Abstract
In history the same historical episodes can be reconstructed from multiple perspectives, leading to different interpretations and evaluations of the same events, and sometimes even to different factual claims. In this paper, I analyze what I call “historiographical pluralism”—situations of conflict between different case studies of the same historical episodes. I address two interrelated questions: First, which features of historical reconstruction and representation give rise to such conflicts? Second, can we assess rival historical case studies and decide between them, thus restricting historiographical pluralism? As an answer to the first question, I highlight the selective and theory-laden character of historical representation and argue that the narrative dimension of historiography is central for the knowledge that a historical case study can convey. I then go on to analyze how—in practice—disagreement about historical facts emerges. I discuss four case studies paired around two historical episodes and show that conflicts arise from the selective, theory-laden, and narrative aspects of historical methodologies. The second question I answer by discussing different criteria for assessing historical accounts. I note a dilemma in the evaluation of historical reconstructions. On the one hand, there exist neutral and almost universally accepted evaluation criteria. But these criteria are weak and cannot always decide between conflicting accounts of the same episodes. On the other hand, there are stronger methodological criteria. Alas, they are often not neutral with respect to the substantial theoretical issues at stake in situations of conflict between different historical reconstructions. I conclude that because of this dilemma, we have to accept some degree of pluralism in historiography.
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Notes
- 1.
Comparable issues arising within the natural sciences have been recently addressed in debates on scientific pluralism (Chang 2012; Kellert et al. 2006). Although I acknowledge that there may exist important parallels between pluralism in science and pluralism in historiography, in this paper I focus on the latter only. Note also that my aim in this paper is to provide a descriptive account of pluralism in historiography. I do not seek to answer the normative question whether historiographical pluralism is epistemically desirable or not.
- 2.
I use the term “theory” broadly here, such that it includes all sorts of high-level conceptions. These conceptions need not be coherent systematic accounts; indeed, at times it may even be only single assumptions rather than elaborate theoretical constructions that are at issue. Also, I include methodological and basic philosophical commitments about the character of science and the nature of historical change among the sorts of theoretical assumptions that are relevant when talking about theory-ladenness in the historiography of science.
- 3.
There is some disagreement as to whether the narrative structure of a historical account carries information, conveys knowledge and is properly representational, or whether narrative is a superfluous, merely “rhetorical” aspect of historical discourse. Different accounts of the role of narrative in historical representation have been developed by Carr (2008), Carroll (2001), White (1980). I cannot go into these debates here. However, I believe that my analysis in the next section will show that narratives do convey information about the past. In this sense, they should be seen as epistemic rather than “merely rhetorical.”
- 4.
Many aspects of White’s narratological account are deeply problematic. On the one hand, his structuralist taxonomy of different modes of historical writing is static, artificial and irritatingly ahistorical. On the other hand, from insights into the constructive dimension of historiography, White draws radical conclusions about its subjective and fictional character. I share neither White’s structuralist inclinations, nor his radical subjectivism, and wish to take from his reflections only the central theses that historical accounts have a narrative structure and that there can exist plural narrative emplotments of the same historical events.
- 5.
In the philosophy of science, epistemic criteria such as simplicity, variance of the evidence, surprising predictions, fruitfulness, and explanatory power are often thought to help scientists reach a verdict in situations of theory-choice. Since most of these criteria cannot be applied to historiography without difficulties, I develop my account of historiographical evaluation without substantially drawing on discussions of theory-choice in the philosophy of science.
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Acknowledgments
For suggestions and comments on earlier drafts of this paper I am grateful to Martin Kusch, Veli Mitova, Martha Rössler, Katharina Bernhard, and Martin Strauss. I also want to thank the participants of the workshop “The Philosophy of Historical Case Studies” in Bern for their engaging discussions and criticism. Research leading up to this paper was made possible by grants from the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF) (“Contingency, Inevitability and Relativism in the History and Philosophy of Science”, Project no.: P25069-G18) and the European Research Council (ERC) (“The Emergence of Relativism”, Grant agreement no. 339382).
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Kinzel, K. (2016). Pluralism in Historiography: A Case Study of Case Studies. In: Sauer, T., Scholl, R. (eds) The Philosophy of Historical Case Studies. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 319. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30229-4_7
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