Frank Ankersmit

Narrative logic. A semantic analysis of the historian's language

counterparts. At first this may seem astonishing. But our astonishment will vanish when we realize that basic particulars correspond to how we find the world (before having made any specific decisions as to what kind of particular things the world contains), while their more abstract counterparts correspond to how we have conceptualized the world (and by then our decisions on how to talk about the world have already been made and we should stick to them). But let us return to the positivist approach to (historical) change. According to positivists, things only remain identical, or the same individual thing, during change in relation to some concept that in a relevant sense applies to them. This thing is identical with the one in the past because both are books, made of paper and cardboard and so on. Thus Borowski writes: “diachronic identity” is always “identity under some concept” and he continues: “for each concept which is thus that we ordinarily believe the instance of that concept to persist through time, there is a relation which holds between stages of the object at different times (the ability to apply which is part of a speaker’s grasp of the concept) which validates the claim that the stages are stages of a single 21. Strawson (1); pp. 38-40.

Meaning, Truth, and Reference in Historical Representation

1. Historicism 2. Time 3. Interpretation 4. Representation 5. Reference 6. Truth 7. Meaning 8. Presence 9. Experience (I) 10. Experience (II) 11. Subjectivity 12. Politics

The Sublime Dissociation of the Past: Or How to Be(come) What One Is No Longer

Forgetting has rarely been investigated in historical theory. Insofar as it attracted the attention of theorists at all, forgetting has ordinarily been considered to be a defect in our relationship to the past that should be overcome in one way or another. The only exception is Nietzsche who so provocatively sung the praises of forgetting in his On the Use and Abuse of History (1874). But Nietzsche’s conception is the easy victim of a consistent historicism and therefore in need of correction. Four types of forgetting are identified in this essay. Central in the essay’s argument is the fourth type. This is the kind of forgetting taking place when a civilization “commits suicide” by exchanging a previous identity for a new one. Hegel’s moving account of the conflict between Socrates and the Athenian state is presented as the paradigmatic example of this kind of forgetting. Two conclusions follow from an analysis of this type of forgetting. First, we can now understand what should be recognized as a civilization’s historical sublime and how the notions of the historical sublime and of collective trauma are related. Second, it follows that myth and (scientific) history do not exclude each other; on the contrary, (scientific) history creates myth. This should not be taken to be a defect of history, for this is precisely how it should be.

Hayden White's appeal to the historians

Historians rarely agree with Hayden Whites account of theirdiscipline. To a certain extent their dissatisfaction can be explained by the fact that historianscustomarily distrust historical theory and always tend to look at the historical theorist with thegreatest suspicion. But historians find an extra argument for their dislike of Whites ideasin his alleged cavalier disregard of how historical facts limit what the historian might wish to sayabout the past. And, admittedly, this criticism is not wholly unfounded. Nevertheless, this essay attempts to show how misguided this traditional criticism ofWhite actually is. For it is historians who too easily take the truth of their accounts of the past forgranted, whereas Whites theoretical writings can be shown to express a full awareness ofthe kind of problem encountered in the effort to tell the truth about historical reality. Hence,Whites writing—rather than those by historians criticizing White—testify to therespect that we owe to historical reality itself. That this is how we should read White becomes clear if we consider his intellectualevolution as a whole rather than the individual books or essays that he wrote.

Danto, history, and the tragedy of human existence

Philosophy of history is the Cinderella of contemporary philosophy. Philosophers rarely believe that the issues dealt with by philosophers of history are matters of any great theoretical interest or urgency. In their view philosophy of history rarely goes beyond the question of how results that have already been achieved elsewhere can or should be applied to the domain of historical writing. Moreover, contemporary philosophers of history have done desperately little to dispel the low opinion that their colleagues have of them. In this essay I argue that Arthur Danto is the exception confirming the rule, for Dantos philosophy of representation may help us understand how texts relate to what they are about. The main shortcoming of (twentieth-century) philosophy of language undoubtedly is that it never bothered to investigate the philosophical mysteries of the text. The writing of history is a philosophical goldmine and we must praise Danto for having reminded us of this.

An Appeal from the New to the Old Historicists

Book reviewed in this article: Jurgen Pieters, Moments Of Negotiation: The New Historicism Of Stephen Greenblatt

Invitation to historians

In this essay I give an idea of my main preoccupations as a historical theorist. I take my point of departure in what I consider to be the less satisfactory aspects of contemporary ‘theory’. These are, in the first place, the lack of a feeling of ‘urgency’ about all that we are doing and, second, a loss of authenticity of expression, an abandonment to the free play of theoretical abstraction and from which the confrontation with the real has all but disappeared. There are no fixed codes for how to react to the discontents of culture. So I speak under correction when saying that, in my view, the distresses of contempary culture had best be overcome by means of a rehabilitation of the notion of (sublime) experience. The sublime is the sworn enemy of theoretical abstraction and may open our eyes again to the world in its prelinguistic virginity. So experience and the sublime may transform the writing of history and ‘theory’ into occupations whose urgency no sensible person will wish to doubt.

Reply to professor Roth: on how antidogmatism bred dogmatism

Quines post-positivism was, mainly, an attack on the dogmatism of foundationalist philosophy of language and science claiming to offer an apriorist account of knowledge and of the relation between language and the world. In opposition to this dogmatism Quines post-positivism required the philosopher of language and science to respect and be open to how in the practice of science knowledge may emerge. Roths review of my book exemplifies how Quines anti-dogmatism could become a dogma itself. Basically, by the refusal to recognize the immense variety in the practices of science and, consequently, that each science has its own. In Roths case this unwillingness resulted in the projection of the practice of the sciences on that of history and the humanities. This compelled him to (unwittingly) embrace the dogma of the Unity of Science. This is how Quines most recommendable anti-dogmatism could turn into dogmatism.

Reply to Professor Saari

In my reply I focus on Professor Saaris criticism of my views on the notions of historical truth, reference and meaning. I argue that the commonsense conceptions of truth and reference as used by Professor Saari are insufficient for achieving a correct understanding of the writing of history and that some technical refinement is therefore required. My conclusion is that my disagreement with Professor Saari probably does not go beyond the question of this desirability of technical refinement.

Danto on Representation, Identity, and Indiscernibles

Arthur Danto has made important contributions to both aesthetics and philosophy of history. Furthermore, as I shall try to show in this essay, his aesthetics is of great relevance to his philosophy of history, while his philosophy of history is of no less interest for his aesthetics. By focusing on the notions of representation, identity, and the identity of indiscernibles we shall discover how fruitful this cooperation of aesthetics and philosophy of history may be. Crucial to all historical writing and, hence, to all philosophy of history, is the notion of identity through time and change. How could the historian write the history of x if x cannot be said to remain the same in the course of its history? It will become clear that aesthetics will provide us with a satisfactory solution for the problem, for the aestheticist notion of representation will enable us to define the notion of identity that the historian needs. Nevertheless, a certain friction can be observed between Dantos aesthetics and his philosophy of history. At the end of this essay I hope to show that Dantos philosophy of history will be our best guide to dealing adequately with this friction.