The Future of the Philosophy of Historiography

This article argues that the perception of decline among philosophers of history reflects the diffused weak academic status of the discipline, as distinct from the booming research activity and demand for philosophy of history that keeps pace with the growth rate of publications in the philosophies of science and law. This growth is justified and rational because the basic problems of the philosophy of history, concerning the nature of historiographical knowledge and the metaphysical assumptions of historiography, have maintained their relevance. Substantive philosophy of history has an assured popularity but is not likely to win intellectual respectability because of its epistemic weaknesses. I suggest focusing on problems that a study of historiography can help to understand and even solve, as distinct from problems that cannot be decided by an examination of historiography, such as the logical structure of explanation (logical positivism)and the relation between language and reality (post‐structuralism). In particular, following Quine's naturalized epistemology, I suggest placing the relation between evidence and historiography at the center of the philosophy of historiography. Inspired by the philosophy of law, I suggest there are three possible relations between input (evidence)and output in historiography: determinism, indeterminism, and underdeterminism. An empirical examination of historiographical agreement, disagreement, and failure to communicate may indicate which relation holds at which parts of historiography. The historiographical community seeks consensus, but some areas are subject to disagreements and absence of communication; these are associated with historiographical schools that interpret conflicting models of history differently to fit their evidence. The reasons for this underdetermination of historiography by evidence needs to be investigated further.     

Rethinking the Historiographical Impulse: The History of Ancient Israel as a Problem

The first part of this paper provides some insights into the problematic nature of the genre “history of ancient Israel”, both in terms of historiography and of historical epistemology. It is argued that the concept “history of ancient Israel” is essentially valid within a particular modern theological or biblical historiographical context. As such, this history of ancient Israel may indeed progress and generate new understandings but is nonetheless seriously limited by its main concern with “biblical Israel”. It is also proposed that in order to overcome these thematic and epistemological historical limitations, a wider history of ancient Palestine or the Southern Levant should be envisioned, into which to understand the epigraphic and archaeological realia of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, together with other contemporary polities in the region, and the later development of biblical traditions and texts. The second part of the paper addresses questions of ethnogenesis, socio-political organization and identity in the light of the previous discussion, setting the stage for an alternative history of Israel and other historical realities in ancient Palestine.     

Analysis of Japanese influence on the three major historiographical trends in early modern China

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the intrinsic relationships between Japanese historiography and the three great historiographical trends of New Historiography, Debates on Ancient History, and Marxist historiography, from the macroscopic perspective of the transformation, development, and early modern growth of modern and early modern Chinese historiography, exploring how Chinese historical researchers selected, deviated from, and assimilated Japanese historiography, while also particularly focusing on how the recipients utilized Japanese historiographical methods and concepts as well as the achievements of Japanese scholars in researching Chinese history to construct their own interpretation of Chinese historiography, in a study of the academic trend of indigenization.     

MAKING HISTORY BY CONTEXTUALIZING ONESELF: AUTOBIOGRAPHY AS HISTORIOGRAPHICAL INTERVENTION

This essay argues that, in their reflection of theoretical positions, autobiographies by historians may become valid historical writings (that is, both true narratives and legitimate historical interpretations) and, as a consequence and simultaneously, privileged sources for historiographical inquiry and evidence of its evolution. At the beginning of the twentyfirst century, following the model established by Carolyn Steedman, historians such as Geoff Eley, Natalie Z. Davis, Gabrielle M. Spiegel, Dominick LaCapra, Gerda Lerner, William H. Sewell, Jr., Sheila Fitzpatrick, and John Elliott created a new form of academic life‐writing that has challenged established literary and historiographical conventions and resisted generic classification. This article aims to examine this new historical‐autobiographical genre—including the subgenre of the “autobiographical paper”—and highlights its ability to function as both history (as a retrospective account of the author's own past) and theory (as a speculative approach to historiographical questions). I propose to call these writings interventional in the sense that these historians use their autobiographies, with a more or less deliberate authorial intention, to participate, mediate, and intervene in theoretical debates by using the story of their own intellectual and academic trajectory as the source of historiography. Traditional historians’ autobiographies, including ego‐historical essays, have provided us with substantial information about the history of historiography; these new performative autobiographies help us to better understand historiography and the development of the historical discipline. Interventional historians seek not only to understand their lives but also to engage in a more complex theoretical project.     

Cubism and the Fourth Dimension

This article revisits the historiography of Cubism and mathematics, with a particular focus on Pablo Picasso's uses of geometry at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century. In particular, I consider the artistic appropriation of the concept of the fourth dimension, and its pictorial uses as a conduit for a conceptual reformulation of pictorial space. I investigate Picasso's distinctive adoption of this geometric framework in relation to one of his 1909 experiments across painting and photography, and advocate the possibility of drawing novel historiographical lessons from Picasso's work — lessons that bring the historiography of Cubism in a closer dialogue with recent debates in the historiography of science. I conclude with an appeal to consider the continued relevance of this past experiment in art and science when assessing the contemporary drive toward art-science collaborations, and use the case of Cubism and the fourth dimension as a springboard for a critical reflection on the future directions of art-science collaborations.     

中西比较视域中的宋代史学近世化:基于历史观与史学方法的考察

对比西方来看中国历史与史学问题,是中国史学近代转型接受西方学术框架所带来的一种学术视域。如果将西方区域化,那么,可以看到,宋代和作为西方史学近代化起源的文艺复兴一样出现了历史观与史学方法的革新,是中国史学“近世化”的开端,也是接触西方之前原生性的带有近代化特征的史学前近代阶段。由此可见中西史学近代化过程中的一致性与中国史学近代化的内在动力。     

从经注与史注的变奏看裴松之《三国志注》的学术史地位

在中国学术发展史上,史学是作为经学附庸的地位出现的,这时史注附属于经注;伴随着史学从经学的附庸地位摆脱出来,成为一门独立学科,史注也逐渐打破此前经注研究范式,探索适合史学这门学科本身特点的研究范式;裴注正是对这些探索成果的吸收和总结,并继承了经注研究范式的优长之处;裴注对后世的史注形式产生了深远的影响,并在近代获得了新生,它的出现标志着史注研究范式的确立;这种新的研究范式,反过来又影响了其所脱胎的经注研究范式。仔细研究二者关系的变化,就会发现其与学术史上经史关系的变化有着某种规律性的联系。     

论史学理论与史学史之间的关系

史学理论与史学史在学科结构中属于同一个二级专业,这其中反映了二者具有紧密的内在联系。探索史学理论与史学史的关系,首先应当跨过一个理念的门坎,即区分“历史理论”与“史学理论”。确认史学理论是对历史学的概括和总结,而不是研究客观的社会历史。厘清这种概念上的区别与联系,大有利于史学理论与历史理论的研究。如20世纪80年代中历史认识论研究的兴起,即得益于此。这里,需要防止像西方某些史学流派那样割断史学理论与历史理论的关系,批判那种取消历史理论研究的说法。在当今,史学史研究的可靠成果,应是史学理论研究的基础。揭示史学发展的规律,是史学史学科与史学理论研究共同的任务,将二者结合在一起的探索,大有学术开拓、理论创新的广阔前景。     

Georges Canguilhem als Medizinhistoriker

The work of the French philosopher Georges Canguilhem is introduced here. Medical historiography is not the ultimate aim of Canguilhems work, but rather a tool for the analysis ef epistemological questions. These questions are to be investigated, as well as the art of medical history that Canguilhem considers to be helpful for such investigations. French ?epistemology”?, a direction of philosophy of science to which Canguilhem belongs, is discussed first. Canguilhem's epistomology does not aim at a rational reconstruction of decontextualized scientific results, but at an historical reconstruction of science. It analyses the functioning of scientific concepts in relation of their historical context. The main themes of Canguilhems work (biological normality, scientific ideology and history of physiology) are summarized in a second part of this study. Finally we investigate the importance of Canguilhem for modern research in history of medicine.     

Historiography and historians of neuroscience: towards diversity in the ISHN

This article introduces and critiques the historiographical tradition of the history of the neurosciences as it has been established in the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences (ISHN). The founding members of the ISHN were practitioner-historians, practitioners of the neurosciences with an interest in the great moments, ideas and controversies in the history of their field. The historiographical precedent set by these clinician-historians emphasized those aspects of history most interesting to them. Academic historians bring a different approach to the history of neurosciences, particularly an interest in studying the intellectual and cultural contexts of both the inherited and the forgotten ideas about the nervous system. Their approach to history has not been well presented in the ISHN, in part because the current historiographical tradition does not address their interests. This article highlights the methodological and epistemological differences between academic and practitioner-historians and discusses the difficulties that other historical societies have faced in trying to bring them together. The article then suggests ideas for symposia that might facilitate an interdisciplinary dialogue and a revised historiographical tradition that speaks to the needs of both academic and historians and practitioner historians.     

DIALOGUES IN HISTORIOGRAPHY Historiography and Historians of Neuroscience: Towards Diversity in the ISHN

This article introduces and critiques the historiographical tradition of the history of the neurosciences as it has been established in the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences (ISHN). The founding members of the ISHN were practitioner-historians, practitioners of the neurosciences with an interest in the great moments, ideas and controversies in the history of their field. The historiographical precedent set by these clinician-historians emphasized those aspects of history most interesting to them. Academic historians bring a different approach to the history of the neurosciences, particularly an interest in studying the intellectual and cultural contexts of both the inherited and the forgotten ideas about the nervous system. Their approach to history has not been well represented in the ISHN, in part because the current historiographical tradition does not address their interests. This article highlights the methodological and epistemological differences between academic and practitioner-historians and discusses the difficulties that other historical societies have faced in trying to bring them together. The article then suggests ideas for symposia that might facilitate an interdisciplinary dialogue and a revised historiographical tradition that speaks to the needs of both academic historians and practitioner historians.     

Comparative Historiography: Problems and Perspectives

Just like history, historiography is usually written and analyzed within one spatio-temporal setting, traditionally that of a particular nation-state. As a consequence, historiography tends to localize explanations for historiographical developments within national contexts and to neglect international dimensions. As long as that is the case, it is impossible to assess the general and specific aspects of historiographical case studies. This forum, therefore, represents a sustained argument for comparative approaches to historiography. First, my introduction takes a recent study in Canadian historiography as a point of departure in order to illustrate the problems of non-comparative historiography. These problems point to strong arguments in favor of comparative approaches. Second, I place comparative historiography as a genre in relation to a typology that orders theories of historiography on a continuum ranging from general and philosophical to particular and empirical. Third, I put recent debates on the “fragmentation” of historiography in a comparative perspective. Worries among historians about this fragmentation—usually associated with the fragmentation of the nation and the advent of multiculturalism and/or postmodernism—are legitimate when they concern the epistemological foundations of history as a discipline. As soon as the “fragmentation” of historiography leads to—and is legitimated by—epistemological skepticism, a healthy pluralism has given way to an unhealthy relativism. As comparison puts relativism in perspective by revealing its socio-historical foundations, at the same time it creates its rational antidote. Fourth, I summarize the contributions to this forum; all deal—directly or indirectly—with the historiography of the Second World War. Jürgen Kocka's “Asymmetrical Historical Comparison: The Case of the German Sonderweg” examines the so-called “special path” of Germany's history. Daniel Levy's “The Future of the Past: Historiographical Disputes and Competing Memories in Germany and Israel” offers a comparative analysis of recent historiographical debates in Germany and Israel. Sebastian Conrad's “What Time is Japan? Problems of Comparative (Intercultural) Historiography” analyzes the conceptual linkage between Japanese historiography and specific interpretations of European history. Richard Bosworth's “Explaining ‘Auschwitz’ after the End of History: The Case of Italy” charts in a comparative perspective the changes since 1989 in Italian historiography concerning fascism. All four articles support the conclusion that next to the method of historical comparison is the politics of comparison, which is hidden in the choice of the parameters. Analyses of both method and politics are essential for an understanding of (comparative) historiography.     

Putting Geography in its Place

Work on the history of geographical knowledge and practice frequently draws inspiration from theoretical insights developed elsewhere in the academy. After briefly touching on some of these historiographical matters, I argue that geographers might make some telling interventions into this debate by attending to some of their own key concepts – space, site, location – and disclosing their significance for elucidating the history of intellectual traditions. The fact that historians of science have begun to remark on the role of ‘place’ in knowledge production and consumption further confirms the value of this ‘geographical turn’. Subsequently I dwell on the implications of a spatialised historiography for work on the history of geography itself, and urge that ‘the history of geography’ might profitably be reconceptualised as ‘the historical geography of geography’.     

ANTIQUARIANISM AS GENEALOGY: ARNALDO MOMIGLIANO'S METHOD

This essay uses Arnaldo Momigliano's genealogy of antiquarianism and historiography to propose a new method for engaging the past. Momigliano traced antiquarianism from its advent in ancient Greece and later growth in Rome to its early modern efflorescence, its usurpation by history, and its transformation into anthropology and sociology in late modernity. Antiquarianism performed for Momigliano the work of excavating past archives while infusing historiographical inquiry with a much‐needed dose of contingency. This essay aims to advance our understanding of the mutual imbrications of antiquarian methods with modern conceptions of history, while also suggesting how antiquarianism can generate alternatives to historical inquiry.     

CUNEIFORM IN CANAAN： HISTORY, HISTORIOGRAPHY, AND METHODOLOGY

In the following paper I would like to share some thoughts on issues of history and historiography arising from the recently completed Cuneiform in Canaan project, whose main findings appeared in the spring of 2006 in a book of the same name by this author arid Takayoshi Oshima now of The University of Bucharest, with editions of alphabetic cuneiform texts by Seth Sanders.2 1 will begin my discussion with a short introduction describing the project and its findings, and then move on to the main portion of the paper, namely a review of historical, historiographical, and methodological issues arising from the Cuneiform in Canaan project.     

白寿彝先生的历史教育思想

历史教育思想是白寿彝先生史学思想的重要组成部分,是在新的历史条件下对中国传统史学功用思想的继承和发展.他从现实和科学的角度关注历史教育,从理论上回答了什么是历史教育和如何进行历史教育的问题.他的历史教育思想,反映了他对于历史科学与社会现实生活之间关系的自觉认识,对历史研究和历史教学具有重要的理论启示和指导意义.     

清末民初的世界史演义初探

演义体的史学作品作为史学的重要组成部分,在向下层民众传播历史知识的过程中发挥着重要作用。清末以降殆至民初,演义体的史学作品杂然纷陈,其中世界史演义的出现尤为醒目,演义域外新知,启迪下层民众,激发爱国热忱,成为世界史演义作者共同的创作意图。大量世界史演义作品的出现,既是此时期历史演义创作中的重要现象,也成为此时期的演义体史学一个重要特点。     

DOCUMENT AND TIME

This article explores what it calls the “documentarist” hypothesis: the belief that the subject matter of history, the past, is structurally absent and thus can be reached only by way of documents, testamentary traces of various sorts (not only written texts, but artifacts, land arrangements, oral witnessing, and so on). The first part of the article works out the documentarist position through interpretations of creative works that embody it and of a variety of reflections on historiography—those of Michel de Certeau and Paul Ricoeur, as well as some “postmodern historiography.” It argues that documentarism ultimately faces an insoluble problem: it presupposes the pastness of the past, yet it cannot give itself the latter by way of the documents to which it believes itself confined. Documentarism assumes as already at hand a historical‐temporal horizon of past, present, and future, for which it itself cannot account. In the second part of the article, accordingly, I turn to the historiographical portion of Faulkner's The Bear to expose the operativity of this always already given temporality. Faulkner's tale gives us access to a more radical historicity than any upon which documentarists reckon; yet this historicity turns out to sit askew from the usual frameworks of history as we know them, especially those of periods and epochs. The tension in Faulkner's own work between periodizing and event‐laden explanations, I conclude, points to questions that fall beyond history as currently conceived.     

ITALIAN LEGACIES1

This paper discusses David Roberts's latest book in which he seeks to throw some light on urgent postmodern historiographical issues from the angle of Italian historicism, led by Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) and Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944). Focusing on the relationship between theory and practice, Roberts argues that there was a close relationship between Italian historicism and fascism. On the basis of the principle that “reality is nothing but history”, both Croce and Gentile sought to develop a philosophy that connects historical thinking to action. In this context, Gentile's presentist interpretation of the historical sublime eventually led to totalitarianism, whereas Croce's radical historicism formed the basis of a more liberal view of society. In his discussion of the reception of the Italian tradition, Roberts rejects Carlo Ginzburg's and Hayden White's “misreadings” of Croce and Gentile, and concludes that Italian historicism is still relevant to modern historiography. In this paper I show that Roberts, by renouncing an exclusively philosophical approach to the Italian tradition, tends to overlook the underlying issues. In order to redress the balance, I argue that the political issues between Croce and Gentile went back to profound philosophical differences concerning the relationship between philosophy and history on the one hand and between past and present on the other. From this perspective, Ginzburg's and White's debates about the relationship between history and politics, and the role of the historical sublime in historiography, should not be viewed as “misreadings” of Croce and Gentile, but as mere variations on the themes of their predecessors. The relevance of the Italian tradition is therefore not primarily to be found in its response to postmodernism, but in setting the agenda for rethinking the relationship between history and practical life in the contemporary world.