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the Charybdis of an equally untenable theory of history as the subjective product of the mind of the historian who establishes the facts of history and masters them through the process of interpretation, between a view of history having the centre of gravity in the past and a view having the centre of gravity
Our examination of the relation of the historian to the facts of history finds us, therefore, in an apparently precarious situation, navigating delicately between the Scylla of an untenable theory of history as an objective compilation of facts, of the unqualified primacy of fact over interpretation, and the Charybdis of an equally untenable theory of history as the subjective product of the ...
History is what the evidence compels us to believe. The historian starts with a "document" - in a wide sense - of the existence and nature of which he is now aware but which raises, for him, a problem. How could this thing have come to be at all and to have the character it has? To solve this problem he constructs a theory, the
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Society and The Individual
- 3 History, Science and Morality
- 4 Causation in History
- 5 My Bias
- 6 Conclusion
- Further Information
I covered Lecture 1 or Chapter 1 (pp 7-30) in What is History, quite comprehensively in What is History 5: Historians and their facts. This was a very satisfying process because it was easy to tease erudite and incisive answers from Carr’s wonderful sentences and quotations from other historians. Others think so too as it is my most visited article...
Premise
The premise is that the society and the individual are linked inextricably. No man is an island, said Donne. Hence, following on from Lecture 1, not only is a historian embedded in his age, he is embedded in society. In historical terms, Carr is arguing against the cult of the individual, that is, the school of history that deals with great men alone, without treating them as products of their society. I should mention that Carr only uses men and masculine pronouns. He was a product of his ag...
The cult of the individual
Carr objects to the cult of the individual as an obscuring ideology from which the western world is only just emerging. He says it is one of the most pervasive of modern historical myths and mentions one historian who relates it to the development of the idea of the individual from the Renaissance. Although the individualist argument is still used, it was exaggerated more in the 19thcentury than it is today, or during the Renaissance. (Remember, the idea of the Renaissance as a period was a 1...
Conclusion
Carr goes about this in a long-winded fashion, when all he is doing is adding society as an influencer to his previous conclusions about the historian and his facts. Nevertheless, he feels the need to deny the trend of liberalism and history as progress (in a partisan sense), particularly historians who focus on the individual above all else. Carr also presents the arguments against the opposing case that historical events are determined not by the conscious actions of individuals, but by som...
Premise
History should consider as an aspiration taking a more scientific approach to the discipline. History also ought not to have anything to do with an overall morality in its approach. One can certainly claim that Hitler and Stalin were immoral, but that has nothing to do with the practice of history.
Science
Carr is actually setting up a ‘strawman’ in examining why historians think that history cannot be approached as a scientific enquiry. His problem however is that he is weak on the philosophy and methodology of science. Carr missed out on a series of books that were published after 1960, which would have given him a much better insight into the mechanics of science and the lack of agreement over the actual methodology. I am referring to such writers as T H Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend a...
Conclusion
The conclusion reached by both Carr and myself is that history is not science, but that history is capable of striving to be more like science, that is, pursuing historical analysis with more rigour and by attempting to be more objective (even if objectivity is unattainable in either science or history). Carr makes the point also that it is only in the English language that history is not a subset of science. He says it is an eccentricity of the English language, which suggests the prejudice...
Premise
Carr says: The study of history is a study of causes. The historian… continuously asks the question ‘Why?’ … The great historian or the great thinker asks the question ‘Why?’ about new things or in new contexts. Carr seems to me here to be saying the exact thing that Charles Darwin wrote to a friend on 18 September, 1861: About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well...
The problem of interpretation
Carr mentions that in recent years history has shied away from causes or ‘laws’ for reasons outlined in the historian and his facts, but merely descends into different semantics, partly in reaction to a supposed association with determinism. The first issue a historian confronts is that he will commonly assign several causes to the one event. The second part of this is that one must assign a hierarchy or priorities or some sort of order onto these causes. Carr quotes Henri Poincaré on the nee...
Two red herrings — chance and determinism
Carr labels them nicely: ‘Determinism in History; or the Wickedness of Hegal’ and ‘Chance in History or Cleopatra’s Nose’.
In this series on What is History?one prime focus has been that history on Earth begins with biology and that the starting point of human history is the rise of an intelligent naked ape. Given the starting point, one must also conclude that certain external forces have had a role in shaping history. These forces are not those ridiculed by Carr abov...
I have surprised myself by continuing to examine Carr in depth. His insights are deep and complex. I wonder if it is my slow reading and comprehension, or whether the Cambridge History Faculty is misguided in considering that What is History‘s short length (188 pages in my Penguin Edition) is what makes it attractive to students. Could it be that i...
Post-1960 books on the philosophy of science
TH Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962 Imre Lakatos ed. with Alan Musgrave Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, 1970 (arose from an International Colloquium, London, 1965) Paul Feyerabend Against Method, 1975 (based in part on earlier conversations and disagreements with Imre Lakatos) Sir Peter Medawar Induction & Intuition in Scientific Thought, Jayne Lectures, 1968
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin Count the pebblesand describe the colours quotation
Our examination of the relation of the historian to the facts of history finds us, therefore, in an apparently precarious situation, navigating delicately between the Scylla of an untenable theory of history as an objective compilation of facts, of the unqualified primacy of fact over interpretation, and the Charybdis of an equally untenable theory of history as the subjective product of the ...
Abstract. Although philosophers and theologians have speculated on the ability of timeless, ontological truth to manifest itself in the flux of history, most working historians have focused on epistemological questions concerning the relationship between history as what actually happened and history as its present representation.
People also ask
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Feb 18, 2007 · One reason for theological interest in this question is the problem of evil; thus Leibniz's Theodicy attempts to provide a logical interpretation of history that makes the tragedies of history compatible with a benevolent God's will (1709). In the twentieth century, theologians such as Maritain (1957), Rust (1947), and Dawson (1929) offered systematic efforts to provide Christian ...
