THE ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCEBETWEEN HISTORY AND SCIENCE
RAYMOND MARTIN
ABSTRACT
My thesis is that thereis a deep, intractable difference, not betweenhistory and science
per se
, but between paradigmatically central kinds of historical interpretations—callthem
humanistic historical interpretations
—and theories of any sort that are character-istic of the physical sciences. The difference is that unlike theories in the physical sci-encesgoodhumanistichistoricalinterpretations(purportto)revealsubjectivity,agency,andmeaning.IusethecontroversyprovokedbyGordonWood’srecentreinterpretationof the American Revolution to illustrate and substantiate this thesis. I also use it tosupport the claim that unless one attends to the ways in which humanistic historicalinterpretations reveal subjectivity, agency, and meaning one has no hope whatsoeverof getting the epistemology of historical studies right.
I. INTRODUCTION
The difference isn’t really essential. And it’s not between history and science.Even so, Idealist philosophers of history who argued that there is an essentialdifferencebetween historyandscience andmadevarious proposalsabout whatit is were more right than their positivist antagonists who argued that historyis merely proto or applied science. There is a deep, intractable difference, notbetween history andscience
perse
, but between paradigmaticallycentral kindsof historical interpretations—I shall call them
humanistic historical interpreta-tions
—and theories of any sort that are characteristic of the physical sciences.Simplyput, thedifferenceisthis:Good theoriesinthe physicalsciences(pur-port to) reveal the nature of things, as well as how kinds of things are relatedtoeachotherandwhy.Sometimestheyrevealwhichparticularthings happenedand why. Usually they don’t reveal what it is (or was) like to be those things(or kinds of things) since usually—we assume—there is nothing it is (or was)like. And usually they don’t include an account of what events mean. Goodhumanistic historical interpretations do. That is, usually they (purport to) re-veal not onlywhat happenedandwhybut
also
what itwasliketo be the peoplewho did and/or suffered whatever happened and what it means (to us now)that these people did and/or suffered whatever happened.
2
RAYMOND MARTIN
Successfullyrevealingwhat itwasliketobe thepeoplewhosehistoryisunderconsideration involves portraying their points of view and agencies accuratelyand in a way that is balanced and that facilitates empathic identification withthem. By their points of view I mean how they understood and experiencedtheir lives.By theiragencies I meanthenarratively importantroles theyplayedin the story that’s being told.Historians give a balanced portrayal of point of view and agency when theirinterpretations are appropriately inclusive, that is, when they give due repre-sentation to all of the pointsof view and agencies thatare importantly relevantto whatever isbeing interpreted.Theyportraysubjectivity andagency ina waythatfacilitatesempathicidentificationwhentheirinterpretationshelpus—theiraudiences—to imagine ourselves experiencing, understanding, and acting asthe people whose history is being interpreted experienced, understood, andacted.Conveyingmeaningtypicallyinvolvesportrayingtheeventsunderdiscussionsothatwecangraspthemwhole,thatis,so thatwecangetan accurateoverviewof what happened in a way that facilitates our appreciating its human signifi-cance. Since there is no limit to the ways in which something can be humanlysignificant there is no such thing as
the
meaning of events. Even so, since formost historical interpretations there are better and worse ways of relating theeventsunder discussionto theshared concernsandvaluesof thosewhowant tounderstand them,thereare better andworseaccounts ofmeaning.In historicalinterpretationsoneconveysmeaningsuccessfullytotheextentthatoneconveysit in one of these better ways.In saying that good humanistic historical interpretations reveal subjectivity,agency, andmeaning I’m not making a conceptual point, say, about the notionof “historical interpretation.” I’m not even sayingthat all humanistic historicalinterpretations reveal subjectivity, agency, and meaning. What I’m saying,rather, is that humanistic historical interpretations are central to historicalstudiesproper,andthatgiventhenormsthatcurrentlyexistbothamongprofes-sional historians andalso among sophisticated consumers of historical studies,humanistic historical interpretations tend to be regarded as more adequate,all else being equal, as they more successfully reveal subjectivity, agency, andmeaning. Nothing of the sort can be said of theories in the physical sciences.That is why itisa mistake to regard historical interpretationsgenerally or eventypically asiftheywere theories—proto,applied,orwhatever—ofany sortthatare characteristic of the physical sciences.Most historians, I think, would not regard what I am claiming as controver-sial. With respect to the issue of revealing subjectivity, J. H. Hexter, for in-stance, has said that a chief value of historical studies is that they enhanceone’s “ability to know and understand what it is like to be another.”
1
E. P.Thompson has stressedthe importanceof focusing onwhat hecalled the “lived
1. J. H. Hexter,
The History Primer
(New York, 1971), 207, 215.
3
THE ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HISTORY AND SCIENCE
experience”andagencyofthoseatthebottomofsociety.
2
AndDavidCannadinerecently remarked that A. J. P. Taylor’s inability “to get beneath the skins of otherpeople,toprojecthimselfimaginativelyandempathicallyintotheirheartsor minds” was “a great limitation” in his work as a historian.
3
With respect to the issue of portraying subjectivity inclusively and in a bal-anced way, Isaiah Berlin has said that in historical studies “we wish, ideally atleast, to be presented, if not with a total experience—which is a logical as wellas practicalimpossibility—at leastwith something. .. seen from asmany pointsof view”as possible.
4
BernardBailynhas saidthateven thoughrecentinterpre-tations of the American Revolution “have allowed us to see with some claritythe patternof fears, beliefs,attitudesandperceptionsthatbecamethe ideologyof the Revolution” they have “not yet made clear why any sensible, well-in-formed, right-minded American with a modicum of imagination and commonsense could possiblyhave opposed the Revolution.. . . [And] until thatis done,until we look deliberately at the development from the other side around, wehave not understood what the issues really were, what the struggle was allabout.”
5
Howard Zinn has reminded historians of the importance of their re-porting “accurately
all
of the subjectivities in a situation,” in particular, thatthey balancetheir accountsof slavery inAmericaby conveying what itwaslikenot only from the slaveowner’s point of view but also from the slave’s point of view.
6
And so on.If we turn from the things historians say about historical interpretations tothe interpretations themselves, the same preoccupation with subjectivity,agency, and meaningshows up.Consider, for instance, the following represen-tative sample of remarks about subjectivity scattered throughout GordonWood’s recent and highly acclaimed
The Radicalism of the American Revo-lution
:
We will never comprehend the distinctiveness of that premodern world until we ap-preciate the extent to which many ordinary people still accepted their own lowliness.Only then can we begin to understand the radical changes in their consciousness . . .that the American Revolution brought about.
7
[T]hecolonistsweremuchmoreacutelyconsciousof legaldependence—andperhapsofthevalueofindependence—thanEnglishmenacrosstheAtlantic.Undersuchcircum-stances it was often difficult for the colonists to perceive the distinctive peculiarity of black slavery.
8
2. Peter Novick,
That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession
(Cambridge, Eng., 1988), 441.3. David Cannadine, Review,
TLS
(February 4, 1994), 4.4. Isaiah Berlin, “The Concept of Scientific History,”
History and Theory
1 (1960), 1–31. Re-printed in
Philosophical Analysis and History
, ed. William Dray (New York, 1966), 5–53.5. Bernard Bailyn,
The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson
(Cambridge, Mass., 1974), x.6. Howard Zinn,
The Politics of History
(Boston, 1970), 41.7. Gordon Wood,
The Radicalism of the American Revolution
(New York, 1992), 30.8.
Ibid
., 54.
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Raymond Martin - The Essential Difference Between History and Science
History and theory, vol. 36, No. 1 (1997), pp. 1-14
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