Fact, truth, and text: The quest for a firm basis for historical knowledge around 1900

History and Theory

Volumn 42, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 305-331

  Torstendahl, Rolf ^a  

^a MÄLARDALEN UNIVERSITY   (Sweden)

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EID: 14844304481     PISSN: 00182656     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1468-2303.00246     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. J. G. Droysen's Grundriss der Historik was published three times during his lifetime, in 1868, 1875, and 1882 (Leipzig: Veit & Co.). It has been used here in E. Rothacker's re-edition of the third edition published under the title Grundriss der Historik (Halle-Saale: Max Niemeyer, 1925).
2. Later Droysen's lecture manuscripts on the subject were edited by R. Hübner under the title Historik: Vorlesungen über Enzyklopädie und Methodologie der Geschichte (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1937)
3. and by P. Leyh under the title Historik: Rekonstruktion der ersten vollständigen Fassung der Vorlesungen (1857), Grundriss der Historik in der ersten handschriftlichen (1857/1858) und in der letzten gedruckten Fassung (1882) (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1977). Ernst Bernheim's Lehrbuch der historischen Methode (first ed. 1889) was subject to constant major and minor changes by the author. Here I have also used the editions from 1903 and 1908 (all editions published by Duncker und Humblot in Leipzig). C.-V. Langlois and C. Seignobos, Introduction aux études historiques (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1898) was republished by the same firm in 1899. All translations in the following of passages from these books are by RT.
4. Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
5. Of those I know anything about I would especially mention those by Chladenius, Gatterer, and Rühs, all of them German, but there may have been others developed by historians in other countries. See Horst Walter Blanke, Historiographiegeschichte als Historik (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1991).
6. It seems that Blanke underestimates the originality in Rühs's work. The reason for this is that he uses Historismus as a yardstick. Rühs's work was noted by Herbert Butterfield, Man on His Past [1955] (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 7, but he makes little out of it.
7. Butterfield, Man on His Past, 32-61.
8. This is Meinecke's position. It has been challenged and it is important that Historismus did not remain unchanged (see, for example, Otto Gerhard Oexle, Geschichtswissenschaft im Zeichen des Historismus [Göttingen; Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1996];
9. Historismus am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts: Eine internationale Diskussion, ed. Gunter Scholtz (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997), with an important contribution by G. Iggers). The discussion on Historismus in recent years has led to many revisions in earlier stereotyped views. See, for example, Irmline Veit-Brause, "Die Historismus-Debatte," Neue politische Literatur 1 (1998), 36-66;
10. "The Turnings of Historicism," in Power, Conscience, and Opposition, ed. A. Bonnell et al. (New York: Peter Lang, 1996), 405-430;
11. and "Historicism Revisited," Storia della Storiografia 29 (1996), 99-125.
12. See, for example G. Iggers, "Introduction," in International Handbook of Historical Studies, ed. G. Iggers and H. T. Parker (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979), 1-14;
13. G. Iggers, New Directions in European Historiography, revised ed. (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1984), 18-21, 26. Iggers devotes very little attention to Bernheim or Langlois and Seignobos.
14. O. Lorenz, Die Geschichtswissenschaft in Hauptrichtungen und Ausgaben, vol. 1-2 (Berlin: Hertz, 1886-1891).
15. Franz X. Wegele, Geschichte der deutschen Historiographie seit dem Auftreten des Humanismus (Munich and Leipzig: R. Oldenbourg, 1885)
16. L. Wachler, Geschichte der historischen Forschung und Kunst seit der Wiederherstellung der litterärischen Cultur in Europa (Göttingen: Röwer, 1812-1820).
17. J. E. E. D. Acton, A Lecture on the Study of History (London: Macmillan, 1896);
18. "German Schools of History" in Historical Essays and Studies (London: Macmillan 1907), 344-392. In the former booklet Acton affirms that Ranke's different historical works form "the best introduction from which we can learn the technical process by which within living memory the study of modern history has been renewed" (52).
19. On historical professionalism and its development, see R. Torstendahl, "History, Profession-alization of," in International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (London: Elsevier, 2001), 6864-6869,
20. and R. Torstendahl, "Assessing Professional Developments. Historiography in a Comparative Perspective," in An Assessment of Twentieth-Century Historiography, ed. R. Torstendahl (Stockholm: Vitterhetsakademien, 2000), 9-30.
21. For journals, see Margaret Stieg, The Origin and Development of Scholarly Historical Journals (Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1986).
22. Cf also Historische Zeitschriften im internationalen Vergleich, ed. Matthias Middell (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsanstalt, 1999).
23. Karl Dietrich Erdmann, Die Ökumene der Historiker: Geschichte der internationalen Historikerkongresse und des Comité International des Sciences Historiques (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987).
24. It is noteworthy that neither Fueter nor Barraclough in their admirable historiographical overviews from different times have deemed it necessary to mention the manuals by Droysen, Bernheim, or Langlois and Seignobos, though they discuss methodological reorientation in the discipline. (E. Fueter, Geschichte der neueren Historiographie, in Handbuch der mittelalterlichen und neueren Geschichte, Abt. 1 (Munich and Berlin: Oldenbourg, 1911);
25. G. Barraclough, "History," in Main Trends of Research in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (The Hague: Unesco, 1978.)
26. It was subject to small changes in Droysen's lifetime through its three editions from 1868, 1875, and 1882. Used here is its 1925 edition. See note 1.
27. In the preface to the second edition of the Grundriss Droysen rejected, at least temporarily, the proposal that people had made to him, that he should further develop the theme and make it into a true handbook. (Droysen, Grundriss, 1875, 2.)
28. J. Rüsen, Begriffene Geschichte: Genesis und Begründung der Geschichtstheorie J. G. Droysens (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1969), 15.
29. Hayden White has succinctly presented the development of a new appreciation of Droysen's work. ("Droysen's Historik: Historical Writing as a Bourgeois Science," in his The Content of the Form [Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987], 83-103).
30. J. Rüsen, Für eine erneuerte Historik: Studien zur Theorie der Geschichtswissenschaft (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1976). This book is written as a discussion of philosophical matters, not as an analysis within the history of historiography.
31. The edition by Peter Leyh 1977 presents three versions, a reconstruction of the first lectures (1857), the first manuscript by Droysen (1857-1858), and the last printed edition (1882).
32. J. G. Droysen, Historik, ed. Peter Leyh (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1977).
33. "Das Ergebnis der Kritik ist nicht 'die eigentliche historische Tatsache,' sondern, dass das Material bereit gemacht ist, eine verhältnismaässig sichere und korrekte Auffassung zu ermöglichen. Die Gewissenhaftigkeit, die über die Resultate der Kritik nicht hinausgehen will, irrt darin, dass sie der Phantasie überlässt, mit ihnen weiter zu arbeiten, statt auch für die weitere Arbeit Regeln zu finden, die ihre Korrrektheit sichern." Droysen, Historik 1925, 19.
34. In her important book, regrettably only in Danish, Historie: En videnskabshistorisk under-søgelse, (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1999), 42 , Inga Floto states that Seignobos came back from Germany in the late 1880s and complained that he had found there only erudition and criticism of the sources but not what he called "scholarly synthesis." This should be noted especially because of the criticism directed against Seignobos by L. Febvre for an exclusive interest in events. See below, note 31.
35. Explicitly by P. Renvall, Den moderna historieforskningens principer (Stockholm: Natur och Kultur, 1965) (transl. from Finnish), 75.
36. Donald Davidson, "Interpretation: Hard in Theory, Easy in Practice," in Meaning and Interpretation, ed. D. Prawitz (Stockholm: Vitterhesakademien, 2002), 71-86;
37. Willard V. Quine, The Roots of Reference (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1974).
38. "La première moitié du livre a été rédigée par M. Langlois, la seconde par M. Seignobos; mais les deux collaborateurs se sont constamment aidés, concertés et surveillés," Langlois and Seignobos, Introduction, xviii.
39. I translate "fait" sometimes by "event," sometimes by "fact" depending on the context, which is sometimes not quite clear and it may therefore be debatable if the one or the other translation should be used. I am aware that this plays a role in my argument, but there is no way to evade the difficulty as "fact" is a misleading translation in many cases and "data" is too modern in this sense.
40. Translation by RT.
41. W. McNeill, "Passing Strange: The Convergence of Evolutionary Science with Scientific History," History and Theory 40 (2001), 5-6.
42. For example, Henry I. Marrou, De la connaissance historique (Paris: Seuil, 1954), 46, 49, 56, 92, 122, 126;
43. I. N. Danilevskii et al., Istochnikovedenie (Moscow: RGGU, 1998), 52-53.
44. P. Veyne, Comment on écrit l'histoire (Paris: Seuil, 1971).
45. L. Febvre, Combats pour l'histoire (Paris: Armand Colin, 1953), 70-74, 87-98.
46. In his analysis of the "Methodenstreit" in Germany Iggers makes a comparison with France and seems to accept Febvre's standpoint without mentioning Langlois and Seignobos. ("The "Methodenstreit" in International Perspective...," Storia della Storiografia 6 [1984], 21-30.)
47. M. Bentley, Modern Historiography: An introduction (London: Routledge, 1999), 104-106.
48. In his discussion of coherence and correspondence theories of truth Hayden White does not indicate the possibility of a position like the one of Langlois and Seignobos (White, The Content of the Form, 39-44).
49. F. Ankersmit seems to take for granted that for history "close to art" is the only alternative to a correspondence theory of truth, and he disregards Langlois and Seignobos (see esp. "Historical Representation" in his History and Tropology [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994], 97-124.)