Preliminary Programme

This third paper argues that philosophers of history must always be attentive to concrete historical writing and research, but not exclusively and not necessarily rely on the historian’s self-image or self-understanding. Furthermore, it argues that if philosophers of history, in order to avoid an “imperialistic and prescriptive” attitude, refer exclusively to the historians’ self-images, they will never be capable of helping historians construct the “best of possible historical worlds.” In order to understand what is typical and appropriate of the historical epistemology and gnoseology, and to elaborate the most important historiological questions, they have to assume the largest perspective and to include, not only historiographical traditions, but also philosophical traditions and conceptual analysis of the largest possible range of practices of knowledge. They have to cross the boundaries between disciplines and theoretical domains and to apply a reflexive point of view. For example, did Croce, Kuhn, Mink, or White discover something new merely through an analysis of the historian’s self-understanding? Could White, Mink, and Ankersmit elaborate their narrative theories without looking at the literary structuralist tradition, at philosophical historicism, at Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions? And could Gorman write a book on historical judgment without references to Quine’s holistic pragmatism? If the theory of history has a value for historical writing and research, if it can contribute to a renovation of methods or to an increased awareness of the limits and the (historically contigent) nature of the historian’s goal, a restriction to the self-image or self-understanding of the historians should not be accepted. (Show less)

If philosophers of history wonder what “historical studies” are (how to define the study of history, where to draw boundaries between who are “in” and who are “out”), they cannot do better than listen to historians themselves, says Jonathan Gorman in his Historical Judgement (2008). For him, the historians’ professional self-image, or the self-understanding of the historical discipline, such as articulated by historians of historiography, defines what counts as “historical studies.” The papers presented in this session take up Gorman’s challenge and examine what philosophers of history can or cannot learn from the discipline’s professional self-understanding. The first paper argues that this self-image, such as found in historiography textbooks, often comes surprisingly close to a myth of origin, that is, to a genealogical narrative that justifies current-day practices by tracing those back to “founding fathers” such as Herodotus or Leopold von Ranke. Rather than dismissing such myths as “unhistorical,” we might wonder why historians, who are normally known as demythologizers, tell such stories, or invent such traditions, if their own discipline is concerned. Inspired by Alasdair MacIntyres notion of “practices,” this paper argues that, in order to initiate newcomers into the profession, the historical discipline needs exemplary figures and foundational stories. Its “standards of excellence” as well as the means required for meeting those standards – the attitudes and methods that historians must bring to their work – need to be embodied by concrete historical examples. Thus, in teaching students what a historian’s professional identity (as perceived by historians themselves) consists of, the discipline cannot do without stories explaining where it comes from and where it wants to go. In this sense, the self-image found in historiography textbooks is an idealized portrait, which (pace Gorman) does not inform philosophers of history about what historical studies actually are, but does show which goals, methods, attitudes, and values historians at a particular moment in time and place regard as essential to their work. (Show less)

Those philosophers who embrace a descriptive approach to philosophy of history like to argue that we should follow more closely on what historians say about their own discipline. Allegedly, the historical accounts dealing with the past of the historical discipline and the historians’ own views about what characterizes the historical discipline should be taken very seriously. Thus, it is claimed, any relevant philosophical discussion of the nature of historical discipline should take such self-images as authoritative. Undoubtedly, the views historians have about their own discipline are usually very interesting. However, do these self-images have a special status? Are they more relevant than the views of philosophers of history who do not practice history nor draw their inspiration from the history of the historical discipline? If we ask “Who has the authority to characterize the nature of history?”, it might be tempting to embrace one of the following two answers: i) The practicing historians and the historiographies they write are most reliable when it comes to defining the nature of historical discipline. ii) Historians are so immersed in their historical research that they do not have a sufficient meta-position and philosophical apparatus to understand the nature of their own work. Yet, as I argue in this paper, this question is misleading. In a certain sense, it is needless or even wrong to try to answer “who” has the authority in saying what the nature of a certain discipline is. The important thing is “what” is said about the nature of the discipline and the examination of the consequences of such a suggestion. In the paper, I discuss some possible shortcomings of the view that the historians’ images of the nature of history should be considered as authoritative. In conclusion, I claim that, although such images might be interesting and fruitful, they have no more reliable epistemological status than the “philosophical” accounts. (Show less)