The Languages of History.pdf

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The Languages of History

J. Ferrater Mora

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 43, No. 2. (Dec., 1982), pp. 137-150.

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Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchVol.XLIII , No. 2,December 1982

The Languages of H istoryJ. FERRATER MORABryn Mawr College

Let us begin with a dream - perhaps a nightmare: we dream that weare wa nderin g th rou gh in term inab le corridor s flanked by shelves tightlypacked with books, collections of periodicals, and reprints. After awhile we fear that we have been trapped in Jorge Luis Borges' "totalLibrary," but we are relieved to discover that the Library is surroundedby walls. The Library is not infinite, but it is nonetheless colossal. It hasto be because it holds all the writings th us far produc ed t ha t can be filedunder the label "H istory," with as many sublabels as needed. We shallgive it a name: the "He rodotus Mem orial Library," or H M L for short.

In o rder t o avo id messing things up more t ha n necessary, I propose t oadopt a variant of Occam's rule. I will call it "Sallustius' Scissors" (inhon or of o ne of the m ost concise historians tha t I know o f). M y rule hastw o sections: I . 'History' is t o be understood as 'human history'-his-tory of human beings and of their achievements no less than of theirmore abundant failures. Therefore, we will allow in the HML no writ-ings about subjects such as "Natural History" - although we will per-mit, of course, histories of human research in the field of Natural His-tory. 2 . HML will be strictly historiographical. It will hold onlyhistorical writings, namely pieces written by historians, w hether profes-sional or amateur. It may hold lists of such writings, or bibliographiesof historical writings, but not materials which historians may haveused, or could use, to w rite their pieces. The proper application of rule zmay require a few guidelines, for it may not always be perfectly clearwhether we are dealing with "historical writings" or with "materialsfor writing history." Is an autobiography a historical writing or is it amaterial for historiography? Obviously, it could be both. On the otherhand , it may be safely assumed t h at docu ments, scrolls, sermons, politi-cal speeches, baptismal records, inscriptions, lists of archeologicalfindings, and so on will not be a pa rt of the HM L. T he same happens afortiori with films, records, videocasettes, and objects such as jars,clothes, or pieces of furniture.


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Even with th e help of Sallustius' Scissors, the H M L will probably beenormous in size and bewildering in variety. It will contain chronicles(which are descriptions, often ra the r detailed an d sophisticated, of his-torical events), histories of all kinds of hum an communities (tribes,nations, races, political parties, religious associations and churches,social classes); histories of particular periods in the life and develop-ment of such human communities; histories of interrelations among atleast som e of them ; histories of so-called "ages" (th e "Age of Reason") ,diplom atic history, un diplom atic history, histories of institutions, revo-lutions, wars, peace treaties; histories of counties, cities, villages, ham-le ts, an d so on. T o be sure , the H M L will a lso r ~ n t a i n is tories ofspecific human activities: politics, economics, agriculture, industry,technology, art, religion, science, with any number of subdivisions -for philosophy, history of logic or of epistemology; for science, historyof physics or biology; for art, histor y of literature o r music. Needless t osay, it will contain histories in w hich the various possible subject mat -ters will be combined; we shall have one or two histories of Indianlogic, one or two of Hungarian folkmusic, one, at least, of Sicilianarchitecture between 1415and 1567.The subject matters can be m adeas varied as possible; we shall have histories of superstitions, of thestruggles against superstitions, of fashions, gardening, nursery rhymes,bad poetry, culinary arts, burlesque, and so on. Historical writingsthemselves will no t escape the tentacles of historiography . A reasonableportion of the HML will be devoted to histories of historiography, andwh en there will be enou gh of th em , a section will be adde d with histo-ries of such histories, and, of course, bibliographies of all of them, plusbibliographies of such bibliographies, and thus ad infinitum, if not adnauseam.

In view of this stup endo us variety, we begin t o have dou bts ab ou t thepertinency or practicality of any subject matter called "History,"regardless of h o w m inutely it is specified. Would it no t be more sensibleto organize our other nonhistoriographical Libraries in as many sec-tions or branches as needed, with subsections called "History of . . ."appen ded t o each o n e? Thu s, if w e have a section devoted to, say,astronomy, we will reserve a subsection for the History of Astronomy;if we have a section called "Sri Lanka," we will have sections reservedfor the history of Sri Lan ka, for the history of its political institutions, ofits music, and of its literature. 'History' will mean only some descrip-tion and/or explanation of "what has happened" in the area, commu-nity, or field considered.

138 J. F E R R A T E R M O R A


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Th e problem is th at historians can claim th at their activity is perfectlylegitimate and not necessarily ancillary to any other, so that they havetheir own problems to discuss and their own methodologies to fightover. The fact th at such problems are n ot always easy t o solve, a nd suchmethodologies are the subject of major disputes, is not a sufficient rea-son to do away with historiography as a major undertaking. Historymay n o t be, as the ancients claimed, one of the M uses, bu t it is the nameof a full-fledged discipline needing its own library organization. How itshould be organized is, of course, an internal problem of historiogra-phy. Some have claimed that historiography can be divided into twokinds of undertakings: on e might be "history a t large" - meaningmostly "total history of a community"; the other one would be"specialized history" -me aning "history of so me particula r aspect of acommunity or of some particular human activity." How to relate spe-cialized history with total history is a historian's perennial quandary.The more philosophically-minded historians adopt, consciously orunconsciously, w ha t in older times was acknow ledged as a world view,with heavy em phasis, as the case might be, o n politics, econom ics, o rideas. The philosophically m ore c autious historians ad op t some kind of"param eter," like the so-called "men tality." "Total history," howeve r,remains an ideal, for there is no end in the series of possible "views,""parameters," o r "contexts." N o t even Mo ntalliou is a total history ofMo ntalliou, since it presupposes a num ber of historical contexts- forinstance, the context of the history of the Cathar heresy, which itselfpresupposes the c on tex t of C hristian heresies at large. H ence som e his-torians acknowledge that historical writings are inevitably specialized:a history of Greek geometry is a history of Greek geometry, and a his-tory of Flemish painting is a history of Flemish painting. Whatever his-torians decide to do, however, there seems little doubt that their laborsissue in a certain kind of discipline o r intellectual und ertaking , which isnot to be confused with any of the natural sciences and not to bereduced t o any of the social sciences, despite its close relations with thelatter. In a way , historio graph y is, as earlier suggested, a n app endag e toeach one of the sciences. In some other way, however, it encompassesall sciences, since all of them have a h istory. Thu s, o u r H M L is stillwo rth m aintaining, if only in ou r imagination. T he problem is t o knowwhat kinds of writings it should hold.

T o this we can answer by telling the truth , only the truth, an d noth-ing but the truth: "The HML should contain all manner of historicalwritings," but this is true only because it is so trivial. In order to saysomething which is both true a nd substantive, we mu st follow anotherpath .

T H E L A N G U A G E S O F H IS T O R Y 139


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Philosophers, who either like to meddle in everything or else remaincompletely aloof, have in their more approachable moods given a hostof answers t o the question: "W hat is history?" bot h speculatively, in thesense of "W hat is the reality ( or me aning) of history? " a nd m ethodo lo-gically, in the sense here elucidated of "What is history writing, or his-toriography?" T o that effect, they have written abundan tly a bo ut suchthings as the stru cture of historical facts, the possibility o r impossibilityof historical laws, the n atu re of hidtorical e xplana tion, a nd so on. Also,they have discussed often "w hat" is, o r at times "w ho" is, the subject ofhistory - for instance, great men (as Carlyle asserted) o r "little m en"(as Tolstoy claimed). They have spoken at length about whether civili-zations exist and if so ho w m any there are, an d a bo ut whether history isprogressive, degenerative, or merely repetitive. They have even con-cocted a discipline called "philosophy of history," which they haveclassified into two kinds: analytical, formal, and critical, or synthetic,material and speculative, with plenty of debates concerning the legiti-mate or illegitimate character of each one of these "philosophies."Above all, they have com e up with ideas of their ow n ab ou t w ha t histo-rians "should do." Am ong their proposals, I select the following:

I . Historians should "stick to the facts," an d no t wo rry abo ut "whatfacts mean," for they may well mean nothing at all, but even if theymean something, it w ou ld n ot be the historians' business to try to find itout . Finding this ou t is either a philosopher's business o r no on e else's.Historical writing should be primarily, if not exclusively, descriptive.

2. Historical writing would be either impossible or uninterestingunless some events were recognized as historical facts. Now, a factcoun ts as historical on ly on given conditio ns wh ich it is the task of thehistorian to elucidate. There are no simple "hard facts" in history;events may, o r may no t, become historical facts, according to ho w theyfare subsequently. Thu s, m erely selecting wh a t is t o be co unted as a his-torical fact is an im por tan t move by the historian. It is for the m om ent amoot question whether such a move is in fact an "interpretation."

3 . Historians should be concerned with events - or with thoseevents which c ou nt as historical facts- and they need no t worry abo utthe aims, intentions, feelings, or thoughts of the human beings whopromote, or experience, these events. After all, historical facts may beindepe nden t fro m the aims, intentions, tho ughts, etc., of hu m an beings.

4. Histor ians sh ould be concerned abov e all with the thou ghts, aims,intentions, etc., of human beings. Historical facts are, therefore,"internal" - even if not in a strictly psychological sense of 'internal'.The fact th at Caesa r crossed the Ru bicon is no t in itself a historical fact;


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Caesar's aim in crossing the R ubicon, o n the othe r hand , is- or was-such a fact.

5 . Histo rians sho uld treat historiography as a scientific undertaking.In any case, they should try t o find ou t the way o r ways in which partic-ular instances are "covered" (a nd hence "explained") by general laws.The so-called "covering law m odel" - as proposed originally by Hem-pel- is the proper historical model, even if - as Hempel himself sug-gested - refinements are needed in order to make it more suitable tothe development of historical science.

6. Historians should treat historical facts and/or events as uniqueand unrepeatable. Some sciences- "nom othetic" sciences, in Windel-band's terms- lay do wn laws ; other sciences- "idiographic" sciencesin the same philosopher's terms - describe singular events. Historiog-raphy is, according to Windelband, a totally "idiographic" science.

7. There are two main cognitive procedures. One is based uponexp lanation; the other, upon "understanding." Explanation is largelyanalytic. Understanding is largely, if not exclusively, interpretive, orhermeneutic. Some claim that if historiography wants, as Kant wouldput it, "to enter the safe path of7science," it should be able to provideexplanations. This claim is counkxd by those who assert that scienceitself, including the natural sciences, cannot avoid some kind of herme-neutic appro ach, for scientific tru th, if comm unicable at all, must beintersubjective, and hence must depend upon assumptions acknowl-edged by a scientific comm unity o r, as some put it, upon the "epistemicauthority" of the community.

No doubt, each of the above proposals has some merit, particularlywhen, as it often happens, each is duly qualified. Thus, we can refinelaw-covering models until we gain a reasonable explanation of sets ofhistorical facts, or w e can use idiographic procedures as starting poin tsfor further generalizations. We can also build all kinds of bridgesbetween the method called "explanation" and the method called"understanding," until we come to the conclusion th at these tw o meth-ods are no t as m utually exclusive as was originally proclaimed.

Now, all these proposals, even the most open-minded and least dog-matic, have a flaw - the very same flaw, I am afraid, that makes phi-losophers tick. They are all aimed at providing historians with rules, orat least with suggestions, for the "proper writing of history." The trou-ble is tha t historians perform their task w ithou t consulting philosophersof history, whether analytic or speculative -much in the same way asscientists perform their tasks without elaborate epistemological analy-ses. It seems to me t ha t we shou ld begin with a declaration of trus t: his-


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torians know what they are doing, and normally they do it in the bestpossible way. We should, therefore, scrutinize their procedures andeventually draw from them some philosophical consequences. This Iwill d o by means of an exam ina tion of "th e languages of history," th atis to say, of historiography, o r historical writing. Th e plural of the w ord'languages' is essential here. Historians use, and are entitled to use,many different kinds of languages, namely, "many different kinds oflinguistic expressions." In po int of fact, any kind of expression used (ingood faith) by an y reputable h istorian I will consider as a g ood exam pleof "historical language."

No w , when we read historical works, we begin t o realize tha t, o ut ofthe many kinds of linguistic expressions which historians use, three canbe singled out for distinction. I will group them under the names"Language I," "Language 11," and "Language 111." Before I sketch inw ha t each one of these "languages" consists, I wish to m ake two pre-liminary remarks.

I. These three "languages" d o no t - indeed, need not - alwaysappear very neatly separated from each other in historiographic litera-ture. There is in this literature a co nstan t mixture of types of statemen ts.Let us haphazardly open a classical text in history: Edward Gibbon'sThe Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Th e following statementsare a pa rt of this text. "D uring the emperor's [Maximin's] absence, adetachment of the Praetorian guards remained at Rome to protect, orrather to command, the capital." "Every motion of Julian betrayed histrembling perplexity." "The last years of Galerius were less sham efuland u nfortunate; and tho ugh he had filled with m ore glory the subord i-nate statio n of C aesar tha n the superior ran k of Augustus, he preserved,till the moment of his death, the first place among the princes of theRo m an world." "The Christian religion, which add ressed itself to thewhole hu m an race must . . . collect a fa r greater nu m ber of proselytesfrom the lower than from the superior ranks of life." "The nineteenyears which preceded [Constantine's] final victory over Licinius hadbeen a period of license and intes tine wa r." "The remains of Julian wereinterred at Tarsus, in Cilicia, but his stately tomb, which arose in thatcity on th e ban ks of the cold an d limpid Cydn us, was displeasing t o thefaithful friends who loved and revered the memory of that extraordi-nary m an." All of these statements may well be false. O r presen t-dayhistorians may be less favorably inclined than Gibbon to make judg-ments, or insert adjectives ('shameful,' 'un fortuna te,'), bu t Gibbon'swork is a perfectly respectable piece of historiography. It contains, as itcan be seen from the examples introduced, quite a good many types of


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statements, including inferences and guesses. Different historians writein different styles, but in so far as they write some "history of . . .,"particularly a history of one or several human communities, they can-not avoid using different kinds of linguistic expressions, even in ap@le-m&le, r appare ntly p @ le-m ile ashion. Linguistically speaking, his-torians seem to be rathe r "undiscriminating," o r "informal," even ifthey follow an order (mainly, although not exclusively, temporal).

2. Expressions of any of these three languages can be found in anytype of historiography- in histories of agriculture, of legal institutions,of organic chemistry, of educational methods, etc., - but they arefound m ore ab undantly, as well as more compactly, in wo rks portray-ing the history of a human community -works which formerly weremostly "political history," and which are now a mixture of political,social, economic, and cultural history. My examples of the three lan-guages will be taken from this type of history, with special emphasis onthe more general, "political" aspects. So-called "total history," or"history of mentalities," aside, this may be the mo st com mo n an d per-m ane nt type of history. After all, it ma kes m ore sense- it may be alsomore difficult- to w rite a history of France, the United States, Chin a,the Soviet Union, Rome, Greece, and so on, than to confine oneself tothe history of Lethonian architecture, or Albanian music. It is fairlyprobable tha t the "proper study of historians" is some hum an com mu-nity, or some set of human communities.

I will provide three examples of each of the "languages of history (orhistoriography)" and examine some of their interesting features.Examples of Language I:

-Bismarck's Elms Disp atch w as ma de public o n June 12, 1870.-Philip I1 w as King of Spa in betw een I 5 56 and I 598.-Constantinople fell to the Tu rks in 1453.(a) In historiography, these statements seem to play a role similar to

that played in some of the natural sciences by such expressions as'Heavy water boils at 104 degrees Celsius,' or 'Gelandine has small yel-low flowers.' Nevertheless, there is an im por tan t difference between thetwo types of statements. Scientific statements of the kind introducedabove contain names of classes of objects-or , as in the case of 'heavywater,' so-called "mass terms." O n the othe r han d, historical state-ments in Language I normally co ntain nam es of particulars and directlyrefer t o particu lar events.

(b ) Th e "form'' of historical statem ents in Language I seems to becloser to that of statements like: 'The distance between the Earth and


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the moo n a t time t is 201.213 miles.' Although this distance may, as itwere, recur periodically, the st atem ent concernin g this distance refers toa par ticu lar fact (or event) de termined by time t . ~ e t , hereas 'The d is-tance between the Earth and the moo n a t time t is 201.213 miles' canserve to describe the initial cond ition s of a system, no ne of the three his-torical examples adduced describe initial conditions of any system.

(c) All the statements mentioned, both historical and scientific, canbe verified or , as the case ma y be, falsified. The ways of verifying histor-ical statements are, however, different from the modes of verification,or falsification, of many scientific statements of the type indicated. Ithas been said, mostly by adhe rents of the theory-laden d octrine in phi-losophy of science, that scientific verifications and/or falsifications takeplace within a certain context, and, at any rate, are carried on with thehelp of instruments which in turn presuppose the acceptance of somescientific theory. In this sense, ther e seems to be som e similarity be tweensome kinds of scientific statements and historical statements in Lan-guage I. T his sim ilarity is accentuate d whenever theory-laden doctri-naires conflate a scientific theory w ith som e fo rm of hermeneutics. T w opoints, however, are worth noticing. First, doctrines about theory-lad-enness can be interp rete d in several ways. T o say th at a scientific theo rydetermines what is to be counted as a fact does not always necessarilyimply th at facts ensue fro m scientific theories; it m ay simply mean th atwe can speak of facts only by means of some theory. Second, scientifictheories need not be equated with hermeneutics. What counts as a factin historiography is some historical context, not a hermeneutical viewof facts, or assumed facts.

(d ) Th e examples of L anguage I state events which, for the timebeing, are only presented as such. They are descriptive through andthrough. In order to make a pertinent statement we may need to beacquainted with a great deal of historical knowledge, but the statementdoes not say (or intend to say) more than w hat i t says. We do n ot knowwh at prom pted Bismarck t o m ake public the Elms Dispatch on June 12,1870, al though we are certain that he had reasons to d o wha t he didwh en he did it. The reasons, how ever, will n o t alter the fact in the least.

(e) T he three historical examples a dduce d are, even gramm aticallyspeaking, "simple." How ever, this does not mak e them similar to wh atsome philosophers called "atomic facts," not even to "historical atomicfacts." "Co nstantino ple fell t o the Turk s in 1453" ma y be said t o referto: some particular group of Turks; each one of the invading Turks;each one of the defenders of Constantinople; each one of the weaponsused for the atta ck and for th e defense, as well as to a great multiplicity

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of events wh ich to o k place a t the time of Con stantino ple's fall(although there is, o r was, no particular m om ent when this city actually"fell"). Histo rical examples i n Language I may refer to som e collectionof facts, which we simplify, and abbreviate, by means of one, and onlyone, statement.Examples of Language 11:

-Bismarck's policy caused (a t least "indirectly") the 1870 Franco-Prussian Wa r.

-Philip I1 defended the Cath olic Ch urch , o r faith, against G reatBritain.

-Constantinople's fall m arke d the end of the Byzantine Empire.(a) Straightforward verification, or falsification, of these, and similar

statements, is not possible. If we must speak of verification, orfalsification, it is always as an ind irect procedu re. Events may be relatedin such ways that the statement "Bismarck's policy caused the 1870Franco-Prussian W ar" then becomes true, or a t least highly probable.W ritten do cum ents, as well as accoun ts of decisions a nd actions under-taken by Philip 11, contribute to certify that this King defended theCatho lic Church, o r faith, a gainst Gre at Britain. If anyon e asserts th athe did not, he will be in deep trouble from a historian's point of view.Yet, intention s also have to be taken into accou nt here, a nd often theseintentions are merely the subject of more o r less clever guesses. T ha t thefall of Constantinople marked the end of the Byzantine Empire is a"fact" - consisting of a great number of facts-which is ascertainedwhenever we look a t wh at rem ained of the Byzantine Empire after Con-stantinople 's fall (m or e remaine d th an w ha t has been generallyassu med) . If w e still wish t o use the "verificationist" language, we cansay that we have in these examples not simple, or one-to-one, but mul-tiple, that is to say, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-manyverifications. The data used in these verifications are more complexthan the ones used in the verification of statements in Language I.Indeed, no t only do we have to cope with "facts," but also, an d aboveall, with intentions, demographic data, ideological struggles, economicconditions and relations, etc.

(b ) As suggested by th e examples, the s tatem ents in Language I1 canbe of various kinds. Language I1 does not stand to Language I as an"explan atory language" stands to a "descriptive language." O n theother hand, all statements in Language I1 have something in common:they exhibit varying degrees of "generality" in contra st w ith the part ic-ular, seemingly irreducible, character of statements in Language I.

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Statements in Language I1 d o no t emerge as a consequence of inductivegeneralizations of st atem ents in Langu age I. Actual historical writing, a tany rate, does n o t consist in stating facts in succession (m ainly, chron o-logical) simply in ord er t o reach a t the end so me "general conclusion."Thus, we may describe the royal decrees of Philip 11, Antonio PCrez'sconfrontation with the King, the construction of the Armada, etc., andstill no t be ab le to conclude th at Philip I1 defended the C atholic Ch urch,o r faith. T o defend a C hu rch , o r a faith, is neither a singular fact nor isit a generalization of singular facts. It is rather a state of affairs which,of co urse, singular facts may prove o r disprove. Similarly, "causes" areno t facts, but w ays of relating facts.

(c) W hereas a statem ent in Language I is no t equivalent to any otherstatement in the same language, there may be some degree of equiva-lence among a number of statements in Language 11. I am not talkingabou t " log ica l equ iva lence ," bu t ra the r abou t some degree o f"alternativity" which makes some statements mutually "comparable."Thus, the statement "Bismarck's policy caused the 1870 Franco-Prus-sian War," is in this sense equivalent - or "comparable" - to thestatement "Bismarck's policy disrupted the political balance of powerprevailing in Western Europe around 1870," for although the balanceof power could have been disrupted by means other than the 1870Franco-Prussian War, this war must be understood in very intimaterelation with the afore me ntioned "disrup tion of the political balance ofpower." Indeed, som e statemen ts in Language I1 function as differentways of speaking about the same historical processes. Hence, state-ments in L anguage I1 are subject to c on sta nt dispute a nd revision, but itis doubtful that historical writing would be possible, or at any rateinteresting, with out them.Examples of Language 111:

-The 1870 Franco-Prussian W ar revealed the unity of Euro pe pa ra-doxically manifested by means of a series of internal economicconflicts and ideological tensions.

-The decadence of Spain and G reat Britain 's imperial expansionbegan with Philip 11.- With the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the last bastion ofAncient culture disappeared in the Eastern part of the ancientRom an Empire.

(a ) Some very controversial term s - 'unity,' 'internal conflict,''ideological tension,' 'decadence,' 'bastio n of An cien t Cu lture,' a reintroduced here- an d some oth ers, like 'lack of unity,' 'disintegration,'146 J . F E RR A T ER M O R A


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'progress,' etc., are implied. It may be contended t ha t these termsshould be banned from historiography, but it may be also argued thatthe absence of these, an d similar terms, w ould leave deplorable gaps inthe description of the history of any human community. Since I havetaken as a point of departure the normal procedures of historians, Iconsider t h at these terms a re acceptable, even if I am inclined to believethat they should be used parsimoniously.

(b) These statements can never be verified by means of documents,o r even by means of declaratio ns of inten tions expressed in documents,because in the latter case such declarations of intentions are alreadyinterpretatio ns of a historical event or process. Indeed, these statementsmay not be verifiable, or falsifiable, at all.

(c) Most of the terms introduced in Language I11 are "value terms."This does not mean that they are necessarily arbitrary; it only meansthat they should be approached the way we approach a blinking redlight at a dangerous crossroad: with extreme caution. No doubt, theseterms, an d the pertinent statements, ark interpretive, although n ot morethan words such as 'vocation,' 'abulia,' or 'enthusiasm,' in a biographyof a hu m an individual. 'Interpretation,' o n the other hand , should notbe an object of fear, at least in historical writing. In point of fact, thereis already interpretation, albeit of a more subdued kind, from the verybeginning of any historiographic enterprise. As E. H. Carr has pointedout:Let us take a look a t the process by which a mere fact abou t the past is transform ed into afact of history. At Stalybridge Wakes in 1850, a vendor of gingerbread, as the result ofsome petty dispute, was deliberately kicked to death by an angry m ob. Is this a fact of his-tor y? A year ago I should unhesitatingly have said "no." It was recorded by an eyewitnessin some little-know n memoirs;' bu t I ha d never seen it judged worthy of mention by anyhistorian. A year ago Dr. Kitson Clark cited it in his Ford lectures in Oxford." Does thismake it into a historical fact? No t, I think, yet. Its present status, I suggest, is that it hasbeen proposed for mem bership of the select club of historical facts. It now awa its a secon-der and sponso rs. It may be tha t in the course of th e nex t few years we shall see this factappearing first in footnotes, then in the text of articles and books about nineteenth-cen-tury England, and tha t in twenty o r thirty years' time it may be a well established histori-cal fact. Alternatively, nobo dy may take it up, in w hich case it will relapse into the limboof u nhistorical facts ab out the past from w hich D r. Kitson Clark has gallantly attemp tedto rescue it. What will decide which of these two things will happen? It will depend, Ithink, on w hether the thesis o r interpretation in supp ort of which Dr. K itson Clark citedthis incident is accepted by other historians as valid an d significant. Its status as a histori-

Lord George Sanger: Seventy Years a Showma n (London: J . M . Dent & Sons; 1926); pp. 188-8 9. [E. H. Carr's footnote] These will shortly be published under the title The Making of Victorian England. [E. H . Carr's footnote]

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cal fact will turn on a question of interpreta tion. This element of interpreta tion enters intoevery fact of history.'

Assuming th at there can be several "languages of history" -th e onesI propo sed o r som eone else's choice- the question is how can they berelated. W e may, of course, claim they c ann ot be related a t all, so w ewill end by solving the problem of their assumed relation via the time-honored trick of declaring that it is a pseudo-problem - but then weare left w ith a distinction w hich is totally inoperative a nd which ma y bea pseudo-distinction. Obviously, since I proposed a distinction between"three languages" I am pr esupp osing tha t they can be mutually related.Now, there are at least three ways in which a relation can be estab-lished. I will call these ways "the positivist," "the he rmeneutical," an d,for lack of a better w or d, "the recursive." Each has tw o versions: astrong one, and a weak one.

Th e positivist way in its s tron g version consists in denying th at therecan be a relation since there is, in fact, nothing to relate. The onlyacceptable historical language is Language I, which is entirely descrip-tive and tells, in Ranke's terms, wie es Wirklich gewesen ist, or in Wal-ter Cronkite's lingo, "That's the way it is (or w as) " (neither Ran ke norCron kite, for different reasons, are faithful to their respective slogans).The weak version of the positivist way asserts that if the three lan-guages of w hich I spo ke are accepted a t all, the second m ust be foun dedup on the first, an d the third m ust be found ed up on the second, while thefirst has no foundation whatsoever except "hard facts." Most positi-vists w ould accept only Language I ( to describe initial cond itions) andone fo rm of L anguage I1 (to form ulate laws, m ostly probabilistic law s).Some positivists, already on the verge of collapsing from their originalstance, would allow Language 111 as well, but only as a kind of"regulatory language," pragmatically justifiable in so far as it may per-mit us to "get some sense" out of some facts.

Th e hermeneutic w ay adm its all the three languages- indeed, it mayadm it many more, pe rha ps the m ore the better. In its strong version,hermeneutics is the exact opposite of positivism. Hence, it expresses anundeniable preference for Language 111. After all, hermeneutics is themost sophisticated form of any interpretive method. Hence, from thepoint of view of the herm eneutic way, in its stron g version, interpreta -tion rules explana tion an d description. S trong versions of hermeneuticsare like str on g versions of "holism": in them "the tr ue is," as Hegel pu tit, "the whole."

Edward Hallett Carr, W hat Is History? Ne w York: Knopf, 1962),pp . 10-11.

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W eak versions of hermeneutics a re twofold. O n the one hand, a prac-titioner of hermeneutics may confine himself to maintain that wholesand parts d o no t exhibit a one-to-one, but rather a one-to-many, rela-tion; the same historical wholes may persist throughout a variety offacts, o r descriptions. O n the othe r han d, a practition er of hermeneuticsmay strongly emphasize what has been called, since Heidegger, "thehermeneutic circle"; an understanding of the whole presupposes anunde rstanding of th e parts, whereas a n understan ding of the parts pres-upposes an understanding of the whole. In our vocabulary, statementsin Language I presuppose statements in Language 111, while the lattercannot be formulated without the former - with Language I1 servingperhaps as a go-between.

In the case of the recursive w ay, the s tro ng version should be con -strued as a "strict" version, an d the wea k version sh ould be consideredas a "loose" o r "informal" version. Th e strict meaning, or meanings, of'recursive' has little, if any, app lication to o ur problem . I am n ot con-cerned here with recursive definitions, recursive functions, or recursivenumber theory. O n the other hand , a "loose," "informal," o r lessstrictly defined meanin g of 'recursive' may be of som e help. 'Recursive'is then the n am e of a procedure which, as Douglas R. Hofstadter4 indi-cates, has its analogue in the "push, pop, and stack," or "push-downstack" operations. Roughly, it consists in the possibility of suspending,or postponing, a task in favor of another. In a sense close to the strictdefinition of 'recursive,' the second task is often, as Hofstadter pointsou t, "a simpler task, o ften of the s am e type." But w e may enlarge thisconception of "suspending, o r postpo ning, a task" by assuming th at thetask undertaken in lieu of the original one may be simpler or morecomplex a nd m ay be of the same type or of a different type. Thus , in ahistorical investigation, and even in its subsequent presentation of itsresults, the recursive way consists in suspending or postponing thosetasks performed in an y one of o ur three languages in order t o performsome task in any other, provided that the original task is resumedwhenever needed. This means that we can start with any of the threelanguages - and even equate them with three "levels of historicalunderstanding" - and, after a while, stack it temporarily in order tobusy ourselves with another language. What has been explored in onelanguage is no t forgotten, b ut is eventually "reused." Thus , we go con-stantly from one language to the other until we can piece together acoherent historical picture. Such a historical picture becomes, then, a

Douglas R. Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (New Y ork:Basic Books, 1979), pp. 127 ff .

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kind of "network."W h a t I have been saying all along leads me to propo se a "w eak," or

"informal" recursive procedure in historiography. T his proced ure has anum ber of advantages, am on g them th e following: ( I ) it is a trulyorderly, or systematizable, procedure; (2) it echoes the hermeneuti-cian's intuition th at pa rts a nd wholes a re inextricably intertwined with-out necessarily falling into circularity; ( 3 ) it also echoes the holisticview that parts of one language, and in particular, statements in Lan-guage I can be related to segments of other languages, especially tostatements in Language 111, in a great variety of ways, while emphasiz-ing a t the sam e time the pro per fu nction of each "language," namely, ofeach "level." All this shou ld , fo r the tim e being, suffice.

1 5 0 J . F E R R A TE R M O R A

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