Preliminary Programme

Although Gabriel Monod is now by and large a forgotten figure, at the end of the 19th century he was one of France’s most prominent historians. He owed his reputation not to a magnum opus, like his contemporary Ernest Lavisse or his intellectual father Jules Michelet, but to his efforts in establishing a historical science in France, together with its own institutions. Monod founded and directed the Revue historique and was one of the organisers of the École Pratique des Hautes Études, where he introduced the German Seminäre system for the first time in France. Monod therefore is deemed an exemplary member of the generation of French ‘methodical’ or ‘positivistic’ historians at the end of the 19th century, who brought about the definite shift from history considered as ‘magistra vitae’ to history as a scientific discipline discarded of any moral message and connotations.

However, Monod’s methodological publications and his personal letters, on which I will base my talk, reveal that Monod, a confirmed republican of protestant background, saw history as an education in republican and national citizenship. Historical research could not only provide new knowledge about the common past of the French people, but also a training in impartiality, critical sense, moral constancy and steadfastness. According to Monod, these qualities were both the epistemic virtues of a good historian and the moral virtues of a good human being and a citizen. Thus Monod’s case raises the question to what extent late 19th century bourgeois virtue ethics actually shaped the epistemic virtues tied to doing historical research in the new methodological manner.

At the same time, this case calls into question the separation between the ‘historical regimes’ of historia magistra vitae and modern historical science. Monod’s emphasis on impartiality as an epistemic virtue fits very well into the modern historical regime, but by accentuating the moral dimension of the same virtue, he seems to revert to history as life’s teacher. To what extent can Monod’s solutions to this apparent epistemological tension inform us about the moral foundations of modern historical science itself? (Show less)

At the beginning of the nineteenth century Dutch universities served as a training institute for future societal elites. What was offered to students was a general education and a body of knowledge, rather than a training to become a scientist or scholar. In much the same manner history was taught and seen as the historia magistra vitae - a classical topos still in vigor. History offered examples of virtuous behavior that needed to be followed by students.
During the nineteenth century, the function and the content of university education changed. Disciplines were formed, education became more specialized, and university graduates were believed to be in need of more than just a general education; they had to be trained researchers themselves. History education underwent a change in places and practices: seminar education was introduced and history students had to visit archives. They were trained as historical researchers, learning historical methods, specific skills such as paleography and were taught epistemic virtues.
In my talk I want to focus on this transition made in the Dutch university education, from teaching moral virtues to epistemic virtues. First of all: what did this transition mean; what were the virtues that were taught, morally and epistemically? Second, was there a great divide between moral and epistemic virtues, that is: did the teaching of epistemic virtues mean a full-stop to the teaching of moral virtues? The continued existence of the lectures, that accommodated the teaching of moral virtues, alongside the seminars, seems to suggest a negative answer. This leads up to the third and most important question: to what extent were moral and epistemic virtues alike? Were the moral qualities needed in a good historian the same as those demanded from a good human being? And to what extent did the propagated epistemic virtues draw upon prevailing ideas about bourgeois character and the general virtue catalog? (Show less)

The Belgian historian Henri Pirenne (1862-1935) is commonly acknowledged as one of the most influential European scholars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In his own country he is not only regarded as a father of history but also as an important citizen. He principally derives this status from two much-admired achievements. Firstly, Pirenne was the first to write a 'truly scientific' national history of Belgium (Histoire de Belgique, 1900-1932) in which he demonstrated the legitimacy of the Belgian state and the existence of a common national identity. The enthusiastic political reception and recuperation of this work, both by advocates and opponents of Pirenne's vision on the facts, also earned him great public renown. Secondly, Pirenne returned from a two year-long forced exile in Germany during the First World War as a celebrated national hero and as an icon of the Belgian intellectual and moral resistance. That he devoted his time in exile to compose two highly influential books and to revise his (previously German-based) methodology also aroused general admiration amongst scientists and strongly enhanced his scholarly reputation.

Obviously, Pirenne's historical practice, and the status resulting from it, was characterized by an entanglement of his academic, national and 'civic' self. In terms of virtue, it is unclear whether his scholarly production and reputation were primarily determined by epistemic virtues (associated with the process of history writing) or by moral virtues (connected to the fulfillment of certain social roles). In other words, we need to determine the part of moral virtues in Pirenne's historical practice. This evokes a number of broader historical-philosophical questions. How do epistemic and moral virtues relate to each other when it comes to interpreting and writing history? Is the balance between moral and epistemic virtues invariable or dependent on a historian's personality, time and social context? Are moral virtues merely 'the icing on the cake' or the very fundament of epistemic virtues, to that extent that to embody a life of science can be regarded as the highest achievement of moral virtues?

In my talk, I will argue that Pirenne's reputation was based on how he was thought to embody the values to which not only the scientific, but the entire social community of his time was ideally committed (e.g. modesty, objectivity, truth, imagination, discipline etc.). The Pirenne case illustrates that 'being a good historian' (in the sense of being exemplary and enjoying a high scholarly reputation) is about being good at integrating epistemological and moral virtues. I will document this view with fragments from the correspondence and methodological writings of Pirenne and from biographical texts (both scientific and popular) on Pirenne. (Show less)