's view, considered those facts historical that "represent the movement of spirit or the history of the State," both Becker and Carr placed more emphasis on the historian as the determiner of the historical fact. See Benedetto Croce, What Is Living and What Is Dead of the Philosophy of Hegel, London, 1915, pp. 145-146. Nonetheless, it may be useful to maintain a distinction between the events and facts, or at least what the historian thinks the facts are.
41 Carr, What Is History? p. 9: "The fact that you arrived in this building half an hour ago on foot, or on a bicycle, or in a car, is just as much a fact about the past as the fact that Caesar crossed the Rubicon."
42 Carr, What Is History? p. 10. Carr refers to "membership of the select club of historical facts." Carr's views on what history is bear a striking resemblance to Terry Eagleton's description of the school of literary criticism associated with the English journal Scrutiny. For the Scrutineers, as well as T.S. Eliot, a piece of literature was accepted into the elite club of Literature by Tradition. See Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction, Minneapolis, 1983, pp. 30-48.
43 Carr, What Is History? p. 26. The image of fish standing for membership in a select club is due to a particularly infelicitous choice of phrasing. A view similar to Carr's was expressed by Marrou at about the same time: "des ‘faits' à l'état pur, précieux atomes de réalité historique, qu'il s'agirait ensuite, non sans risques ni périls…" and "Tout ce qu'un effort de récupération porrait réussir à connaître dans l'expérience passée de l'humanité, ne mérite pas d'être considéré comme un fait historique. Il faut encore, pour obtenir une telle promotion, que cet élément de connaissance soit jugé par l'historien ‘digne de mémoire'…" Henri Irénée Marrou, "Comment comprendre le métier d'historien," in L'histoire et ses méthodes, ed. by Charles Samaran, Paris, 1961, pp. 1494 and 1495.
44 Carr, What Is History? p. 35. Carr may well have been a relativist in thinking that once the facts are in hand the historian constructs the view he wants. Just as Dilthey was a subjectivist in ascertaining historical facts and a positivist after they were ascertained, so Carr appears to have been an objectivist before the fact and a relativist after. For a critique of Carr's formulation from the point of view of what the historian actually does, see G.R. Elton, The Practice of History, New York, 1967, pp. 55-59.
45 Carr, What is History? p. 176.
46 Lynd argues that Marx was "the most influential Rankean of the nineteenth century," because Marx "like Hegel and Ranke, believed that ethical goals need not be imposed on history since they were immanent in it." Staughton Lynd, "Historical Past and Existential Present," The Dissenting Academy, ed. by Theodore Roszak, New York, 1967, p. 98. Marx may have been a "Rankean" in that he believed the past was knowable, but his influence can be attributed to Lenin's success in Russia.
47 Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Werke, Berlin, 40 vols., 1957-83, Ergänzungs band : Schriften, Manuskripta, Briefe bis 1844, 2 parts, Berlin, 1967-68, part 1, pp. 516-517.
48 Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Werke, vol. 3, 1958, pp. 5, 533. Here I do not think that Marx's use of the term "subjektiv" should be confused with a subjectivist position. He seems to mean the individual must actively understand the object.
49 Marx, Engels, Werke, vol. 3, pp. 7, 535.
50 Marx, Engels, Werke, vol. 3, pp. 7, 535.
51 On the difference between Marx's and Engels' epistemology see: Sidney Hook, Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx: A Revolutionary Interpretation, New York, 1933, 31-33; Bertrand Russell, Freedom versus Organization, 1814-1914, New York, 1934, pp. 191-194; and A. James Gregor, A Survey of Marxism: Problems in Philosophy and the Theory of History, New York, 1965, pp. 60-61.
52 Marx, Engels, Werke, vol. 20, p. 34.
53 Marx, Engels, Werke, vol. 20, p. 334.
54 Marx, Engels, Werke, vol. 20, p. 475.
55 Friedrich Engels, Die Entwicklung des Socialismus von der Utopie zur Wis senschaft, Berlin, 1951, p. 16.
56 See the list of works on historical methodology that have used Engels' statements in L.I. Goldman, "F. Engel's i nekotorye problemy istoricheskogo poz naniia," Voprosy istorii, 1976, no 3, pp. 92-93 fn. 4. Some self-professed Marxists seemingly unaware of Engels' divergence from Marx, have ventured onto activist terrain. See, e.g., Schaff's attempt to amalgamate E.H. Carr with Marxism. Adam Schaff, "Historical Facts and Their Selection," Diogenes, vol. 69, 1970, pp. 99-125.
57 M.N. Pokrovskii, Bor'ba klassov i russkaia istoricheskaia literatura, Lenin grad, 1927, p. 10.
58 M.N. Pokrovskii, Istoricheskaia nauka i bor'ba klassov, Moscow and Lenin grad, 1933, pp. 298-299. It might be argued that Pokrovskii held these views because of a particular time under the Soviet regime when it was felt necessary to justify "bourgeois specialists." However, there is no evidence that Pokrovskii held a contrary view at any other time.
59 M.N. Pokrovskii, "Obshchestvennye nauki v SSSR za 10 let," Vestnik kom munisticheskoi akademii, vol. 26, 1928, pp. 5-6. See "Obsuzhdenie stat'i S.M. Dubrovskogo ‘Akademik M.N. Pokrovskii i ego rol' v razvitii sovetskoi istoricheskoi nauki,' " Voprosy istorii, 1962, no. 3, p. 37.
60 For a different opinion, see George Enteen, The Scholar Bureaucrat, Univer sity Park, Pennsylvania, 1978, p. 31. For a recent exposition of Pokrovskii's concept of historical fact, see A.A. Govorkov, M.N. Pokrovskii o predmete istoricheskoi nauki, Tomsk, 1976, pp. 215-251.
61 Jerzy Topolski, Metodologia historii, 2nd ed., Warsaw, 1973, p. 200. See also his "Aktywistyczna koncepcja procesu dziejowego," Studia filozoficzne, 1972, no. 2 (75), pp. 121-135.
62 Topolski, Metodologia historii, p. 372.
63 Topolski, Metodologia historii, p. 201 (diagram).
64 Topolski, Metodologia historii, p. 197. See also Celina Bobinska, Historyk. Fact. Metoda, Warsaw, 1964, pp. 21-22.
65 See my review of Ia. S. Lur'e Obshcherusskie letopisi XIV-XV vv, and of A.G. Kuzmin, Nachal'nye etapy drevnerusskogo letopisaniia, in Joetopisaniia in Kritika. A Review of Current Soviet Books on Russian History, vol. 16, 1980, pp. 19-21. For a discussion of "bias," see G.M. Trevelyan, "Bias in History," History, vol. 32, 1947, pp. 1-15. Trevelyan defines "bias in history" as "any personal interpretation of historical events which is not acceptable to the whole human race" (ibid., p. 2). This definition is not acceptable to me; therefore, it is biased.
66 Hayden White drew a somewhat similar parallel between language study and historical work. White, Metahistory, p. 30.
67 Atkinson, e.g., makes a similar distinction, but thinks that he has thereby shown the inadequacy of the direct observation paradigm of knowledge. R.F. Atkinson, Knowledge and Explanation in History: An Introduction to the Philosophy of History, Ithaca, New York, 1978, pp. 44-45.
68 Charles A. Beard, "That Noble Dream," in The Varieties of History: From Voltaire to the Present, edited by Fritz Stern, New York, 1956, p. 323. See also Max Nordau, The Interpretation of History, 1910, p. 12: "Objective truth is as inaccessible to the writers of history as is Kant's ‘Thing-in-Itself' to human know ledge".
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