Mai 7, 2015, 1:16 pm, ZOLTÁN BOLDIZSÁR SIMON, JOUNI-MATTI KUUKKANEN, Allgemein.
In this introductory essay we briefly discuss three issues. First, we take stock of and pay tribute to the main achievements of narrativism, on the one hand. On the other hand, we also note its weariness as a scholarly project and argue that the philosophy of history is gradually moving toward a broadly understood postnarrativist stage and a period of renewed theoretical innovation. Next, as a part of this shift, we briefly introduce the forum contributions and discuss how they relate to narrativism. Finally, in place of a conclusion we offer some thoughts on where the philosophy of history might be heading after narrativism has ceased to be the integrative framework of diverging theoretical enterprises.
Mai 7, 2015, 1:16 pm, Anton Froeyman, Allgemein.
In this article, I question the unspoken assumption in historical theory that there is a trade-off between language or narrative, on the one hand, and experience or presence, on the other. Both critics and proponents of historical experience seem to presuppose that this is indeed the case. I argue that this is not necessarily true, and I analyze how the opposition between language and experience in historical theory can be overcome. More specifically, I identify the necessary conditions for a philosophy of language that can be the basis for this. Second, I will also suggest and present one specific instance of such a solution. I argue that the existential philosophies of language of Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas can be exactly the kind of theory we need. For Buber and Levinas, language is not a means for accessing reality, but rather a medium of encounters between human beings. I present Levinas’s and Buber’s arguments, discuss how their views could be applied to the writing of history, and assess what the resulting picture of the writing of history could look like.
Mai 7, 2015, 1:16 pm, EUGEN ZELEŇÁK, Allgemein.
Narrativist philosophy of history popularized a constructivist view arguing that historical works are not simple depictions of the past but rather are complicated constructions. According to narrativists, historians engage in a creative activity of proposing points of view, interpretations, or theses on the past that do not straightforwardly reflect past events. Although this is a broad constructivist view behind the theorizing of a number of authors, it is possible to distinguish within this line of thinking at least two general proposals about how to understand historical works. The first, defended for instance by Frank Ankersmit, maintains that historical works are representations of the past. Nevertheless, these representations are not descriptions of past events—they represent in a special way that could be characterized via a certain complexity, indirectness, holism, and a retrospective approach. The second proposal, presented in the work of Paul Roth and Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen, discards the epistemic framework of representation and understands historical works as the outcome of specific practices. In this article, I focus on these two constructivist versions, which could be called representationalism and non-representationalism. I analyze their crucial features, discuss their differences, and dispute the accusation that the latter view formulates an extreme theory of history. I argue that non-representationalism does not erase the notion of the past from its account of history; it merely attributes to the past a function different from the one it has within the representationalist paradigm.
Mai 7, 2015, 1:16 pm, JAUME AURELL, Allgemein.
This essay argues that, in their reflection of theoretical positions, autobiographies by historians may become valid historical writings (that is, both true narratives and legitimate historical interpretations) and, as a consequence and simultaneously, privileged sources for historiographical inquiry and evidence of its evolution. At the beginning of the twentyfirst century, following the model established by Carolyn Steedman, historians such as Geoff Eley, Natalie Z. Davis, Gabrielle M. Spiegel, Dominick LaCapra, Gerda Lerner, William H. Sewell, Jr., Sheila Fitzpatrick, and John Elliott created a new form of academic life-writing that has challenged established literary and historiographical conventions and resisted generic classification. This article aims to examine this new historical-autobiographical genre—including the subgenre of the “autobiographical paper”—and highlights its ability to function as both history (as a retrospective account of the author’s own past) and theory (as a speculative approach to historiographical questions). I propose to call these writings interventional in the sense that these historians use their autobiographies, with a more or less deliberate authorial intention, to participate, mediate, and intervene in theoretical debates by using the story of their own intellectual and academic trajectory as the source of historiography. Traditional historians’ autobiographies, including ego-historical essays, have provided us with substantial information about the history of historiography; these new performative autobiographies help us to better understand historiography and the development of the historical discipline. Interventional historians seek not only to understand their lives but also to engage in a more complex theoretical project.
Mai 7, 2015, 1:16 pm, MARTIN NOSÁL, Allgemein.
Narrativism as a theory of historical depiction intuitively opens the question: what is left of reality when it is poured through the filter of language structures? And, extended a little bit further, questions arise: What is responsible for the final shape of a historical depiction? Is it experience or language? What is affecting what? Narrativism typically accuses language units of transforming experience in a specific way. However, even in asking these questions, the problem of the separation of experience from language and language from experience remains.
In this article, I address this issue using Gadamer’s hermeneutical frame. Wherever philosophical tradition insists on the separation of certain positions, Gadamer tries to show their ontological connections. For Gadamer, understanding is a basic ontological structure, within which both sides of a dialogue affect and constitute each other. In Gadamerian hermeneutical ontology, there is no “starting point” or first responsible position. In the understanding, dialogue has the permanently moving character of a play, where separate positions are erased.
This Gadamerian view can also be applied to the question of language and experience and their mutual connection in depicting any experience via language. In Gadamer’s example of the work of art, the original subject matter (Urbild) is articulated through its depiction. The subject matter dictates possible ways of depicting, which in turn dictate the final shape of depiction. In this article, I discuss Gadamer’s term “articulation of the world,” by which he means a function of language. Articulation is simply a transformation of shapeless matter into a shape, and in our case it is a transformation of an experience into a language depiction. I show that the Gadamerian approach to language and experience can offer an interesting perspective on the issues discussed in reaction to narrativist philosophy of history.
Mai 7, 2015, 1:13 pm, Gleb J. Albert, Allgemein.
10.1080/09546545.2015.1037102<br/>Gleb J. Albert
Mai 7, 2015, 1:12 pm, Francis King, Allgemein.
10.1080/09546545.2015.1037111<br/>Francis King
Mai 7, 2015, 1:11 pm, David W. Darrow, Allgemein.
10.1080/09546545.2015.1037110<br/>David W. Darrow
Mai 7, 2015, 1:10 pm, Paul du Quenoy, Allgemein.
10.1080/09546545.2015.1037108<br/>Paul du Quenoy
Mai 7, 2015, 1:10 pm, Ian D. Thatcher, Allgemein.
10.1080/09546545.2015.1037101<br/>Ian D. Thatcher