Kurt Riezler's - Historian and Truth

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THE

JOURNAL

OF PHILOSOPHY

THE

HISTORIAN

AND

TRUTH'

H

ISTORY

is

a

science.

It seeks

the truth.

But science

is

in quest

of

laws;

history

s content

with

describing

he

par-

ticular. What kindof particular? What is in the particular?

To the

historian

the

truth

of

a

description

means

in

practice

its

concordance

with

a

kind

of

reality,

the

historical

reality.

To

him

the

problem

f

truth

s

the

problem

of

this historical

eality

and

its specific

character.

To him

this

question

is

independent

from

and

prior

to

the other problem-how

to

verify

the

truth.

The

historian

an

not detach

from

his

subject-matter,

re

he starts,

those

areas

or

layers

that

lend

themselves

onveniently

o

specific

demands

of

a scientific

method

nd forget

bout

the others.

Thus

he

can

not

share

the

general

belief

in the

sovereignty

f the

scien-

tific

method

over the

subject-matter.

To him

the

method

does

not

determine

he

subject-matter;

he subject-matter

etermines

he

method.

He

can not

assume

beforehand

hat

the

joints

at

which

the

subject-matter

hould

be

divided

are

those

suggested

by

his

1

Paper

read

before

the

Conference

n Methods

n

Philosophy

nd

the

Sciences,

New School

for Social

Researeh,

ecember,

947.

Kurt Riez er

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp



THE

HISTORIAN

AND

TRUT

H 379

preference or

reliable

verification.

In

devotion

o a

subject-matter

whose

specific exture

he

must

respect,

he

develops

methods

that

are neither ess

elaborate nor less

exacting

than

those

of

the

ex-

perimentalmethod.

If

to thehistorian

ruth

means first f all truth

bout a

definite

reality,what

is

this reality?

I

base

my

reasoning

on the

histori-

ographer

proper,

who describes he course

of

events;

on the

great

historian,

who seems

to

have achieved

something;

n

what

he

does

in

practice,

not on what he

says

in

theory, s

his

theoretical

tter-

ances

may

depend upon

the

philosophy

f

his day and not

coincide

with

his

practice.

He

selects

topic.

But

there s a

limitation:his

sub4ect-matter

is a piece

of

human ife.

By

belonging

o

the past, a

fact

does not

thereby

ecome an

historical act. The

movement f

cotton

prices

in

Alabama

from1840

to

1850, f

isolated

and seen in

an

abstract

cosmos of

prices, s

material

for

history,

not history

tself.

Only

in the

history of man

do

cotton

prices

move along

with other

things. The

historian s

concernedwith the

role

these

movements

of

cotton

prices

played in the

changing ife

of

these

changing

men.

Even

languages,

nstitutions,

eligions,

hough

they

certainly

have

a history, re in themselvesnot historical facts ; only in the

human

context can

their

history

be

written;

here only

are

they

concrete.

Whatever

topic

is

selected,

he

reference o

human

life

remains

silently

present-as

question

imposed upon

the

historian

by

the

subject-matter

tself.

The

historian

wants to

report how

things

actually

happen,

Wie es

gewesen

ist,

as Ranke

put it, or to

represent

hings

truly, as Thomas

Madox put

it.

Thus

he

starts with a

multi-

plicity of facts. What guides his selection? He selects the

causally relevant and

omits

the

ineffectual

s

irrelevant.

So

we

are told. The

beauty of a

lady becomes

fact of

American

history

when Alexander

Hamilton

falls

in love

with her.

But the

word

causality

is

loosely

used.

The so-called

hain

of

causes and

effects

is

merely

first

llusion of the

historian.

If

such a chain

means

a chain of

events

n

time,

n

which each

preceding

ink

is the

cause

of

the

following

s

its

effect,

o

historian has

ever

succeeded

in

constructing

uch

a

chain.

Between

any

two inks

there re

count-

less others. Any such chain has an inexhaustible nner infinity.

Even

if it

did

not,

none could

be

isolated,

even

for

a

short

tretch.

Each event has

as

effect

housands of

causes,

as

cause

thousands

of

effects.

The

causality

of the

historian

s not the

causality

of

such

chains.

An

historical occurrence

merges

from

the

past

and

operates on

the future. The historian

hows

n the

way

he

reports

he

course




380

THE JOURNAL

OF PHILOSOPHY

of events

the field

of historicalforces

and their

constellation,

he

dynamic

ituation

n which he

events

occur. Such

a dynamic

field

is

far fromsimple.

It

changesunder

the

impact of

the events.

It has many ayers,somechanging o slowlythattheyseem to be

permanent,

thers

o quickly

that their

changes

seem to

be single

events. The different

ayers and their changes

interact.

In

the

course

of

the concrete

events the historian

describes,

all the

his-

torical forces

of

the dynamic

situation

entwine,

n a

way unique

in

each case.

We can

not identify

ll these

forces

by name.

They

include

not

only mountains

nd gods, institutions

nd machines,

mentalities

f collectivities,

ower of

passions

and words,

nterests

and ideas, but this

powerful

man here

and

now and his

dark

heart

as

well. This

dynamic

field, the

fabric

of slowly

or quickly

moving

forces, s

the causality

of the

historian, hough

he may talk

in

terms

of causal chains.

After

all, only

by virtue

of such

a

dynamic

field do

eventsbecome

causes-everywhere

and not

only

in

history. The

historian,

y reporting

he

courseof

events

and

constructing

lways abbreviated

and

never accurate

causal

chains,

describes

ndirectly

he dynamic

field

and its movement.

For the

sake

of this description

e selects

this and

omitsthat

datum

from

multiplicity f data.

If

this

s the case, the

historian

will and

must

sometimes

eport

facts

that

n

one

way or

another re

representative

f

the forces

n

the historical

field, though

as occurrences

they

may

be without

relevant

ffect.

The historian

may

occasionally

eport

n

anecdote.

Many

a

modern

ooks

down

on

Herodotus,

the father

of history-

writing,

because

his history

eems

to be sometimesmerely

a se-

quence

of

such

anecdotes.

We should bear

him no

grudge,

how-

ever, even if we suspect some of his anecdotesare not precisely

true.

The

representative

alue

of

his anecdotes

is

rather

high.

Some

are

representative

f the

dynamic

fields,

ven of a

general

movement

in which

the East

overflows

he

West

and recedes

again.

Thucydides

ays

about

his

famous

speeches

that

he

was unable

to

ascertain the

actual

working

of

all, though

even

in such

cases

the

speeches

he

reports

could

or

should

have been

made

by

these

men

in

these

situations. Some

of

these

speeches,

masterpieces

f

rhetoric,re certainlynot the actual speeches. In general, tates-

men, envoys,

oldiers

are

not so articulate.

Most of

ours,

their

ghost

writers

ncluded,

are not.

These

speeches

obviously

should

bring

to

light

the

dynamics

of men

and

things

n each

situation

and this

they do,

in

some

cases

perhaps

better

than the

speeches

actually

made.

The

historical

egend

is

a

particular

case.

If the truth s

that




THE

HISTORIAN

AND

TRUTH

381

Luther at the Diet of Worms utteredonly a

simple

no in a low

and hesitantvoice, nstead

of his famous

hier stehe ch; ich kann

nicht

an,ders,

the legend

may be thought o be more representa-

tive. For this reason the historianmay reportthe legend; how-

ever,

if

he is cautious,

merely as a legend.

It may

be

that the

timid no is morerepresentative or the particular

man

and

the

particular situationand tells the deeper story.

Even in this

case

the birth of the legend can be representative

oo.

In

most

cases

the real facts are richer-and

queerer-than

anything

man

can

invent, though their riches are hidden. The

particular in the

particularity f its historical

ontext s inexhaustible.

It can happen that the inaccurate facts

of one historiantell a

true

story about the

dynamicfield,whereas

the accurate facts of

another ell a false story

or none at all. This,

however, s not due

to

any mystical ntuition.

There is no doubt that Jacob

Burek-

hardt's Griechische

Kulturgeschichte s far

superior to all other

such attempts, hough

the evidence he presents,

faulty in many

instances, s open to philological criticism.

This does not mean

that he had no evidencebut that the evidence

he presented s not

precisely hat fromwhich he derived his answers.

He was not a

philologist;he read the sources with a mindtrained by the study

of

many a culture, asked the relevant questions,

and found the

right answers,though

this and that particular

evidence does not

prove what he thought

t proved.

The dynamicfield

s only a modest and

incomplete nswer to

our

immodest uestion about the why of the

single event.

This

answer does not establish

a must. Not everything hat actually

happens has been probable, let alone necessary.

Sometimes

ven

the improbable happens in history; ratherfrequently ndeed if

the

improbable' is

meant relatively to the knowledge

of

the

present situation we

actually possess; less

frequently f it is

meant relatively o the maximumknowledge

finite

ntellect

can

possess; perhaps even in rare cases if it is

meant relatively

to

a

perfect knowledge

of the present

a divine observer may

have.

The historian voids

dogmaticpreassumptions bout

the structure

of

his

subject-matter.

His main temptation nd

his

capital

sin

against concretehistory

s to draw conclusions

from the

actual

to

its probability,from the probable to its necessity. Things are

not so simple. In each

dynamic field the necessary

and

the

con-

tingentpermeate

each

other

n different nd

changing ways

and

mixtures.

The

particularity f

theirmixture

s even the

mostrele-

vant particularityof the structure

of

such

a

dynamic

field.

It

changes

the

day

war

is

declared.

It

is different

n

the

age

of

Charlemagne

nd

in

the last

two

centuries f

the Roman

empire

n




382

THE JOURNAL

OF

PHILOSOPHY

the West.

It

is as if history

went on changingthe boards

of

the

children's

games or

slot

machines

n which

a ball rolls from

nail

to nail,

to this

or that

hole or exit.

Sometimes

the

acting

man

has but a narrowrange of possibilities; ittledifferences attera

great

deal

and diverging

oundaries

of the board widen

the

range

of possible

consequences.

Sometimes

he range

of initial

alterna-

tives

for action

seems

wide

but converging

boundaries

force

the

rolling ball

along

different

ways to the

same

exit.

Hence

the

historian hould

not assume

necessities

n advance

of

his

finding;

perhaps

he should be

rather

cautious

in

using sentences

beginning

with

because. It

may

even be that

an

all-knowing

God

writing

the history

f

man, the great

fool, for

human

readers would

begin

many

a sentence

with

nevertheless

and in doing

so mightac-

curately

describe the

foolishness

f

man as part

and parcel

of

a

history hat

s the

history

f

man, not God.

The historian

s in love

with

the particular.

The

dynamic

field

too

is

a

particular

one-this

configuration

f these

forces

n these

men and

things.

When

the steppes

dryup,

the cattledie,

and the

children tarve,

t

happensto

a

particular

people

which s

ossified

in ancestral

habits

or still

flexible,

n these

fetters

o this

past,

this

country, hese holy places and gods, with that particular power

structure.

Only

in such

a context

does

starvation

become

an his-

torical

fact.

Hunger

alone is

repeatable,

but hunger

is

never

alone.

A

particular

context

of these

stubborn

things,

men,

and

gods

moves

in a

unique

way

from a

anique past

into a

unique

future.

The historian

does not

enumerate

these

forces

or

give

them

general

names.

He

has no

high

opinion

of such

names

as

cap-

italismornationalism;hemaydistinguish ut he doesnotseparate

factors.

He

refers

he one to

the

other-in

one

anotherthey

are

effective.

To

him gods

or

their

equivalents

emerge

in a

world

of

potential

hunger-hunger

occurs

in a world full of

gods

and

ideas.

To the

historian

nothing

s the

abstract

universal.

Only

the

particular

s

really

real.

His

practice,

devotion o his

subject-

matter,

ures

him

quickly

of

any

theories

bout

general

priorities

of interestsover

ideas

or of

ideas over

interests.

His

priorities

change

n

history.

The historian eports hecourseof events, equencesof facts n

time. Owing

to

the

relevance

of his

facts

and his

ways

of

report-

ing,

the

dynamic

field

and its

movement

becomes

more or

less

visible.

His

narrative

s

more or less

transparent.

As,

however,

his view

of the

dynamic

field

may

be

faulty,

hough

his facts

may

be

accurate,

or

vice

versa,

it is useful to

distinguish

etween

two

objects

of

the

truth

he

seeks:

the

truth

about

the

naked facts

and




THE HISTORIAN

AND

TRUTH

383

the truth about

the

dynamic

field

uggested by

or

transparent n

these facts.

The

aim of the historian

s

neither

the one

nor

the

otherof

these truths

eparatelybut

the

transparency f the

second

in the first. Though this seemsrelatively imple,of course it is

not.

-The

term

dynamic

field

hides many

difficulties.

The

consciousand

professed ntention

f

the

historian

may

end

here.

The

highest

aim

he

admits

may

be to describe

truly

conspicuous

events

showing hedynamic

field

n its movement

rom ts

past to

its

present. He

may

sometimes ook

beyond

the individual

his-

torical form he

describes and

strain his

eyes to discover

in

the

wandering

fogs

at

least

some

recognizable contoursof

a

piece of

allgemeiner

eschichtlicher

ewegung of a

greaterperiod,

s Ranke

did, and let the feudal state of the Middle Ages grow into the

absolute

monarchy

nd the

absolute

monarchy nto the

national

state

or

anything lse of the

same

order of

magnitude.

But what-

ever

his intention,

wittingly

r

unwittingly,n his

very devotion

o

and

compelledby

the

particularity f his

subject-matter, e

reaches

another

truth and

achieves

another

transparence-unless his

in-

terest

for

thosegeneral

movements

r a concern

for the

meaningof

the

historical

process as a

whole

transfershis

concern

from

the

inner ife oftheparticularto theconstruction frolesormeanings

in such

a

generalmovement

r the

historical

rocessas a

whole.

What

is-in

concreto-such

a

dynamic

field A

last

hope

drives

the

ancestors of the

ancient Egyptians

from the

expand-

ing

desert into the

still

uninhabitable

swamps

of the Nile.

For

centuries

they

wrestle with the River

for some

pieces

of

fertile

soil. The

particular ituation

requires nd finally

licits

an

organ-

ized

effort:

ower,

command,

ompulsion. Kings

arise,

taxes, ac-

countants,

priests. The

new power, chainingthe River, reinter-

prets

the

world. In the

image of

this world

man

reinterprets is

own

existence. The

interests of

men,

their needs, their

ideas,

norms, nd

gods grow in

one

another. A

distinctway of life,

an

individual

historical

form,

s established

and

strives to maintain

itself. Man

made it.

In

its frameman

moves,

itherpatiently n

fixed

habits

or

lugging and

tugging at its

fetters. The historian

tries

to

describe it in its

particularity-this River

behaving

dif-

ferently rom ll

other

rivers, hese

trange

gods, roles

of

the

dead,

institutions-unique particularities. In his descriptionthe dy-

namic

field,

constellation f

forces

and

factors,

geographic,

co-

nomic,

ocial,

political,

deological,

omes to life.

But it has never

been

anything

lse

than the answer

to

men and

to the

things

and

the

responseof the

things

to that answer.

As

in

the

narrative of the

historian,

he

events

proceed

one

after

the other,

partly

dependent,

partly

independent, of one




384

THE JOURNAL OF

PHILOSOPHY

another,

and

the many forces and factors

of

the

many-layered

dynamicfields

entwine,

t

happens

that in this

narrative a

third

kind of

truth

becomes visible. Though this third

kind

of

truth

can not be separated fromthe event and the forces n the field

and

hence is difficult o

identify separately, t is different

nd

should

be distinguished.

By virtue of this second

transparence

the mere

events and

factorsare no longer

merelyobjective

things

in an order of the many

things n space

and time; they are seen

and

are what they are by

virtue of the

role

they play or the

func-

tions

they have in the

life of man. Here is

their concretereality.

The absolute potestas of

the Roman pater

familias

s no longer an

institutionn an institutional ealm, o be defined y its differentita

specifica.

If

it were, t would be but an

abstraction, ifeless

and

dead. It is what it is in

the contextof

Roman life. It would be

something ntirely ifferentn the familyof

today. The

historian

looks through he things

s things o the

particularhuman context

in which hese nstitutions

nd passions and

dreamsof man entwine

with

these things and

gods, to this kind of

misery

nd

happiness.

The

historian, evotedto the concrete

particularity f his subject-

matter,

an not help

avoiding any isolation and separation of

any

of these forces and factors we would like to analyze and study

separately, hinking

s

we

do of

the dynamic

fieldas a sort of

ag-

gregateof all these

factors. They are forged

ogether

n

the unity

of a

context;here they originate nd here

they change.

By the

ambiguous terms roles and functions

I do

not

mean

the

historical roleor function f a

man,

a

thing,

n

event,

in this

or that

development,n the successof a revolution r

any-

thing

else

of

the kind in

which

the

observer

may

be interested.

ThoughRanke says the role of the Byzantine Empirewas to keep

Asia from

Europe, the Byzantines

certainly

did not think about

their

role.

I

do not mean such historical

roles.

I mean

roles

and

functions n

a context

we

call human life, though

ife here

is

not

merely ife

in the mirror

f biology.

This human

context,

n

whichthe things

re

theirroles

or func-

tions, s

again

but a

particular

one-of this life

in

this

country

and

age. But its

particularity s no longer he

particularity

f the

single

facts

and

factors

out

of an indefinite

multiplicity

f

pos-

sible facts and factorsof an objectifiedworld. It is the particu-

larity

of

a

variation

of

human

life

that

becomes

manifest n the

cloak of

the

historical

onditions,nstitutions,

hings,words,

vents.

I

may

be

permitted o call

this

particularity

third

kind of

truth-and

the

transparence

f

the facts

and

the

dynamic

field

n

which it

becomes visible

the

second

transparence.

Historical

descriptions

iffer

widely

n

this

second

transparence.

In

some

of




THE

HISTORIAN AND

TRUTH 385

themman

himself, oncrete

ife, disappearscompletely n

the

proc-

ess of the

development f objective

facts and

abstractforces and

factors.

The thirdparticularityeemsno less unique than theparticular

cloak of the

historical onditions n

which t

becomesreal. Yet as

a

variation

of a

definite ontext, he

particular

carrieswith t some-

thing that

is no

longer a particular:

the

structure f this

context.

We

may learn

from he

strange

peculiarity

f a

past

life the

pecu-

liarityof

our own way of ife

or of our

own age of which

we

mostly

are

unaware. Thus

we may

learn something

bout die

Breite des

Menschenwesens, he

broad range of

human

possibilities.

It

is,

however,

not only the

stupid quantityof thisrange; in it and be-

hind it something

lse

becomesvisible, though

perhaps

only dimly

and

at a

remotedistance, and

shines

through he narrative of

the

historian:the unity

of a context, he

fabric of

man's existence, he

tissue

of

many strands, as

the frame

no history can

transgress,

within

whose

iron

bounds all

developments

evelop and

all

evolu-

tions

evolve.

Thus in

thissecond

transparence he

particular course

of events

in its

dynamic ield s a

particular

aspect of mutable

man. In this

aspect,however, generalcontext ecomesvisible,as a fourthkind

of

truth

in

a third kind

of

transparency. It

is the

context

n

whichman

binds himself

n the

deeds

he

does,

the

words

he

creates,

the

power

he

establishes,

n

whichhe

starves

and

cares and reaches

out

for gods or

their

equivalents. Restless

man, who

only for a

shorttime and never

entirely s

what he could

be,

can

be what he

wants to

be, wants to

be what he

ought to be, forever

n his

way

in

between

is,

''can,

'willy

'must, 2

iought,

and

many

,other uch in betweens, knowingand ignorant,fearful and

greedy,full of care

and

careless,potentially

he most

magnificent

and the

meanest of

all animals. I call it

for

the

momentthe

eternal

humanum.

This humanum is

not

human nature as

the term is

used

in

scientific

reatises

which distinguish

nherited

nd acquired traits;

it is not

the

human

being, let alone the

organism, ot life

in the

mirrorof

biology. It

is

not

the individual

as

individual. It

is

historical

man, man

as

he

moves and is moved

n the

movement

f

history. There s no otherman. Man is mutable, he humanum

is

but the

eternalframe

of his

mutability. It is

not the usual uni-

versal of a

class, a

species, a genus of

beings,

et alone an essence

in

a realm

of

essences.

It

is the

universal

context,present

n

all

situations

and their

changes. I could

call it, in the

language of

Michel

de Montaigne,

1'entiereformede la condition

humaine.

I

could

call

it,

using

the

language

of

geometry,

he

topology

of the




386

THE

JOURNAL OF

PHILOSOPHY

human space, present as

unity of

a

context

n all the

countless

figuresof all the possible euclidean

and noneuclidean spaces. It

is in all the dynamicfields, nd none of their changes can trans-

gress ts rules.

However, the topological axioms of the human space are un-

known to man. Goethe says in a poem: das Besondere ist das

Allgemeine. This proposition, hough

meaningless, as a meaning.

This universalhumanumbecomes

visible only n the inner richness

of the particular. Here it becomesconcrete. Concretum stems

from concrescere. The particularis concreteby virtue of the

many forces, elations, actorsgrown

together n its particularity.

No

scientific solation and separation

of factors ever reaches this

concreteness f life n the particular.

The

historiandoes not make this humanum he contextof

any

proposition. We may sense it or see

it with

an inner

eye. Such

feelingor sensingmay not be at all the conscious ntention

f

the

historian. He simply can not help himself, hough

he

may

not

know what he does and only describes

ever mutable man.

It

hap-

pens to us

in

reading or to the great historian n

writing-to

his

own astonishment-andpromptshim to

confess

n

the

middle

of

his

devotion o the particularity f thismutable man, that,afterall,

man is

what

he

always

has

been

and ever

will

be.

This

happened

to

Jacob Burckhardt.

Hence we

may

understand

hat

Thucydides

not

only pretended

to

have

written

but

really wrote

a

ktema eis

aei,

a

thing

forever.

Whatever his reasons

for

his belief,

t

is

by

virtue

of the trans-

parence of

an

eternalhumanum, n a transient

articular gone

for-

ever.

Modern man no longer ives

in

the

world of his

grandfathers.

We know

t.

The

space in whichwe

move has moved

and

goes

on

moving.

Motion n motion

s

difficult

n

manyrespects.

Historical

consciousnesss

born

when

a

society

ealizes that the

space

in

which

it moves moves. Many identifyhistorical consciousnesswith his-

tory.

But

this consciousness f history

s itself

a

product

of

his-

tory. As man,

aware

of this awkward

motion

n

motion,may easily

lose his balance,he triesto extend he order

whose

dea

should

guide

and

support

him

nto the unknown uture.

When the timeless

gods

desert him, he contrives philosophyof history hat pretendsto

knowor to be able to interpret he meaning f

the universal

process.

This

is a natural, politically efficient

hough theoretically

vain

effort.

But how should the historian,

himself

tanding

n

history,

ot

sittingoutside t on the

throneof a divine

observer,

describe

mo-

tion n

motion?

What is his frame

of

reference?

His

own

ephem-

eral

age and its prospective

activities?

The historian

may

not




THE

HISTORIAN AND

TRUTH

387

ask

the

question

and

may

not

have

a theoretical

nswer.

Objec-

tive

nature-the

mountainswhich stand

still and

the trees

which

become green

again-is but his

apparent

frame

of

reference.

His

real frame s that humanum or thewide ornarrow, ichor poor

image of

it he

or his age

may cherish.

Though

he does

not even

try

to

formulate

his

image,

he

can not

help

indicating

ts

width

or

narrowness,

ichness

or

meagerness, nd

in it

his own measure.

Under

a

twofold

spect

the

historian

ooks at

the

confused

nd

ever-changing

pectacle

of

history.

Under the

one aspect

things,

posited

as

objective,

dentified

n

an order

of an

objective

world,

stand

still

and

cling

to

their

identity.

Against their

unmoving

background

estlessman

altersbut

their

meanings,

oles,

functions.

This is thenaturalaspectof our dailylife. Under theother spect

these

things

re what

they

are only

by

virtueof

humanuses,

roles,

functions,

meaningswhich,

hough nvested

n or

carried

by chang-

ing

things, re

as

mere

roles and

functions

undamentally

he same.

They have

theirplace

in

the same

humanum

which

s

forever

ire-

though

here

flaring nd

blazing,

there

glowing

dimly

under

the

ashes,

t

changes

but the

color

and the

shape

of the

flame.

When

n

thework

of

the

great

historian

he two

aspects

blend,he

succeeds in an astonishingfeat: he makes manifest the eternal

humanum

n

the

change of

mutable

things, he

ever

mutable

man

in

the

quiet

permanence

of

objective

things.

Though his

image of

man,

narrower r

broader,

may

be the

historian's

secret

frame of

reference, e

neednot

answeroreven

pretend o

answer he

question

What is

man

? It

may even be

that

he denies

that

such a

ques-

tion

has a

meaningand be

content o

show

how

mutable

man, in

the

course

of his

history, uilds

up

and tears

down

and varies and

reviseshis

images

of

eternal

man.

In

all these

images man is

identified y his place in, or is described n termsof,an historical

world-the

Christian, he

Greek, he

Chinese

mage

of the

cosmos

of

many

things,

one

of which

is man. To

the

historiannone

of

these

worlds s

absolute, though

each

has

been

posited

as

absolute.

They

come to

be and

pass

away in

history.

Thus if

there s

any

eternal

humanum,mutable

man

lays hands on it

only

in terms

of

his

own

mutable

mages of

a

mutable

world.

The

historian,

onfronted

with

the

paradox

of a

knowledgeof

man he mustpresupposeand can not claim,escapes into an his-

torical

relativism-in

theory. Yet

it

may

be

that the

inner

ife of

the

particularity o which

he

is

devoted

forceshis

practice

to

trans-

gress

his

theory.

Of

these

mutable

images

some are

wide,

others

narrow; some

are

rich,

others

poor; some

are

more,

others

less,

articulate.

Though all

are

images

in terms

of an

historical

cosmos

and

easily

weave

the

image

of

what

man should be

into the

image

of

what

he




388

THE JOURNAL

OF PHILOSOPHY

is, they

are

unequal,

containingmore

or less knowledge.

Though

man

need not be

what he

says

he

is,

even the words by which he

deceives

himselfcan

tell a story. Moreover,

his

deeds are more

honest hanhis words. As there s more or less knowledge n these

images,

thoughthey may

be mere opinions,

he knowledgeof that

eternal humanumhas

a

history

n which

not only opinions change

but knowledge grows

and decays.

There

is

more

knowledge of

man in the Greek than

in the Germanic mythology.

Thucydides

knows

more than others. Shakespeare's

knowledge s greaterthan

Dryden

s. Shakespeare

s favorite uthorwas Michel

de

Montaigne.

But Montaigne,

hough

he

pretends

merely

o

describe

he

only

sub-

ject he knows,himself,Michel de Montaigne,1'homme articulier,

succeeds n making

transparent

the entire

conditionof man

as,

proceeding

from one

particularity

o

another,

he

uses

and

refers

to

the whole body

of

inherited

nowledge

he

got

from

he ancients.

Thus

it

may

still be

that

the

historian,

his relativism

notwith-

standing,

y

virtueof

his devotion

o

the

particularity

f a

bygone

past,

oosens

the fetters hat

tie

him to the narrow

mage

of man

of

his own ephemeral

age and

becomes

a knowernot only of man's

changing opinions

but of

an eternal

humanum,

of which

these

mutable magesare themutableaspects. As thisknowledgegrows

with

his

knowledge

of

history,

he

may

in

practice

be a

great

in-

terpreter

f an eternal

humanum

which

he denies n

theory.

KURT RIEZLERa

NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL

RESEARCH,

NEW

YORK

Documents

Kurt Riezler's - Historian and Truth