DeVries Philosophy of History

8/12/2019 DeVries Philosophy of History

1/12

Wesleyan niversity

Meaning and Interpretation in HistoryAuthor(s): Willem A. DeVriesSource: History and Theory, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Oct., 1983), pp. 253-263Published by: Wileyfor Wesleyan University

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2504983.Accessed: 14/02/2014 20:27

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Wileyand Wesleyan Universityare collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toHistory

and Theory.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 75.97.192.97 on Fri, 14 Feb 2014 20:27:09 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=blackhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=wesleyanhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/2504983?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/2504983?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=wesleyanhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black


2/12

MEANINGAND INTERPRETATION N HISTORY

WILLEM . DEYRIES

In the past century,as is well known, therehas been constantdebateover thepropermethodology n history. One side insists that methodologically istoryis akin to the physical sciences in that it must strive to formulate aw-likegeneralizations ndthen test them empirically.The other side insists that thehistorianmust strive to interpretand understandhistoricalevents, and thatlaw-likegeneralizations ave little or no centralrole in an interpretation. ustwhat an interpretation onsists n, however, s not usuallymade very clear. Inthis paperI shallexamineanaspectof the traditionalnotionof historical nter-pretationand try to clarify some of its presuppositions.I would like to focus on the relationbetween wo importantaspectsof an in-terpretationas conceived by the classical interpretationists,Dilthey, Croce,and Collingwood.Despite their differences,all of these authorsagree that:1) Interpretations ave to do with meanings-it is through nterpretationthat we come to knowmeanings.2) Interpretationnvolves something ike re-enacting r re-living n one'simagination he historicalmomentto be interpreted.Is there any relationbetween hese theses?Theinterpretationists suallywriteas if these aretwo closely relatedpoints. I shallargue hatthere s a clearrela-tionshipbetween he two and a role for re-enactmentn historicalmethodol-ogy onlyif one acceptscertain heoriesof meaning.However,the sense of re-enactmentvariesdependingon whattheoryof meaning s held.I shall firstclaimthat thereare at least two theoriesof meaning hat canpro-vide motivation or a re-enactmentmethodologyof history.I shall thenarguethat only one of thesetwo, the translationistheoryof meaning, gives us aplausibleunderstanding f such re-enactment.

Let us beginwith the notion of meaning.Historiansareconcernedwith themeaningsof manykinds of things. Theymust worryabout the meaningsoftheirevidentialmaterials,whetherdocumentsor artifactsor naturalobjects,andtheymustworryabout themeaningsof their nvestigative bjects,whichItake to be primarily he activitiesof historicalpersonsand societies. Thushistoriansutilize a verybroadconceptionof meaning,so broad that no onereallyseems to havegottena good gripon the concept.

This content downloaded from 75.97.192.97 on Fri, 14 Feb 2014 20:27:09 PMAll use subject toJSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/12


4/12


5/12

256 WILLEM A. DEVRIESSecond,although he interpretationistsay a good dealthat soundsas if theyadopt an ideational theory, other things they say discouragesuch an inter-pretation. n the stadard theoryof ideas, ideas are independent ntities n themind which play a causal rolein action and verbalbehavior.Each personhasdirectknowledgeof his or her own ideas but must infer the existenceof ideasin other people. But Collingwood,for instance, would deny that we knowsomeoneelse's deas by a processof inductivenference.4Collingwooddidnottake thoughtto be independentof action, connectedwith actionby a causallink; rather,he held that thought and overt action were relatedas inside andoutside. The inner-outer elation s much closerthan a causalrelation it is arelationof expression.But Collingwood himself did not fully escape the spell of the ideationaltheoryeither.By blurring he distinctionbetweena particular ct of thoughtandthe content t can sharewith other acts of thought, and then requiring hatthe historianrecreate he very act of thoughtin question, Collingwoodstilltook understanding notherperson o be a matterof possessing he same dea.This inclination owarda poor theoryof meaningmay accountfor many ofthe objections hathavebeen leveledat the interpretationistsndalso accountsfor theseeming mplausibility f theirre-enactmentmethodology.5f the idea-tional theoryof meaningwerethe sole theoryof meaningwhichcould supportor motivatea re-enactmentepistemology, there would be good reason forthinking that re-enactment s at best a heuristic device in historical orsociological explanation.But it is clear that there are some latter-day nter-pretationists, uchas PeterWinch,who would disavowthe ideational heoryof meaning.6These thinkers ake as their model our last theoryof meaning,the translationistheoryof linguisticmeaning.How does this theoryaffordmotivationor supportfor a re-enactmentmethodologyof history?

IIThetranslationist heoryof meaning akesas primitive urability o recognizesynonymyrelationsbetweenlinguisticepisodes,whetherwithin one and the

4. Dilthey, on the other hand, explicitlycalls the process of understandingnductive. SeeWilhelmDilthey, Gesammelte chriften LeipzigandBerlin, 1927),VII, 210-213.5. For some nterpretationsf Collingwood hat takehimto be talkingaboutdirect nsight ntoor intuition of the minds of others, see W. H. Walsh, R. G. Collingwood'sPhilosophyofHistory, Philosophy 22 (1947), 154-158; and P. L. Gardiner, The Objects of HistoricalKnowledge, hilosophy27(1952),211-220. Butforan overview f the questionof Collingwood'snotion of re-enactment, n attackon intuitionist eadingsof it, anda defenseof it as a seriousmethodology,see MargitHurup Nielsen, Re-enactmentnd Reconstructionn Collingwood'sPhilosophyof History, History and Theory20 (1981),1-31.6. The new interpretationistsmostly trace their ancestryback to Wittgenstein.Among thestrongestof the hard-core nterpretationistmanifestos s Peter Winch's TheIdea of a SocialScienceand Its Relation to Philosophy London,1958).For other examplesof thistrend n thephilosophyof the social sciences, see Rationality,ed. B. R. Wilson (Oxford, 1970); CharlesTaylor, Interpretationnd the Sciencesof Man, Reviewof Metaphysics 5 (1971),3-51 and hisUnderstandingn HumanScience, Reviewof Metaphysics 4 (1980),25-38. Fora surveyof thistrend, see R. J. Bernstein,TheRestructuring f Social and Political Theory New York, 1976).



6/12

MEANING AND INTERPRETATION IN HISTORY 257same languageor across anguages.To understand he meaningof somethingis to be able to give or recognizea synonymous xpression none'sbackgroundlanguage.Proponentsof the other theorieswe have looked at triedto eliminateentire-ly the notion of meaning n favor of some other-and, they hoped-betterunderstood,notion. The translationists bandonsuchreductionist endenciesand recognize he autonomyof meaning.Meaningfulness,whethernwordsoractions, is an irreduciblepropertyof items in certain highlycomplex, rule-governed ystemsof activities.Since tems n suchsystemsaremeaningfulonlythrough their participation potential or actual)in a system, theirmeaningscannot be specifiedapartfromspecifying heir rolesin the system. Becauseofthe extremecomplexityof the systems nvolved t is often extremelydifficult,perhaps mpossible, o describean item'srolein a system;however, t is pos-sible,and often easy, to point to another temwitha more or less equivalentrole either n the same systemor a different,but familiarsystem.Thus we spe-cifythemeaningof brother itherby givinganother tring nEnglish,forex-ample male sibling, or, if our audience is more familiar with anotherlanguage,such as German,an equivalent tring n that language, bruder.Wecan extend he translationist heory o the meaningsof actionsby sayingthat understanding he meaning of an action is a matter of being able torecognize heappropriately synonymous'or relevantly imilaractionin one'sbackground ociety. (This s obviouslya moreproblematic otionthan thatofthe alreadyproblematicabilityto recognize inguisticsynonymies.)The translationistheoryof meaningprovidesmotivation orsomething ikea re-enactment pistemology.It looks to the standardusage of words andphrases,whichusage s governedby a complexsystemof rules.One of the ma-jor problems n the translationist pproach s thespecification f which of themanyrulesgoverning he uses of wordsaregermane o theirlinguisticmean-ing. Indeed, n the translationof a complex inguisticobject(like, say, CrimeandPunishment)t is not clear hat there s any specific imit to the sets of rulesgoverningwordusagewhicharerelevant o thetask.In order o translate ucha workevencompetently,he translatormustpossessan incredibly argestockof generalbackground nowledgeabout the culturewithinwhich hebook wasformedand about theculture or whichthe translations intended.7Withoutawide-ranging nowledgeof standard reetings, ulesof address,and so on, forinstance, hetranslatorwillprobablymisleadsome of hisreadersby makingagreeting oo strongor too cool.Translatorsmust employ considerablesocial and historicalknowledgeifthey areto do theirjob well. The translator,however, s not concernedwithimpartinghatknowledgeo thereadern any explicit orm.Historians,onthe

7. For discussionsof the breadthof possiblyrelevant actors, see John Haugeland, Under-standingNaturalLanguage, ournalof Philosophy76 (1979),619-632.DouglasR. Hofstadter'sbriefdiscussionn GOdel,Escher,Bach(New York,1979),372-380,very clearlypointsout someof the difficulties n translation.Palmer,Semantics,also emphasizeshat there can be no clearboundarydrawnbetweenour knowledgeof meaningsand our knowledgeof the world.



7/12

258 WILLEM A. DEVRIESother hand, are concernednot only with making the historicalaction underconsiderationntelligible o theirreaders,but also imparting he general ocialknowledgewhich they employ in rendering he action intelligible.Historiansneed to justify their interpretationsmuch more thoroughly han translatorsusually do. Reading history can be like reading a fairly heavily annotatedtranslationn whichthe translatorwantsto informthe readerof the principlesof the translationas wellas the principlesupon which hebook is constructed.Translation, we may say, is methodologicallyopaque, whereas history orsociological nterpretations (or should be) methodologically ransparent.8Whenconsidering he methodologyof translation, here s oftentalk of there-creation f the originalwork by the translator.One of the reasonsfor suchtalk is immediately lear: ranslation s a rule-governed ctivity,yet there s nocodifiedset of rules which, when conscientiouslyapplied,will guaranteeagood translationas a result.If the translations to live up to theoriginalwork,the translatormust workcreatively,refusingany standardrecipefor transla-tion. The best instructionswe can come up withare that the translators torecreate he work at hand; almost any other instruction uns the risk of beingtoo definiteand thus stifling he translator.Good translatorsmust be sensitiveandresourceful peakersof the language nto which hey are translating.Sincewe cannotgive a usableset of instructionswhichanyonecould employ o comeup with a good translation, we can only admonish translators to be aspainstaking as authors, writing in the new language as they imagine theoriginalauthors would have. This form of hineinleben s ratherunobjec-tionable,for it simply acknowledges he limitationson the explicitnessof themethodologyof translation.

III

Thehistorian, f one adoptsthe translation heoryof meaning, s in a similarsituation.Ina confrontationwithhistorical vidence here s no specificimita-tion on the kindof knowledge hat maybe relevant o understandingt. Andthere s also no specificset of rulesto followin order o interpret n historicaleventsuccessfully.As in natural anguage ranslation, here s no algorithmorhistorical nterpretation t present, nor does it seem that therewill be. Con-frontedwith an historicalevent or document he historianmust be alert to allthe possible significancest may possess. In decidingwhich of the possiblemeanings o assignto the eventor documenthistorians an follow little betteradvicethanto insert themselves maginativelynto the situationand let theirabilityto understand heir contemporary vents and other historicalevents

8. If interpretationn history s basicallyof a kindwithtranslation, henif Quineand otherphilosophers f languageareright,there s aninteresting orollary:he basicunitof historicaln-vestigations nottheindividual vent,but mustbe a much arger hunk,perhaps omething ike aperiod.Forjustas we haveaccess o themeaning f anindividualentence nly throughouraccessto a fairly arge ragment f thelanguageof which t is aninstance, o wecoulddiscern hemean-ing of a particular ventonly by developingan interpretationf the period n which t occurs.



8/12

MEANING AND INTERPRETATION IN HISTORY 259come to bear upon the events of the past. Thiswould surelybe something ikere-enactment.We must not forget either that the classical nterpretationists ll called forre-enactmentn imagination.Whilethereare groupswho everyyear conscien-tiously re-enact,for example,Washington's rossing he Delaware,doing thissortof re-enactments not doinghistory. The point is not simplyto have thesamesortsof experiences he historical igureshad. The call for re-enactmentin imaginationshows, I think, that our cognitive powers, not our sensorypowers, are being called upon. Just as we do not actuallyhave to hear asentence o understandt, we need not experience certain ituation o under-stand t. Butjustassome otherwise trange entences an be madeperfectlyn-telligible by imaginingan appropriatecontext for them, the activities ofhistoricalsubjectscan be madeintelligibleby imagining but an imaginingnow constrainedby other evidence) he appropriate ontext.We could get ridof the call for re-enactmentf there were well-understoodrules governing he understanding f one's contemporaries, ust as we couldforegothe invocationof re-creationn translationf we could substitutewell-codified systems of rules which capturethe abilities to understand he twonatural anguages.Theremay be suchrules,thoughwe have everygood reasonforthinking hat theparticularulesmustbein steady lux as thelanguageand-thecontemporary cenechange.Butin anycase we have no suchrules,andlit-tle hope of obtainingthem. The general nstruction o re-createmay be theonly thingwe can say oncethe moreparticularpreceptshave been exhausted.Andwe need to say more than thoseparticularmethodologicalprecepts.Theyareonly preceptsand do not exhaust he field norguaranteea good product.An old objection o the interpretationistss thattheirmethodologyrequiressome mysterious acultyof insightthroughre-enactmentn order to explainour abilityto do history.If an interpretationistoldsan ideational heoryofmeaning,perhaps insight s necessary, incewe haveno Cartesian directac-cess nto themindsof others.Buton the translationistheory heonlysense nwhich nsight s demanded s the sense n whichwe haveanabilityof whichwedo not have a reflectiveunderstanding, n abilityto recognize synonymousactions. This is no more occult than our ability to recognize synonymouslinguistic xpressionswithoutusingexplicitrules.Thus t mightbeheldthatre-enactment s not in principle ssential o thetranslationist,orif wehad a com-plete codificationof theset of rulesandpracticeswhich bestowmeaninguponan action,we should only haveto applythemin a straightforwardmanner.Insuch a situation,re-enactmentwould beno moreessential o the historian hanit is to the engineeror mathematician.f sucha codificationof social rulesandpractices s possible n principle, henre-enactments dispensablen principle.A translationist heory of meaning,then, motivatesa re-enactment piste-mology.Butit does so withoutalsosupporting re-enactmentmetaphysics. tis surelyone of thelessplausible mplications f Croce'sposition,forinstance,thathistoryexistsonlyin someone'spresentre-enactment f andconcernwiththe past. Such a re-enactmentmetaphysicsof historyseems to point again



9/12

260 WILLEM A. DEYRIEStowardthe ideational heory of meaning,for then the doing of history is thehaving of certainthoughts or ideas, and the written historytext could benothing more than an occasion or incitement o re-enact he history.

In the translationistheory the writtenhistorytext is the translationof thehistoricalaction ntocontemporaryermsand remainsaccomplished istoryaslong as the contemporaryituation tselfhasn'tappreciably hanged.9Writtenhistory s not itselfa re-enactment f the historicalaction, but is theproductofa process in which, owing to the complexityof considerationshat could berelevant, he best general nstruction s to pretend o live through he eventandbring o bearuponit all the uncodifiable esourcesusedin everydayife as wellas all the knowledgeof the periodproducedby long studyto makesense of it.Just as one learnsa languagebest by immersing neselfin it, the historianac-quires he bestunderstanding f a periodby immersing imself nhis evidence.Writtenhistoryusuallystrives o be methodologicallyransparent;hat is, itseeksto describe xpresslyall the factorsheld to be important or understand-ing the subject matter.10This is clearlyoverstated. The historiancould nomore stateall the relevant actorsthan he could expressly ormulate he ruleshe employs n interpretinghem. However, he historiancan andmust rely onthe fact that his readersalso possess the skills of interpretingmeaningfulac-tion. Wherethe rules generating he meaningof an action havenot changedovertime,a relatively impledescription f the actionwillsuffice or the readerto understand t; but the historianmusthave a keen sense of what his readerswill understandwithout further ado and what must be spelledout in moredetail because therules havechanged. The methodologicalransparency fhistoricalwriting s therefore imited to those aspects of the historicaleventwhichwould otherwiseescapeor be falsifiedby the (methodologicallypaque)interpretative killsof the reader.

Thereis one more quickand easy advantage n holdingthe translationisttheoryof meaning o be fundamental o interpretationn history.If meaningsarespecifiedby comparisonwiththe background anguageor socialpracticesof the investigator, t is easilyunderstandablehat historywould need to berewrittenevery so often. For as the background onditionswhich historiansuseas their foils change,a particular ersionof anhistoricalevent loses someof its relevanceand beginsto seem moredisjointedor unhelpful han it had.This is notto saythat greatpiecesof theartof historicalwritingarenecessarilydoomedto obsolescence,anymore thanthe fact that we now readChaucern

9. There s an obviouscomplication: istoriansdo not translate ctions n the senseof produc-ing somethingof the same kind. Historiansproducedescriptionsof actions, not the actionsthemselves. return o this brieflybelow.10. If, for instance,a set of eventswerecruciallynfluenced y a now little-knowndebate nChristian heology,the historianwouldhaveto bringthis fact expresslybefore his readers.Atranslator f literaturenfluenced ysucha debatewouldnot haveto mention hedebate, houghhe wouldhave to take it into account.If theliteraryranslatormentions hedebate, t willbeout-sidethe framework f the translation roper, n a footnote,anintroduction, r a separate ieceofliterary riticism.At thatpoint, however, he translators doing literaryhistory.



10/12

MEANING AND INTERPRETATION IN HISTORY 261translationor Shakespearen more or less heavilyannotatededitionshas con-demnedthem to the literaryscrapheap. Gibbon and Motley are still worthreading but today we learn almostas much about the times in which theywrote as about the times of whichtheywrote. The powerof their explanationsand interpretations as begunto fade, or at least their explanations nd inter-pretationsneed supplementation y makingexplicitsome of the assumptionscommonto their social environments; ut this is preciselywhat we should ex-pect, given the translationist heory.Chapman's ranslationof Homer is stillpowerful,but not the finalwordin Homeric ranslation.So it is also withGib-bon. And the point is that there neverwill be a final word.

IVI wouldliketo concludeby pointingout the traps nto whichthisapproach ounderstanding istoricalunderstandingmayfall. I have countedon ananalogybetween he notion of a linguisticmeaningand thatof the meaningof an ac-tion, but thereare definite imitationsto how far we can take this analogy.CharlesTaylor defends this analogy in his paper Interpretation nd theSciencesof Man, 11but he notes that there s at leastthedifference etween hetwo notions that linguistic.ntities often referto a world beyondthemselves,whilethereseemsnothingcomparableo the notionof reference hatapplies oactions per se. Linguistic meaningmay not be reducibleto reference,butreferences clearlyan importantaspectof the semanticsof language.I thinkwecan go even further han thisinpointing o thedisanalogies.First,thebasicelementsof language,words,constitutea fairlywell-definedthoughchanging) et of fairlywell-individuatedtems.12For example,we know wellenoughwhat is involvedin talkingabout the Germanvocabulary,and gooddictionarieswhichspecify t arenot hardto find.I do notbelieve hat there s asimilarlywell-defined et of basic and meaningfulactions out of which, bysome compositional principles, larger units of meaningfulaction can bebuilt.13

11. CharlesTaylor, Interpretationnd the Scienceof Man.12. This s a crudeoversimplification. veryone grees hat the basicunitsof linguisticmeaningarecalled morphemes, ut just how to identify he morphemes f a language s an unsolvedpuz-zle. It is clear hat theycannotbe straightforwardlydentifiedwiththe wordsof the language.Thesituationnlinguisticss therefore ess rosythanI havepainted t here.For morediscussion ee thebooks by Fodor and Palmercited in footnote 1.13. Inaction heory he notionof a basicactionseems o havestemmed romthe desire o drawsome final boundarybetween hose movementsexplainable olely in the terms of the physicalsciencesand those (meaningful ctions)whichmustbe explained hrough heuse of someformofexplanationnot available o the physicalsciences(rationalexplanation).See Readings n theTheoryof Action, ed. NormanCare and CharlesLandesman Bloomington, nd., 1968); TheNatureof HumanAction,ed. MylesBrand Glenview, ll., 1970);andAlvinGoldman,A Theoryof HumanAction (EnglewoodCliffs,N.J., 1970).Theproblemwasnot, then, originally onstruedin termsof the epistemology f meanings.But it turnsout to be devilishlyhard, f not impossible,to isolate such basic actions;see AnnetteBaier, The Searchfor Basic Actions, AmericanPhilosophicalQuarterly (1971), 161-170.



11/12

262 WILLEM A. DEVRIESThereare two problemshere:whatwould count as a basicaction s less clearthanwhatcounts as a basicunit of linguisticmeaning.And what mightbe theprinciplesof compositionwhereby arger tems of meaningfulaction can be

constructedout of simpler,more basic elements, is even less clear. It wouldseem that there must be something ike such a set of principles n order o ex-plain our ability to recognizethe meaningsof actionswhich we have neverbefore encountered.Linguisticprinciplesmust indeed be a subset of theseprinciples, ince language s one form of meaningfulaction, but theremustbeother,lessspecificprinciples, orwe canofteneasilydiscern hemeaningof ac-tionsperformedby peoplewho speak a different anguage.As we increase hedistancefrom our backgroundculture, however,it becomesmore and moredifficult o recognize he meaningsof even some of themore commonactions.Anotherobvious disanalogybetweenactions and linguistic tems is that therelationwhich I have takenhere to be fundamental o the notion of linguisticmeaning, translation,obtainsbetween inguistic tems. One linguistic tem isthetranslation f another.Whilewe could constructa relationbetweenactionssuch that one is something ikea translationof the other, this is not what thehistorian ries to do, for the historiandoes not want to constructa set of ac-tions, but write a text. Therefore, he historian s necessarily oncernedwiththe descriptionof actions,and a full and propertreatmentof the historian'stask would have to treatthe relationbetweenactionand description-a com-plex topic I have simply gnored.An expanded reatment akingthe relationbetweenactionand descriptioninto account would haveto distinguishmore clearlybetweenthe originalac-tion, a later re-stagingof it, its re-enactmentn imagination,and a writtenhistoricaldescription f it. Perhaps hehistorianaimsat tellingus underwhatdescriptiona certainaction was performed,n whichcasehe or she needonlyfigureoutwhat theagenthadin mind andtranslatehatdescriptionor us. ButI doubtthatthis is all historiansaim to do; sometimes heywant to tell us thatthe action performeddid not satisfythe description he agenthad in mind.Sometimes,as in the case of a revolution,theremay not be any agentswhounderstoodwhattheyweredoingin the broadercontext.Despitethese disanalogies, inguisticmeaning s still a special case of themeaningof actions. It may be a specialenoughcase thatthereare some signifi-

When the question urnsto the notion of understandinghe meaningof actions, basic actionsreturn o hauntus, for it has been an axiom of contemporaryinguistics nd philosophy hat inorder o account or thepotential nfinityof meaningful xpressions,meaningsmustbe generatedby recursive ulesoperating n a finiteset of primitive lements.This can be easilygeneralizedoinclude he meaning f actionsas well. Thispointof view s taken o heartmost strictly n workonartificial ntelligence.See, for example,RogerC. Schankand RobertP. Abelson, Scripts,Plans,Goals,and Understanding: n Inquiry ntoHumanKnowledge tructuresHillsdale,N.J., 1977).I donotsee that t willbe any easier o come up withaclear etof basicorprimitive ctions hanit wasfor the originalbasic actiontheorists.Exactlywhatconclusionwe shoulddraw rom this ishard o say.I wouldsuppose hat the notion of basicnessmustbe relativizedo contexts;but howthe storythen continues s up for grabs.



12/12

MEANING AND INTERPRETATION IN HISTORY 263cant differences n appropriatemethodologyor resulting theory; but it iscrucial o a consistentnaturalism o understandanguageas a specialform ofhuman activity. Nothing in these disanalogiesmandatesconstruing he rela-tion otherwise.In the searchfor meanings he historian s often worse off than the jungleanthropologist onfrontingan unfamiliarculture,14ince he or she often can-not, in the very natureof things, interactwith the agents n question except nspecialcases), pose them questions,andevaluate heirresponses;but I take itthatthis is merelya methodologicaldisadvantage,not fodderfor the skeptic.Historyis open to all the indeterminacyhat translation s-but it seemsthatanyform of inquirymaybe open to suchindeterminacy, o nothingparticularseems o followforhistorians,except hattheir ask is difficult.Butif my argu-ment here is right, they at least do not need some mysteriousability to intuitthe past throughan occultrelivingof it.Amherst College

14. For an influential et of reflections n the plightof the anthropologistonfronting n entire-ly new languageand culture,see W. V. Quine, Wordand Object Cambridge,Mass., 1964);andthe voluminous iterature hat developed n response,for example Wordsand Objections,ed.D. Davidsonand J. Hintikka Dordrecht,1969).

Documents

DeVries Philosophy of History