[Lecture delivered by Scott Main to The Lanark & District Archaeological Society on Monday 11 December 2000 at The Elphinstone Hotel, Biggar.]
It might be thought that philosophy has little or nothing to do with history, but I would like to take a few minutes this evening to suggest that there is a perplexing hinterland to history, whose investigation can be engrossing and enrich our understanding of what we are doing in looking at the past.
Philosophy, is a 'second order' discipline, and is a reflective activity that does not think directly about any first order object of inquiry but is, rather, thinking about thinking. Thinking itself is its object. It analyses the categories, methods, assumptions and procedures of other disciplines in order to get some clarification on the epistemological status of a given body of knowledge. There is thus a philosophy of science, a philosophy of mind, a philosophy of religion, a philosophy of art, AND of interest to us, I hope, - a philosophy of history.
It may at first sound a tiny specialist area, yet thinkers such as Oxford philosopher R.G. Collingwood, the Italians Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) and Benedetto Croce (1866-1952), the German Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803) spent large chunks of their lives worrying about the philosophy of history. G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) and Karl Marx (1818-1883) were also deeply concerned with the subject, using it to underpin their separate and highly influential theories.
Now it is my contention that archaeology is a sub-discipline of history, that is to say it is one of the METHODS of investigating the past. Specifically, it is that method which searches for, recovers, analyses and presents evidence from the MATERIAL remains of the human past. Mostly, these remains are recovered from the ground, but we are all familiar with the idea of underwater archaeology, and material has been recovered from caves above ground such as in the case of The Dead Sea Scrolls. One can envisage that there will be an archaeology of space debris in the future. So the material will not even be confined to the face of the planet. No matter what the source of the remains, if one insists on asking why this activity is at all valuable rather than a pain in the tonsils on a freezing hillside near Camps Reservoir in Clydesdale, it is for the sake of re-telling the story of the human past. And in this endeavour archaeology is one of the handmaidens in that task. Other handmaidens work with documents (primary and secondary sources), or with oral tradition, with paintings, sculpture, architecture, furniture, old machinery, letters, diaries, film and TV footage etc. Sources for the possible reconstruction of the past, in short, are many and various and archaeology is one of the servants of history. It follows that any philosophical comments upon the nature of history are applicable, or at least have some relevance, to archaeology.
My first substantive point is to make the distinction between history and the past. The words 'History' and 'Past' are very commonly used as synonyms. We are told, for example, that such and such an event occurred 'in history'. Yet it is important that we clearly maintain the distinction between these two ideas. The past is final, and closed, complete and incorruptible. Setting aside H.G. Wells and any notion of time travel for the moment, it is a single tapestry and it is a unity. It cannot be revisited or altered. History, by contrast, consists in accounts given of the past and of the modes of investigation whereby these accounts are arrived at, and constructed. There can be a multiplicity of histories, even relating to one period, but there can only be one past. Indeed, there can be widely diverging accounts of the exact same period. The Iraqi account of The Gulf War of 1991 was that it was the 'Mother of all Victories' for Iraq. The American account of that episode in the past is in flat contradiction to it. Additionally, accounts of the past can be re-visited and re-moulded. We have heard recently about the 'revisionist' historians one of whom is David Irvine who denies that the holocaust took place. Here we are in the land of spin, of propaganda and interpretation. It is our first indication that the interests of the present, and the motives of the generators of history shape it rather than passively give voice to some accurate version of the past.
Let us turn briefly to seek some justifications for the study of history in the first place. Maybe, after all, it would be better if we forgot 'all our yesterdays' and lived contentedly in a perpetual present like a cat snoozing in the summer sunshine. One highly favoured answer to this, with which of course you may choose to disagree, is that history is necessary and unavoidable. This would explain why right back to the earliest human societies bards (like Homer), creation mythologists (like the authors of the Book of Genesis), witch-doctors, troubadours, folk singers and chroniclers in the earliest monasteries preoccupied themselves with preserving and recounting stories of the past of their particular tribe or society. The logic continues thus - history is to a community as memory is to the individual. Without memory, an individual loses his bearings, and is rendered unable to make intelligent decisions. He loses a sense of identity. History, as a kind of collective memory, performs the same function for a whole society. It underpins an understanding of where we've come from and where we are now. It provides orientation and possibilities for future direction.
A further more subtle justification runs as follows - history is part of humanity's attempt to understand itself and the surroundings in which it is embedded. These are physical and social. By contributing to our understanding and thereby our control (because knowledge is power) it extends the present possibilities of human FREEDOM. And freedom, many thinkers believe, is to be greatly valued. Greater freedom, of course, can be deployed for both good and ill. If we record in history what acts of heroism and self-sacrifice humans have displayed, this may inspire the listeners to that history emulate the deeds or surpass them. If we record in history the memories of hideous torturing practices, these extend the freedom of the evil and cruel in the present.
Having attempted a very brief justification for history, we should focus on the basic concerns of the discipline apart from its obvious orientation towards the past. For these ideas, I am indebted to Arthur Marwick. The first basic concern is human beings in society and about this subject there used to be a rather rigid distinction made between 'pre-history' and 'history'. This distinction derived from the idea that since history is the historian's interpretation of the past, it can only really begin when the historian has reliable sources (and these were traditionally considered to be written records). Today, most of our knowledge of the earliest human times comes from archaeology and anthropology. Yet archaeologists have made valuable contributions to the study of modern times as well, so the whole category of pre-history seems to be dissolving.
The second chief focus of history can be described as change through time. This is what starts to separate history from anthropology, economics, politics and other social sciences, because they after all study human beings in society as well. But the real hallmark of history is that it looks for the way societies change and develop. There must be narrative in history. There must be a sense of movement through time. The very etymology of the word 'history' is ultimately from the Greek word 'historein' = to narrate. Narration presents to the listener an ordered sequence of events through time.
The third chief focus is that history must be concerned with the particular and the unique. It is an essential function of the historian to illuminate human experience by highlighting differences, and this is his trademark. Recurrent patterns, parallels and generalizations must always be secondary and have full supporting evidence from the particular and unique. That is the way round which it must be in history and this is a distinguishing feature of the subject.
Now we should turn to the problem of objectivity in history. I wish to claim that History is always an interpretation of the past and can never be completely objective. Even in the cases of first class history where the most rigorous principles and methodology of evidence gathering are deployed, interpretation cannot be eliminated. Of course a list of bald facts could be drawn up, but that would be a chronicle and not history. Opinions have fluctuated over the extent to which even excellent history must in some degree be subjective. The first great pioneers of history as an academic discipline in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries believed they were creating 'scientific' history based on the strict study of sources. The consensus today is that although the subjective element can never be eradicated, the strict observance of certain principles can help to minimize bias, prejudice and personal feeling.
One reason for the inerradicability of the subjective is encapsulated in E.H.Carr's famous phrase that history is a dialogue between present and past. Each age interprets the past in accordance with its current prejudices and pre-occupations. For example, in the nineteenth century when British political institutions were the admiration of the world, there was a strong emphasis on political and constitutional history. In the twentieth century we have become more preoccupied with economic and social matters, the mass of people are held closer to our view and current history writing reflects this. Most recently there has been a flurry of history written on the experience of women in society. The interest in the Roman Empire waxes and wanes and things are brought to light in accordance with how much money the 'Time Team' can spare on your particular project for this year! Enthusiasts in the Clydesdale area have recently brought much to light regarding the bronze age in Southern Scotland, but it might have been different had, say, a chance find of metalwork from 650AD sparked their interest. These considerations lead some thinkers to believe that history and her handmaidens are artists rather then scientists.
A second reason why the subjective appears impossible to remove is to do with the imperfect and fragmentary nature of historical sources. It seems irreducibly true that most of the sources bequeathed to us from the past are fragmentary, incomplete or simply not relevant to the questions that historians wish to answer. The problem is at its most acute when we are considering the most distant periods of study. Archaeological digs only occasionally uncover anything like complete physical artefacts. The Tombs of The Pharaohs in The Valley of the Kings are exceptional. Mediaeval documents were frequently burned or otherwise destroyed. And even though there may be masses of material say, for the study of the Victorian period, this material is not necessarily suitable for the precise purposes of the historian. Documents come into existence to serve the purposes of the people of their time, and these people are not usually interested in the sorts of issues which preoccupy later historians. History might be thought of as an exercise in putting together a jigsaw without knowing how large the dimensions of the picture will ever be, how complex it will be, or indeed if it depicts a single recognizable picture at all.
A further related question is that of evaluation, specifically of moral evaluation in historical writing. It is hard for any contemporary writer to treat the subject of slavery, say, with anything but moral disapproval. Yet for the longest duration of the human past slavery was assumed to be natural and inevitable, principally an outcome of war and conflict. Burning people alive at a stake and inflicting what we would regard as appalling tortures on others appeared perfectly defensible in the minds of their perpetrators. One justification, for example, was that the flames at the stake 'purified' the souls of the sinful. The question is therefore whether any historian can exercise moral evaluation over the past upon which the history is being written. Many philosophers have argued that the language the historian customarily uses, adapted as it is to the assessment and appraisal of human motives makes evaluation unavoidable. Their argument is that a value free history is theoretically inconceivable. It is as inconceivable as having a New Labour Government without Tory spending plans. This argument is re-inforced by another powerful observation about the practice of history, namely that historians are perforce required to make a selection from whatever sources they are using. Judgements are involved in selecting evidence and are not simply read off from the facts. Rather, judgements about selection depend on the prior acceptance of certain critical standards. Once again it looks like the objectivity of history is a slippery thing.
This becomes more clear when we turn to the topic of controversy in history. Two historians working from the exact same sources can generate competing histories with their own internal sets of explanations and rationale. There are many famous controversies in history. 'Why did the American colonists rebel against the British Government?', ' What exactly was the Renaissance and why did it take place?', 'Did the Industrial Revolution raise or lower the standard of living for the majority of the population of Britain?', 'what were the causes of the Second World War?' 'What were the causes of the French Revolution?', 'Why did Tesco alter the planned orientation of their new store in Lanark, with the loss of car parking space to the public?' It is notorious within history that the true causes of these events often appear to resist resolution at a purely empirical level. Stated another way - no amount or quality of evidence seems to settle the controversy one way or another. It has been maintained by philosophers that the basic grounds for such disputes can be traced back to one particular historian's adherence to a moral or political standpoint not shared by the opponent. One can more readily see how history is a form of art now. Should the sculptor use marble or bronze for his bust? The choice expresses something of his artistic spirit. Should the historian, like Hobsbawm, present the twentieth century in terms of a Marxist analysis or in terms of the modernization of Western societies through the impact of information technologies? The choice expresses something of his historical spirit.
The notion that we must say goodbye to is this. That history is simply waiting to be uncovered like pulling a dustsheet away from a long forgotten room, and it simply stares us in the face in all its naked simplicity. History is not like this. It is a complex, interactive process of interrogation with the past, fully imbued with human moral and critical value judgements. It is an activity which can never ultimately escape the interests of the present.
Finally I wish to present an intriguing argument of R.G. Collingwood's about the nature of history. Collingwood argues that history is a special kind of human inquiry relating to the past. So far no surprises. Where the object of chemistry is compounds, molecules and elements - the object of history is the action of human beings in the past. Collingwood thinks it is right that historians have habitually identified history with the history of human affairs.
He observes that the special problem of the historian does not arise in the natural sciences. This is because there are two facets to events in the human past - an outside and an inside. The former relates to all the descriptive and empirical facts that can be adduced about the event. The passage of Caesar, accompanied by certain men across the Rubicon on a specifiable date and the spilling of his blood on the senate house floor on another. But there is a kind of 'inner track' to historical events to which Collingwood believes the historian must and should turn. This is the dimension of thought or consciousness. In the case of Caesar, history is not adequate without explaining his defiance of Republican law, or the clash of constitutional policy between himself and his assassins. Crucially, the historian describes not only events but actions, and an action is a unity of the outside and the inside. Whereas the natural scientist penetrates beyond the observable in order to bring phenomena under general formulae and laws, the historian penetrates the phenomena of the past in order to get into the minds of agents in the past. 'Agent' here does not mean Fox Mulder or Dana Scully, however much my own personal thoughts revolve around that embodiment of female pulchritude. 'Agent' simply means any person who acts.
The processes of nature can therefore be described as sequences of mere events, however complex, but the events of history are driven and coloured by processes of thought and the job of history therefore, significantly, requires imagination. Re-telling thoughts requires having the imaginative capacity to think them yourself. Collingwood takes the argument one step further to say that history properly considered is simply the history of thought. What historians do is re-enact thought from the past in their own present minds. This implies envisaging for oneself the situation in which, for example, Caesar stood and extending a sort of imaginative participation. Narrating the past well entails some kind of fellow feeling towards the human beings of the past. History can thus be seen as an exercise in sympathy and understanding, although that does not always mean approval.
When looked at in this way, history is resolved into or transformed into a huge project of self-understanding. Collingwood's thesis is all about human collective self-knowledge. Its value is that it teaches us what man has done in action and accomplishment, and thus what man is. By re-enacting the thought of previous humans we almost literally resurrect a form of their consciousness, and as we all know there is no more sincere a form of flattery than imitation. At the very least we are according respect to the humans of the past by allowing their thoughts and motivations to breathe again in the oxygen of our own conscious minds.
Therefore, insofar as we believe ourselves to be part of one humanity - producing accounts of the past really turns out to be collective psycho-therapy. Modern day therapists leads the individual to a richer understanding of his own nature, whilst the historian leads the collective consciousness of a whole society to a richer understanding of human nature per se. The great injunction of Socrates was 'Know Thyself'. Historians and archaeologists have been getting on with that job ever since. They inform us who we are, and it is for this that we should be grateful.
My conclusion is that any time spent upon reflecting upon the nature of history may at first seem bewildering but will in the end be richly rewarded. To pursue the past without any such considerations is to be like a turtle paddling at the bottom of a deep shafted well, unaware of the existence of The Wide Sargasso Sea.
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