Historians typically tell stories about the past, but how are we to understand the epistemic status of those narratives? This problem is particularly pressing for history education, which seeks guidance not only on the question of which narrative to teach but also more fundamentally on the question of the goals of instruction in history. This article explores the nature of historical narrative, first, by engaging with the seminal work of Hayden White, and second, by developing the critique of White by (...) David Carr. The picture of historical inquiry that emerges is one in which the fundamental cognitive activity is one of negotiating among narratives. Students, like historians, like any of us, come to the work of historical inquiry in possession of prior narratives, which are then thrown into an encounter with other narratives of varying size and scope. Good historians enact the negotiation among narratives responsibly and well, demonstrating the virtues of historical interpretation. History education, therefore, ought to help students improve their historical interpretations at the same time as it fosters those qualities that make them good interpreters. (shrink)

A seemingly unitary appeal to history might evoke today two incompatible operations of historicization that yield contradictory results. This article attempts to understand two co-existing senses of historicity as conflicting ideas of historical change and rival practices of temporal comparison: historicism and constructionism. At their respective births, both claimed to make sense of the world and ourselves as changing over time. Historicism, dominating nineteenth-century Western thought and overseeing the professionalization of historical studies, advocated an understanding of the present condition of (...) the human world as developing out of past conditions. Constructionism, dominating the second half of the twentieth century, understood the present condition as the recent invention of certain ‘historical’ environments, without prior existence. As competing ideas of historical change, they both entail a comparison between past and present conditions of their investigated subjects, but their practices of temporal comparison are irreconcilable and represent two distinct ways of historicization. (shrink)

In this essay an attempt is made to transcend the divide between realists and anti-realists in the philosophy of history by proposing an alternative account of understanding the past, one based on the nature of testimonies, specifically theirscopeanddepth. This is done through a critical engagement with the works of prominent realist and anti-realist philosophers of history ; other philosophers working on relevant topics such as epistemology, and historians who have written on historical method. The alternative account thus developed is then (...) tested by applying it to the case of theHistorikerstreit, the bitterly waged historian's struggle concerning the history and legacy of Nazism. On the surface it appears to affirm the anti-realist position that posits historical narratives as being inherently normative/aesthetic given the inadequacies of the ‘thick’ realist position, but upon closer scrutiny it demonstrates the merit of my alternative, testimony-based ‘thin’ realist account. (shrink)

The second half of the twentieth century has been witness to a blooming of reflections on the status of historical narrative. One of the main achievements of a narrativist philosophy of history (NPH) consists of having reinforced the worth of an autonomous historical knowledge vis à vis standard conceptions of science which made history appear as underdeveloped. Although NPH does not dismiss the importance of documentary evidence, it did not produce an integrative account of both dimensions (the work of writing (...) and the work with evidence), being slave of a number of epistemological dualism. On one hand, NPH seems to remain in the representationalist paradigm in the case of evidence, while, on the other hand, it only admits pragmatic evaluation in the case of narrative discourse. In this paper, I sustain that John Dewey’s and George H. Mead’s reflections on our knowledge of the past offer NPH good reasons to assess the role that literary theory can play in reconstructing historical controversies, without neglecting the importance of empirical research. For instance, Dewey holds that historical writing is a case of the judgments produced in response to problematic research situations. By virtue of this, the meaning of judgments referred to the past (that is, historical narrations) “have a future reference and function,” and thus understanding their meaning involves displaying the consequences that follow from such judgments. Mead, for his part, has argued that by appealing to the independent reality of the past as ground for our beliefs about it, rather than contributing to the rational resolution of our historical problems, we stray towards the search of something which is by definition unattainable. As a consequence, I shall show the urgency of advancing in the development of a narrativist, pragmatistically-informed philosophy of history. My considerations will be illustrated through the analysis of a controversial case about a past event: the main plot of the memorable film The man who shot Liberty Valance, by the equally memorable John Ford. (shrink)

This paper considers the legacy of Kuhn and his Structure with regard to the current history and philosophy of science. Kuhn can be seen as a myth breaker, whose contribution is the way he connected historical and philosophical studies of science, questioning the cumulativist image and demanding historical responsibility of the views of science. I build on Kuhn’s legacy and outline a suggestion for theoretical and philosophical study of history (of science), which can be subdivided into three categories. The first (...) is the philosophical analysis of historical interpretation and its relation to the historical record. The second is ‘theoretical history’ in which one tries to infer philosophically relevant interpretations on the nature of science on the basis of historical evidence. The third is the conceptual reflection of the assumptions and implications of the contemporary historiography of science. At the end I suggest that theoretical and philosophical study of history offers a fresh way to make history and philosophy relevant to each other. (shrink)

History educators find themselves in the peculiar situation of wishing to introduce students to the history discipline while lacking a clear conception of the features intrinsic to historical inquiry across its various specialisations and subject matters. In affirming that no one methodological charter hangs in the corridors of academic history departments, we fail to provide an adequate justification for an education in history. The doctrine that history is an exercise in disciplined knowledge, a specific way of knowing, is weakened by (...) disciplinary disquietude and dissimilitude. Three features impress themselves upon all who inquire into the past. In the learning and teaching of history, these three features assume a distinct structural shape. First, colligation consists in grouping the events and concepts to be studied according to their shared purposes. Second, historical distance, intimately tied up with tradition and collective memory, provides the means for identifying a past separate from the present to be studied in its own right. Third, reconstruction describes the process of supplying individual content to the general categories illuminated by the earlier stages. To work knowingly in this structure of historical inquiry offers no solutions to the problems of historical thinking, it is to work productively within these problems. (shrink)

This contribution responds to the ongoing discussion about the narrativity of history and looks at some differences between fictive and historical narrative. The objective of this contribution is to further elaborate on the ideas of narrative transformations developed by Wolf Schmid, focusing particularly on historical narratives. The authors see differences between both kinds of narrative, especially on the level of reference (which is in line with the views of D. Cohn, P. Ricouer and L. Doležel). The problem of fiction and (...) reference is illustrated by Schmid's four tiered narratological model, especially on the level of happening. In fiction, this tier (of happening) is inferred backwards based on the presentation of the narration. This tier is positioned (excluded in absentia) so the elements of the narrative can be selected. In historical narrative happening has a different status and precedes both the story and the text. Although the shape of the past is related to the presentation of the narrative, it is not determined by nor reduced to it. The authors of this contribution describe the specific character and aspects of narrative transformation in the writing process. (shrink)

El objetivo del trabajo es mostrar que la revisión que los historiadores llevan a cabo en su disciplina se debe, en parte, porque se ha puesto en cuestión el presupuesto temporal sobre el que se construyó la historia como ciencia: el “pasado histórico”. En primer lugar, intento señalar de qué modo en Analytical Philosophy of History Danto expresa, en la estructura temporal de las oraciones narrativas, las características del “tiempo histórico” que subyace a la historiografía. La separación y distinción entre (...) pasado, presente y futuro; el tiempo como un flujo del futuro hacia el pasado; el privilegio epistémico del historiador por sobre el testigo constituyen algunos de los rasgos que, para Danto, distinguen a la historia de cualquier otro conocimiento. En segundo lugar, intentaré mostrar que estos presupuestos temporales se hacen visibles cuando, a partir de las catástrofes del siglo XX, la memoria es considerada como una forma privilegiada para acceder a ese pasado reciente. Es decir, el surgimiento de la memoria, a partir de los 80´s, pone en tela de juicio los presupuestos temporales que subyacen a la concepción del pasado histórico “a la Danto” y el rol que el testigo y el futuro tenían para el conocimiento histórico. (shrink)

El principal objetivo de este artículo es considerar el advenimiento de la filosofía de la historia de Hayden White como el resultado de un compromiso con cinco tesis que articulan la teoría como un todo. Ese compromiso permite inteligir buena parte del espacio ocupado por los críticos del narrativismo de White, pero más que suponer la necesidad de anular la teoría -en virtud de que uno u otro aspecto de alguna tesis es conceptualmente problemático-, me oriento en la dirección contraria. (...) El objetivo ulterior reside en mostrar a la luz de las cinco tesis cómo las eventuales inconsistencias de la teoría se resuelven atendiendo a las críticas eficaces con miras a radicalizar la teoría. Si ése fuera el caso, entonces resultaría que Metahistoria fue el punto de partida -y no de llegada- en la emergencia de otra filosofía de la historia. The primary objective of this article is to consider the advent of Hayden White's philosophy of history as the result of a commitment with five theses that articulate the theory as a whole. That commitment allows to understand much of the space occupied by narrativism critics, but in terms that instead of assuming the need for a dismissal of the theory , guide us in the opposite direction. The ultimate goal is to show, in the light of the five theses, how are resolved the eventual inconsistencies of the theory in response to effective criticism in order to radicalize theory. If that were the case, then Metahistory was the point of departure in the emergence of another philosophy of history. (shrink)

El presente artículo se propone mostrar la vinculación conceptual que se establece en el conjunto de la obra de Arthur Danto –un autor clave en la consideración analítica del concepto de representación- entre asimetrías cognitivas, teoría de la representación y criterio transfigurativo de realidad. Esa articulación nos entrega un modelo de particular predilección por las asimetrías cognitivas vinculadas a la estructura trágica, que es limitativa de las posibilidades aventuradas por el mismo Danto respecto de nuestra capacidad para captar la apertura (...) e incompletud de nuestra aprehensión de la historia. (shrink)