Anton Froeyman

Frank Ankersmit and Eelco Runia: the presence and the otherness of the past

This paper consists of two parts. In the first part, I give an in-depth comparison and analysis of the theories of Frank Ankersmit and Eelco Runia, in which I highlight their most important resemblances and differences. What both have in common is their notion of the presence of the past as a ‘presence in absence’. They differ, however, with respect to the character of this past and the role representation plays in making it present. Second, I also argue that for both Ankersmit and Runia, the presence of the past is always the present of our past, which excludes the experience of the otherness of the past, and which opens both theories to the criticisms of being self-centered and nationalistic.

Concepts of causation in historiography

Historians can use the concept of causation in a variety of ways, each of which is associated with different historiographical claims and different kinds of argumentation. The author shows that, contrary to the usual view, historical narratives are causal (in a specific way), and microhistory can be seen as a response to a very specific causal problem of Braudelian macrohistory.

The ideal of objectivity and the public role of the historian: some lessons from the Historikerstreit and the History Wars

Abstract In this paper, I attempt to offer some new insights into an age-old question: what is the public usefulness of history and historians? More specifically, I discuss the role of the ideal of the disinterested and objective historian in two different and very important public historical debates: the German Historikerstreit and the Australian History Wars. My analysis is not so much aimed at analysing the outcome of these debates, but rather at the way these debates were held, and the specific ways in which the participants argued with each other. I combine a rhetorical analysis of these debates with a method from analytic philosophy of science to arrive at the following conclusion: both the Historikerstreit and the History Wars were haunted by a misguided ideal of historical objectivity that in the end had a negative influence on the quality of these debates. Finally, I also suggest an alternative view on the public role of the historian, which is based on Chantal Mouffe’s distinction between agonistic and antagonistic pluralism.

Virtues of Historiography

Abstract In this paper, I take up Herman Paul’s suggestion to analyze the process of writing history in terms of virtues. In contrast to Paul, however, I argue that the concept of virtue used here should not be based on virtue epistemology, but rather on virtue ethics. The reason is that virtue epistemology is discriminative towards non-cognitive virtues and incompatible with the Ankersmitian/Whitean view of historiography as a multivocal path from historical reality to historical representation. Virtue ethics on the other hand, more specifically those forms of virtue ethics which emphasize the uncodifiability thesis, is very capable of providing such an account. In order to make this somewhat more concrete, I distinguish four important traits of virtue ethics, and I try to make clear how these can be interpreted with respect to the writing of history.

Hermeneutics, Life and Dialogue. A Sketch of a Buberian Dialogue with the Past

In this paper, I formulate an existentialist view on the dialogue with the past, based on the philosophy of Martin Buber. This view is meant to supplement the traditional, hermeneutical view on the dialogue with the past. In the first part of this paper, I argue that the traditional hermeneutic view on the dialogue with the past is somewhat restricted. In the work of people such as Schleiermacher, Dilthey or even Gadamer, dialogue is always regarded as a primarily cognitive event, focused on the “I” rather than the “you.” I argue that this means that they take only one aspect of the metaphor into account, and ignore the more existential dimension of dialogue. As an alternative, I use the philosophy of Martin Buber to formulate a point of view that does embrace the existential side of dialogue. I also compare the Buberian view of dialogue with that of Gadamer, and I suggest in which a Buberian historian would differ from a Gadamerian historian.