The University of Chichester

The Universityof Chichester

An accreditedinstitution of the

University of Southampton

Departmentof History

The Journey from Languageto Experience: FrankAnkersmit's Lost "Historical" Cause.

PeterP Icke

Doctorof Philosophy February2010

WS 22813128 tue IIIIIIIIIIII 9IýK University of Chichester An accreditedinstitution of the University of Southampton Abstract

Departmentof History Doctor of Philosophy

The Journey from Language to Experience: FrankAnkersmit's Lost "Historical" Cause.

PeterPhilip Icke

This thesishas beencompleted as a requirementfor a higherdegree of the University of Southampton.

My purpose in the researchingand the writing of this thesis has beento investigate, and to try to explain, Frank Ankersmifs curious shift from his well expressedand firmly held narrativist position of Narrative Logic, to an arguablycontradictory, yet passionatelyheld counter belief in the plausibility of a form of direct (sublime) historical experiencean authentic unmediatedrelationship with the past. I am, accordingly, presenting here what I believe to be the most adequateexplanatory account of/for Ankersmit's intellectual journey. A journey which, in essence, constituted a substitution of his earlier representational,language centred philosophy of history for what might be taken as a new and mystical non-representationaltheory. This alternativetheory of Ankersmit's (let it be called this for now), lacking cognitive foundations,works on the basis of sensations,moods, feelings and thereforea consciousnessdeemed to be receiveddirectly from the past itself, and therein - for in this thesis - lies its fatal weaknessas a historical theory. Belief the mystical may be all right at some level, if this is what is wanted, but a mystical experienceitself cannot produce a historical re-presentationwhich (tautologically) is the only way that the past can be presentedhistorically. Thus, I arguethat Ankersmit's journey from language (historical) being to experience- the latter phenomenon more appropriately situated within the field of sociology/socialtheory and memory studies - is, in the end, a lost historical cause. Contents

Introduction ...... I

Chapter One: The Good Ankersmit 10 ...... :...... Pillar 1 ...... 12 Pillar 2 ...... 19 Pillar 3 ...... 31 The Reviews 37 ...... Misrepresentation 40 ...... Misunderstandings 41 ...... InadvertentAccord 42 ...... Chapter Two: A Moment Hesitation 48 of ...... SectionOne: Introductory Comments 49 ...... SectionTwo: The Illusion Truth 51 of ...... SectionThree: A FurtherQuestion Misrepresentation 65 of ...... SectionFour: Historiography Art Gardening 72 andthe of ...... SectionFive: Fact Value 78 and ...... Chapter Three: Ankersmit in Transition 86 ...... SectionOne: Ankersmit Metahistory 92 on ...... SectionTwo: LanguageRevisited 96 ...... SectionThree: Ambivalence: An Unlikely Story 99 ...... SectionFour: The Caseof the Vanishing Tropes 111 ...... SectionFive: Consolidation 122 ...... SectionSix: An Explanation 135 ...... Chapter Four: Sublime Historical Experience 140 ...... SectionOne: Cultural Trauma Historian 151 andthe ...... SectionTwo: Obsession Theory?...... 164 or ...... SectionThree: Presence: A New Paradigm 173 ...... SectionFour: A MisleadingTitle 179 ...... Conclusion 204 ...... Coda 209 ...... Bibliography 214 ...... DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP

I, PeterP. Icke, declarethat thethesis entitled `The Journey from Language

to Experience:Frank Ankersmit's Lost "Historical" Cause'and thework

presentedin it are my own. I confirm that:

" this work wasdone wholly or mainly while in candidaturefor a researchdegree at this University.

" whereany part of this thesishas previously been submitted for a degreeor any other qualificationat this Universityor any other institution,this hasbeen clearly stated;

" whereI haveconsulted the published work of others,this is always clearlyattributed; . " whereI havequoted from thework of others,the source is always given. With the exceptionof suchquotations, this thesisis entirely my own work;

"I haveacknowledged all main sourcesof help;

" wherethe thesisis basedon work doneby myselfjointly with others, I have I havemade clear exactly what wasdone by othersand what contributedmyself;

" noneof this work has beenpublished before submission

Signed

ý/

Date:5h Febrawy 2010. Acknowledgments

First I thankmy supervisor,Keith Jenkins,for his continuousencouragement and supportthroughout this project.And, especially,for his carefulevaluation of my argumentsand his enthusiasmfor them.

I alsowant to extendmy thanksto SueMorgan who, in her role asresearch co- ordinator,facilitated my progressionto anearly PhD completion.

Hayden White, Beverley Southgateand Alexander Macfie read parts and/or the whole of my thesisin its various "stagesof production", and I thank them for their critical but always constructive commentson and their support for the project; Mark Mason actedthroughout as a brilliant soundingboard for ideas, not only relating to this thesis but with regard to historical theory more generally; in similar vein, thanks as well to Kalle Pililainen.

And finally my thanks to my wife Christina for her tirelessproof readingof so many endlesslyreworded arguments,her advice on writing style and her insistenceon sentencelength reduction. F. R. (Frank) Ankersmit was not a total strangerto me when I first came to his works on historical theory, for his reputation precededhim. As a pre-eminent history- philosopher/theorist' of the EuropeanHayden White one might say- he had already, for me, assumeda significant statusamongst the leadersin his field of scholarship, and it was that image which influenced my perception of the Ankersmit who I initially began to read, analyse and situate. But, through that reading, analysing and situating, it was precisely that Ankersmit who slowly beganto melt away and mutate as another, quite different Ankersmit emergedout of what became him do fully my radical re-thinking of - an Ankersmit whose work(s) not live up either to his pre-eminent reputation or to expectationssubsequent to it. This rethinking (refiguring(relocating) of Ankersmit, which constitutesthe substanceof my thesis,'is broadly reflected in its title, `The Journeyfrom Language to Experience: Frank Ankersmit's Lost "Historical" Cause', and it is from this governing perspectivethat I have constructed and produced the overall form and contentof my argument. And so that the readermight know, right from the start, the direction and purpose of this argument,I will first briefly summarise it as a whole and then discussits organisationinto chapters.

I openmy argumentwith the propositionthat thereis in Ankersmit'swork(s), vis-ä- vis the philosophyof history,a very good (evenexcellent) Frank Ankersmit of an enduringkind. This good/excellent/enduringAnkersmit is the Ankersmitof

1Because Ankersmit in variousplaces is both referred to as, andsometimes refers to himself as, both a philosopherof history-anda historical theorist (suchusage effecting the collapseof any distinction that might exist betweenthe termsphilosopher andtheorist in this particular context), it should be notedhere that throughoutmy own text I havealso followed this samecommon usage, using the two termseither interchangeablyor preferring one over the other dependingon, what is perceivedas, again, `the context'. Furthermore,I shouldpoint out at this juncture that, with regardto notations,I will be using single inverted commasthroughout for footnoted quotations,for phrasesdrawn for discussionfrom previous "block" extractswithin my own text, and for my own rhetoricalquestions. My useof double inverted commaswill be restrictedto either the problematizingor highlighting of word/phrasemeanings.

1 Narrative Logic2 published in 1983.Yet, although the central thesis of that text - concerning the representational/propositionalnotion of the narrative substance- can, in my view, withstand all the criticisms that have been, and might be, levelled against it, the overall "logic" of Narrative Logic (and Ankersmit is regardedby many others, as well as by himself, as an extremely logical thinker) arguably leaves much to be desired. Hence it is my contention that whilst Ankersmit's notion of narrative substancesdoes indeedstand impregnable,the thinking that underpins and underwrites his overall argumentas expressedin Narrative Logic (his "means" which take him to his desired "ends") is often, in its elements,contradictory, faults Ankersmit incoherent and even unnecessary- which scarceseems to notice buried, as they frequently are, in an almost intimidatingly difficult and detailed erudition. Nevertheless,as stated,the conclusions reachedby this early Ankersmit remain, I think, utterly convincing, conclusions which (articulated through the concept of narrative substancesand informed by his central idea of histories as being individual proposalsabout or representationsof an absentpast) highlight the always problematical way in which the evidential traces of the past are transformed into history through, and only through, modesof representation.And that the absent for is past, being absent,can only be "known" through-its representations, there it nothing else: `no representation,no pasta3- Ankersmit's own phrase- says all.

I furtherargue that Ankersmit's early mode of thinking (asepitomised in Narrative Logic) wasoverwhelmingly informed by, andowed its successto, his immersionin andreading of twentieth-centurylinguistics, narratology, textuality and locatable representationalismwidely construed. That is to say that his position is in he has been a language basedphilosophical context, a location from which distancing himself over the last fifteen (or so) years until, in 2005, he was able to fully expresshis new (and for this thesis his current) position4as articulated in his

2 Ankersmit, F. R, (1983). Narrative Logic: A SemanticAnalysis of theHistorian's Language.The Hague:Martinus Nijhoff. 3Ankersmit, F. R, (2006). '"Presence"And Myth' in History and Theory45 no. 3: p328 4 in fact in 2007 Ankersmit launched There is perhapsan irony here- maybeeven a problem- the that a newjournal, TheJowwi of the Philosophyof History (co-editedwith Mark Bevir, PaulRoth, Aviezer Tucker and Alison Wylie), which seems(with regard to the contentsof its first three volumesat least)to give muchmore room to textualism and intentionality in representationthan it does to experience.That is to saythat the Journal addressesold concerns(the concernsof the early Ankersmit), albeit in an overall

2 summative Sublime Historical Experienceswithout, as he put it, `recanting' his previous position.6 Ankersmit arguedin Sublime Historical Experience?that the idea of history as a literary artifact, as textuality (he beganto refer to it as that in his own shorthand), had been taken-up at too high a price. Matters had gone too far, such that the notion of historical/historian's experiencehad been squeezedout of the prevailing language-centredphilosophical/theoretical history debates,these debates being most recently cast in forms of post-modemtypes of post-structuralism, deconstruction and, therefore, that ubiquitous textualism which now had to be "reined-in". As Ankersmit put it epigrammatically: `languageis where experienceis not and experienceis where languageis not'. ' Accordingly, as Ankersmit explained at length in Sublime Historical Experience,he now saw it as his task to rehabilitate to between language experienceand establish ajuste milieu precisely and , experience.'

Now, in order to begin to understandthe nature of the motivational drive which propelled Ankersmit in the direction of historical experience,and the style of logic with which he sought to validate this "move", a number of points can be made at this early juncture. In the first place Ankersmit has always neededhistory, a deep- seatedneed that, as we shall see,had its origins (not least) in the happy/unhappy vacillations which characterisedhis childhood and to which he himself draws attention. However, and this I think is ironic in the circumstances,Ankersmit's own critique of mainstreamacademic history (as laid out in Narrative Logic) was

critical and disavowing way, yet the curious thing is that experienceitself (Ankersmit's current and centralinterest) makesonly fleeting, haunting appearancesin it. Bearing in mind that this is, after all, the Journal of Ankersmit's new `Centrefor Metahistory', it appearsodd (to me anyway) that it mostly concernsitself with argumentsthat have beengoing on in historical theory for the last twenty odd years and doesnot tackle sublimehistorical experienceand its derivatives"head-on" as it were.This footnote might seema little prematureappearing as it doesat this early point in my thesis - and perhapsit is - but it might, nevertheless,afford somethingof a foretasteof ambiguitiesto comeas I work through the multiple aspectsof Ankersmit's developingtheoretical position. s Ankersmit, F. R, (2005). SublimerHistorical E perience. California: StanfordUniversity Press. 6 The extent/natureof Ankersmit's recantationis touchedupon at various pointsin this thesis,but I pill togethermy final thoughtson what I considerto be its unresolvedambivalences in the form of a post script (or coda) at the very end of my Conclusion. 9And also in occasionalrelated/formative papers which, as I have mentioned,run back ten to fifteen years(Ankersmit himself pointing out in the prefaceto SublimeHistorical Experiencethat that text itself was someten yearsin the making). 8 Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.p79 9 Although, as I hopewill becomeapparent, it could be arguedthat this move to moderatethe pre- eminenceof languagetook Ankersmit almost to the point of excluding it altogether.

3 arguablyso devastatingthat no empirical,epistemologically-striving history could everagain, following this critiqueof it, be seento provideaccess to the kind of historicaltruth thatAnkersmit himself had always sought. He hadin a mannerof speaking"burnt his own boats"and there was literally no going backby this route. Consequently,in orderto get at the past,Ankersmit was forced to look for another routeto it which,he evidentlycame to believe,could be foundthrough his rehabilitatednotion of experience.Ankersmit, accordingly, argued for a form of direct experienceof the pastunmediated by any kind of historicaldiscourse - he wanted,in effect,to by-passrepresentational history - andso in this way (this is the crucialpoint) hecould successfullycircumvent his own crushingcritique of it. Hence,it wasAnkersmit's desire to satisfythis newly framedneed for a form of pure,direct contact with the actualityof the pastitself - thepast "plain" - thatled him throughvarious contentious (in my view) "means"towards his earnestlysought but unworkable(in my view) "ends".It is, therefore,in Ankersmit'sarguably questionabledevelopment of his own theoreticalposition, driven by a particular need,that one can trace (and perhaps explain) his radicalmove away from the comfortand safety of the logic of narrativetowards the hazardsand perils of a somewhatbizarre notion of experience.

However, leaving that matter there for the moment and continuing with my summary, it is my further contention that (whatever else it does) sublime historical experience draws Ankersmit into a theoretical cul-de-sac if it is "historical" understandingthat he really wants - and that is what he sayshe wants. For though Ankersmit establisheshis current theoretical position on the basis of (sublime) historical experience(most fully expressedin his text of that name), what Ankersmit is actually talking about is arguably neither sublime nor historical nor experiential, rather it can be seen as a sometimeshyperbolically expresseddiscourse on the subject of existential sensation.

Furthermore, and finally, I argue (referring now to the `re-locating' or `re-situating' of Ankersmit's new style of theorisation as mentioned in my first paragraph)that if Ankersmit's work on experienceis to be located/situatedanywhere at all, then it

4 should be located outside of history altogether, in some comer (a somewhat mystical, mythical corner) of social theory or, to be more precise, within a corner of memory studies. For it appearsto me that Ankersmit's new and current "home" is to be found within the embraceof theories of presenceand authenticity, of trauma, of testimony, of witnessing, of nostalgia, etc., a habitat which has been growing rapidly over the last two or three decades.The crucial point here being that, whatever else it might be that Ankersmit is now talking about, it is not (strictly speaking) history/ historical theory; it is not about the past as history which, I argue,can only be produced through modesof textual representationalism.Accordingly, it appearsto me that Ankersmit's `Journey' towards apure form of historical experiencehas taken him outside the sphere of history altogether into the complex sociological his sphereof memory studies. And it is this ironic turn of events- precisely `Lost (or "Historical" Cause' of my thesis title - that can be construed/tropedas simply is) the tragedy of Frank Ankersmit's move from languageto (sublime) experience.

Now, within the individual chapterswhich follow this generalthesis as outlined above is always present; it informs and guides, inter alia, the analysis as a whole. However, in addition to this generalanalysis, I also engageAnkersmit - especially in ChaptersTwo and Three - through a closely textured seriesof expositionsand arguments in the particular which address,critically, details of various aspectsof his evolving position.10 Accordingly, in order to keep my general argumentsforemost in the reader's mind, such excursionsinto the analytical/particular will at intervals be "brought back" such that they might be located within the generalperspective of my overall thesis. And it is to be hoped that this strategy-this constantmovement betweenthe generaland the particular - adds both depth and clarity to my overall argument which I unpack and organisewithin a structure comprising four chapters and a conclusion as follows.

" In ChapterOne ('The GoodAnkersmit') I establishmy very best Ankersmit;for this purposethe argumentsused focus principally, but not

10Although my commentsduring sucharguments are sometimecritical and sharp,I hopethat they will not be takenas disrespectful.

5 exclusively,on Ankersmit'sinnovative derivation and development of the conceptof narrativesubstances. " In Chapter Two ('A Moment of Hesitation') I argue, on the basis of detailed analysesrather than on the more expository (though still analytical) nature of Chapter One, that this good Ankersmit is not so very good after all. For not only is his thesis in general (re: narrative substances)supported by a seriesof problematical philosophical and algebraic argumentsor proofs deemedhere to be (in the end) strictly unnecessary,but it also appearsthat Ankersmit is only able to establishthe originality of his position on the back of several radical misreadingsof other people. Accordingly, the point that emergesout of this analysis is that whilst Ankersmit's conclusions (as concisely stated by him) seem to me to be impeccableand eminently sustainable,the manner in which he establishesthem is, arguably, flawed. Consequently,Ankersmit - who both presentshimself as, and appearsto be acceptedas, the personification of philosophical rectitude and logical rigour (with regard to disappointment. historical theory at least) - turns out to be something of a However, a disappointment or not, Ankersmit himself very clearly thought that what he was doing was pretty good, in fact so good that he could see, or intuit, that his own ruinous critique of mainstreamhistory was, in effect, denying him the only available (albeit problematical) route to the "knowledge" of the past that he had (and has) always neededand always sought.Ankersmit was thereforecompelled to find and then transfer to an alternative style of theory that would, without falling foul of his own critique it is of representationalhistory, allow some form of accessto the past. And in this transition - this crab-like move from languageto experience searchof some other route via a "real" history towards a "real" past - that constitutes the subject matter of ChapterThree. " ChapterThree ('Ankersmit in Transition') cantherefore be read as a kind of "bridge" betweentwo radicallydifferent modes of thought.Hence, in this chapterI investigatethe argumentswhich Ankersmitbegan to develop especially(but not only) in the paperscollected together in the volume

6 History and Tropology" (and not least argumentswherein he crucially distanceshimself from Hayden White) and which led him towards and began to shapehis notion of (sublime) historical experience.It is this extraordinary idea of the actual possibility of historical experienceas Ankersmit construed it (subsequentlyto be developed into sublime historical experience)that leads me into my Fourth Chapter which deals directly with it. " Accordingly, in ChapterFour ('Sublime Historical Experience'), whilst attempting to adopt a more generaland discursive style (without, nevertheless,losing an analytical "edge" ), 12I critique Ankersmit's notion of sublime historical experienceand its dependentderivatives; in particular, presenceand parallel processing. All of these phenomena(along with Ankersmit's fellow articulators of them who representwhat I call the "Groningen School")13I shall then remove from the field of history studies to the field of memory studies where, as already mentioned, I think they really belong.

" Finally, in my Conclusion,I shall attemptto drawtogether (without too much repetition)the variouselements of my thesisinto whatI hopeis a coherent wholeand locate it in a wider philosophicalperspective.

Thereare now but two remainingmatters which I wantto mentionin these introductoryremarks; the first is to do with positioningand reading, the secondwith the uniquenessof this thesis.

Referring to the question of positioning in general, and taking due notice of one of Ankersmit's own arguments,I have to (and I do) take into accountthat the framing and prefiguring of any body of work will always be cast in a certain kind of "mould" governed by the point-of-view of its author. I am very aware that other people adoptingdifferent points-of-view could, would, anddo readAnkersmit quite

11Ankersmit, F. it, (1994). History and Tropology: TheRise and Fall of Metaphor. Berkeley: University of California Press. 12 Such anapproach, I shall argue,befits a readingof the sometimeanalytical but more.often impressionisticmood of SublimeHistorical Experience. 13 The "Groningen School" and its advocates(for example,Eelco Runia,Hans Gumbrechtet al) will be discussedin ChapterFour.

7 differently from me. Nevertheless,it remainsmy contention that what I am putting forward in this thesis, as my thesis, constitutesthe very best way of reading Ankersmit's oeuvre. And my argument,arising out of this best reading, is broadly speakingarticulated about what I have already characterisedas Ankersmit's tragic him trajectory of historical/philosophical thought -a trajectory which carried via various texts from his theoretical position as expressedand embodied in the narrative substanceof Narrative Logic to the mystical, mythical, not even historical Ankersmit of Sublime Historical Experience.However, as I have already explained, I am quite -awarethat relative to different points-of-view other readingsof Ankersmit are not only possible but inevitable. I am, for instance,quite sure that Ankersmit himself would not see his own evolution over the last (let us say) twenty- five years as constituting some kind of perverse movementfrom a good to an intellectually impoverished or a tragic version of himself- in fact, quite the reverse. Ankersmit would, and indeed does, seehimself as being the very best possible Ankersmit right now and thus, believing that he has arrived at something of huge value and significance to historians and historical theorists, he would seethe earlier Ankersmit as being, no doubt, still pretty good, but also somewhatpasse in the 14 context of his now current Position. However, my argumentis that the nature of Ankersmit's developing position can only be adequatelygrasped when seen completely the other way around. That is to say that since his development of the notion of narrative substanceshe has not been getting better but, rather, he has been getting worse, to the extent that he now draws at least some of his theoretical argumentsfrom the arguably eccentricand highly subjective world of mysticism as he "migrates", apparentlywithout fully noticing it, from history into memory.

My secondand final point concernsthe question of the uniqueness(original contribution to knowledge, etc.) of my thesis. During my researchinto Ankersmit

Sublime In order to justify this conclusion I refer to Ankersmit's introduction to Historical Experience he is, wherein he suggeststhat whilst not actually recantinghis previousnarrativist theoretical position nevertheless,moving on to a much betterunderstanding of what history is and, indeed,he is even looking into how historical consciousnessper se cameinto being. Thus, eventhough he appearsto be retaining his previoustheoretical position with regardto the historical text, he undeniablyoffers his new experience basedthesis as an advanceon this previousposition. For hepresents it as not only a more comprehensive direct thesisbut (andthis is the main point) also as an unproblematicand authentic engagementwith the These be fully actualpast - somethingbeyond the capacityof the historical narrative. matterswill addressedas the thesisproceeds

8 and his current milieu I did not, and nor have I since, come across any lengthy comprehensiveaccount or prolonged and systemic analysis of his work(s). Such a thing does not appearto exist in any languageand certainly not in English. Accordingly, there seemsto be precious little available in terms of substantial literature of the kind exemplified by this thesis. Of courseover the years (and increasingly so latterly), Ankersmit has undertakenseveral interviews during which he has clarified his views on a range of matters including his own work and its "trajectory" as he seesit. There also exists a small number of sometimesincisive papers on some or other aspectof his work(s). For example a paper by J. Zammito on representation,overviews of Ankersmit's work(s) by E. Domaiiska and K. Jenkins, and a few occasionally more abrasivereviews on some of his individual publications (for instance,that of C. B. McCullagh and also, although less provocatively argued, those of M. S. Roth, T. G. Chorell, et al). 15But, so far as I am aware,this thesis is thefirst and therefore the only attempt to evaluateAnkersmit at length in some analytical and thus critical detail and, therefore,the first to discern and expound a different trajectory from those occasionally suggestedby others as well as that which Ankersmit's would seeas his own. Accordingly, it is my hope that my argumentshere concerning Ankersmit's work(s) will constitute a different, worthwhile addition to the extant literature. And moreoverthat, both in its originality and perhapsits persuasiveness,it might be of future use to others working in whatis, not withstandingmy particularcritique of Ankersmit's increasinglyexperiential adventure, a vibrantand fascinating sphere of interest.

13 Thesecommentators and their reviews(along with others)will be evaluatedin variousplaces throughout my thesis.

9 ChawrOne TheGood Anketsmit

The Ankersmit of the title of this chapter is the Ankersmit who emergesfrom and is thus defined by his first book Narrative Logic' published in 1983. In order to illustrate exactly what I mean by this I propose to lay out and evaluatethe principal elementsof Ankersmit's essentialargument as articulated therein, prefaced very briefly by two pertinent considerations.My first is that to appreciatethe full significance of his somewhatcontroversially received text (and the disruption that it causedwithin the discipline), one needsto understandAnkersmit's own reading of the general state of historical theory at that time. And my second,that one cannot

ignore - as Ankersmit certainly did not ignore - the earlier huge contribution to this field of study by Hayden White, and here I refer particularly to White's publication of Metahistory2 in 1973.

With regard to the first point, Ankersmit held (correctly I think) that before the publication of the two above mentioned books historical theory had concerneditself almost exclusively with historical research,while the writing up of the product of

that research-a processthat was generally taken to be relatively transparentand thereforeunproblematic - had, as a consequence,remained largely uninvestigated. In short, there was no comprehensivephilosophical analysisof the writing of history per se, and Ankersmit's precise purpose in the writing of Narrative Logic was to set that matter right. This is not to say that some questionsconcerning the intrinsic character of the (ubiquitous) narrative form had not, albeit in somewhatpiecemeal form, been previously addressed.As Ankersmit pointed out in his Introduction to Narrative Logic, such explanatory literature could indeedbe found but, disregarding for the moment the work of Hayden White, this was more often than not in the form

' Ankersmit, F. R, (1983). NarnadveLogic: A SemanticAnalysis of the Historian's Language-The Hague:Martinus Nijhoff. 2White, H., (1973).Metahistory: TheHistorical Imagination in Nineteenth-CenturyEurope. Baltimore: The JohnsHopkins University Press. 10 of disparatearticles (for example,those of Louis Mink, RolandBarthes et al) which, collectivelyhe held,could not be seento constitute`a comprehensivesurvey of.... the natureand task of narrativephilosophy'. 3

But - my secondpoint - with White this wasobviously very different,for amongst the then literature(even if oneincludes, say, Walter B. Gallie,Arthur Danto,Morton White andMaurice Mandelbaum)4 White wasexceptional and, as noted,Ankersmit could not anddid not ignorehim. Indeed,due to Ankersmit'sconstant harking-back to White in what onemight see,over time, as a love/haterelationship in his sometime associationwith and sometime rejection of White's position, there is a sensein which White might even be seento have been a constant spectre,haunting (and disturbing) Ankersmit's theoretical advances.Certainly, to put it neutrally at this early juncture, Ankersmit's work can in some ways (as we shall see) be taken as a development of White's own work. Yet, having said that, I still think that it would be a mistake to imagine that Ankersmit might have found in White a model for his own theorising. For whilst Ankersmit's early arguments,broadly speaking,carried him towards some of the samegeneral conclusions as those expressedby White (in, for instance,Metahistory), he has neverthelessalways beenand undeniablyremains `original and complex in his own right'. 5

Ankersmit's original project as he saw it himself, then, was to demonstratethat contemporary historical theory was inadequateto its undertaking;that it failed to satisfactorily account for the nature of the narrative form which was generally taken to arise unproblematically out of the product - the facts and singular statementsof historical research.Accordingly, through his intervention in the discipline, Ankersmit soughtto challengethat establishedposition by proposingthat the hitherto presumedtransparent process of historical writing was nothing less than mattered opaque. And, furthermore, that almost everything that really in the process

3 Ankersmit.Narrative Logic. p1 4 Gallie, W. B., (1964). Philosophyand Historical Understanding.New York: Liveright Publishing; Danto, A., (1965). Analytical Philosophy of History. Cambridge:Cambridge University press;White, M., (1965). Foundationsof Historical Knowledge.New York: Harper & Row; Mandelbaum,M., (1967). The Problem Of Historical Knowledge:An Answer To Relativism.New York: Harper and Row, and also Mandelbaum,M., (1971).History, Man andReason.Baltimore: The JohnsHopkins University Press. 5Jenkins, K, (1999). Why History? Ethics and Postmodernity.London: Routledge. p 136 11 of history production took place betweenthe completion of historical researchand its into writing up narrative form -a processwhich Ankersmit referred to as the trajectory from evidenceto text. It was the expresspurpose of Narrative Logic to scrutinize thesematters through philosophical enquiry - essentiallyan enquiry into the nature of the narrative form, the nature of narrative knowledge that emerged from it and the role of linguistic instruments in the structure of that knowledge. Thus the possibility, or otherwise, of correspondencebetween the past and its narrative representationmight be determined.

Againstthis lightly sketchedbackground I now turn directlyto the text of Narrative Logic in orderto examineand analyse the principalelements of Ankersmit's argument,an argumentwhich is articulatedaround three propositions or theses,his three`essential pillars' (ashe calledthem) which briefly put go as follows6:

1) That the past hasno narrativestructure within it - such structuresoccurring only in narrativesthemselves. 2) That narrative substancesare the primary narrative entities in narrative accountsof the past 3) Thatthere is a relationshipbetween narrative substance and metaphor and that the narrativeuse of languageis indeedfundamentally metaphorical.

Pillar 1

In ChapterFour of Narrative Logic, Ankersmit draws attention to the distinction betweenthe spheresof thought associatedwith the positions adopted by both the `narrative realist' and the `narrative idealist', and it will be necessaryto follow this argument through in order to grasp the substanceof Ankersmit's first essential pillar.

Ankersmit'sso callednarrative realist accepts the historicalnarrative as the verbalisationof a kind of "picture" of the actualpast and since this picture,which is presumedto truly correspondwith the past,arises out of the variousstatements that

6 Thesethree pillars, as expressedhere, arecontractions of Ankersmit's descriptionslaid out on p87, p 100 and p216 ofNarrative Logic. 12 constitute the narrative itself, then it is taken that the author of that narrative must have had at his/her disposal.a set of translation rules in order to effect the projection of past events and situations directly into narrative form. The sourceof these translation rules, Ankersmit suggested,could perhaps be found in the models and theories of the social sciences,or alternatively - and here he draws on the works of various German twentieth century philosophers- they might be found in the notion of value (seen here as the driving force of historical enquiry) and thus provide the historian with the transcendentalstructure required to perform this direct translation of the evidenceof the past into a correspondingnarrative form. Ankersmit brings together the foregoing as follows: historianis in the form of a value ....the offereda setof translationrules, either systemor of socio-scientifictheories, which, it is claimed,indicate how to historiography.. translatethe historicalpast into the languageof . Philosophies of historyare based upon the (implicit) convictionthat historiography is essentiallya projectionin historicallanguage of pastreality in conformitywith thesetranslation rules.

Now, this verbalisedpicture theory of narrative realism is dismissedby Ankersmit for a number of reasons.In the first place he detectsa debilitating terminologically generatedconfusion invading and eliding the quite separatedomains of ontology, epistemology and the social sciences.For he recognisesthat these three categories, which are central to the philosophy of narrative realism, are at risk of losing their boundaries.Put more precisely, Ankersmit's concern is that the narrative realist might in error attribute an epistemological statusto a particular set of socio- scientific rules thus assertingthat only these amongstall possiblerules can relate the past to its narrativised account. Such a strategywould have the effect of erasingthe distinction betweenthe domains of the epistemologicaland the socio-scientific, a gift to those who would transform history into a social science.Then, with regard to life hermeneutictheory, which comes complete with its own intrinsic experience translation rules and rests on the notion of ontological equality betweenthe historian and the historical agent, a rather similar problem occurs but in this casethe And confusion arises betweenthe categoriesof epistemology and ontology. to complete this bewildering assortmentof elisions, there also exists a confusion of the

' Ankersmit. Ncarr,,diW Logic. p82 13 ontologicalwith the socio-scientificwhich would appearto sustainthe belief that it is indeedthe essenceof the pastthat is beingtranslated into its narrative representation.At this stagein the argumentit is alreadyquite clear that a lack of clarity hasits uses,and it provokesAnkersmit into writing that `thepicture theory dependsfor its very,existence on a confusionof the ontological,the epistemological andthe socio-scientific'"8

However,this problematictriple confusionof categoriesis, for Ankersmit,eclipsed by muchmore fundamental objections to the narrativerealist's position. For, ashe explained,it is difficult to seehow the historicalnarrative can betaken as a definitivepicture or projectionof the actualityof the pastwhen taking into account the following two points.First thereis the questionof categoryconfusion; one cannotplace a pictureand a narrativeinto the samecategory simply to establish somelinking mechanismbetween them. And, second,it would appearthat any setof translationrules selected to performthis taskof translationmust themselves be selectedand imposed arbitrarily. Indeed, there can never be any consensuson this matter,for by what measurecan the definitive globaltranslation rules of selectionbe selectedto the satisfactionof all interestedparties? Ankersmit continued with the observationthat: the [is like landscapethat hasto be the linguistic .... past not] a projectedonto level with the help of projectionor translationrules. For the "historical landscape"is not givento the historian;he hasto constructit. The narratio9is not the projectionof a historicallandscape...... the pastis only constitutedin the narratio.The structureof the narratiois a structurelent to or pressedon the pastand not the reflectionof a kindredstructure objectively present in the past itself. We shouldreject `the ideathat there is a determinatehistorical actuality, the complexreferent of all our narrativesof "what actuallyhappened", the. untoldstory to which narrativehistories approximate'. 1°

All of which leadsAnkersmit to the conclusionthat the pastdoes not possessa narrativestructure; narrative structures -a linguisticmatter - occuronly in

8 Ankersmit.Narraliw Logic.p86 9Ankersmit favours the use of the word narmlio as a contractionof historiographical nwrMve representationof thepast. My preferenceis to stay with its shorterequivalent historical narrative. 10Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. p86. However, in the final sentenceAnkersmit cites Mink L. 0. (1978). `Narrative Form as a Cognitive Instrument', in CanaryRH and Kozickj H. (ads.) The Writing of History: Literary Form and Historical Understanding Madison: University of WisconsinPress. pp 129-149 14 narrativesthemselves. Furthermore, the pastand its representationin narrativeform areclearly separatedby fundamentalstructural differences which denythe possibilityof the existenceof effectivetranslation rules, since such rules would necessarilybe requiredto performthe impossibletask of linking entitiesthat reside in categoricallydifferent domains. Hence, the narrativerealist viewpoint loses credibility,and Ankersmit turns his attentionto a matterwhich will not only be used to characterisethe `narrativeidealist' but will alsoform thebasis of his theoryof, narrativesubstances. This is howhe introduceshis proposal: in the by historians, ....the objects pastso often mentioned objectssuch as intellectual,social or political movementsand even nations or socialgroups, haveno statusin the pastitself independentof the narratio:they springfrom andare justified by the narratio."

The point that Ankersmit is making herecan be illustrated thus. A historian accounting for `The Renaissance'might appear to be describing or investigating some thing that actually existed in the past; however, nobody living in Florence in 1500 would have been aware of any Renaissanceas an object of possible study'and measurementby future historians. This is simply becausethe word Renaissance(as used in this sense)refers to a 19"`century colligatory term first adopted by historians of that period for the purpose of collecting togetherdata which, when taken in sum, individuated the notion of a classically inspired rebirth of intellectual pursuits, particularly (but not always) artistic pursuits, associatedwith a loosely defined historical period. No two historians are necessarilygoing to exactly agreeon the scopeof data to be included within the term Renaissance;such decisions will be governed by the points-of-view of the historians in question.The Renaissance,then, 12 is a conceptfigured within its narrative representationonly, and that is all. The

" Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. p87 '2 It is interestingto note that the term `Renaissance'was first used,as understoodhere, by the French historianJules Michelet in his History of France (1855) andhe saw it more asa generaldevelopment in the sciencesrather than in the arts, occupyingthe period from Columbusthrough Copernicusto Galileo discovery (the mid 15* to mid 177 centuries)- that is, from the discoveryof the earthto the of the heavens(see Mansfield, B., (1992).Man on His Own: Interpretations of Erasmus.Toronto: Toronto University Press.pp140-143). The tam was next usedby the Swisshistorian Jacob Burckhardt who definedthe Renaissanceas the period from Giotto to Michelangelo(the mid 14thto mid 16* centuries) andthus, for him, it was an Italian affair centredon the arts (seethe PenguinBooks translationof Italy. St. Burckhardt's original 1860text in Burckhardt,J, (1990). The Civilisation of the Renaissancein Ives: Clays Ltd.) However, more recently the historian andgenealogist Randolph Starn hastaken the view that the Renaissancewas a movementof practicesand ideaswithout definitive beginnings,middles 15 centralpoint to be stressedhere is thatthe pastis given shapeor, betterstill, narratively"illustrated" by meansof do form .... entitiesthat not part of the pastitself andthat do not evenrefer to actualhistorical phenomena or aspectsof suchphenomena'. This is whatI would like to call narrativeidealism. "

All this both reaffirms the fundamental structural divide betweenthe past and its narrative representationand suggestsa certain autonomy of function with regard to the historical narrative which appearsto be primarily governed by a narrative logic informed by linguistic rules and devices rather than the actuality of the past itself. The past can thus be seento underdetermineits historicisation. The historical narrative can, therefore, no longer be taken as some sort of "window" through which the actuality of some past event might be viewed exactly as it was, rather it has to be seen as a proposal about that event. Or, as Ankersmit puts it, a mode of `seeingas' cut adrift from the actuality of the past becauseit is unavoidably mediated through a complex of autonomous.narrative devices which, stricto-sense, lack any points of referencelocated in the past itself

Now, none of this is intendedto deny the veracity of facts or singular statements which refer to things, events or statesof affairs which once "inhabited" the past. Nobody is likely to deny that Elizabeth 1' was Queenof England and Ireland from 17thNovember 1558 until her death on 24thMarch 1603. Such matters, which are ultimately validated by consensus,are entirely the concernof the field of historical researchand, whilst Ankersmit has always recognisedthe value of this field of studies, it did not much figure in his thesis. Rather,Ankersmit is talking about conjunctions of facts and singular statementsand the narrative knowledge that they carry by virtue of the manner in which they are structured into a coherent whole; the

and endings(see Starn,it, (2002). `The EuropeanRenaissance', in Ruggiero,G. (ad.). A Companionto the Worldsof the Renaisswace.London: Blackwell Publishing.pp39-54). The point that l wish to make at this stagein my argumentis that amongstthese three eminenthistorians (one beingresponsible for "coining" the term Renaissancein the first place) we havethree radically different ideasabout what the Renaissanceactually was andwhich period it actually occupied.But (andthis is Ankersmit's point) each of theseaccounts is, no doubt, coherentlyarticulated about its own uniquely individuated yet quite different narratiw substance,and it is precisely suchcoherence which validateseach account internally length with referenceto itself and not to the past. This matter will be discussedat greater below. 13 Ankersmit. Nwratlve Logic. p87 16 structureof the historicaltext beingthe key, for as the historian/historicaltheorist Alun Munslowhas pointed out, the text is it has logic its Its logic is .... a structureand, as such, a of own. not that of reflectionof the empiricalessence hidden in thingsin the pastbut, rather,as a of in form explanationits powerresides its own structure- structurewhich is alwaysmore than the sumof its parts.14 This structure- the logic of the narrativeform - wasprecisely Ankersmit's subject of inquiry. He wantedto investigatethe natureof it andunderstand how narrative knowledge(the meaningsof narrativeaccounts of the pastgenerated within the text) issuedfrom the wholehistorical text. To fail to graspthis, as somedo, 'S is to miss the point of his book.

In summation then, the past has no narrative structure within it - narrative structures occur (tautologically) only in narratives. Objects such as intellectual, social or political movements,nations, social groups and so on, have no "historical" statusin the past itself. They spring from and are justified only by the structure of the historical narrative. The past is thus "illustrated" by meansof entities which do not form part of the past itself, nor do theseentities literally refer to the past. Hence, a gap exists betweenthe past and its narrative representationwhich, in effect, not only affirms the structural autonomy of the historical narrative as a whole, but it also draws attention to the significance of the linguistic devices which govern it. In order to investigate the existenceof any possible relationship betweenthe actuality of the past (a past which does not say how it is to be represented)and the historical narrative that is presumedto be its representation,it would be necessary,Ankersmit argued,to analyse the logical structure of narrative accountsof the past and the precise nature of the narrative knowledge of the past arising from these accounts.

14Munslow, A., (2003). TheNew History. London: PearsonLongman. p 150 is For instance,Jonathan Gorman,referring both to the historical narrativeas a whole and its singular statementssays that `.... the whole cannotbe more than the sum of its parts.....a heroic argumentis requiredto establishthat indeedthe whole is more than the sum of its parts'. This notion is centralto Gorman's argumentas laid out in Gorman J. L., (1997). `PhilosophicalFascination with Whole Historical Text' in History and Theory36 no. 3: pp406-415.I have beenunable to find explicit expressionsof this view elsewherebut, nevertheless,I believe it to be part of the discoursein somequarters, in the sensethat it revealsitself as a presuppositionin argument. 17 To adopta positionconsistent with theseabove observations would beto adopt Ankersmit'sown positionwhich is that of the narrativeidealist. And this position' restson the assumptionthat there exists a narrativelogic, uninformedby the past, which structures(apparent) knowledge of the pastinternally within its own narrative form. By contrast,and rejected by Ankersmitin his argument,narrative realism rests on the assumptionthat narrative knowledge of the pastis directly informedby the pastitself.

In the light of the foregoingthe question of the veracityof historicalfacts or statements- vis-ü-vistheir referential links to the past- losesits assumedcentrality andurgency. Indeed, it is undeniablythe casethat scholarlydebate between historiansalmost exclusively focuses on the relativemerits of differentnarrative interpretationsof pastevents and how they might relateto otherkey texts that have somehowcome to occupyauthoritative positions on the subjectsin question.For example,although I haveread many reviews of historybooks by eminenthistorians, I haveonly rarelyencountered any significantchallenges to the factsof these varioustexts and, where a challengeis made,it is often in the form of a mild rebuke (for instance, it ). But,, facts to degree sloppywork .... get right! evenwhen are some questioned,the reviewersprimary interest always concerns the validity of the text viewedas a whole whenmeasured-up against the backgroundcontext of other relatedtexts. All in all historycan be seenas anessentially inter-textual enterprise.

That much taken as understood,Ankersmit then moved on to investigatethe nature and function of this narrative logic which apparentlyembodies the capacity to generatean endlesscollection of different historical accounts(sometimes radically different but always different) of the same past event. To meet this challenge Ankersmit proposed a new linguistic device, the narrative substances,which now brings me to his secondessential pillar.

18 Pillar 2

So, what precisely does Ankersmit mean by narrative substancesand where does this idea come from? Well, I think that the best way to get into Ankersmit's essential position is to understandhow the concept of the narrative substanceemerged out of an old idea which Ankersmit had appropriatedand then ingeniously reshapedfor his own purposes.By which I mean that what Ankersmit so successfullydid was to take the historical theorist W. H. Walsh's exhaustednotion of the `colligatory concept', sever it from its objective referential entanglements,re-describe it as a `linguistic instrument' and then relocate it in languagewhere it had really always belonged.To explain exactly what I mean by all this it will first be necessaryto have a closer look at Walsh's proposition.

Walsh introduced the conceptof colligation (along with its anticipatedexplanatory potential) into the philosophy of history in his paper, `The Intelligibility of History', 16published in 1942.Walsh had borrowed the idea from the nineteenth century English philosopher and historian of scienceWilliam Whewell, and Walsh continued to develop it throughout the courseof various editions and reprints of An Introduction to Philosophy ofHistory 17before finalizing his argument in an essay entitled `Colligatory Concepts in Historyi 18(Walsh explained in this essaythat he preferred to use the term `colligatory concepts' rather than its earlier equivalent, `appropriateconceptions'). 19

Colligation, as construedby Walsh, is essentially a form of contextualisation;that is, eventsare placed in a context through the establishmentof a web of interconnectionswith other events in a manner that revealsthe larger historical wholes of which the individual eventsare constituentparts. Walsh expectedthat colligation would offer the historian a tool of common usagein the sensethat it might operate in its own right and independentlywith regard to the existing

16Walsh, W. H., (1942).'The I nelligibility of History'in Philosophy17 no. 66: pp129-143 17Walsh, W. H., (1967). An Ini adiectionto Philosophy of History. London: Hutchison& Co. p59 18Walsh, W. H., (1967). `Colligatory Conceptsin History' in Burston andThompson (ads. ) Studiesin the Nature of TeachingHistory. London: Routledgeand KeganPaul. pp65-84 19ibid. p72 19 positivist and idealist theories of historical understandingwhich had beenessentially articulated through C. G. Hempel's `Covering Law Model' and R. G. Collingwood's `Re-enactmentTheory' respectively. Walsh's introductory illustrative account of the processof colligation was set out as follows:

If a historian is asked to explain a particular historical event I think he is often inclined to begin his explanation by saying that the event in question is to be seen as part of a general movement which was going on at the time. Thus Hitler's reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936 might be elucidatedby referenceto the general policy of German self-assertion and expansion which Hitler pursued from the time of his accessionto power. Mention of this policy, and specification of earlier and later stepsin carrying it out, such as the repudiation of unilateral disarmament,the German withdrawal from the League of Nations, the absorption of Austria and the incorporation of the Sudetenland,do in fact serve to render the isolated action from which we started more intelligible. And they do it by enabling us to locate that action in its context, to see it as a step in the realisation of a more or less consistent policy. To grasp a policy of that sort and appreciatethe way in which individual events contributed to its realisation is, at least in many cases,part of what is normally involved in giving a historical explanation.20

Walshis thussuggesting here that the historian seeks an intelligible narrative whole, realised(in this particularexample) through a `unityof plot' arisingout of the contextualisingprocess of colligation21,and that having achieved this unityany particularevent within thatwhole might be thought to havebeen explained. It should alsobe notedhere that Walsh's theory does not incorporatethe ideathat history could be seenas a `rationalprocess...... [or thathis theory should be seen as] the only explanatoryprocedure adopted by historians.22 For in the historian find intelligibility in history by .... saying that attemptsto colligating events according to appropriateideas I am suggestingno theory of the ultimate moving forces in history. I say nothing about the origin of the ideas on which the historian seizes;it is enough for me that those ideas were influential at the time of which he writes. Thus the only rationality in the historical processwhich my theory assumesis a kind of surfacerationality: the

20Walsh. An Introduction to PhilosophyojHistory. p59 21 One should note here(taking this particular examplecited by Walsh) that the contextualisingprocess would necessarilyshow a preferencefor the selectionof narrativestatements capable of collectively individuating the idea that Hitler did in fact have in his mind the unity of plot proposedby the historian in question.It is, thus, the centralidea that there must havebeen a particular unity of plot that governsthe selectionof statementswhich togetherindividuate that very unity of plot notion. Accordingly, it could be arguedthat the 'colligatory concept' functionsinternally in a circular fashionand, fiuthermore,that it is exactly this autonomousmode of operationwhich is carried into its successor,the narrative substance (as discussedlater in this Chapter). Ibid. p62 20 fact thatthis, thatand the otherevent can begrouped together as parts of a singlepolicy or generalmovement Of the wider questionwhether the policy or movementwas itself the productof reasonin a furthersense I havenothing hereto say.23

Of course, the colligatory concept relies on hindsight to create the contextualised field into which the various individual statementsfit in sequence.Or, in other words, it is only by knowing how things turned out that historians (who, I think, generally distance themselvesfrom hindsight and its traditional accomplice in crime - anachronism)can properly conceive of the whole in the first place, and it is therefore the directional "goal seeking" sequenceof the parts with respectto the whole (as in the particular example cited, namely the caseof Hitler's expansionist policies) that generatesa mode of historical thinking'which `proceedsin teleological terms2.24 It is also of interest to note that the eventscollected together in this particular caseare related by period and not type and, furthermore, that there does not appearanywhere at all in Walsh's work, so far as I can see, an explanation of the event selection methodology to be employed by the historian. I presumethat this matter was to be left to individual judgement and that selectionwould be a rather personal, and therefore obscure,value basedaffair.

Other more familiar examplesof colligatory conceptsmentioned by Walsh were `The Renaissance',`The Enlightenment', `The Industrial Revolution', `The Age of Reform' and so on. Theseterms are of a more generalnature than that of Hitler's expansionistpolicies and might be characterisedas complexesof inwardly related events and situations that appearto be unplanned(unlike Hitler's relatively deliberatesequence of acts).However, all of thesecolligatory concepts seem to be, in their wholes,of greatersignificance than the sumof their constituentparts.

Walshdoes not offer any furthermeaningful analysis of his teleologicalmode of historicalthinking, but he doesmove on in his unfoldingexplanation to accountfor deviationsfrom his initial expansionistmodel. Here I quoteW. H. Dray on Walsh who notesthat

23ibid. P62 24ibid. p60 21 historians .... will be ableto discerngoverning purposes and goals in cases wherethe agentsconcerned did not deliberatelyseek to realisethem, let alone plan to bring themabout by stages....As anexample, Walsh cites the way a `senseof imperialmission' throws light on muchthat happened in the political historyof GreatBritain in the latenineteenth century, although few of the idea Colligations agentsconcerned ever articulated such an to themselves.... dependingupon the idea of unconsciousmotivation in this wayWalsh calls 4semi-teleological'25he lays from .... also considerableemphasis ondeviations a straightforwardlyteleological paradigm by reasonof the interventionof chanceoccurrences or otherunintended consequences in most historical endeavours.Even when agents are pursuing plans and policies, he observes, the lattermay often haveto beadjusted because of changingcircumstances, especiallythose resulting from the uncontrollableactions of others.26

Consequently,Walsh found himself forced to devisea complexsystem of sub- categoriesbeneath his colligatoryconcepts in orderthat the overalldevice might be seento remainadequate to its task.Indeed, C. B. McCullagh,who latertried to developWalsh's argument, found it necessaryto accountfor evenmore different setsand sub-sets of colligation.In particular,he introducedthe sub-categoriesof the `formal' (relatingto the formalstructure of historicalprocesses and the changes broughtto them by the actionsof historicalagents) and the `dispositional' (effectivelyvalues or ideaswhich could be shownto bemotivating historical agents with regardto specificevents or setsof events).27 And, whilst revisingthe notionof colligatoryconcepts for his (previouslymentioned) 1967 publication, Walsh himself recognizedthat in his earlierwritings he hadomitted to incorporatethe social dimensionin historicalunderstanding. He accordinglynoted that the ideaof social process'should have been taken as primary'28 in his earlierworks - an unfortunate admissionafter the devotionof sometwenty-five years to an intransigenttheory that had,time andagain, effectively evaded the graspof its advocates.

However,the point thatI am trying to illustratehere is that a numberof people (morethan I havementioned -a longerlist would includesuch theorists as L. B.

u For furtherexplanation see Walsh. An Introduction to Philosophyof History.p61 26Dray, W. H., (1989). OnHistory & Philosophersof History. Leiden & New York: E. J. Brill. pp37-53 27McCullagh, C. B., (1978). `Colligation and Classificationin History' in History and Theory 17 no. 3: '267-284 Burston andThompson (eds. ) Studiesin the Nature of TeachingHistory. p73 22 Cebik, D. Thompson and M. White)29had, over severalyears, buried themselvesin the `huts and bolts" of Walsh's theory in what turned out to be an endlessand unproductive searchfor some kind of workable understandingof it. The combined efforts of Walsh, Dray, McCullagh and the others had thus failed to arrive at any satisfactory understandingof the nature and significance of the valuable "tool" which lay before them. An indication of the mode of thought brought to bear on the problem is epitomised by Dray's insistencethat colligatory conceptsmust be part of the `imposed the [lest they] past and not on past.... constitute a projection of the presentupon the past rather than an attempt to take it for what it is and to study it for 30 its own sake'

And herewhat I fmd curiousis thathardly anyone investigating this matterseemed to noticethat the notionin question,the colligatoryconcept, is of coursejust that, a concept,and that asa conceptit mustsurely reside in the mind of the conceiverof that conceptand not in the pastitself. Yet this conceptwas sought-out and investigatedas if it werein possessionof someform of objectivestatus, as if it had onceexisted in the pastas an objectto which onemight refer.McCullagh, referring to The Renaissancein just sucha manner,declared it to beof a generalrather than a specificnature because `historians found reason to speakof renaissancesoccurring in in 31Renaissances thus otherperiods, and even othercivilisations' . were presumed to occurin the past-just like outbreaksof the plague,

However, Ankersmit then steppedinto the frame with a brilliant idea which finally (for me at least) closed down this extendeddebate. For (as I have said), he appropriated Walsh's colligatory concept, cut it loose from its problematic direct referential linkage with the past and re-describedit under a new name, the narrative substance,as a linguistic device. A device which was and is fundamental to the logical structure of narrative accountsof the past and hence,all at once, old

zs Cebik, L. B., (1969). `Coftigationand the Writing of History' in TheMonist 53: pp4O-57,Thompson, D., `Colligation andHistory Teaching' in Studiesof the Nature and Teachingof History. pp85-106,and White, M., (1965).Foun&xiionr of Historical Knowledge.New York: Harper & Row. pp252-254 30 Dray. On History & Philosophersof History. p37. It is somewhatsurprising to note that this comment was published in1989 - sixteenyears after the publication of Metahistory andsix yearsafter the publication of Narrative Logic. ' Ibid. p47 23 theoreticalquestions evaporated to bereplaced by interestingnew onesas Ankersmit'snarrative substance(s) entered the broader discourses of modemand postmodernhistorical theory.

To understandthe mannerin which the narrativesubstance functions, it is necessary to considerAnkersmit's observation that, taken in isolation,a constituentstatement of a narrativeaccount of the pasthas a doubleand not a singlefunction. As a statementit refers directly to some aspectof the past or thing in the past; however, as a componentof the narrative viewed as a whole it servesas a property of a "picture" of the past. This picture of the past (visualised from a specific point-of- view) which is individuated by a particular set of statementschosen and organised by the historian in order to produce that desired "picture", might be associatedwith a particular name, The Renaissance,The Cold War, The Enlightenment and so on, but often this will not be the case.Nevertheless, this does not mean that pictures of the past are not in use when such generally acceptedterms fail to appear.Rather, the essentialpoint here is that it is the narrative substance(governed by the historian's uniquely individuated point-of-view) which embodiesoverall narrative meaning and that this function should not be confusedor conflated with (or indeedreduced to) the capacity of the narrative's individual statementsto describe and, therefore,refer to the past.

Now, where a statement,or sometimesa single word, performs this double function within the narrative, it might not be clear which of the two functions is operative at any one time. Take, for instance,a historical narrative containing the word Napoleon; this word could be used as a direct referenceto the man himself (empirically acquired biographical details perhaps)or it could embody an individuated "picture" of Napoleon from the unique viewpoint of the author of the narrative who favours a particular interpretation of Napoleon as this or that type of man - the author's Napoleon. One could say, then, that there are two subjects intrinsic to the word Napoleon. First there is the narrative subject (the actual man about whom verifiable statementscan be made which refer directly to this personin the past). And, second,there is the narrative substanceor the narrative "picture" of

24 Napoleongenerated within the logic of the text which cannotbe subject to truth claimsprecisely because this pictureis figuredby the historianwithin the substance of the narrativeitself anddoes not refer to anythingoutside it to which correspondencecriteria can be categoricallyapplied. The conflation of thesetwo functionscan lead to confusionand unjustified claims with regardto the statusof the narrativeviewed as a whole,claims such as; `the facts are right so the story mustbe right'.

It now becomesclear that the essentialdifference betweenthe position of the narrative realist (who recognisesnarrative subjects only) and the position of the narrative idealist (who recognisesboth narrative subjects and substances)is a matter of disagreementover the existenceof narrative substanceswithin narratives. Narrative idealism thus stakesclaim to a third logical entity in addition to the subject and predicateof propositional logic and this new entity, the narrative substance, carries the narrative meaning of historical accountsof the past and, as such, constitutes the primary logical entity within those narrative accounts.Moreover, Ankersmit claimed correctly that no one previously in the fields of both the philosophy of history and the philosophy of language `everseriously defended.... [this] idea'. 32 .

So,when a narrativesubstance acquires a name(for example,The Renaissance) and this namesubsequently enters into commonusage, an erroneousassumption can becomeattached to it Thatis, it canacquire the putativestatus of a knownand definableentity which is assumedto inhabitthe pastitself; it could betaken (as Ankersmitwould say)as part of the inventoryof the pastsuch that, as a consequence,the clearlydemonstrable case that there are as many different Renaissancesas thereare historians who write on the subjectis lost from view. To further illustratethis pointtake as an examplethe narrativesubstance, The Age of Steam',as envisagedby railwayhistorians. One historian might considerthat the spreadof the railway system,from its (steamdriven) birth to the ultimatedemise of the steamlocomotive, was a very goodthing all roundand proceed to demonstrate

32Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. p102 25 this by indicatingits contributionsto a periodof economicand social change which, in this case,would be construedor tropedas progress. Another historian might take a lessenthusiastic view and,with somejustification, point to negativeaspects of the socialimpact of the railways- for instance,the breakdownof village communities. Yet anotherhistorian might take the view that `TheAge of Steam'with its attendant pollution,dissipation of finite naturalresources, etc., was or is part of a broader discourseconcerning the degradationof the planet- andso on andso forth. In fact onecould arguethat there must beas manydifferent points-of-view on this subject as thereare historians writing aboutit, becauseeach historian will colligateunder his or her uniquelyperceived notion of the meaningof 'The Age of Steam'the setof statementswhich individuatethat very notion.The consequenceof which is that eachhistorian's narrative account of `The Age of Steam'will be,to somedegree, different,irrespective of theveracity of eachof the narrative'sconstituent statements.Debates on the relativemerits of suchaccounts, as mentionedearlier, would thusturn on the questionof the apparentvalidity or plausibilityof the various points-of-viewadopted and would not be too concernedwith anyquestions relating to the correspondencebetween individual narrative statements and the actualpast to which the statementsreferred - thesematters lie within the sphereof the philosophy of historicalresearch and can ultimately be resolved in thatsphere.

In practicethe narrativesubstance and the historian'snarrative point-of-view which governsit (regardlessof discursivefamiliarity) will, then,lack anyclear consensual identity becausethere will alwaysbe somemeasure of disagreementover the appropriatemake up of its individuating statements.Furthermore, narrative substancesor points-of-view, in order to possessidentity at all, will require the presenceof other competing points-of-view. That is to say that identity itself is a relational and thus a relative matter which arises out of differences; the notion of the existenceof just one single point-of-view is, in a sense,oxymoronic becausesuch singularity would constitute a postulated "truth" and not a proposal about it. Consequently,because any particular narrative point-of-view will strive to exclude all other competing points-of-view, it must follow that any narrative substancegains it is Thus, its identity negatively by virtue of what it rejects- by what not. given that

26 competing collections of narrative accountsof past eventsdepend for their existence on the various narrative substanceswithin them, then it follows that there could be no historical debate without them. Debate in such circumstancescould only operate at the empirical level of reference,and factual referencealone cannotconstitute a history at all: no narrative substance... no history!

To briefly summarisethe aboveat this point.Ankersmit is claimingthat access to the logical structureof narrativeaccounts of the pastis only possiblethrough a newly postulatedprimary logical entity,the narrative substance,which embodies the narrativemeaning of narrativeaccounts of the past.Of centralimportance to this notion,its "key", is the understandingthat individual statements within the narrative havetwo functions;they referto andthus describe things in or aspectsof the past, however,taken collectively, they becomeproperties of this narrativesubstance and therebyhelp to uniquelyindividuate a point-of-viewor "picture" of thepast which hasno referenceoutside its narrativeform (it canonly referto its ownnarrative substance).Narrative substances sometimes acquire names, and with thesenames comesa semblanceof "visibility", but moreoften than not they remainunspecified. In both cases,however, narrative substancesare somewhat nebulous in character andconsensus regarding the exactnature of any suchentity proposedby a historian will be hardto attain.

Bearing in mind all the foregoing, it appearsto me that Ankersmit's suggestionthat the argumentsexplored in Narrative Logic `might be looked upon as an attempt to elaborateWalsh's notion of the colligatory concept'33is, without doubt, a very modestclaim. Ankersmit's narrative substancewas the product of a brilliant paradigm shift in thought which, it would seem,was beyondthe compassof those working in the old field of colligatory studies. There were clues and intimations, of course, as exemplified by this comment from Walsh himself

Impartialhistory, so far from beingan ideal,is a downrightimpossibility. In supportof this we couldpoint out thatevery historian looks at the pastfrom a certainpoint of view, which he canno moreavoid than he canjump out of his own skin. Wecould alsomaintain that the disagreementsof historians,when

33Ankersmit. NairattNeLogiC. p100 27 carefullyanalysed, seem to turn on pointswhich are not matterfor argument, but dependrather on the interestsand desires of the contendingparties, whetherin a personalor in a group capacity.Historical disputes, according to this way of thinking, areat bottomconcerned not with whatis true or false,but with what is andwhat is not desirable,and fundamental historical judgments are in consequencenot strictly cognitivebut `emotive.' This would go far to abolishthe distinctionbetween history andpropaganda, and therefore to underminethe claimthat historyis (or canbecome) a truly scientificstudy. 3a

A paragraphlike this would not look out of placein oneof Ankersmit's philosophicaltexts, even the style of writing (if not the register)is somewhat similar. However,what is of interesthere is thatsuch unexpectedly perceptive observations,first publishedin 1952,were not developedby Walshin anyform whatsoeverduring those thirty-one years prior to the publicationof Narrative Logic. Dray alsoseems to havemissed something, for havingwritten the following he thenignored it - as if the ideasarticulated by the mentionedLouis Mink were curiositiesand of no consequence: Of all the writerswho haverecently urged more attention to the part/whole relationin historicalthinking, only Mink hasexplicitly held thattracing out a configurationis itself (i.e., evenin the absenceof an interpretiveconcept or description)a modeof understanding.The most importantconclusions historiansreach, Mink hasmaintained, are `undetachable' from the worksthat formulatethem; for the conclusionsare the detailsin their complicated interrelationships."

So,the connectionswere not made,and it wasleft to Ankersmitto conjureup the innovativemode of thoughtrequired to successfullylift a thoroughlystagnant conceptout of the rigid mindsetin which it wasembedded, radically re-describe it, andthen successfully relocate it atthe cognitivecore of the narrativeform. This, to my mind, is morethan plain elaboration.

Oncethe ideaof the narrativesubstance is grasped,of course,it all seemsso long? Ankersmit obvious- howcould it havebeen generally overlooked for so And evensuggested a wider applicationof his theory(an applicationwhich can be linked backto history)as demonstratedby his investigationof the notion of self identity(or

34 Walsh.An Ind odactton to Philosophyof Htstory. p22 35may. On History & Philosophersof History. P49 28 the "internalist"view of oneself),as opposedto personalidentity (which he associatedwith the "extemalist"view of oneself).Ankersmit characterised self identity as follows:

This is the sensein which oneknows oneself as oneultimate indivisible being in the courseof havingany experiencewhatsoever, I knowmyself now asone beingwho just could not beany other.The question of my beingsome other personjust could not arise,I am myselfwhatever my experienceis like. But thereis alsoa sensein which I am continuouslysubject to change.Every instantI change....in termsof what I undergoor experienceor do I am never the samepersona

The problem,then, is to expressself identityin termsof a uniqueand constant entity which hasthe capacity,without compromise to itself,to internallytolerate change. Ankersmit's offeredan ingenioussolution to this problemas follows:

For Ankersmit, the expression`self identity' signifies a uniquenessor unity of experiencethat can be seen as a `logical entity' which encompassesall personal experiences(and consciousnessitself) and attributesthem exclusively to the self- a unity which, nevertheless,embodies the inscription of changeoccasioned by those experiences.Hence, Ankersmit arguesthat the logical entity self identity refers to a narrative substance(per)formed on the self, whilst the statementsof which it is comprised expressall the experiencesand perceptions of that self to date and will, in the fullness of time, include those to come. Self identity, thus conceived,is not an unchangeableproperty of the self, but a narrative concept which refers to a narrative substanceindividuated by a constantly expanding collection of statements expressingexperiences and perceptionsof the self. It is, then, self identity as a linguistic entity that rationalisesthe conceptof the "sameness"of the individual throughout the changing experiencesof life. Accordingly, self identity cannot be reduced to any particular experience or perception,rather it is the casethat singular experiencesand perceptionscollectively individuate self identity.

As such,self identitydoes not conveyknowledge, but ratherallows the arrangement of knowledgefrom an evolvingpoint-of-view which, in a circularmanner, is itself

36Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. p183 29 its own referent Ankersmitargues that self identityis `themost important narrative substancewe know and,moreover, prerequisite for our very ability to recognize othernarrative substances and thus for the narrativewriting of history'.37 The logic of the latter statementrests on the recognitionthat the notionof self identityeffects a divisionbetween the spheresof what doesand what doesnot belongto the self, andthat this demarcationimplicitly presumesthe existenceof othernarrative substancesbesides self identity- the necessarycondition for the writing of history.

Anotherof Ankersmit'sinteresting "asides" concerns the 'narrativisedself, which might be seento be locatedsomewhere between two extremes.At oneend of the scaleis the solipsist'sposition from which all realityis seento be written-into self identity, andat the otherend lies the conditionof rejectionor lossof self identity.In the first casethe self is all andexternal reality becomes an emptyplace, whilst, in the secondcase, the self is lost from view as it dissolvesinto the immensityof externalreality. This diversionfrom his mainargument is usedby Ankersmitto illustratethe natureof psychologicaldisorders which mightarise from irregularities in, or lossof, self identityleading to distortionof, or lossof, viewpointon reality.A psychoanalystwould subsequently be required for the treatmentof thesedisorders, suchtreatment being effected through the identificationand neutralization of the problematicindividuating experiential statements which happen to be disturbingor demolishingself identity.

On the issue of self identity, then, Ankersmit, with remarkableinsight, is arguing the point that the writing of history is impossible without it. He arguesthat the notion of self identity logically entails the division of reality into two spheres- that of the self is and that which is not the self - and that this division the necessaryprecondition for the recognitionof othernarrative substances which existoutside self identity. Only afterthis recognitionof the existenceof narrativesubstances outside self identity,or the historyof the self,is it possibleto write historyat all. It is worth mentioningthat this point,which I considerto beone of Ankersmit'smost striking

37Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. p187 30 and which hasimplications for the historythat I am arguingfor, seemsto havebeen completelyoverlooked by his manycommentators.

Pillar 3

With referenceto his third proposition or essentialpillar (to recall, the relationship between narrative substanceand metaphor),Ankersmit argued that one cannot overlook the conspicuoussimilarity betweenthe modesof operation of the metaphor and that of the narrative substance.This observation suggeststhat the narrative substance - the cognitive core of the narrative form - is of a fundamentally metaphorical kind and thus, it follows, that the narrative use of languagemust also be fundamentally metaphorical. He builds his argumentto that effect in the following way.

As previously established,narrative statementshave a double function. That is, to briefly restate,they describethe past (such description being subject to empirical falsification) and they collectively constitute an image of the past (an image, seen from a particular point-of-view, which logically cannot submit to any form of falsification). There is a clear distinction betweenthese two quite different usesof language,the empirical referential languageof description and the aesthetic language(the figuring/shaping) of individuation; nevertheless,they are elided into a single structure, the narrative itself. Ankersmit pointed out that this double function, which typifies narrative statements,is also typical of metaphorical statements.Take, for example, Shakespeare'smetaphor `All the world's a stage' from As YouLike It, (at 2 scate7). The meaningsof the words `world' and `stage' in isolation - their signification - would in Ankersmit's argument comprise the literal content of the phrase. However, taken in the whole the phrasealso constitutesan invitation to the reader/audienceto visualize the world from a particular point-of-view which, in this case,effects the transfer of the attributes of the theatrical stage onto the world. This metaphorical use of language(which is crucial for all meaningmaking) can be seen to furnish Shakespeare'sphrase with a surphis of meaning which exceedsits

31 aforementionedliteral meanings.Ankersmit referred to this surplusas the `scope'of the metaphor,which allowedhim to makethe importantobservation that the metaphoris not part of reality itself but shouldrather be seenas a linguisticfigure that imposesor proposesa particularview on/of reality.

To further illustrate the I being point, recall as a schoolboy told that electricity - the mysterious stuff which makes sparks- should be seen as a flow of water, a river, where driving force correspondsto electrical voltage and-flow correspondsto electrical current. This metaphorical point-of-view, with its implied relationship betweenthe force thrusting the river along and the massof water carried by it, has the effect of appearing to explain somethingabout, or of demystifying, the phenomenonof electricity. Accordingly, the metaphor's `scope' not only familiarizes the notion of electricity but it also provides a model of logic upon which problem solving (in this caseat that entry level of physics) might be accomplished. This example effectively highlights three characteristicsof the metaphor:(1) It familiarizes but does not explain the unfamiliar. (2) The metaphorical "model" (if it's facilitates a good one) problem solving. (3) The metaphor is not part of reality - water and electricity don't mix. And I would add, by way of an aside,thatthis familiarization process,which appearsto be the primary function of the metaphor, gives rise to a kind of illusion. The illusion being, that the nature of the familiarized new phenomenonmight appearto have beenadequately explained and understood when, in fact, it has only been describedin terms of other, older phenomena,which are equally assumedto have been understood,but which have themselvesbeen placed under description in terms of various precedingand presumedunderstood phenomena,and so on and so forth. It thus becomesclear that the languagewith which we chooseto put our world under description (and then use to deduceour "knowledge" about it) comprisesa complex of receding metaphors- all the way down.

This impenetrablevoid that separatesknowledge from mere description has often been vividly articulated, but perhapsnever better than by Albert Camus who writes:

32 Of whom andof what indeedcan I say:`I knowthat! ' This heartwithin me I canfeel, andI judge thatit exists.This world I cantouch, and I likewisejudge that it exists.There ends all my knowledge,and the rest is construction...... you tell me of an invisibleplanetary system in which electronsgravitate around a nucleus. You explain this world to me with an image. I realize then that you have been reducedto poetry: I shall never know. Have I the time to becomeindignant? You have already changedtheories. So that science,that was to teach me everything ends up in a hypothesis,that lucidity founders in metaphor, that uncertainty is resolved in a work of art. What need had I of so between description is many efforts? ...... you give me the choice a that sure but that teachesme nothing and hypothesesthat claim to teach me but that are not sure.39

Metaphor, then, articulatesboth a literal descriptive function and a seeingas or point-of-view function. And it is the excessof metaphorical over literal meaning which Ankersmit seesas the `surplus meaningthat constitutesthe essentiallogical difference betweenmetaphorical and literal statements'.39 Both the historical narrative and the metaphor can, therefore,be seen either descriptively or in the form of representations (or proposals)governed by linguistic devices which are suggestiveof perspectivesfrom which reality might be viewed. Accordingly, as Ankersmit pointed out, when we can claim that `description and individuation are the two logical operationsthat embody the essenceof the narrative use of language, we are justified in ascribing to the narratio a profoundly metaphorical character'.40

Underlining this argument in some measureis Hayden White's view of the metaphor as a deviation from the literal, a swerve in locution `sanctionedneither by custom nor logic'. 41White observesthat `tropics is the processby which all discourse constitutes the objects which it pretendsonly to describerealistically and to analyse objectively'. 42That is to say that it is through tropological (metaphorical) description that objects are first constituted before becoming "known" or understood within that same imaginative framework of metaphor in which they were first constituted (a kind of linguistic tautology). It thus follows by implication that the

38 Camus,A, (1955). TheMyth of Sisyphus.London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd. pp22-23 39Ankersmit. Narrative LogiC.p212 40Ankersmit. Narrative Logic, p216 41White, H., (1978). Tropicsof Discourse. Baltimore: The JohnsHopkins University Press.P2 42Ibid. p2 33 linguistic device, the trope, possessesa certain autonomy of operation with regard to narrative meaning. There exists,then, a parallelism of thought between White and Ankersmit, for Ankersmit also proposedan autonomy of operation with regard to the narrative, in this casethe historical narrative, the meaning of which appearsto be governed by images generatedby linguistic devicesrather than the actuality of the past itself.

This, then, is Ankersmit's central argumentwhich ties metaphorto narrative substanceand thenceto narrative form and, in so doing, draws attention to the most conspicuouslogical property sharedby the metaphor and the narrative; namely, that their meanings can be said to be carried by their propositional and not by their descriptive modes of articulation.

Ankersmit concludedhis argument with a closer look at the metaphorical structure of narrative statementsin order to establish some criteria of preferencewhich might be used to select the best narrative accountsof the past. He opened his argument with the following observation:

Anyonewho hasever tried his handat writing historywill haveexperienced the extremeflexibility of descriptivestatements on the past:they meeklyfit the mostdisparate accounts of the past.43

This flexibility of descriptive statementsallows for their requisition as required. Thus, any statementmight contribute to the individuation of a multiplicity of different narrative substancesbecause descriptive statementshave no `narrative compassof their own'. ` It is only the historian's unique point-of-view which endows purposefully selectednarrative statementswith their capacity to collectively illustrate that very point-of-view from which those statementswere selected.Seen this way, there exists an internal circularity which characterisesthe natureof all historical narrative statementsand which, accordingly, affirms the autonomous nature of the narrative meaning carried by the whole historical text. This is how Ankersmit put his circularity argument:

43Ankersmit. NarrativieLogic. p218 44Ibid. p218 34 The dependenceof separatedescriptive statements upon the points-of-view individuatedby them whentaken together, their "compasslessness"when takenin isolation,underlines once more the circularityso characteristicof historicalknowledge. Isolated individual statements of a narratiomay indicate all conceivabledirections - only a narrative"point of view" cangive them "narrativedirection", yet this "point of view" only comesinto beingthanks to thosehelpless descriptive statements. 45

Now, onemight not be entirelyhappy with the ideathat this point-of-viewonly comesinto beingthanks to descriptivestatements or, in otherwords, as if the narrativeviewed as a wholewere not prefigured- aestheticallyand ideologically positioned(this, of course,being White's point which arguablydraws attention to a weaknessin Ankersmit'sthird `pillar', 46albeit a weaknesswhich doesnot necessarilydamage his overall thesis).However, one cannot object to Ankersmit's argumentif he meansby it that individual`compassless' statements have meanings imposedon them from a prefiguredpoint-of-view (the necessaryinitial conditionfor the writing of history)in orderthat they might, in a circularfashion, individuate that precisepoint-of-view. Accordingly, the meaningsof narrativestatements can be seento be determined by the narrative interpretations in which they reside and the meanings which becomeattached to facts can similarly be seen to be narrative dependant.Ankersmit thus concluded that it is indeedthe casethat `there are no [meaningful] facts devoid of narrative interpretation'.47

The foregoing argument would, I think, permanentlypreclude the possibility of any definitive selection criteria which might be put to use in order to identify the best of any collection of variously construedhistorical narratives,each purporting to properly (truly) representsome past event or situation. However, skirting this relativistic conclusion,` Ankersmit proposed a selection strategythat restedon his notion of `scope' which, accordingly, he extendedbeyond the metaphorto encompassthe narrative form as a whole and which somewhatdeflected attention away from his relativistic difficulties. 49

45Ibid. p218 46 This point will be fully explored in Chapter.Two. 47Ankersmit. Nwraiiw Logic. p219 '8 Ankersmit has never liked relativism despiteits "logic". 491 shall be returning to this argumentin my Conclusion. 35 As previouslyexplained, the formulationof a metaphoricalstatement necessarily involvesthe individuationof a point-of-viewfrom which reality (or rathera part of reality) could be seen.Thispoint-of-view endows the metaphoricalstatement with the capacityto articulateinformation in excessof thatcontained within its meaning whentaken literally. Hence,the scopeof a metaphoricalstatement is wider thanits literal descriptivecontent which, lackingpoint-of-view, fails to projectany familiarising metaphoricalfigure onto that part of reality in question. It should again be noted that this figure or way of seeing reality, whilst giving preferenceto certain statementson reality, does not itself constitute any part of reality for Ankersmit who thus concludedthat: it to that the .... seemsonly reasonable say mostsuccessful metaphorical statementsare those in which the dissimilaritybetween scope and descriptive contenthas been maximalized. Scope-maximalization is the goalof the metaphoricaldimension in language.50

Similarly, the historical narrative's constituent statementswill collectively individuate a point-of-view - thus suggestinga particular structure or shapeto that part of the past in question- and, therefore,together these statementswill carry narrative meaning in excessof the sum of the descriptive meaningscarried by each statementwhen consideredin isolation. Accordingly, Ankersmit arguedthat, as was the casewith the metaphorical statement,the scopeof the historical narrative viewed as a whole will also be greater than the sum of its parts taken in isolation. It also manifestly follows (as I have previously argued) that the narrative meaning, or what Ankersmit often refers to as the `historical knowledge' carried by the narrative as a whole, will be governed by the unique point-of-view adopted by the historian. This is inevitable becauseto adopt a particular narrative point-of-view is to expressa preferencefor the sort of narrative statementthat would lend support to the point-of- view adopted.

Now, wheneverhistorical narratives are compared it is preciselytheir scopesand not their points-of-viewwhich form the basisof thatcomparison because there is no commonground against which the comparisonsof intangiblepoints-of-view could w Ibid. p221 36 take place.Ankersmit, then, contends that the bestamongst competing narratives must be the onethat hasmost effectively and courageously maximalised its scopes' Thusconcluding that `Fertility andnot truth is our criterionfor decidingupon the relativemerits of narratios'.52

For the moment, then, this completesmy reading of what I take to be the essential elementsof Narrative Logic - the sameelements that define the good Ankersmit of my chapter title. In the next chapter I will, amongstother things, be following Ankersmit's scopeargument as it is developedby him, but I now propose to bring this chapter to a close with an appraisal of the generally unfavourable reviews that Narrative Logic has received.

The Reviews

It Ankersmit's came as something of a surprise- bearing in mind the significance of pioneering thesis and its attendant clarifications of "old problems" - to discover that very few reviews of Narrative Logic have actually been published.I have only been able to find four (in English) of which the most positive is that of Hayden White who recognisedthat the book representeda `substantialcontribution,. not only to the literature on philosophy of history, but also that which dealswith narrativist philosophy'. 53White acceptedAnkersmit's argumentthat a historical narrative, being a representationof or proposal about the past, can constitute nothing more than an invitation to view a past event or situation from a particular perspectiveand, furthermore, that its `referent' is the narrative substancegoverning that perspective. A historical narrative is (says White) to be seen `not [as] an "image" of the past nor an "explanation" of it...... [but] always at best an "interpretation" of the kind of

51 Ankersmit found himself obliged to adds caveatshere. For instance,he insisted on the overriding stipulation that individuating narrativestatements which can be shownto be falseare to be rejectedand, furthermore,that the preferred narrativeaccount is the onethat comesclosest to propagandawithout actually becomingpropaganda. However (andthis matter will be further discussedin ChapterTwo, pages 73 & 74), he madeno mentionof any adjudicatorcharged with the responsibilityfor the identification and suppressionof either falsestatements or examplesof propaganda. 52 Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. p223 53White, H., (1984). `Reviewsof Books' in AmericanHistorical Review89 no.4: p1037 37 complexentities that canbe comprehendedonly in the extentto which they canbe "narrativistically"represented''.

David W. Foster wrote a short review for the literary journal Rocky Mountain Review in which he called for further exploration of `the continuities between literary and so-called non-literary works, to expandthe scopeof literary studiesto include a wide variety of written texts other than the strictly literary', 55and it is against this literary backgroundthat Fosterfinds interest in Ankersmit's explanation of historical writing as a specimento be studied rather than to be acceptedor rejected. Donald R. Kelley, by contrast,wrote a distinctly negative review, the content of which suggeststhat he had failed to properly grasp Ankersmit's argument. Kelley is of the opinion that Ankersmit createsdifficulties for himself when he grappleswith historical teens like `The General Crisis' and especially The Renaissance'.He also accuseshim of a `.... cursory dismissal of "historical research", by which he meansnot only the whole area of discovery but also that of the definition interpretation 'S6.Now, Ankersmit has and of evidence... never dismissedhistorical research,on the contrary he frequently comments on its importance, as (for example) during an interview with Ewa Domat ska, when he pointed out that

it be that true in history is in historical .... may very well all progress progress research.If one compareswhat we now know of civilizations that have been forgotten for millennia, or of languagesthat have not beenspoken for many centuries, it would be ridiculous to deny that progressis made in the area of historical research.So no one should try to look down on historical research; that really is the cognitive backbone of history. However, it is not all the historian does....57

Consequently,the central point here (and this is not only evident from the book's main text but it is also made quite clear by Ankersmit in its Introduction), is that. Narrative Logic is not about historical research,it's about historical writing. Moreover, referring back to Kelly's `dismissal' comment above,the notion of

M Ibid. p1037 ss Foster,W. D., (1986). `Book Reviews' sectionin RockyMountain Reviewof Languageand Literature 40 no. 4: p238 ss Kelley, R.D., (1984). `ReviewsSection' in Journal of Interdisciplinary History 15no. 2: pp317-318 S' Domahska,E., (1998).Encounters: Philosophy of History after Postmodernism.Charlottesville: University Pressof Virginia. pp73-74. 38 `interpretationof evidence'does not fall into the empiricalsphere of historical research.To missthis point is to missa fundamentalpremise of Ankersmit'sthesis, andth erefore it seems.to me that anydifficulties referredto by Kelly areof his own andnot of Ankersmit'smaking.

Undoubtedly, however, the review that most influenced general opinion about the book and, according to Ankersmit, inflicted the most damageto the book's sales, was that written by C. B. McCullagh58and published in History and Theory. Some years after the appearanceof this review Ankersmit expressedhis continuing resentmentagainst McCullagh in an interview with Ewa DomaAska: Narrative Logic had the impact in the .... never slightest even small world of historical theorists. Of course,this has much to do with several evident short comings of the book itself. I went to the wrong publishing company, the book was poorly produced, written in an awkward and stiff English, and contained a lot of misprints. On top of that I had the misfortune that McCullagh's review of the book in History and Theory was the most hostile and most narrow-minded review that was ever published in that journal. The sad irony, by the way, is that I had myself suggestedto the editors of History and Theoryto ask how McCullagh to write a review -a perfect example, I'd say, of one can cut one's own throat.....what I learned from McCullagh's review was that a meaningful debate with positivistically minded people like him would be impossible.It was not merely a matter of disagreement;rather you could say that all the kind of things that I consideredto be the most interesting and challenging problems of how the historian usesnarrative languageto account 59 for the past were non-problemsfor positivists like McCullagh.

With regard to the content of the McCullagh's review I can only agreewith Ankersmit, for I find it rather shallow and lacking in cohesion.Furthermore, and this is really my main point, McCullagh roundly dismissed Ankersmit's central thesis as `neither enlightening nor convincing'60without properly understandingit or suggestinganything better. I am not for a moment advocatingthat everyoneshould accept Ankersmit's argument,but its rejection must, at the very least, be articulated on the basis of a considered assessmentof his proposalstaken in the whole. I found what I consider to be some thirty points of contention within McCullagh's text and,

58McCullagh, C. B., (1984). `Review Essays' in History and Theory23 no.3: pp394-403 39Domafiska. Op. cit. pp7l-72 60 McCullagh. Op. cit. p403 39 sinceit would betiresome to mentionthem all, I havebroken down my list under threeheadings and addressed a selectionof the moresignificant points within the categoriesof `misrepresentation',`misunderstandings' and `inadvertentaccord'.

Misrepresentation

This, McCullagh's inexcusableyet frequent blunder, is typified by his rhetorical question; `.... why should the point-of-view of a historian be consideredboth additional to the statementsof his or her narratio, and an integral part of that narratio as well?'61. Now, in the first place, Ankersmit does not say that the historian's point- of-view constitutessome sort addition to the statementsin his/her historical narrative, rather it is the historian's point-of-view which expressesa preferencefor and therefore governs the type of narrative statementthat the historian will be predisposedto select out of all possiblestatements that are available for selection. Moreover, Ankersmit repeatedlystresses his wholly logical assertionthat a point-of- view or narrative substanceis not part of (past) reality but a way of looking at it and therefore it can be neither a part of reality nor a part of a representationof it.

McCullagh is also of the view that Ankersmit is in denial over `the reality of states because things it and religions our conceptsof these are mental constructions ...... can be dangerousto believe that the state does not exist just becausethe authority of its offices is not visible'. 621cannot fmd nor can I recall such a denial anywhere at all in Ankersmit's writings. He does, however, make the point that statesand religions are narrative substancesand, as such, the notion of what that state or that religion might be is an individual or personalmatter which dependson that person's point- of-view. There may be some significant degreeof overlap betweenindividual notions of what these conceptsare, but it neverthelessremains the casethat each individual will have his or her own unique point-of-view on whatever concept it is that is under consideration- that is all. And this is not so surprising since, unlike the signifier table or chair, a state or religion has no external referent. Or, to put it

61Ibid. p397 62Ibid. pp398-399 40 differently,one can walk arounda chair, point at it, prod it andeven sit on it, but how canone repeat that performance with a stateor a religion?McCullagh, however,`cannot see any fundamental difference between the "normal things" [dogs andsnowflakes] which Ankersmithas referred to andthings referred to by general colligatoryterms' 63

My next example of McCullagh's misrepresentation concerns `scope' as defined by Ankersmit. Here is one of the many things that McCullagh has to say about it:

Why does Ankersmit think that the bigger the scopeof a narratio the better?It is not at all clear. He mentions Sir Karl Popper'sbelief that daring, highly falsifiable hypothesesare to be preferred (245). And he writes approvingly of some interpretations being more fertile than others in that they enableone to synthesizemore facts than the narratio expressingthem actually describes (223-225).64

But it is abundantlyclear why Ankersmitthinks `thebigger the scopethe better',he explainedit very well asI hopeI haveshown. But whatconcerns me hereis McCullagh'sclaim in the lasttwo linesof the extractabove, for I havelooked very carefullythrough pages 223-225 of NarrativeLogic andI cannotfmd anywherea statementto the effect thata greaterdegree of fertility enablesone to `synthesise more factsthan the narratioexpressing them actually describes', nor canI work out exactlywhat this is supposedto mean.

Misunderstandings

These mostly seem to arise out of McCullagh's failure to graspthe significance of what I take to be Ankersmit's irrefutable distinction betweenthe two categorically different spheresof narrative representation and narrative description, for he asks `What more is there to a picture of the past than those statementswhich form the `those narratio?i65 wherein the `picture' (representation) has been elided with is statements' (descriptions) which form the narratio. This mistake then

63Ibid. p398 64Ibid. p401 65Ibid. p395 41 compoundedby McCullagh'sassertion that `A centraltheme of Ankersmit'sbook is his denialof "narrativerealism", that is of a theorythat historical narratios represent or describethe past'66 Again, by his conflationof the two termsrepresent and describehe ignoresthe fundamentaldistinction between them.

In responseto Ankersmit's claim that the structure of the historical narrative is `pressedon the past', McCullagh statesthat `.... this conclusion is far to sweeping. The descriptions of the past presentedin narratios are not "pressedon the past" regardlessof evidence.If they do not fit the facts, if they do not describethem correctly, then they are rejected'.67 But this argumentmakes no senseto me, for description in narrative accountsof the past operatesat the level of the fact and the individual statement.It would appearthat McCullagh is saying that if descriptions which are constituted by facts do not fit the facts with which they are so constituted, then they are rejected.McCullagh compoundshis curious position when he states that the historian `hasa variety of conceptsby which to conceive of the past, and his or her job is to find those which correspondmost exactly to what is known about it'. 68He seemsto be saying here,although it is difficult to be sure, that having acquired empirical knowledge of the past the historian's task is then to match that empirical knowledge to a preconceivedaesthetic concept from a list of such This does conceptsavailable for this purpose- off the shelf. muddled philosophy not work for me and arguably has little or no bearing/traction in relation to Ankersmit's own clear position on the matter.

Inadvertentaccord

There are numerous instancesin his text where McCullagh's oppositional arguments seemto be inadvertently paralleling or supporting Ankersmit's arguments;here is one of them:

Ankersmitmight haveargued that the statementsin a narratiocan have several differentkinds of meaning.As descriptionsof the pastthey canhave a plain

" Ibid. p397 67 Ibid. p400 68 Ibid. p399 42 locutionary meaning, in accordancewith dictionaries and grammar books. They can sometimesalso be seento instantiatethe historian'sgeneral conceptionsof past eventsand their causes.And, finally, they can also be said to expresscertain unstatedvalues and interestsof the author. If an historian's conceptual framework and values and interestsconstitute his or her point of view, then in these ways the statementsof a narratio may be said to manifest it. Whether Ankersmit would agreewith all of this, it is impossible to say.His 69 analysis of "point of view" never really gets off the ground.

However,my point is that if `thehistorian's general conceptions' and his `unstated valuesand interests' were to be, quitereasonably, taken as narrative substances (becausethese elements constitute a point-of-view)and the wordinstantiate were to beunderstood in the senseof individuate(as, I think, it can),then this statementis unintentionallyin accordwith Ankersmit'sthinking on thematter. McCullagh's antepenultimatesentence seems to corroboratethe positionsuch that, on this reading,Ankersmit might well say `yes;I agreewith all of this'.

So, all in all this is arguably a very unsatisfactoryreview, and I find it difficult to understandwhy McCullagh would have wanted to write something which, in my view, could have reflected so badly on his own reputation as a historical theorist. However (and perhapsthe explanation lies here) one has to consider what might have beenthe effect of the actual publication of Narrative Logic on McCullagh himself, bearing in mind that Ankersmit had basedhis narrative substanceon a concept that had, over so many years, completely escapedMcCullagh's grasp. For Ankersmit snatchedthis thing from beneathMcCullagh's nose,turned it on its head and relocated it at the cognitive core of the narrative form where it had really always belonged,presumably to the embarrassmentand annoyanceof McCullagh. But then, having written his book about it, Ankersmit did something himself which was simply incomprehensible,for he abandonedall caution and recommended McCullagh as its reviewer. Why Ankersmit should have acted in this (potentially) "high masochistic way eludes me - did he in an irrational moment catch sight of the road" to general acceptancethrough McCullagh's possibleendorsement of his book? If so, his risky strategy restedon a carelessmiscalculation since it was very unlikely

69Ibid. p397

43 that McCullagh could, in the circumstances,have beenwon-over to Ankersmit's point-of-view. The strength of McCullagh's opposition to Ankersmit's thesis discounted agreementat any level, even had he graspedthe point. But, there again, does not McCullagh's incoherent responseto Ankersmit's thesis have the appearanceof a hastily fabricated barrier set-up againstthe thrust of a superior argument?Perhaps McCullagh graspedthe point after all becausethere is no doubt that, if taken seriously, Ankersmit's critique of so many epistemological shibboleths would have fatally undercut McCullagh's own rigid, epistemological position. Seen from this perspective one could arguethat McCullagh might have hoped to "shore- up" (relatively speaking) his own foundering argumentthrough the demolition, by petty trivialisation, of a much better argument from Ankersmit. Seenthis way, the good Ankersmit looks really very good indeed.

But be that as it may and moving on, in the conclusion to his review essay McCullagh put forward the following complaint: `Generalaccounts of historical knowledge and understandingare only illuminating if basedupon fine analysis of actual examples.The absenceof such analysis in this book explains its inadequacies'.70 So, in Ankersmit's absenceI now proposeto do just that - to take up McCullagh's challengeand map out by meansof Ankersmit's narrative logic the processnecessarily involved in the production of a history of, let's say, `last month in the UK'. 71

Now, although an unimaginably huge number of things happenedin the UK last month, only a very small percentageof the totality of those events will have been recorded and thus become available as traces of last month. Nevertheless,this small percentagewill still constitute a very large body of data which, in order to be usable, will inevitably require reduction on the basis of some chosenset of selectioncriteria. On this small (and therefore hopelessly unreliable) remnant or part of the past a

70 Ibid. p403 71My subject for historicisation,`last month in the UK', the monthprior to the writing of the first draft of this chapter,is that of May 2008 and I have deliberatelychosen a very recentpast for my examplein order to illustrate, alongsidemy main argument,this additional point: If a recentwell documentedpast foils all concertedefforts to fix its intrinsic meaning,then how are we to capturewith words the essence of a more remoteand less well documentedpast? 44 wholeis eventuallyto bepresented in narrativeform on the generaland usually unquestionedassumption that a wholecan be unproblematicallyinferred from an infinitesimallysmall part of that whole.

Compounding this problem is the matter of data selection itself, how is it to be done? Or to rephrase,what are the statementsor facts about last month that might its capture essence- in andfor itself (as, I believe, McCullagh thinks is possible)? Could last month in some definitive sense,in and for itself, be found in (for example) the collapse of Bradford and Bingley's shareprice, obesity in school children, the soaring cost of energy, the collapse of sterling, road rage, escalating health care inequalities, the credit crisis, the failure of English cricketers or perhaps the weather?What I am trying to indicate here,what is crucial, is the need to take a point-of-view on last month in the UK before it is possibleto say anything about it that carries any meaning at all -a uniform selection of un-colligated statements,a kind of month averagestrung out in a line, would be incomprehensible.

So if, for instance,I take the view right now (Spring 2008) that Gordon Brown and his labour governmentare painfully acting out some "end game" which is evident in the unpleasantodour of sleaze,misused privilege and reactive politics that have is collectively permeatedhis administration - an administration which out of touch, out of control and destined for ignominious collapse; and, if I further take the view that this "end game" viewpoint (however unlikely it might seemto others) captures the essenceof last month more effectively than any other possibleview on last month, then I have a basis for data selection. My preferencebeing, of course,for that data which would adequatelyindividuate my own point-of-view when worked- up into story form under the governing logic of the narrative substance"end game".

To now restatethe foregoing more in the languageof Ankersmit, "end game" is here an arbitrarily chosennarrative substanceor colligatory device for the express purpose of selecting and organising knowledge of the past (in this casethe verifiable facts or singular statementswhich refer to or describeaspects of last month). This data will be sought out and selected in order to collectively individuate the narrative

45 substance"end game"which is not part of the pastbut, rather,a viewpointimposed on the past,a violenceor a knockinginto shapeof an actualpast that has no preferenceon how it is to be represented.However, despite these intractable difficulties, the adoptionof a point-of-viewwill alwaysbe a necessarycondition for any historicalwriting at all for, andI repeat:no narrativesubstance - no history.

To continue with my example (and taking now Ankersmit and White in alliance), having adopted a point-of-view and having collected together the statements required to individuate it, the next task is to write-up the data into narrative form. For this purposeI will need a story line or mode of emplotment, a mode of argument and some refinement in position concerning the manner in which the story is to be troped such that it carries its intended meaning. Thesestrategies, both conceptual and explanatory, will, of course,be coloured by the ideological position that I bring

to the task - history is always historyfor someone.Now none of these complex considerations,which necessarilycome into play in order to establishthe form of the kind of story to be told, can be seento have much to do with the past itself certainly none of theseconditions ofpossibility for any historicisation of the past are in the past itself. It is true, of course,that the narrative's constituent statementswill refer to some aspectof the past but, taken individually, they cannot be representativeof a narrative proposal about the past. The origin of any proposalabout how the past might have been lies imbedded in the conceptualapparatus of the historian and cannot thereforebe taken as part of the past itself. Rather, the historian's adoption of (as a concept of how the past might have been-a necessarycondition of possibility it, `pressed explained above) for the writing of history - is, as Ankersmit puts onto the past. It shapesa putative past which correspondwith its own internal conceptof how that past might have been.

This brief example, I hope, illustrates what I take to be Ankersmit's essential it understandingof the processof history production and (thus defended) was as good, or better, than any alternative theorisationsup until that time. Turning again to McCullagh, I cannot find in his critique any better way of thinking through the production of history. In fact, on those occasionswhere he approacheda coherent

46 theoryon the matterit seemsto me thathe wasinadvertently falling in line with Ankersmit's thinking.

In short, then, the position as.I see it (and as Ankersmit describesit) is this: the evidential traces of the contingent actions and situations which once constitutedthe actuality of some past event are drawn/figured together into some or other "historical" order by historians through the imposition of some or other story form upon them. This story form is a linguistic construct informed solely by its own narrative substance.It is a product of the enculturation of its own time and it cannot be found in the past itself. The past is thus violated by the very act of historicisation; that is to saythat the past is ordered, beateninto shape and suitably appropriated in order to fit, what is in the end, an arbitrary story form which is retrospectively imposed on it whence to serve some human purposeto which the past itself is indifferent. Now if McCullagh still believes, as I think he does, that past eventshave their own intrinsic stories to reveal concerning their meanings,purposes, trajectories, etc., and that these stories are lying around somewhereawaiting their discovery by a historian adequateto that task, then he should ask himself two important questions: who is the author of thesestories and what is that author's authorial intent?

47 Chapt,r Two A MomentofHesitation

In ChapterOne I focusedon what I considerto bethe very bestelements of Ankersmit'snarrative theory as originallyarticulated in NarrativeLogic (andlater restatedin History and Tropologyin the form of abbreviatedtabular sets of conclusions,collected together under the title `Six Theseson NarrativistPhilosophy of History')' andwhich, in sum,constitute the finished"weight" of Ankersmit's argument.These conclusions, taken in isolation(that is, divorcedfrom the argumentsthat produced them) are,I think, coherentand complete in themselves. They embodythe very substanceof what I havetermed `The GoodAnkersmit' and, unquestionably,I have no wishto subvertthem. However I do havereservations aboutthe structure,the philosophicalstyle, and the intentof someof the arguments thateven this good Ankersmitused to supportor provehis conclusions.And these reservationswill, vis-ä-vismy thesis,allow me to arguethat `TheGood Ankersmit' is not, on analysis,as goodas his conclusionsmight suggest.

In this Chapter I first addressseveral preliminary observationsin connectionwith my own thesis which, of course,is not in itself exempt from the many considerations explored here(and in the previous chapter)in relation to Ankersmit's own arguments.These matters are laid out below in `Section One: Introductory Comments'. I then collect together my various reservationsabout Ankersmit, as indicated in the paragraphabove, under the subsequentsubtitles: `Section Two: The Illusion of Proof, `Section Three: A Further Questionof Misrepresentation', `Section Four: Historiography and the Art of Gardening' and `SectionFive: Fact and Value' (thesereservations collectively constituting my `moment of hesitation'), before drawing matters to a close in `Section Six: Concluding Observations'.

Ankersmit, F. R, (1994).History and Tropology. TheRise and Fall ofMetaphor. Berkeley: University of California Press.pp33-43 48 SectionOne: Introductory Comments

Ankersmit'sargument,. as laid out in ChapterOne, is centredon the notion of the narrativesubstance as a linguisticinstrument which performatively expresses the preferencefor narrativestatements of a particularkind (exactlythose which, in a circular fashion,contribute to the individuationof thatvery samenarrative substance).Now my title for Chapter One, `The Good Ankersmit' is, of course, itself a narrative substancewhich, accordingly, expressesa preferencefor the selection of those statementscapable of collectively individuating my particular notion of what it is about the good Ankersmit that is good. To look at it another way, my choice of that particular title (worked-up from my own point-of-view) in effect prefigured the overall meaning and direction of the subsequenttext, hence setting-up the condition(s) to be satisfied with regard to statementselection. I thereforetook with me to my source- the book Narrative Logic -a prefigured notion of the meaning that I wanted my narrative critique to carry, and this prefigured notion (a narrative substancegoverned by my own point-of-view) directed me in the end to exactly those statementswhich could be utilised in support of that viewpoint. Had I prefigured my narrative from a different point-of-view (that is with a different kind of story in mind, thus generating a different narrative substanceand a different title) then I would, or could, have settledon a different selectionof individuating statements.

Now, with this secondchapter of my thesis I have introduced anotherand a somewhatindistinctly delineatednarrative substancein the form of an enigmatic title, `A Moment of Hesitation', which suggeststhat all is not well with Ankersmit's argument but it does not afford the readerthe anticipation of any specific narrative shapeor direction to the subsequenttext. Nevertheless,my point-of-view and thus my authorial intent is uniquely clear to me prior to the narrativisation of my data regardlessof the title chosen,or indeed in the absenceof any title at all. For, of course(as previously noted), the point-of-view assumedby a narrative's author is not necessarily"visible" to the narrative's reader.Indeed, on occasions it might be very hard for the reader to pin it down at all. 49 Moreover, one has to consider that there are many possible different points-of-view from which the detail of any text, in this casethat of Narrative Logic, might be approached,and each one of the possible resultantexplanatory accountsof that text would, no doubt, appearto be validated on the basis of its own particular verifiable collection of individuating constituent statements.Thus the plausibility of any explanatory account of an original text (each one being, in essence,a proposalfor a particular explanation of that text) can only bejudged within the "frame" of its own internally functioning narrative substance.One therefore has to concludethat the for bereft of any preference this rather than that explanatory proposal , common empirical basis upon which competing proposalsmight ultimately bejudged, will come down to a matter of usefulnessand aestheticappeal arising precisely out of what Ankersmit calls its narrative scope.Thus, in order to "sell" a particular thesis the author of that thesis must, by `maximalising its scope' (that is its ability to generatenew insights, as Ankersmit argued),make it more useful and attractive than all competing theses.

Now, I am directing attention towards the foregoing Ankersmiteanposition and some of its consequencesin order to rationalise what might appearto be an inconsistencyarising out of the juxtaposition of my own two oppositional points-of- view, as expressedin each of the first two chapters(chapter headings)of this thesis. So, to make this clear(er), the point that I am making and addressinghere is that the good Ankersmit of my first chapter (the Ankersmit of his conclusionstaken in isolation) is, and continuesto be for me, utterly defensible.However, I cannot extend that point-of-view to embraceall of the various argumentswhich Ankersmit employed in support of his so-calledproofs. Thus, in relation to these latter considerationsI have taken a completely different point-of-view which (I am arguing) can, without contradiction, co-exist with the former. They simply constitute in two different perspectiveson Narrative Logic which are each coherent themselves been and (this being the point) their logical co-existence,having already accounted for within Ankersmit's theory of narrative substance,is unproblematic.

50 My final observation at this stage is that Ankersmit's convoluted philosophical style of proof (evident in Narrative Logic and equally so, as I hope to show, throughout many of his works) which he endeavoursto bring to bear on his subject matter, is not only problematic but also strictly unnecessary.For his thesis arguably constitutes a proposal for a new rhetorical explanatory model, the purposeof which is to account for the nature of the historical narrative, and as such it standsin its own category with its own new descriptive (metaphorical) use of language.It is thus, in a sense,disconnected from any attempt at establishingits logical or scientific proof in the general terms of an older or a current language-a matter which will be explored below. Furthermore, my argumentis that Ankersmit's generalthesis can only be assessedon its utility; if it is found to be more useful than all competing theses,and I believe that it is, then it standson that merit only.

With thesepoints made I can now set about my aforementionedcritical assessment of the negative elementsof Ankersmit's often misleading but always idiosyncratic style and structure of argument;a "dissection" of Narrative Logic which, in its sustainedcritical form, is something to which Ankersmit, as far as I know, has not previously been subjected.2

SectionTwo: The Illusion of Proof

With the help of Richard Rorty, Donald Davidson, Mary Hesseand others, I propose to arguehere against what I take to be Ankersmit's firm (and ironic) belief that his thesis can be privileged with some logically assembledproof of an absoluteand irrefutable kind. Central to my argument is the rejection of the notion that language it can be seenas a medium that standsbetween the self and a reality which presumes

J., (2005 ). `Ankersmit 2 For instance,although John Zammito offers a critique of Ankersmit (Zammito, his is limited and Historical Representation'in History and Theory 44 no. 2: pp155-181), argument to a (Domaiiska,E., (2009). `Frank rethinking of the notion of colligatory conceptsonly. Also Ewa Domabska Ankersmit: From Narrative to Experience' in RethinkingHistory 13no. 2: pp175-195)is critical of Ankersmit's NarrrativveLogic but, again, from a limited perspective.Neither of thesetwo papers,nor othersthat I have examinedduring my research,aspire to the all encompassingstyle of closereading and analytical dissectionthat I am, at least,attempting here. 51 to accuratelydescribe. Such a notion presupposesa world in possessionof an intrinsicnature which canbe capturedin a linguisticexpression or representation thus revealinga truth which lies `outthere'. Now, I am not suggestingthat there is not a world out therewhich is commonto the sensoryperceptions of all of us, however,there is no truth locatedout there.Here is Rorty on the matter: To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say.... that most things in spaceand time are the effects of causeswhich do not include human mental states.To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentencesthere is no truth, that sentencesare elementsof human languages,and that human languagesare human creations.Truth cannot be out there- cannotexist independentlyof the human mind - because sentencescannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptionsof the world can be true or false. The world on its own - unaidedby the describingactivities of human ' beings - cannot.

Rorty is claiming that the notion of truth is languagedependant. Or, to rephrase, human beings make languageswithin which sentencesreside and it is only these sentences- shapedand articulated within the descriptive capacitiesof their own languagesthat can be true in relation to the languagein which each is framed (thus to changeone's languageis to changeone's network of common sensetruths). On this understandingit follows that not only is truth made by human beings but that it is also of a tautological kind. The philosopher Donald Davidson also takes an anti-foundationalist position with regard to languagewhich he seesas a `token' of what is out there; something that cannot reach `what knowledge seeks': We should banish the idea that languageis epistemically something like sense data, somethingthat embodieswhat we can take in, but is itself only a token, or representative,of what is out there. Languagedoes not mirror or represent reality, any more than our sensespresent us with no more than appearances. Presentationsand representationsas mere proxies or pictures will always leave us one step short of what knowledge seeks....°

And the theorist of rhetoric, Thomas Kent, in the preambleto his report of `A Conversation with Donald Davidson' for the journal JAC, clarifies Davidson's position and links it to Rorty's thus:

3 Rorty, R, (1989). Contingency,Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.p5 4 Davidson,D., (2005). Truth Languageand History. Oxford: ClarendonPress. p 130 52 Davidson's philosophy of languageconstitutes the first systematictreatment of languagewhich breakscompletely with the notion of languageas something which can be adequateor inadequateto the world or to the self. For Davidson breakswith the notion that languageis a medium, "a medium either of representationor of expression". If languagedoes not mediatebetween us and the world, as Davidson claims, and if we ceaseto imagine that a split exists between an inner world of thought and feeling and an outer world of objects and events,as Davidson advocates,then nothing exists "out there" or "in here" that will serve as an epistemological foundation for either a theory of meaning' or a theory of truth; all we have to authorize our utterancesare other utterances.As Rorty puts it, "only sentencescan be true... and... human beings maketruths by makinglanguages in which to phrasesentences". 5

To collectivelysummarise these positions, the world is knownonly to the extentthat it is placedunder some form of description(an inscriptionset within the metaphoricalpotential of the particularlanguage of descriptionin use),which causes beliefsabout how it is. Thus,the notionthat there can be "true knowledge"of the language world is an illusion - nothingmore than an internallygenerated effect.

With regard to this collective view concerning languageof use, and taking Rorty's position in particular, the difference between literal and metaphorical use of languagecan be expressedin terms of the difference between its familiar and unfamiliar use. Or, the literal (old metaphorshaving acquired a certain familiarity of use) is that which can be handled within the current languagenetwork. But the language,having fixed metaphorical- or new - as yet unfamiliar use of no place within that current languagenetwork, stimulates the imaginative searchfor its own meaning which, on successfulacceptance and habitual use, will eventually subside into the familiar and unthinking languageof the literal (a nebulous conglomeration of dead and dying metaphors).

To develop his position on the performative natureof the metaphor,Rorty draws for the most part on the work of Davidson. However, he is also attracted by the work of the English philosopher of scienceMary Hesseand for my particular purposehere I am going to use Rorty's summary of Hesse,s approachto the notion of scientific progress; this is the way he puts it:

S Donald Davidson'. Kent T., (1993). `LanguagePhilosophy, Writing andReading: A Conversationwith JAC 13 no. 1 53 The replacementof oneset of rhetoricalconcepts [metaphors] by another, conceptswhich cannotthemselves be defined in termsof an overarching observationlanguage, is essentialto the attainmentof greaterpredictive success,but thereis no way to seesuch replacement as "gettingcloser to the way thingsreally are" unlessthis meanssimply "getting more predictive power". If that is all thatit means,then one cannot explain the successof sciencein termsof the notionof correspondingbetter to reality.'

Hesse,then, takes the view thatscientific theories should be takenas metaphorsand sheunderlines this view whenshe concludes that `rationalityconsists just in the continuousadaptation of our languageto our continuallyexpanding world, and metaphoris oneof the chief meansby which this is accomplished'.7

Hence,the waythat I readHesse could, I believe,be illustratedthus. In the laterhalf of the 17'x'Century and the early 1811'Century, Isaac Newton re-described the world/ universe.The descriptive'language that he usedwas radically different from and possesseda much greater predictive power than the thengenerally current language of Aristotle (asarticulated in his theorieson the natureof physics)which, consequently,fell out of useas the superiorutility of Newton'snew language(or use of metaphor) becameapparent. During the following two hundred or so years, repeatedexperiments and measurementsconfirmed the efficacy of Newton's predictive model and the once exciting new metaphorsof the "Newtonian" languagedied into literal modesof expression- its commonsense truths. Then in walked Albert Einstein with a new set of descriptive metaphorsin the shapeof his special and general theoriesof relativity, the predictive capacitiesof which pragmatically turned out to be vastly superior to those used by Newton which were thus dispatchedto the periphery of Einstein's model and reducedin statusto "local effects" (approximationswithin a much larger whole). Accordingly, the scientific world adoptedthe new and exciting languageof Einstein.

be On this view - which is,Hesse's view - the ongoingscientific process cannot seenin termsof incrementalmovements towards some form of absoluteknowledge

6Rorty, R, (1991). Essayson Heidegger and Others. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.p103 7Hesse, M., (1980). Revolutionsand Reconstructionsin the Philosophyof Science.Bloomington: Indiana University Press.p123 54 or truth, but rather in terms of the general adoptions of successionsof improving metaphors or predictive models with which the world is put under description. Not are only there no necessarylinkages betweenthese various metaphorical models of the but world, also there can be no ontological linkage (entailment) between any model and the world in itself. The idea that there can be a collective convergenceof such metaphorical models on some ultimate knowledge of the unmediated /unprocessedworld in itself is an illusion becauseimprovements in the utility of predictive models can lead to nothing more than better predictions. It would also appearthat scientific "progress", thus conceived, cannotand does not move forward and upward in a linear regular developmentalfashion, but rather it moves in a seriesof irregular (metaphorical) "steps" where the "uprights" coincide with the adoption of each radical new description of the world and where the "treads" might be descriptions seenas plateausof ratification and consolidation of current - their literalisation.

In summation then: " Languageis not a mediumthat stands between the self andthe world (it is not a windowon reality) andit is, therefore,imperative to breakfree from what appearsto be the commonsense wisdom, or conviction,that language cansomehow put onein touchwith reality. " Language is the medium in which the human world is constitutedby placing it under description, and however sophisticatedthat metaphorical description might be or become,it cannot lead to a knowledge of the world in itself. " Knowledge of the of the world in itself is arguably unattainable.However, it is possible to pragmatically advanceever better predictive metaphorical models of the world to the extent that we have the potential to get around in it more effectively/successfully,sustained by the comforting senseof an ever- increasingfamiliarity with it. " If successful(and thus adopted), new metaphorswill acquirefamiliarity and eventuallysubside into literalness;they will "die" into a newlanguage

55 which, in duecourse, becomes the literal commonsense (the real)of its own time. Language,then, is essentiallymetaphorical all the way down.'

Now, since on this view our so-calledknowledge of the world has no ultimate reach beyond the metaphorsthat we use to describe it, it must follow that this presumed knowledge is of a rhetorical, and not empirical, kind - all of it. Rhetoric is thus the bottom line and must apply acrossall disciplines (literature, philosophy, the sciences,history and so on) and the acceptanceof sucha "linguistic" notion carries with it"inescapable implications, not least for the discourseof history itself and the various theoretical argumentswhich are confidently wheeled out in support of it: history is logocentric.

Moreover,it mustnow be clearthat meaning as we humansconstrue it is not a butjust by language. propertyof the world aneffect caused the - the metaphors- we imposeon the world in orderto give it a semblanceof familiarity.The world in itself hasno languagepreference for its owndescription; it doesnot choosebetween the languagesof Aristotle,Newton or Einstein,nor, for thatmatter, does it choose betweenthe languagesof the sloth,sperm whale or the gardenslug; each species getsalong as bestit canwithin the frameof its own self referencedworld. Now, to imposean arbitrarymetaphorical language and thus an arbitrary rhetorical meaning on the world is, as Derridapointed out, an arbitraryact; anact of violence.Of course suchacts of violenceare commonplace - theypass largely unnoticed - and,with the onsetof familiarity of usage,language generated meanings (the productof theseacts of violence)acquire the generallyunquestioned shape of commonsense -a communalmeaningful view on reality.Keith Jenkinsputs this point thus: To make (to realize) a meaning,to bring a meaninginto the world is ultimately an act of violence--a violence of "writing" that can be calledfirst-level violence. Since there is no one-to-onenatural correspondencebetween word and world, no literal entailment of signifier to signifier and thenceto the signified and thenceto the putative referent, to get the actuality of the world into a languageit never askedto be put in is always to establishboth a power and a metaphorical relationship (a tree as if it was a tree, the past as if it was history ). Yet, this is, Derrida thinks the ... accurateas notion of a metaphorical 8 The significanceof this for (or the counter-partof this in) history beingthat `.... deadhistorical metaphorsbecome the reality of the past'. (Munslow, A., (2003). the NewHistory. London: Pearson Longman.p 170). 56 relationshipstill runsthe risk of carryingrealist overtones, in that it may suggestthat thereis a meaningfulreality to which the text refers,albeit figuratively.9

Moreover,since meanings in the world canonly arisethrough the impositionof language onto the world - meaningsbeing language or useof metaphordependant - it follows that suchan impositionor actof violenceis a necessarycondition for the possibility,of meaning.In an interviewwith the philosopherRichard Kearney, Derridaextended this argumentwith the observationthat metaphor implies a relationto an original propertyof meaningwhereas, by contrast,the `act of violence' impliesa violent productionof meaning(or anabuse) -a breakbereft of anteriorsanction which Derridacharacterises as `catachresis'.I am reproducing hereboth Derrida'sanswer and the questionwhich prompted his responsesince, in additionto explainingthis distinctionbetween metaphor and catachresis, both underlinethe rhetoricalnature of philosophyand, in particular,they bothexpose the debilitatingflaw that lies right at the conceptualcore of metaphysics: KEARnY: Is therenot a sensein which philosophyfor you is a form of literature?You have,for example,described metaphysics as a "white mythology",that is, a sort of palimpsestof metaphors(eidos, telos, ousia) and myths (of return,homecoming, transcendence towards the light, etc.), which arecovered over and forgotten as soonas philosophical"concepts" are construedas pureand univocal abstractions, as totalizing universals devoid of myth andmetaphor.

Derrida: I have always tried to exposethe way in which philosophy is literary, not so much becauseit is metaphor but becauseit is catachresis.The term metaphor generally implies a relation to an original "property" of meaning, a "proper" senseto which it indirectly or equivocally refers, whereascatachresis is a violent production of meaning, an abusewhich refers to no anterior or proper norm. The founding conceptsof metaphysics- logos, eidos, theoria; 10 etc.- areinstances of catachresis.....

Now all the foregoing is constitutive of my position on these various considerations at this moment. Or, to put this another way, the foregoing argumentsare in my view the best possible argumentson this matter in that they have the widest degreeof utility, or apparent"fit", and are arguablythe most defensible.That is not to saythat

9 Jenkins,K., (2000). À PostmodernReply to PerezZagorin' in History and Theory39 no. 2: p192 10Derrida, J., (1995). `Deconstructionand the Other' in Kearney,R. (Ed.) Statesof Mind: Dialogueswith ContemporaryThinkers. New York: New York University Press.p 153 57 my point-of-view is fixed, rather, drawing on Rorty, I might say that this is my ènd language' which must always be seenas provisional pending better metaphors to come. Accordingly, it is againstthis background (this axiom)" that I now turn back to Ankersmit and to some aspectsof his philosophical position which are not overtly expressedin his writings and which, therefore,have to be inferred from the content of his sometimesobscure and contradictory arguments.Before proceeding,however, it would be worth pointing out that what I take to be the confused philosophical style of argument which Ankersmit brought to his writing of Narrative Logic effected an underlying weaknessin its structure. This weakness,which by Ankersmit's own admission (whilst being interviewed by Ewa Domacska) arose out of his incongruous use of an Ànglo-Saxon philosophy of language....to demonstrate Continental conclusions'," generateda curious languagemix that neither the Anglo- Saxon philosophersof languagenor the Continental structuralists/poststructuralists liked very much (and nor did they much like Ankersmit as user of it). In the same interview Ankersmit also explained that, in the hope of gaining increasedreadership with respectto future publications, he had found it expedient to àdopt the rhetoric 13 of deconstructivism and of the relevant Frenchtheorists'. But I seeno evidence that this ploy of Ankersmit's met with any degreeof success,and this is not so surprising since thesetwo different styles of philosophy reside in categorically different structuresof thought which are fundamentallyopposed to each other. That is to say that Anglo-Saxon philosophy is essentiallyconceptual and foundationalist whilst Continental philosophy is, from top to bottom and in every respect,rhetorical and anti-foundationalist.'4 Thus, and this strikes me as being somewhatabsurd,

" This is not to saythat variousattacks (neorealist for example)have not beenmade on what I might call including J. Habermas,H. "Rorty's position" (for example,the objectionsraised by a dozen philosophers Putnamand M. Williams in Brandom,R. B. (ed.). (2000). Rorty and His Critics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing in which central featuresof Rorty's views arecritiqued: i.e. his conviction that communal practices can bestbe characterisedas justification driven and are not in needof any `transcendental' governing concept,no truth goal, and that the world in itself cannotbe known independentlyfrom how least we talk about it etc.). But, myjudgement is that noneof thesecritiques is convincing, not relative to Rorty's own accompanyingreplies to Williams, in particular, but also to Habermas,Putnam et al. 12Domabska. Encounters. p71 13Ibid. p71 14 by its Broadly speakingI take the view that Anglo-Saxonphilosophy is characterised predisposition towards clarity of argumenton the basisof a modernformal logic, its respectfor the sciencesand its belief in the possibility of someform of actual knowledgeabout what is out there.By contrast,and again very broadly speaking,I takecontinental philosophyas beingof a rhetorical kind which centreson the knowledge. humancondition. It also standsopposed to scientismand the possibility of absolute 58 Ankersmit appearsto have adopted a radical shift in position both to meet a marketing contingency and also to appease(or be acceptedby) the Frenchtheorists. Such a project was not only entirely unrealistic but was also bound to generate contradictions. For (leaving asidethe doubtful notion that one might, as a matter of expediency and with untroubled ease,be able to accomplish such a fundamental changeof theoretical position) there exists a lingering residue of "certaintism" in Ankersmit's writings which could never be taken seriously by any anti- foundationalist.

My first indicatorof Ankersmit'sphilosophical position is takenfrom the introductionto Narrative Logic andreads as follows: Most of the reliablescientific knowledge we possess and its astonishing growthin the pasttwo hundredyears, are the resultof the scientists'attempts to discoversomething general in thosevery diversephenomena of reality. So why shouldn'twe follow the samecourse in philosophy?15

The unmistakable assumptionsembodied in this statementare (1) that reliable (meaning in this sense,I think, unchangeable)scientific knowledge exists as an incontrovertible fact, (2) that it is growing rapidly and (3) that it arisesthrough the attempteddiscovery of `general' features located in the `phenomenaof reality'. This does not fit Hesse's much more useful "model" in which she attributes scientific progress to random (as opposedto linear) successivereplacements of rhetorical concepts`which cannotthemselves be defined in terms of an overarching observation language'.16 Hesse, then, has no general unifying concepts,she simply has setsof metaphors which cannoteither refer to reality or refer to other setsof metaphorsand, hence,their adoption or rejection turns on the sole basis of their predictive usefulness.Furthermore, the concept of knowledge in an absolutesense is rejected by Hessein favour of the more passivenotion of predictive knowledge; that is, "knowing" somethingonly in relation to a metaphorical model from which its behaviour can be predicted. For example, scientistshave models to predict how gravity behaveswith a high degreeof certainty and precision (models which, for example, can be successfullyused in the fields of astronomyand spaceexploration),

1,5Ankersmit Narrative Logic. p5 16Hesse. Revolutions and Recon iructions in the Philosophy of Science. p 123 59 but that does not mean that scientists know what gravity actually is in itself. Now, Ankersmit may have used the word `knowledge' rather loosely here but, nevertheless,his statementtaken in the whole has the ring of certaintism about it and he proposed to carry this position with him into his thesis on the philosophy of history. So my answer to his question, `why shouldn't we follow the same coursein ' is philosophy? that - `we shouldn't becauseAnkersmit's interpretation of the course of sciencerests on a metaphorical view of the world which is incoherentand thus invalid'.

This notion that the nature of objects of scientific enquiry can somehowbe referred to directly, that some stable link exists betweenword and world, is positively loaded with presuppositionsthat cannot be sustained.In current discoursethere seemsto be some generally acceptedcommon sense idea that descriptions of the world should be seen or shown to be adequateto the world which they describe.But how can this adequacybe demonstratedwithout stepping outside language?In order to find descriptions adequateto the objects which they describe, one has to postulate something both fixed and prior to languageagainst which the world (on one hand) and its linguistic description (on the other) might be comparedin order to determine

the latter's adequacywith regard to the former -a sort of transcendentaladjudicator (and what languagedoes the adjudicator speak?). In short, then, there appearsto be no escapefrom the world of languagewith its internally referencedwebs of circulating'statementswhich carry the appearanceof actually knowing what they can only metaphorically describe.Accordingly, I arguethat the very idea of the possibility of proof acrossall disciplines is an illusion (a deception arising out of a tautology) and I cannot,therefore - and this is my point - see the point of Ankersmit's protractedattempts to prove his theory of narrative substances.Yet, on page 105 of Narrative Logic Ankersmit announcesthis endeavourthus: In the remainingpart of this bookI will attemptto provethat Nss [narrative substances]do indeedplay an all importantrole in narrativehistoriography, so I haveno intentionof basingmy caseon merepostulation of some"virtus narrativa"in orderto explainnarrative historiography. '?

17Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. p105 60 Ankersmit'sdeclared strategy, then, is to devotethe restof his book(pages 105 to 252) to the constructionof a scientificstyle of proof in orderto validatewhat he sees as a mererhetorical proposition which, by his implication,lacks proper status until it has'beenso proven.He initially setsabout this taskby describingin detail four objectionsto his proposalon narrativesubstances which he then"knocks down" one by one, leaving his proposition as the winner of the contest.Ankersmit may claim that all this is a clarification process,'g but he presentshis selection by elimination argument is if it were part of his proof, and I think that this should be set aside right away, for how can it be possibleto defend and, by implication, validate one's own position solely through the negation of a small number of competing positions?With this matter dismissed, I can now move on and look at what I take to be the essentialcharacter of Ankersmit's so-calledproof of the existenceand nature of narrative substances.

For each of the three `pillars' or `theses'about which Narrative Logic is articulated, Ankersmit found support in the theoretical writings of the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, who looked upon historical knowledge as essentially aesthetic,subjective and intuitive. Indeed, Ankersmit has frequently expressedhis admiration for fluizinga's work which, he says, contains `the best analysisof the natureof historical knowledge available as yet'. 19And it is this `analysis' of Huizinga's, combined with a certain logic of the mathematicianand philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, that Ankersmit put to use in furtheranceof his searchfor the proof of the theory of narrative substances.

Leibniz himself believed that the processof reasoningcould be reducedto a form of mathematics-a universally valid structure of calculations which could collectively function as the "last court of appeal" for the resolution of differences of opinion in argument. Enrico Pasini explains the matter thus: The sameconcepts are repeated ever and again in Leibniz'scountless manifestoes...... :

18Ibid. p2 in 19Ibid, p251. (footnote 3). In this lengthy footnote commencingon page250 Ankersmit also explains, somedetail, the relationshipbetween Huizinga's work andhis own. 61 "Since whenI hadthe pleasureto considerablyimprove the art of discovery,or analysis,of the mathematicians,I began to havecertain newviews, that is, to reduceall humanreasoning to a sort of calculus, which would be of usein discoveringa truth in so far as it is possibleex datis, i.e. from what is given or known" (LeibnizGP, VII, 25).20 A universalwriting would alsoresult of it, that "would be like a sort of general algebra,and would givethe meansto performreasoning by calculation":such a calculuswould not only be an instrumentfor learningand research, but it would be aninfallible judge of controversiesas well, offeringa way to solve disputesby simplereckoning. 21 Now, it is this universal writing (a kind of algebra of thought likened to, and including the notational system of, conventional algebra),along with an unshakable belief in it, that Ankersmit seemsto have imported, as one of his instrumentsof proof, into his Huizinga inspired mode of historical theorisation (for there are a lot of algebraic-like symbols and formulae in usethroughout Narrative Logic). Occasionally, however, Ankersmit drifts away from this algebraic form of notation in preference for something reminiscent of the configurational formulae of the chemist in which individual symbols representideas directly in diagrammatic or form is graphic - as also the casewith Egyptian or Chinesecharacters - and it is pertinent to note in this connection that the significance of symbols in languagewas also the subject of Leibniz's attention. Of course,Ankersmit interest in Leibniz is not just confined to his `languageof algebra' for he fords, amongstother things, that `Leibniz's use of the concept of substanceor monad is most easily adaptableto the narrative [in Narrative Logic] 22 this, Ankersmit later philosophy advocated ..... and explains, is primarily why he proposed the term narrative substance.

Within the notion of the monad Ankersmit thus found (what he said was) a `resemblancebetween Leibniz's logic and the historist philosophy of history

20 This, Pasini's reference,refers to Leibniz G. W., (1875-1890)in Gerhardt,C. I. (Ed.). Die PhilosophischenSchri, ften on Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Berlin: Weidman.V1Ip25 (7 vols Cited by volume and page). 21 Pasini,E., (1923). `ArcanumArtis Inveniendi: Leibniz andAnalysis' in Psychologyand Philosophy no I. pp268-272 22 Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. p105. It shouldalso be notedthat, vis.ä-vis Ankersmit's quite considerable useof logic in Narrative Logic, that hewas ableto statevery clearly the whole thesisof that text in his `Six Theseson Narrativist Philosophyof History' (the substanceof ChapterOne in History and Tropology)without a singleuse of logical symbolsat all; hencemy view that suchlogic was unnecessary in Narrative Logic itself. 62 defended in [his] book'. To ... understandwhat he meant by this one must first for appreciatethat, Ankersmit, the historist - and Ankersmit was favourably disposed towards historists and historism - took the view that historical phenomena should be situated in, and understoodfrom, the context of a unique processof historical change.Ankersmit, as he himself explained, recognisedthat `historism erroneously situated narrative logic in the itself 24But, he further past . as explained, this matter could be put right by translating `traditional historism from a theory on historical objects into a theory of historical writing'25 and, in this way, the historist's `uniquenessof historical change' could be displacedfrom aspectsof the subject matter to aspectsof narrative substances.The subject of changethus becomesthe linguistic entity narrative substance,which in its fully individuated form is not itself changing as a concept, but rather has "historical" change(now seen as the product of the historicisation of the past) locked up inside it. It is this idea, as far as I can tell from my reading of Ankersmit, that he found mirrored in Leibniz's monads. However, valid or not, I do not proposeto go into this particular theory since, in itself, it is not relevant to my argument.All I want to say is that Leibniz's universal language of algebraic reasoning along with his monadic substanceand Huizinga's analysis of the nature of historical knowledge(none of which have attracted much general support) are in essencemetaphorical models which, in common with all theories, can (as I have argued)either be adoptedor rejected on the basis of their attractivenessand utility. I cannot therefore seehow Ankersmit's direction/style of argument, worked-up out of old rhetorical positions, can add to or constitutethe kind of certainproof he sought.

So, in order to bring this particular argumentto a close, I put forward the following observations.In the first place I think that in Narrative Logic Ankersmit attempted to use an outmoded language of proof which could only be it odds with his new rhetorical position as expressedin his theory of narrative substances.That is to say that he brought with him into his proof a worn out, died into literalness(or

23Ibid. p 141 24 Ibid. p123 25 Ibid. p 124

63 sometimesdead), old languageof outmoded styles of (generally) positivist philosophies, the character of which provoked a form of narrative contradiction book's which underminedthe coherence-a matter which went pretty much unnoticed by its critics. Nevertheless,within Narrative Logic there are inspirational elementswhich, when collected together, constitute a particular point-of-view on Ankersmit; my `Good Ankersmit' of ChapterOne. However, the rest of Narrative Logic (more than half of it) is arguably not so good, and any point-of-view governed by these questionableelements of it (the elementscritically assessedin this chapter) could not, by me, be shown to be good at all. Furthermore,Ankersmit is mistakenin his belief that he can demonstrateproof of his theorisations.The notion of proof (verification) implies something absolute or universal, something "fixed" to which his theory might be anchored,but this is to suggestthat there is something of a permanent/stablekind outside his theorisationsand hence outside his language.The contradiction here is that the language Ankersmit used to construct his proof is alsothe languagein which his theoryis constituted,and thus his so-called proof is just an internallycirculating language effect, not a proof at all. Indeed,can any theoryreally be provedin an absolutesense? Is not the overridingcriterion of for preference onetheory rather than another simply that of utility? - useit for now (if it worksbetter than others) whilst awaitingthe arrival of evenbetter metaphors to come.

Or (and finally) to make this point from anotherangle, we have seenthat Ankersmit's thesis rests on his three `essentialpillars', the third pillar of which concernsthe fundamentally metaphorical nature of all language.Thus it follows, by Ankersmit's own logic, that his ubiquitous proofs (not just his propositional sentences)can only be constituted metaphorically. So, the question that has to be asked, a question which is nowhere addressedin Narrative Logic, is this: `What exactly is the ontological statusof a proof which is, of necessity,structured within a framework of internally referencedmetaphorical figures of speech?'. The word `proof might be suggestiveof a validating fixed authority situated outside (independentof) its own languageof description, but (as I have arguedhere) it can

64 be very easily shownto bejust anotherform of rhetoric- andAnkersmit should haveknown this.

SectionThree: A FurtherQuestion of Misrepresentation

In Chapter One I consideredthe essentialdifferences betweenthe two spheresof thought associatedwith the theoretical positions taken-up by first the `narrative realist' and then the `narrative idealist'. The former position resting on the supposition that narrative knowledge of the past is informed directly by the past itself, whilst the latter presumesa narrative logic, uninformed by the past, which structuresnarrative knowledge of the past. To adopt this latter position, as Ankersmit does, is to affirm the fundamentally autonomousnature of the historical narrative and, moreover, to categorically reject the idea of the existenceof translation rules which would necessarilybe required by the `narrative realist' in order to effect the projection of the actuality of the past directly onto the structure of the narrative itself With all this in mind I will now turn back to Chapter Four of Narrative Logic and Ankersmit's misrepresentationsof Hayden White's position with regard to translation rules.

Now it is my contention, as already noted, that Ankersmit (whether he realised it or not) repeatedlymisrepresented White and, moreover,that these misrepresentations had the effect of elevating the statusof his own theoretical argumentsrelative to White's arguments(a matter to be further consideredtowards the end of this chapter and in the next such that it becomesa sort of "sub-thesis" of my thesis). However, in order to substantiatemy claim of misrepresentationit will be necessaryto take apart the content of page 83 of Narrative Logic, to break it down and scrutinise its parts in searchof evidence,for this is a "crime scene"and it needsclose attention. Here is the first part of Ankersmit's argument:

White.....explicitly rejectsall claimsas to the natureof historicalreality and thuscomes closer to narrativeidealism. Nevertheless, he cannot bring himself to abandonthe translation rules of narrativerealism...... Thepast, as such, 65 White argues,cannot be understoodby us: in itself the past is a meaningless myriad of facts, statesand events, an amorphouschaos of data that successfullyresists "conscious apprehension"by the historian6. Therefore the historian has to translatethe "prose" of the historical past into the narrative "poetry" of historiography. The four rhetorical tropes: metaphor, metonymy, synecdocheand irony are capableof achieving this translation. Thesefour tropes, each in its own way, make a selection or abstractionfrom the initial chaos of historical reality and thus succeedin making history intelligible to us.... Unfortunately, White fails to explain why the four tropes possessthe remarkablecapacities he credits them with. This is probably due to his partial abandonmentof narrative realism. On the basis of an assumption on the nature of historical reality and the relation between its constituent parts, he could have made out a good casefor his tropes. As it is now, his opting for the four tropes to action as the translation rules that enablethe historian to translate the past into the narratio remains entirely arbitrary.26

Thus, Ankersmit emphatically maintains (this is the central matter at issue)that White has opted to use his tropes to translate the past into narrative form. Now there is no doubt whatsoeverin my mind that White has never suggestedthat the tropes might function in such a.way. He has always maintained that narrative accountsof the past (the worked-up products of historians) are not (in that working-up) informed by the past itself but rather by linguistic devices.in the form of tropes etc. That is, as White puts it, `one utilizes the tropes of language...... in order to figure it [figure forth the discourse]927 and that tropes might thus be seenas `the "theory" guiding the articulation of the discourse'28and, moreover, that thesetropes constitute `the only conceptualprotocol we have'.29 To propose the existenceof translation rules is to suggesta kind of "linear flow" from the evidence of the past into its narrative form (no `conceptualprotocol' required here), but White, in conspicuouscontrast to this notion, is talking about the "projection" of the tropes and other linguistic instrumentsonto the evidenceof the past in order to figure forth that evidenceinto a narrative form. This is an imaginative conceptualact by the historian and theflow is the other way round. In short, White does not entertain the notion of translation rules here or anywhereelse.

26Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. pp82-83 27 White, H., (1978). Tropics ojDiscourse: Essaysin Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: The JohnsHopkins University Press.p115 28 Ibid. p115 291bid. p115 66 Furthermore, the statementthat the past is `an amorphouschaos of data that successfully resists conscious apprehensionby the historian (6)'is attributed to White, but I cannotfind any such referenceto this on page34 of Metahistory (the page to which Ankersmit's footnote (6)refers). However, this statementis consistent with White's position, so I will move on to the following sentencewhich also appearsto be attributed to White and which reads, `thereforethe historian has to translatethe "prose" of the historical past into the narrative "poetry" of historiography'. White then, according to Ankersmit, arguedthat the past `successfully resists conscious apprehension'yet, through the agency of the four rhetorical tropes acting as translation rules, this `successfulresistance' is broken down suchthat the `proseof the historical past' can be translatedinto the `poetry of historiography' and that all of this can be found on page 34 of Metahistory - which, as it happens,it can't. I am not sure how a past that `successfullyresists' can then ignoring `yield' to translation rules - is this not unsuccessfulresistance? However, this contradiction, my focus here must be on the notion that (and rememberthat this is Ankersmit purporting to interpret White's position) the historian is necessarily obliged to `translatethe prose of the historical past'. For it seemsto me that if the historical past is to be found in the form of prose then someonemust have already translatedit. However, be that as it may, what I would really like to pin down hereis the significance of the word `historical' in the construction `historical past'? Does Ankersmit mean `the historicised past'? If so it ties in with his use of the word prose, but it contradicts the translation requirementand doesnot fit with the rest of the sentence.If the word is redundantand Ankersmit is referring to the actual past, then he certainly will not find any prose out there (or back there). This statement remains something of a mystery to me and it is at odds with my reading of White.

Ankersmitthen goes on to suggeststhat had White droppedthe translationrule idea, thenhe could havemade a goodcase for his tropes,since is for White. He haveoffered a ...there still anotherway out could "transcendentaldeduction" (to usea Kantianterm) for his four.tropes: i. e. he could havetried to provethat knowledgeof the pastis only madepossible by thesefour tropes...... We shalldiscover that, unlike the translationrules of narrativerealism, the transcendentalnarrativist rules do not pretendto guide the historianin solvingthe problemof how to "translate"the pastinto a 67 narratio,but thatthey only determinethe logicalstructure of narrativeaccounts of the past.Of course,such rules can no longerbe saidto be translationrules. 30 Now, if one were to replacethe ambiguous construction `knowledge of the past' `narrative with knowledge' (understoodas a narrative proposal about the past) then I think that this statementdoes approximate to White's argument which deals exclusively with the linguistic structure of the narrative discourseand does not anywhere refer to, or allude to, translation rules. Under a smokescreenof misinformation Ankersmit is simply restatingWhite's position as if it were his own and, for me at least,he fails to "pull it of'.

I now proposeto extendmy "crime scene"in orderto includethis extractfrom ChapterTwo of History and Tropology,in which Ankersmitreaffirms his claim againstWhite as follows: The linguisticturn announcesitself unambiguouslyin White'sphilosophy whenhe comparesthe historicalpast itself with a text.62 Just like a text, the pastpossesses a meaning that we aretrying to discover,it needsinterpretation, andconsists of lexical, grammatical,syntactical, and semantic elements. Therefore,what the historianessentially does is translatethe text of thepast into the narrativetext of the historian6 This translationprocedure is always guidedby either-oneor moreof the four tropes:metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche,.or irony.31 This citation refers to page 30 of Metahistory (Ankersmit's footnote6Z) and the first point that I want to make make is that the word `text' does not appearanywhere on that page. No doubt the word text has its place in Ankersmit's argument,but, cited thus, it already constitutesa deviation from White's actual use (on page 30) of the associatedword language. This is what White actually says; `.... the historian confrontsthe historicalfield in muchthe sameway thatthe grammarianmight confronta new language'.32 Or, in otherwords, White is talking aboutthe mannerin which the historianconfronts the historicalfield (as if it werea newlanguage) and not the intrinsic characterof the historicalfield (as if, in Ankersmit'swords, it were a text). This twist in meaningis furthercompounded when Ankersmit shifts from his

30 Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. pp83-84 31 Ankersmit. History and Tropology.P64 32White, H., (1973).Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-CenturyEurope. Baltimore: The JohnsHopkins University Press.p30 68 initial erroneousstatement that White `comparesthe historical33past itself with a text' to his even more astonishing inferencethat White actually views the past as a text, as follows; `what the historian essentiallydoes is translatethe text of the past into the narrative text of the historian'. And this is not the end of it, for the second sentenceof this citation (which Ankersmit also appearsto attribute to White) simply beggarsbelief, here it is again; `Just like a text, the past possessesa meaning that we are trying to discover, it needs interpretation, and consists of lexical, grammatical, syntactical, and semanticelements'. But White is not searchingfor a meaning possessedby the past, for he knows (and frequently expressesthe belief as Ankersmithimself has already noted) that thepast in itself is `a meaninglessmyriad of facts,states and events, an amorphouschaos of datathat successfullyresists consciousapprehension' - so,what is Ankersmit'spoint? He appearsto basehis extraordinaryargument on the following two sentencesfrom page30 of Metahistory: In short,the historian'sproblem is to constructa linguisticprotocol, complete with lexical, grammatical,syntactical, and semantic dimensions, by which to characterizethe field andits elementsin his ownterms (rather than in the termsin whichthey comelabelled in thedocuments themselves), and thus to preparethem for the explanationand representation he will subsequentlyoffer of them in his narrative.This preconceptuallinguistic protocol will in turn be- by virtue of its essentiallyprefigurative nature -characterizable in termsof the dominanttropological mode in which it is cast.34

But, it is evident that White is referring very clearly here to the linguistic protocol which the historian projects onto the historical field in his own terms in order to prefigure (as a preparatory stage) what will eventually becomethe basis for his representationof that field in narrative form. Translation of an imagined `text of the past' does not come into it at all, and why should it? There is no "shape" in the past - no formal structure or languageto which one might apply translation rules, even if such rules could ever be found. Or, to rephrasesomewhat, translation rules can only be applied to an existing languageor structure in order to find its equivalent in a different languageor structure. So, what is this entity situatedin the past to which

33 frequent in Ankersmit's In this particularcontext the adjective historical is redundant-a recurrence texts. 34 White. Metahistory. p30 69 theseputative translation rules might be applied?Well, the answerto this questionis that thereis no suchentity readyand waiting to betranslated, and that the useof the word translationis thereforeinappropriate in this context.

Let me explain my objection to Ankersmit's use of the word translation (in this context) with a brief illustration. Supposethat I have a pile of bricks outside my house and that, after a little thought, I decide to build myself an office extension= I've always wanted one. Having completed the project and with nothing better to do, I might reflect on the nature of the principal components(the bricks) that together make up my new office. There is nothing intrinsic to a brick that has the capacityto endow it with a predisposition towards constituting, along with other bricks, a building of a particular kind (I might have preferred to build a garageor a pigsty). So. this emergentform, that of an office extension,is solely the product of my imagination (and labour) - it is imposed on the bricks by me and the bricks themselvesdo not, in the normal sense,inform this process35.Now, with regard to that original pile of bricks one might say with justification that a transformation has taken place, and indeedit has, but it would be inappropriateto refer to this transformation as a translation becausethere was nothing to be translated- there was no original coherent form within my pile of bricks that might submit to translation rules. Now this metaphor"translates" with easeinto the sphereof historical theory - is all that required is the substitution of evidential traces for bricks - and it becomes equally apparentthat the word translate is as inappropriatefor evidential traces as it is for bricks because,just like bricks, evidential traces are lying around without any structure or form prior to their purposeful appropriation and use.

I propose to round off this argumentwith an amusing afterthought concerning the conveyanceof a hidden messageby the unlikely method of footnote exchange.My

33 This metaphoreven works to the extent that it mirrors the limitations imposedon historical discourse by its own data.That is to saythat onecannot write anything aboutthe past- narrativeaccounts of the past will always be "circumscribed" by the historian's data.However, situatedwithin suchdefining limitations the possibilities for the presentationsof different yet plausiblehistorical accountsof the past appearto be endless.Likewise, it is possibleto find endlessuses for bricks but the constructionof a hot air balloon is not one of them 70 story openswith this remarkwhich appearedin the first essay(originally published in 1988)of White's Figural Realism:

A history is, as Ankersmit puts it, less like a picture intendedto resemblethe objects of which it speaksor a model "tied to the past by certain translation rules" than "a complex linguistic structure specifically built for the purpose of showing a part of the past."() myteothote 36

White's footnote0) refersrather loosely to a rangeof pageswhich coincidewith the wholeof the secondchapter of Ankersmit'sHistory and Tropology.However, there is little doubtthat the statementreferred to regardingtranslation rules is this one: The historian's task is to offer us not a reflection or model of the past tied to that past by certain translation rules,(69) but the developmentof a more or less autonomousinstrument that can be used for understandingthe past.37 Now, this statementembodies precisely the `narrativeidealist' positionwhich Ankersmitsets up in oppositionto White's supposedposition. It alsocontains its own footnote(69) which refers,in turn, to White's essay`The Historical Text as LiteraryArtifact' publishedin Tropicsof Discourse(having originally appearedin the June1974 edition of Clio).38 The pertinentextract reads: But it is wrongto think of a historyas a modelsimilar to a scalemodel of an airplaneor ship,a map,or a photograph.For we can checkthe adequacyof this latterkind of modelby going andlooking at the original and,by applying the necessaryrules of translation,seeing in whatrespect the model has actually succeededin, reproducing aspects of the original.But historicalstructures and processesare not like theseoriginals; we cannotgo andlook at themin order to seeif the historianhas adequately reproduced them in his narrative.39

Thus,in this ingeniouscircular fashion,White referredback to himselfand in so doinghe indirectlypointed at Ankersmit'sextraordinary error - doesAnkersmit not readand understand the documentsto which he refers?White dismissedthe possibilityof the existenceof translationrules nine yearsbefore the publicationof NarrativeLogic andthat should have been an endto the matterfor sucha careful (logical)reader as Ankersmit.

m White, H.,(1999). Figural Realism: Studiesin the Mimesis Effect. Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University Press.p6. This extractis from the Book's first chapter, `Literary Theory andhistorical Writing' which first appearedin print in Cohen,R (ed.), (1988). TheFuture ojLiterary Theory.London: Methuen. 37 Ankersnºit.History and Tropolog. p 66 38White, H., (1974). `The Historical Text as Literary Artifact' in Clio 3 no.3: pp277-303 39 White. Tropics of Discourse.p88 71 SectionFour: Historiography and the Art of Gardening

This argument, which rests on Ankersmit's notion of scopeas outlined in Chapter One, first appearedin Narrative Logic as a tentative proposition. In Historical Representationits statuswas upgradedto "firm" and then more recently, in an interview with Ranjan Ghosh40in the journal Rethinking History, the argument surfacedagain with a certain easeof articulation - the sort that presumes membershipof the establisheddiscourse.

To recap. In Narrative Logic Ankersmit proposedthat the wider the narrative's scope (the more the whole exceedsthe descriptive meaning of its individual narrative's statements)the more successfulthat narrative will be from a narrativist perspective.Moreover, it is the historian's goal to maximalizenarrative scope becausescope offers the only criteria available on which to assessthe relative merits of competing narrative accountsof (some aspectof) the past. The narrative with the widest scope,Ankersmit explains, is likely'to be the least conventional and most original of a competing set of narrative accounts,and thus `the essentialduty of the historian is to be original and refrain as much as possible from repeating what his predecessorsin the investigation of a particular topic have said'.41 Furthermore the scope of any narrative substanceis defined by its comparison with other narrative substances-a single point-of-view on the past would constitute "finality" or "closure" and hencepreclude historical debate.Debate is generatedthrough the opposition of two or morepositions and it is only againstthis backgroundtexture of positions taken (or the scopesof narrative substancesproposed) that the relative merits of competing narrativesmight be ascertainedwith referencetQ Ankersmit's criteria of selection which are as follows:

40 Ghosh,R, (2007). `Interdisciplinarityand the Doing of History: A Dialogue BetweenF. R. Ankersmit and Ranjan Ghosh' in Rethinking History 11 no. 2: p244 41 Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. p239. This is an interestingstatement because it suggeststhat the historian's `duty' is to go on producingmore, but always different, historical accountsof the past. Or to put it anotherway, the historian's duty is oneof proli,feration of historical texts.However, in ChapterSix of History and Tropology Ankersmit takesa despondentview of the escalatingoverproduction of literature within the discipline of history which, he says,constitutes a `present-dayintellectual alcoholism.....in which historiographyitself impedesour view of the past' (p163). Now, this damaging overproductionviewpoint may be well founded,but Ankersmit never "squares"it with his earlier imperative of `duty' incumbenton the historian. 72 1) The bestnarrative of a setof competingnarratives is the onewhose statements`individuate the "narrativesubstance" in which the scopeof the narrativebeyond the descriptivemeaning [of its statementstaken individually] is relativelylargest'. 42 2) That all the individuating statementsin a narrative `correspondto actual historical reality'. 43

Ankersmit goes on to make the point that the narrative account of the past which best meets these requirementswill be the most daring and courageousof the set under consideration.On this view it thus follows - ignoring for the moment item (2), the product of diligent researchwhich should apply equally to all historical narratives- that the selection of the best narrative accountout of a set of competing narrative accountsof the past will turn on the matter of scope- on aesthetic considerationsalone. Now that is all very well but, unfortunately, Ankersmit adds some caveatsas follows:

1) He pointsout that it will beargued that the `obligationto maximalizethe scopeof the narratiorequires the historianto suggestas much as possible,but explicitly to say as little as possible...... [and that this might] seemto reduce historiographyto "propaganda"'." This promptsAnkersmit to apply a new conditionfor the applicationof the aboverules, namelythat the narrativeto be preferredis the onethat `comesclosest to propaganda(however, without becoming 4s ever propaganda)'. 2) Thatthe individuatingstatements included in the narrative`should be true'. 3) Thathistorical debate must be `open-mindedand uncensored'. 47

It is at this point (andthis. is by way of anaside) that I canalready see problems ahead,for howdoes one deal with borderlinecases which arebound to ariseout of the applicationof suchrules. Who exactlyis goingto be the disinterested adjudicatorsummoned (presumably) by Ankersmitto resolvesuch issues? Is this personAnkersmit himself or rathersome transcendental "umpire" endowedwith the unerringcapacity to preciselydefine the boundarybetween innocent discourse and

42Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. p245 43Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. p245.I donot like the construction`historical reality' (asnoted before), however,the meaningis clearenough in this context. 44 Ibid. p243 45 Ibid. p243 46 Ibid. p245 47 Ibid. p243 73 propagandaand between meth and falsity with regardto narrativestatements and facts?This matteris not addressedanywhere in Ankersmit'sarguments.

But, to continuewith my mainpoint, Ankersmitobserved that successful narrative accountsof the past(those with the widestscopes) are often inspiredby ethicalor political valuesand that it would be both ...... unnecessaryand unreasonableto demandof the historian that he should shed all his ethical and political commitments when he starts to write history: adherenceto an ethical position may occasionally yield narratios with an unusually wide scope...... [historical points-of-view] may often be inextricably tied up with political or ethical values. Many narratios lose their internal consistencywhen robbed of the political values which structure them..... the narratio is the trait d'union betweendescription and normativeness:on the one hand we have a set of descriptive statements,on the other a courseof action is recommended.We might even toy with the idea that historiography may enableus to test ethical and political values.48

This is the extentof the argumentas expressedin NarrativeLogic. However,the notion embeddedin the last sentenceof the aboveextract was significantly expandedin Historical Representationsuch that it formedthe centralconcern of the book's secondchapter. Rather than attempt some sort of reductiverepresentation of the argument,I havedecided to reproducethe bulk of it from Ankersmitdirect: this brings to the I to defend in this .... me main thesis that wish chapter, namely, the uncommon thesis that narrative or historical discourseis what we had best rely upon when we wish to decide what moral and political standards we had best adopt To put it differently, the procedurefor finding out what should be our most recommendablemoral and political values is as follows. We must begin by collecting a large number of historical texts that have clearly been written from different moral or political points of view and let us take furthermore, that less the historical care, more or same phenomena.... are discussedin all these texts. We should observe,next, what has beenthe verdict in the history of historical writing on all thesetexts. Or to expressit more solemnly, what will the application of the essentiallyaesthetic criteria used for assessingthe merits of historical representationstell us about the qualities of these texts? Which of thesetexts satisfy theseaesthetic criteria best?If we have ascertainedas much, we should ask what moral and political values are dominant in the preferred set of historical texts. These,then, will be the moral and political values we should adopt and use as our compassfor our present and future individual and collective action.... Aesthetics (the criteria that obtain in historical discussion)thus decidesabout ethics - and it can do so

48 Ibid. p242 74 since aestheticshas a logical priority to ethics in the logic and the practice of historical writing. Hence, it is in historical writing, not in rationalist, a priori argument of whatever variant, that we will fmd our most reliable gaugefor choosing political and moral values. Historical writing is, so to speak,the experimental garden [my emphasis]where we may try out different political and moral values and where the overarching aestheticcriteria of representationalsuccess will allow us to assesstheir respectivemerits and shortcomings.And we should be most grateful that the writing of history provides us with this experimental garden,since it will enable us to avoid the disastersthat we may expect when we would have to try out in actual social and political reality the merits and shortcomingsof different ethical and political standards.Before starting a revolution in the name of some political ideal, one had best begin with assessingas accuratelyand as dispassionatelyas possible the merits and shortcomingsof the kind of historical writing inspired by this political ideal.... [hencewe should not] demandthat historians lay aside all their moral and political commitmentswhen they write history..... such a commitment to moral and political values will often result in the kind of historical writing that is of greatestuse to us for our orientation in the present and towards the future It be that all truly .... may equally well important historical writing will require the adoption of certain moral and political standards...49

Furthermore,Ankersmit affirmed that insightinto the past,and orientation in the presentand towards the future,would be impairedby historicalwriting thatseeks to avoidthe moral/politicaldimension and, therefore, subjectivity should be welcomed as an `indispensablecontribution both to our knowledgeof the pastand to contemporaryand future politics'. 50 Ankersmit brought his argumentto a closewith the following two conclusions:

1) Thatwe havediscovered (through the theoryof the natureof historical representation)`the logical priority of the aestheticcriteria of representational adequacyto criteriaof what is right from an ethicaland political point of view',51 and that the reassuringinsight to be derivedfrom this is that `we may trust the discipline in how it will, in the long run, succeedin dealing with ethical and political values.... '. 52

2) That`we may safelyassign to historythe mostimportant and responsible taskof distinguishingrecommendable from objectionablemoral and political values.... 9.53

49Ankersmit, F. R., (2001). Historical Representation.California: StanfordUniversity Press.pp98-100 30Ibid. p 100 51 Ibid. p102 52 Ibid. P102 53 Ibid. P102 75 Since,as I havealready mentioned, this argumentwas restated by Ankersmitin the Ghoshinterview of 2007,I will (not unreasonably)assume that it remains Ankersmit'sposition on the matter.

Now what does this add up to? It seemsto me that Ankersmit is claiming that, in spite of his earlier devastatingcritique of mainstreamhistory, all is not lost. For he arguesthat given a sufficient number of narrativesof somepast situation or event, best grounds then the of that selection can indeed be identified - but on aesthetic only, thus working around his own critique of historians' epistemological assumptions.And, furthermore,that this "best" narrativeonce identified is good enoughto properlyinform (in relationto similar situationsand events) ethical and political decisionsof today.

Ankersmit's extraordinary proposition appearsto be founded (once more) on the theorisationsof Leibniz - in particularly those concerning the concept of the `monad' and the `narrativist universe'. Briefly, Leibniz's theoretical narrativist universe contains all known narrative substances(seen here as monadsof an aesthetickind) and when "full", or in its perfect form, it is presumedto meet the `requirementfor complete historical knowledge'. ' The structure of this perfect, or full, (imaginary) narrativist universe is likened by Ankersmit to a kind of overlapping/adjoining universal network of substanceswithout gaps, where each substanceis a reflection of and in communication with all other substances.Being complete, the historical knowledge which it contains (also being complete) is taken to be fixed and theoretically knowable. Now, for me, not only is this an unattractive rhetorical model but also (and this is more to the point if indeedI have understood the point) there appearsto be a flaw in Ankersmit's use of it. Ankersmit wishes to apply his aestheticcriteria of selection to a very large (even complete)number of competing narrative accountsof some past event (read here as monads/narrative substances)in order to yield the "knowledge" he seeksabout it. But the problem here is that very large can never be large enough, for I cannotsee how afinite

54 Ankeramit.Narrative Logic. p240 76 selection of histories of the event in question can approachthe `fullness' required to meet the defined condition for `completehistorical knowledge' of it. The exact problem here is that even if it were possible to somehowcollect together all relevant narrative substancesknown to date, what of narrative substancesto come (new histories of that event)? Ankersmit has already drawn attentionto the explosive nature of the expansionof historical literature (footnote 41), and he knows that each new piece of literature introduces further unique narrative substances.Now, if any one of these new narrative substancesturns out to be exceptionally good - articulatesthe most contentious and daring of all possible scopes- then a whole chunk of historiography might well "lean over" and proliferate into as yet unimagined landscapesof thought. How can this exponentially expanding, unknown historiography to come be recuperatedback into the `narrativist universe' in order to perfect it and, thus, validate its historical knowledge now? There is a sensein which, to do what he wants to do, Ankersmit must think in terms of historical closure where none is possible: d(erance aprrs Derrida is, it seems,the ironic final word on this fantasy of closure

I now leave this particular theory behind for a moment and turn back to Ankersmit's reflections on his initial investigation of the narrative substance(as he first described it in Narrative Logic). For surely it is undeniablythe casethat Ankersmit (along with Hayden White, Louis Mink, Roland Barthes et al. ) has been instrumental in the disclosure of the hitherto scarcely observedfunction of the narrative form in historiography. And (as a consequenceof this theoretical work) history, which had once appearedto embody the capacity to discover (or at least move towards) the "truth" about the past, was exposedas an empty signifier or empty vesselavailable for requisition and for the imposition of arbitrary meanings on it or into it, by anyone,for multiplicities of different purposes.But this understandingof history (as an endlesslyre-describable medium, an adaptable politico/ethical tool available to anyone) does not sit easily with Ankersmit's `experimentalgarden' notion of it in which history itself becomesthe final arbiter - final justly inform the authority - with the capacity to and properly ethics and politics. It is difficult to seehow (and Ankersmit does not explain how) he can 77 reconcilethese conflicting positions. Perhaps he wastaking a stepback from the persuasive(anti-history) logic of his narrativesubstance and thus, in a perverse sense,he might havebeen trying to "claw" backsome of the groundlost to what wasarguably his bestand most innovativework. Or, perhaps,he hadn't noticed the problemat all.

SectionFive: Factand Value

In Chapter Two of Historical RepresentationAnkersmit gave an accountof the relationship betweenfact and value in narrative accountsof the past; it is this accountthat I now want to addressand relate back to Narrative Logic.

On the basisthat narrative representations constitute proposals for textual replacementsof (or substitutionsfor) partsof the past,and that such substitutes can only be adequatelyevaluated against the kindsof circumstancesto which the proposalswere related, Ankersmit concluded that all proposalsmust inevitablybe inextricablymixed-up with the socialand political circumstancesonto whichthose proposalsare projected as historicisedreplacements for partsof the past.Along thesegeneral lines he worked-upan argumentto the effectthat there exists within the historicalnarrative a certaincontinuity between fact andvalue and his argument finally led him to this conclusion: historical truly the trait .... representation presentsus with much sought-after d'union betweenthe "is" and the "ought." We begin with merely a set of true statementsand move then, automatically and naturally, toward an answerto the question of how to act in the future. The transition is completely natural, and at no stagecan we identify a point where pure knowledge becomespure action.... "fact" and "value," the "is" and the "ought", are merely the extremes on a continuous scale."

Ankersmitillustrated this `continuousscale' by comparingthe likely styleof debate thatmight springfrom (a) mattersconcerning the contributionsmade by the Dutch stateto the economicand political successof the Dutchrepublic in the seventeenth century,and (b) discussionscentred on the natureof the totalitarianstate during the ssAnkersmit. Historical Representation.p94 78 time of the `ColdWar'. In the former casethe historian'smoral and political standardswould not havemuch bearing on the debate,however, in the later case suchstandards would definethe characterof thatdebate. These two examples,then, would lie towardsthe extremeends of a logicalscale (Ankersmit's `continuous scale')embracing all possiblefact/value combinations.

Now, the particular position which Ankersmit adopted here in relation to facts and values appearsto rest on the assumptionthat there exists a link (an entailment), of a fixed and permanentkind, between fact and value. Or, to rephrase,in order that true statementsmight (as Ankersmit argued) move automatically and naturally toward an answer to the question of `how to act in the future', those true statementsmust each have fixed values embeddedwithin them -a multiplicity of possible values could only indicate a multiplicity of possible actions and thus fail to answerthe question of `how to act in the future'. But the idea that facts have values fixed within them is at total variance with Ankersmit's own central concept concerningnarrative substanceswhich relies on the particular understandingthat facts and individual statementsare, as he puts it in Narrative Logic, "compassless" takenin isolation.... `only "point .... when a narrative of view" cangive thema "narrativedirection".... the varietyof narrativemeanings one andthe samestatement may havein differentnarratios suggests that what the historicalfacts are.... always depends on whatnarrative use is madeof the narrativestatements in question.Thus there are no factsdevoid of narrative interpretationin Narratios.-%

This statementis very clear. Ankersmit is saying that the meanings(and therefore the values) attachedto historical facts are to be found only in relation to their uses when organisedinto narrative form and, thus, on this matter Ankersmit has positioned himself as a relativist. However, by contrast(and presumably without noticing his adoption of conflicting positions) he becamea foundationalist when presentinghis `continuous scale' fact/value casewhich operateson the basis of an assumedfixity of value to fact. However (and this appearsto me to be the central issuenegating Ankersmit's fact/value argument and, for that matter, further

56 Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. pp218-219 79 disruptinghis `experimentalgarden of historiography'argument), empirical facts andaesthetic values are of differentontological kinds andtherefore the ideathat somesort of `continuousscale' (or anysort of linkage)could be constructed betweenthem is logicallyflawed.

However, I shall leave the final word on the fact/value debateto Keith Jenkins: In the history of philosophy there has beenno successfulattempt - though have many people tried and some have indeedclaimed success- to derive value(s) from fact(s) logically. This is not to say that we do not seem effortlessly to draw values from facts all the time in our everyday lives, but this is not what the philosophical argument is about. For although we routinely interconnect facts and values all the time we can never show a logical entailment from the one to the other; the fact-value argument is the argument that we can never logically draw from one fact, or one set of facts, one and only one value. For example, we might say that going to war hurts people and is therefore wrong; on the other hand we might say that even though it hurts people war can often be morally justified. Accordingly, if it is possible either to justify or not the act of war then it follows that there is no necessary entailment of values from the fact that war hurts people. Thus we are free to decide to draw (on undecidablegrounds) whatever values, significance or meaning we like about facts (including the facts of the past, the presentand the future). Until someonecan show that there is a logical entailment-I doubt there is much chanceof that happening- then we remain inescapablyethical, moral and historical relativists.

Section Six: Concluding Observations

I now proposeto gather together the main points of this chapter,along with some related final thoughts, such that they constitute,I hope, a cohesiveaccount of the principal negative elementswithin Ankersmit's early theorisations.It is my view that these elementsdamage Ankersmit's thesis and therefore should never have been part of it.

First of all thereis the matterof languagewhich is shownby Ankersmitto be metaphoricalall the way down' andthis observation,applicable to all texts,must

37 Jenkins,K., (2003).Refiguring History: New Thoughtsan an Old Discipline. London: Routledge.p43 80 his equally apply to own texts. However, he losessight of this when he presents his proofs of theories which, of necessity,can only be expressedin the metaphorsof language and thus he is confronted with (but does not notice) the untenableconcept of proof resting on metaphor.

But, what if one were to cleanseAnkersmit's Narrative Logic of its proofs? Over half of the text would (of course) vanish, so what would be the new statusof this leaner version of his book?58 Would it, for instance,reflect (albeit in Ankersmit's unique style) the substanceof, in particular, White's Metahistory, or would it be a kind of Metahistory plus/minus something?To put it another way, is there anything at all in Ankersmit's general conclusionsas expressedin Narrative Logic (and summarisedin his `Six Theses) which either does not directly reflect elementsof White's Metahistory or is not an extensionof some implicit notion within White's theorisations?

Take, for example, Ankersmit's fundamental and central concept of the narrative substancewhich, I am now going to suggest,could be seenas an incomplete abstraction from the works of White. I shall illustrate what I meanby drawing on White's essay,`The Historical Text as Literary Artifact', 59wherein he arguesthat historians both constitute and pre-figure their subjects as possibleobjects of narrative representationwithin the languageused to describethem. Accordingly, the different kinds of historical representationsthat we can have of the same set of past eventscan be seen to be engenderedout of the projections of the different linguistic protocols used to pre-figure those events.On this view, descriptionsof events already signify preparatoryinterpretations of their own dispositions prior to the figuration of theseevents into the narrative proposals which presumeto explain

38 I would questionagain (see footnote 22 on page62) at this juncture the function that logic plays in Ankersmit's theory. For in order to azticWateand prove his argumentsAnkersmit often usesformal logic, yet, in his own readingor summaryof Narrative Logic (in his `Six Theses') his position is, indeed, accuratelypresented without any logic appearinganywhere in it. Did he then needlogic at all? Well, I think that the answeris "no" becausehis logic is superfluousto his texts and, therefore,I believe that his book Narrative Logic would have beenbetter served with the title Narrative Substmrce. 59 This argumentof White's, briefly sketchedabove, can be found in its completeform in White, H., (1974). 'The Historical TextasLitera, yArtifact'. Clio no. 3: pp277-303(or White, H., (1978). Tropicsof Discourse: Essaysin Cultural Criticiser. Baltimore: The JohnsHopkins University Press.pp81-100) Also we White, H., (1973). Metahistay. Baltimore: The JohnsHopkins University Press.p30 81 them. There are, then, two figurative levels at work here in the production of histories; first, the level ofpre-figuration itself which establishesthe description and hence constitution of, and the relationship between,the objects which inhabit the field of enquiry and, second,the specificfiguration of those objects through modes of emplotment, argument, etc., into coherent,meaningful story forms in order to transform and explain the apparent historical problems to be solved which arise out of relationshipspre figured at the first level of figuration.

White further explainsthat the historicalnarrative per se might betaken as a system of signs,in the sensethat it .... pointsin two directionssimultaneously: toward the eventsdescribed in the narrativeand toward the storytype or mythoswhich the historianhas chosen to serveas the icon of the structureof the events.The narrativeitself is not the icon; whatit doesis describeevents in the historicalrecord in sucha way asto inform the readerwhat to takeas an iconof the eventsso asto renderthem familiar to him. Thehistorical narrative thus mediates between the events reportedin it on the oneside and pregeneric plot structuresconventionally usedin our cultureto endowunfamiliar events and situations with meanings, on the other.... [andthat, therefore] as a symbolicstructure, the historical narrativedoes not reproducethe eventsit describes;it tells us in whatdirection to think aboutthe eventsand charges our thoughtabout the eventswith differentemotional valences. The historicalnarrative does not imagethe things it indicates;it callsto mind imagesof the thingsit indicatesin the sameway that a metaphordoes 60

In consideration of this more detailed account of historical writing, it might appear that Ankersmit usedjust part of White's wider theoretical argument.That is, Ankersmit only observedWhite's second level offiguration, for there is nothing in Ankersmit's description of the narrative substanceto account for the pre-figured natures and relationships of the kinds of objects which come to occupy the historian's field of enquiry in the first place. One could then say that the narrative substance,as conceived by Ankersmit, is always governed by a point-of-view concerning objects which have already been linguistically constituted and prefigured before he gets at them. And, furthermore, that in his own theory Ankersmit moved from the narrative's individuating statementsdirectly to a "picture" of the

'60White. Tropics ofDiscourse. pp88-91 82 pastwithout accountingfor thatprocess in itself. White,however, in his brief yet morecomprehensive argument (which accountsfor boththe referentialand the aestheticcomponents of historicalwriting), explainedthat the historicalnarrative doesnot directly "image"the thingsthat it indicates,but ratherthat (as a culturally dependantsemiotic system) the historicalnarrative indicates the directionin which a culturallyrecognisable, familiarising image might be found;an important considerationfor historiansengaged in, for instance,transcultural studies.

Now, Ankersmit, as a close reader of Hayden White, should have at least registered White's argument. Had he done so his attention would have been directed not only to the cultural dimension of the narrative form but also to the arguably deeperlevel of pre-figuration which runs beneath,and has a bearing on, the mode of operation of his own narrative substance.61 In fact, the nature of Ankersmit's so-calledpoint-of- view (which governs the narrative substance),is only investigatedby him to the extent that he points out that people have them, that they are all different, and that they are often hidden from view. But, as I have explained (and this is ironic), a point-of-view in itself must be tropologically figured within explanatory strategies (modes of emplotment, argument and ideology) and, therefore,it could be argued that White's conceptualand explanatory linguistic mechanismsreside unnoticed beneath(as pre-figuration) and scarcelynoticed within Ankersmit's narrative substancewhich is, after all, a figurative device.

Now, if all the propositions advancedin Narrative Logic, or at least the general conclusionsarising from them, could be similarly traced back and matched,or linked-up in some form or another,to White's conclusions as outlined in his preface to Metahistory 62(and broadly speakingI believe that they can) then Narrative Logic

61 Why this omission one might ask?Well, my speculativesuggestion is that Ankersmit harboursan instinctive suspicionof the notion of pre-figuration, for he arguesthat it is the `Whiteancounterpart of Kant's transcendentalaesthetics and transcendental analytics' (seeAnkersmit, F. R, (2009). `White's `Neo-Kantianism': Aesthetics,Ethics and Politics' in Ankersmit, F. R, Domafiska,E. andKellner, H. (eds.) Re-Figuring Hayden White. California: StanfordUniversity Press.p27) and everythingassociated with Kantianism is, for Ankersmit, to be avoidedat all costs.This anti-Kantian/anti-prefigurationposition adoptedbe Ankersmit will be further examinedin ChaptersThree andFour. 62 White. Metahistory. pp xi-xii, wherein White statesthat `Thegeneral conclusions I havedrawn from my study of nineteenth-centuryhistorical consciousnesscan be summarizedas follows: (1) there can be no "proper history" which is not at the sametime "philosophy of history"; (2) the possible 93 might appearto be little morethan an abridgedre-description of, or perhaps supplementto, an existingtext andcould bestbe readas such.

Turning now - with the above in mind - to Ankersmit's perplexing manufacture and subsequentdemolition of misrepresentationsof White's texts, which (if uncritically accepted)would have had the effect of elevating Ankersmit's own status relative to that of White's, the following extract from a thought provoking interview might be of interest. The interviewer, Gary Olson, askedthe interviewee, Jacques Derrida, to comment on misrepresentationsand misunderstandingsof his own work andthis was his answer: First, thereare no simplemisunderstandings. Each time you reada text- and is this my situationand the situationof everyreader - thereis some misunderstanding,but I knowof no wayto avoid this.Misunderstanding is alwayssignificant; it's not simplya mistake,or just an absurdity..It's somethingthat is motivatedby someinterest and some understanding. Sometimesthe most ferociousCritics whoreact vehemently and passionately andsometimes with hatredunderstand more than supporters do, andit's becausethey understandmore that they reactthis way. Sometimesthey understandunconsciously, or they know whatis at stake.Sometimes I think that this enemy,because he's so ferocious,so nervous,is moreaware of what is at stakethan a friendly ally is. So,sometimes misunderstanding is understanding,and the otherway around.63

There is no doubt that Ankersmit's concept of the narrative substanceas he described it (despite my identification of it with part of White's wider thesis) was and is of significant value. But with regard to his generaltheoretical conclusions (taken in the round) I am not convinced that Ankersmit can be seento have detached

modesof historiographyare the sameas the possiblemodes of speculativephilosophy of history; (3) thesemodes are in realityjonnalizafions of poetic insights that analyticallyprecede them and that sanctionthe particulartheories used to give historical accountsthe aspectof an "explanation"; (4) there are no apodictically certaintheoretical grounds on which onecan legitimately claim an authority for any one of the modesover the othersas being more "realistic"; (5) as a consequenceof this, we are indentured to a choiceamong contending interpretative strategies in any effort to reflect on history-in-general;(6) as a corollary of this, the bestgrounds for choosingone perspectiveon history rather than anotherare ultimately aestheticor moral ratherthan epistemological;and, finally, (7) the demandfor the scientization of history representsonly the statementof a preferencefor a specific modality of historical conceptualization,the groundsof which are either moral or aesthetic,but the epistemologicaljustification of which still remainsto be established'. 63 Derrida,J., (1990). `JacquesDerrida on Rhetoricand Composition:Interview by G. A. Olson' in JAC, 10 no. 1 84 himself much from White's position, although the impulse to do so is evident; a persistent"undercurrent" running beneaththe structure of his arguments.For instance,Ankersmit frequently promotes his own style of theory as the "real thing" becauseit addressesthe problem of `how the historian accountsfor or represents past reality', ` whereashe distanceshimself from White's literary theory which he characterisesas `wholly uselessas a theory of history'65 in that it fails to `account for the historian's representationof past reality'. 66It seemsto me, however, that White's formalistic literary theory is performing this task which Ankersmit deniesit - that is, it satisfactorily accountsfor the imaginative, aestheticconstruct of history.

Furthermore, it would appearthat, in spite of his ruinouscritique of narrative historiography, Ankersmit was unableto "let go" and submit to his own narrative logic. The idea that history, having had its old positivistic, epistemological stuffing effectively critiqued to death by him, could still retain,its putative capacity to properly inform ethical and political decisions in the present is a strangeand puzzling manifestationof Ankersmit's inability to observethe consequencesof his own arguments.Of course,with this notion in particular Ankersmit does indeed succeedin establishing a degreeof detachmentfrom White whose theorisations could not, I believe, ever support such an idea.

Finally, then, to complete this Chapter with a question.Could all the above mentioned anomaliesbe symptomatic of a kind of paranoia which might be expressedas Ankersmit's flight from the formula, "Ankersmit = White"? Well, I think that it could, and this theme of detachment(Ankersmit's desire to separate himself from White, from the spectre of White) will run, as a continuous thread, into and right through the content of my next "bridging" chapter.

64Ankersmit. Historical Representation.p68 6s Ibid. p74 66Ibid. p68 85 ChapterTlme Aukasmitin Transifim

Ankersmit's shift from the theoretical position that he brought to his writing of Narrative Logic to the very different theoretical position that he brought to his writing of Sublime Historical Experience is the subject of this Chapter. However, before launching my investigation into the exact characterand purpose of this transition, I begin by way of a general reflection on `where I am now' and an indication of where, in Chapter Four, `I intend to go'.

In Chapter One I collected together various argumentsdrawn from Ankersmit's Narrative Logic which individuated the governing narrative substance'of that chapter's title, `The Good Ankersmit'. In Chapter Two, however, I arguedthat I had found in those very same argumentsvarious deviations from and contradictions to what I would call "good theory", evidencedthrough positions which (I tried to show) were not only sometimesat odds with eachother but which also failed to act as those supportsand proofs of Ankersmit's main argumentsin ways he clearly imagined that they would. It is, of course,somewhat speculative to say that these deviations and contradictions, which variously undercut the relativist conclusions logically issuing out of his idealist theory of narrative substances,were unconsciousor subconsciousretreats from a generally radical position, possibly an untenableposition -a "step too far" - for a man who saw and seeshimself as a conservative liberal. For Ankersmit has never been fully at easewith the postmodern/textual"turn" (as exemplified in Narrative Logic) which he becameso famous for championing in his exchangeswith PerezZagorin in the pagesof History Theory 2009 and in 1989-90.Indeed, this championing has by now - in - almost sunk without trace as Ankersmit moves, again in a somewhatcontradictory way, between historical experienceon the one hand - which vis-a-vis the mainstream looks like another radical move (albeit to save"history" from a now rampant

86 textualism)- andthe sometimestoyed with comfort-zoneof a learningfrom the past sort of historism.'

But, be all that as it may, the point that I'want to make here is that in the ten years following the publication of Narrative Logic, Ankersmit's increasinguneasiness with what was for him an overplayed (perhapsstretched to extremis) linguistic textualism becameevident in his various essaysand papers,the most important of which - along with a specially written synoptic Introduction - appearedtogether in his History and Tropology: The Rise and Fall of Metaphor (1994). To be sure, from the later vantagepoint of (post) Sublime Historical Experience,the essaysin (and around) History and Tropology only intimate, quite understandably,Ankersmit's "experience" text which was to be published eleven years later in 2005, a text that (he explained in its Preface)took a decadein its making. Consequently, History and 7ropology contained only an embryo of what was later to emerge,fully grown, in Sublime Historical Experience.Nevertheless, ' it will be arguedhere that History and Tropology articulates and thus marks a new stagein Ankersmit's trajectory from language to experience-a launching pad for a new "goal". This goal was not of a kind that one might associatewith the everyday work of the historian, for it was in

r Ankersmit's credentialsas a postmodernhistory theorist were most definitively "nailed to the mast" in his exchangeswith PerezZagorin in the pagesof History and Theory(see Ankersmit, F. R., (1989). `Historiographyand Postmodernism'in History and Theory28 no. 2: ppl37-153, Zagorin,P., (1990). 'Historiography and Postmodernism:Reconsiderations' in History and Theory29 no. 3: pp263-274,and Ankersmit, F. R, (1990). 'Reply to ProfessorZagorin' in History and 7heoty 29 no. 3: pp275-296).I owe my depiction of Ankersmit as a conservativeliberal to a conversationwith Keith Jenkinswho informed me that in his own conversationwith Ankersmit this is how he had styled himself. Post2005 this conservatismhas manifested itself historically (politically Ankersmit is active in right wing liberalism in Holland) in variousways both in and in addition to his central desireto ground a real past in 'direct experience' safefrom relativistic peradventure.For instance,in the foundationalistagenda of the Introductionto the first publication of the Journalfor the 'Centre for Metahistory', Groningen,which he co-edits (seeAnkersmit, F. R., Bevir, M., Roth, P., Tucker, A. andWylie, A., (2007). 'The Philosophyof History: An Agenda' in Ankersmit, F. R, Bevir, M., Roth, P., Tucker,A and Wylie, A., (eds.). Journal of the Philosophyof History 1 no. 1:ppl-9) where postmodernismwas dismissedas the `....soon to becomedated debate on extremerelativism and scepticism,sometimes called after a recentarchitectural style,postmodernism' (p1). And also in the widely recognisedconservative manifesto which Ankersmit wrote for Manifestosfor History wherein (on page222 in the Afterword to that volume) HaydenWhite noted his surprisethat Ankersmit now'... councils a return to the good old ways of Rankeand traditional historians,in order to restorehistory to its traditional task of teaching(political) philosophyby example (seeAnkersmit, FR., (2007). 'Manifesto for an Analytical Political History' and White, H., 'Afterword' both in Jenkins,K., Morgan, S.,Munslow, A, (eds.) Man festäsfor History. London: Routledge.pp 179- 196& pp220-231). 87 fact quiteliterally categoricallydifferent. Thus, as Ankersmit himself pointed out in SublimeHistorical Experience,his newtheory would have: bearing historians do .... no whatsoeveron what actually and on the question of why they do.what the do.... [and that the issueshe now deals with are] .... as uselessas they are meaninglessfrom the perspectiveof the practice of historical [and furthermore that] (as I hope) writing .... some readers may book has .... conclude that this helped to deepentheir intuitions, whereasothers - for reasonsthat are easy enough to predict - will consider the book useless, "hyperbolic", or simply nonsensical.2

Now, it might appearthat I am gettingsomewhat ahead of my own argumenthere, andperhaps I am, but not withoutgood reason. For it is clearfrom the above assortmentof statements,drawn from the Prefaceof SublimeHistorical Experience, that Ankersmit'snew theorisations were indeed to constitutea radicaldeparture from his previouslanguage governed, representationalist style of historicaltheory (as articulatedin NarrativeLogic) which hehas marginalised thus: the lingualismof the philosophyof language,of hermeneutics,of deconstructivism,of tropology,of semiotics,and so on hasbecome by now an obstacleto, ratherthan a promoterof, usefuland fruitful insights.The mantras of this nowso oppressiveand suffocating lingualism have become a serious threatto the intellectualhealth of our discipline.3

As will becomeapparent in my nextchapter on Sublime Historical Experience, this departureeventually transports Ankersmit into a newsphere or styleof enquiry(a far cry from the bestAnkersmit of NarrativeLogic) operatingon the basisof nostalgiclongings, sensations, feelings, impressions, atmospheres, intuitions and so on; a movefrom `therationalism of "theory" to a newromanticism', 4as he himself puts it. We, his readers,are thus invited to `enterthe dark andsometimes even sinister Romantic world of the profoundestand quasi-existentialist layers in our relation to the past.... S.In short, Ankersmit had(s) an agenda,perhaps longstanding (as already noted, in Sublime Historical Experiencehe explainedthat his book was at least ten years in the I deliberately highlighting at this making) and which am . stagein my argumentin order to help clarify my particular reading of History and

2 Ankersmit, F. R., (2005). SublimeHistorical Experience.California: StanfordUniversity Press.pp(xv- xvi) 3 Ankersmit, F. R., (2006). `Presenceand Myth' in History and Theory45 no. 3: p336 4 Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.p7 5Ibid. p 10 88 Tropology. For, to repeat,it is in (and around) the essaysof History and Tropology that Ankersmit arguably moves - largely via (as we shall see)a critique of Hayden White6 - from his "historical" theorisations of Narrative Logic to his "historical experiential" theorisationsof Sublime Historical Experience,and it is this I movement argue, which precipitates his fall from the good to the lost Ankersmit of this thesis.

Ankersmit'srepositioning of himselfwithin historicaltheory thus involved a certain trajectoryof argument,and it is my contention(my thesis)that whilst its point of departureresides in onecategory (the discourseof history),its point of arrival residesin quiteanother (the discourseof memorystudies, memory not beingof a historicalkind). Now, I cannotsee how a trajectoryof argumentcan unproblematicallymove between two differentcategories in this way, nevertheless, it would appearthat Ankersmit(if he wasaware of the problemat all) foundits solutionin their conflationinto a singlecategory. It is alsoof interestto notehere in . passingthat the Americanhistory theorist, David Carr, is alsocurrently working towardsa similar conflationof categoriesand, together, these "moves" would appearto be symptomatic of a wider shift from history to memory'. Carr, to be more specific, wishes to combine historical representationand memory into a single study of experience.He recently pointed this out in his paper, 'On the Different Meanings of Experience', delivered at an International Conferencein Ankersmit's home university of Groningen, at the `Centre for Metahistory' (a sort of "Groningen School" of experiencerelated studies to which Carr has attachedhimself). Carr also

6 On reflection, having re-readmy whole thesis,I have againconsidered why Ankersmit was(and still is - as will be arguedbelow, especially in SectionThree) so anti-White whilst, at the sametime, being in somesort of a needof him to both measureand to validate his (Ankersmit's) own works (what I have referredto as Ankersmit's lovelhaterelationship with White). This is, I think, becauseeverything that Ankersmit wished to distancehimself from in the writing of SublimeHistorical Experiencewas already deeply engrainedin White's own theorisations.For instance,when Ankersmit arguedagainst postmodernism,poststructuralism, rhetoric, language,textualism andthe linguistic turn etc., he was arguing againsteverything that White had happily embraced.And thereforemy particularemphasis on White here, andelsewhere in this thesis,is not only becauseof Ankersmit's specificuse of White to advancehis own position but also because,all mattersconsidered, Ankersmit's journey from languageto experiencemight equally beseen as hisjourney from Whiteto experience.Or perhapsbetter still, as I have already intimated,Ankers mit's journey from the spectre' of Whiteto experience. This matter will be more fully explored in ChapterFour and the Conclusion. 89 madethe very samepoint in a brief rdsumeof his paper,which appearedin the conferenceprogram notes, as follows: For severaldecades, philosophy of history has been dominatedby two themes: representationand memory. Reflection on these two themeshas revealedsome important things about history, but it'has also raised certain problems that it is incapableof solving. As a way of overcoming the weaknessesand solving the problems of this dual focus on representationand memory, I proposeto put experience in their place. In proposing this approachto the philosophy of history I amjoining hands with a developmentthat is already vigorously under way. In the work of F.R. Ankersmit and Eelco Runia, similar themesare being stressed.I readthese new works with a certain shock of recognition, because they seemedto be undertaking somethingI had myself beenattempting in recent work under the title of a phenomenologyof history."

Ankersmitand Eelco Runia were both presentat this conference(they werealso key figuresin connectionwith its conceptionand organisation) and neither of them raisedany objectionto Carr's statement- nor, for thatmatter, did anyoneelse - so I presumethat this is the positionof themall and,therefore, that history and memory aretaken to be "of a kind" in Groningen.9 This position,however, which (it should be stressed)appears to be the collectiveposition of Ankersmitand all his colleagues (whatevertheir location)engaged in memory,presence and experience studies, is fundamentallyuntenable for reasonsthat I will fully explorein the following chapter.I am introducingthe matterat thisjuncture because it is of vital importance to my argument;perhaps I shouldgo furtherand suggest that it is at its very centre.

But I returnnow to the detail of History and Tropology,the text of which is madeup of five previouslypublished essays along with a new introduction,a newconclusion anda tabulararrangement of the mainargument of NarrativeLogic entitled`Six Theseson NarrativistPhilosophy of History' (to which I referredin the opening pageof ChapterTwo andthat chapter'sfootnotes 22 & 57).The bulk of thetext is thus composedof essayswhich werenot originally written with an "integratedwhole" in mind and,therefore, Ankersmit relied substantially upon his Introductionto the

8 From page 13 of an explanatorypamphlet titled Moved by the Past andpublished by the `Centrefor Metahistory', Groningenfor its InternationalConference of Sept 27th& 28"' 2007. 9 This conclusion of mine is not derived only on the basisof the documentscited here- it is, in fact, axiomaticto all literatureconcerning `historical experience'as construedby Ankersmit andthe Groningen School(and I includepresence, parallel processingetc. ). This matter will be coveredin the following chapter. 90 volume to make apparentthe underlying theme connectingthe various essays together. Consequently,it is in Ankersmit's Introduction to History and Tropology that one might be able to more readily discern both the substanceand the new directionof his evolvingproject. A projectwhich I will argueis founded on a critique of, and a distancing from, Hayden White's methodological arguments /positions as expressedin Metahistory (and other texts) and which, accordingly, I will look at here in some analytical detail. Consequently,this critical analysis which is, as I say, a somewhatfinely tuned close reading of History and Tropology, is the primary subject of this chapter. For once this argumentis established,then Ankersmit's transition or journey from languageto experiencewill be understood. This understandingwill then be summarised and contextualisedin the last two sections of the chapter where the "trees" of the previous ones will, I hope, be seento fall almost naturally into the shape of a "wood".

My account of Ankersmit's transition from languageto experienceis laid out in Six Sections: `Section One: Ankersmit on Metahistory', `Section Two: Language Revisited', `Section Three: Ambivalence: An Unlikely Story', `Section Four: The Caseof the Vanishing Tropes', `SectionFive: Consolidation' and `Section Six: An Explanation', and it might help the readerif at this point I offer a brief explanatory clarification of these various subtitles. Hence, in Section One I look at Ankersmit's idiosyncratic and sometimesquite extraordinary reading of Hayden White's Metahistory. Then, in SectionTwo, I place History and Tropology within the book's own 1980's "frame". SectionsThree and Four focus on single argumentswhich, taken together, constitute(in my view) the basis upon which Ankersmit articulates his constituting position within History and Tropology. Thesetwo argumentswhich initially appearto be quite separatecan, I argue, be linked together to provide the platform from which Ankersmit propels himself into his radically new style of historical theory which, eventually, finds its full expressionin SublimeHistorical Experience.In Section Five I summariseall the precedingarguments (including those of ChaptersOne and Two) and prepare the ground for Section Six which contains (and again summarises)my own particular explanation for Ankersmit's

91 deviationfrom radical*historical theory as currently conceived10 and to whichthe good Ankersmitseems to indeedbelong.

SectionOne: Ankersmit on Metahistorv

An understandingof Ankersmit'sidiosyncratic interpretive reading of Hayden White's Metahistoryis of crucial explanatoryassistance in connectionwith the argumentswhich areto follow in the subsequentsections. Metahistory, Ankersmit explains: be interpreted in fundamentally .... can read and two ways that are opposed. Indeed, we can read it as the unmaskingof the historian's effort to get hold of historical reality and historical truth but the book can also be interpreted ...... as follows. Precisely by focusing on and by problematizing the historian's language,White demonstratesnot that it is impossible to get hold of past reality, but the naivete of the kind of positivist intuition customarily cherished in the discipline for how to achieve this goal. More specifically, what these, positivist intuitions proudly presentas historical reality itself is a mere spectral illusion that is createdby the historical discipline itself. Surely, there is a historical reality that is, in principle, accessibleto the historian. But historians have forgotten about this historical reality and mistakenthe product of their tropological encodation of the past for the past itself. Within this reading, not the practicing historian criticizing White but White himself is the realist who reminds us of the difference between reality and mere intellectual construction.ie

This is a dense extract and it needsto be broken down in order to graspthe nature of Ankersmit's two fundamentally opposedinterpretations of Metahistory. The first interpretive position solely accommodatesthe notion that White is `unmasking' the historian's (hopeless)efforts to get hold of `historical reality' and `historical truth'. I am rather uncomfortable with regard to both of these last constructions- `historical reality' might be better expressedas `the actuality of the past' and `historical truth', as I have previously pointed out, is an oxymoron. However, the distinction that Ankersmit is making here is clear enough and my own reading of Metahistory was undoubtedly also from this `unmasking' point-of-view. Ankersmit's second

10 By this I mean a current style of historical theory of the kind informedthrough the works of peoplelike HaydenWhite, Richard Rorty, Keith Jenkins,Sande Cohen, Alun Munslow, JacquesDerrida, Elizabeth DeedsErmarth ei al. '' Ankersmit, F. R., (2001). Historical Representation California: StanfordUniversity Press.p254 , 92 interpretive position rests on the notion that White is `problematizing the historian's language' expressly in order to demonstratethat a confidently presumedgrasp of

`past reality' can only be a `spectral illusion' -a `tropological encodation of the past' rather than the past itself. So far so good, but Ankersmit's interpretation of White's position does not finish at this point, since he then attachesto this `spectral illusion' concept the governing notion that there is, after all, a historical reality accessibleto historians,but that they have lost sight of it. This is becausethey are mesmerized by their own `intellectual constructions' which contrive to obscureit. Nevertheless,it is "right there" if only they could see it (this "it" alreadybeing the idea of the past "plain" at the centre of Sublime Historical Experience). In this interpretation of Metahistory Ankersmit finds in White the realist who has taken upon himself a certain task, namely that of educatinghistorians to the extent that they might perceive the difference betweena reality (which is in principle accessible to historians) and their own `intellectual constructions' (which are constituted within the discourseitself and form a barrier to the perception of an otherwiseaccessible reality).

This secondinterpretation of Metahistory,which accommodatesthe notionof an accessiblepast, is at variancewith my readingof White's text(s)and, to the bestof my knowledge,it is uniqueto Ankersmit.Nevertheless, this is the readingwhich he favoursand he supportsit with the following two arguments:

1) To the great late eighteenthand nineteenthcentury historians/philosophers investigated by White (Gibbon, Tocqueville, Macauley, Michelet et al. ) the

past was: spectaclethat required the whole of their .... a sublime and quasi-divine powerful personalitiesin order to becomeexpressible in their writings. is To them the past was not yet that tamedand domesticatedreality that the product and counterpartof the methodsand canonsof contemporary disciplinary historical writing. To them the past was a past that can only be renderedif it resonatesin the depth of the historians own soul and evokes there the essentiallypoetic responsetestifying to their actual encounter with past reality. '

12Ibid. p254 93 Additionally, Ankersmitmaintains that White wasfascinated by the manner in which thesehistorians and philosophers of historyrelated to (what Ankersmitcalls) `historicalreality itself , andit would thusbe, he says,a perverseinterpretation of Metahistoryto readit primarily as anaccount of how the poeticsof historicalwriting blindedthese great historians and philosophersto the reality of the past for did .... their poeticgrasp of the past not removethem fromthe past, did not createan insurmountabledistance between the past and themselves- on the contrary,it wasonly thanksto their poeticgenius thatthey caughta glimpseof it andcould inform their readersabout their experienceof the past.13

Ankersmit thus managesto find within White's Metahistory the presumption of a past actuality which was exclusively accessibleto those great historians/ philosophersof poetic genius who somehow avoided the nineteenthcentury disciplinisation of history. The nature of this accessto the past and its mode of operation is the subject of Ankersmit's next argument.

2) This argumentcentres on White's observationthat the greatnessof the aforementionedhistorians originated, as Ankersmit puts it, in freedom the .... the easy with which they movedthrough tropological grid, while defyingthose "elective affinities" to which mediocre historiansordinarily submit their encodationof the past....White [proposedhis] stylistic or linguisticprotocols only to demonstratehow historicalreality canbe made visible not by a docilesubmission, but by a subtleand poetic evasion of theseprotocols. White's tropes will indeed often functionas a screenbetween us andhistorical reality, as will bethe casewhen the mediocrehistorian obediently submits to the dictatesof onetrope only. ''

Accordingly(Ankersmit continues), White's tropologyshows us how these greateighteenth and nineteenth-century historians in finding the fissuresin the .-... succeeded andexploiting cracksand tropologicalscreen, and how preciselythrough these cracks and fissures they managedto get a glimpseof pastreality that remained inaccessible to their lessgifted colleagues. This alsoexplains why irony is so prominentin White'stropology. Irony is the tropethat confronts us with

131bid.p255 14Ibid. p255 94 the limitationsand shortcomings of the othertropes; it is, so to speak,the tropethat is the naturalally of historicalreality itself andthat enables it to reassertits rights againstthe pressureof the othertropes. Irony naturallysituates itself in thesecracks and fissures between the other tropes,and is thereforethe tropeof historicalreality itself 15

It should be noted here that none of the statementsor ideasattributed to White by Ankersmit in the preceding extracts from Historical Representationare referenced to White's texts. To. be sure Ankersmit prefaceshis argumentwith a statement(a kind of "let-out" clause) to the effect that he is focusing on `generaltrends' 16which connect White's various texts; however, there is no way of knowing in any particular instance to which of theseAnkersmit is referring. This is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs, particularly in view of the radical nature of some of the claims made.

Now, in contrast to these argumentsput forward by Ankersmit, my own reading of Metahistory turns on the understanding(unquestionable in my view) that the book was intentionally written as, and only as, aformalist critique (drawing on literary theory and linguistics) of the nature of the historical narrative. On this reading I have not been left with the impressionthat White was reminding me of the difference between, on one side, an `accessible'past and, on the other, `a mere intellectual construction'. For me, White was highlighting the hopelessnessof the historians

self-appointedtask - to find meaning, direction, understandingand so on, in the chaos and contingency of a past that has gone forever. Moreover, this is a past which does not at all indicate how it is to be "told"; it only leaves behind traces which are not to be confused with the past itself (as happenings,occurrences, events etc. ) and which can be variously appropriated.

Furthermore,nowhere in White's writings can I find any textual evidencethat he actually believed that any of the historians that he studied caughtglimpses of past reality through either their defiance of, or their exploitation of, the elective affinities within his (White's) tropological grid. Indeed, in Narrative Logic Ankersmit states

15 Ibid. p255 16Ibid. p254 95 White's general position very differently as follows: `the past is an amorphouschaos of data that successfully resists conscious apprehensionby the historian'. " What is more, I cannot grasp the logic that leadsAnkersmit to the conclusion that irony must be the trope of historical reality (meaning, in this instance,the actuality of the past itself). " Nevertheless,all of this definitely appearsto be part of Ankersmit's interpretation of Whites position and, as such, it provides an essentialinsight into his developing arguments which, resting very much on this and other curious misreadings/interpretationsof White's texts, will (as we shall see)lead Ankersmit himself to think that he "also" could accessthe real (the past "plain").

SectionTwo: LanguageRevisited

Twentieth-centuryphilosophy, Ankersmit observes in History and Tropology,was fascinatedby the phenomenonof language.Philosophers such as Russell,Carnap, Wittgenstein,Strawson et al., haddescribed the natureof languagein differentways yet, despitethe diversityof their argumentsand their inevitableconflicts of opinion,. thesephilosophers of languageappeared to sharea commonunderlying position; namelythat they all reasonedfrom the singularassumption that languageis for the of all knowledge and .... the principal condition possibility meaningful thinking, and that thereforean analysis of languageis of as much importance to the contemporary philosopher as an analysisof the categoriesof 19 understandingwas for Kant of the first Critique.

Furthermore, Ankersmit continued, it is precisely this comparisonwith Kant's Critique which gave rise to the notion that contemporaryphilosophy of language

17Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. pp82-83 is I find the repeatedconstruction `historical reality' confusing for reasonsalready explained.However, I do not think that there is any doubt that Ankersmit (in this instanceand in most caseselsewhere) is referring to the actuality of the past.Now, to attacha trope to the actuality of the pastsimply doesnot makesense, for a trope is a linguistic instrument.One can talk of the trope irony in connectionwith a here narrativeconstruct like history, or as a mastertrope governing historiography(construed as a body of propositionsabout the past, presentedin the form of stories)but it is meaninglessto attachthis linguistic instrumentto the chaos/contingencyof past eventsand situationswhich have no trope or story it form within them. The troped story form is a product of the enculturationof its own time and is its head to retrospectivelyimposed on the past- hence,it is a mistaketo turn this processon and presume discover that trope (and/or that story) in the past itself. 19Ankersmit. History and Trapology.pp 1-2 might bestbe seenas `a new andmore fruitful phasein thetranscendentalist programthat inauguratedtwo [earlier]by Kant' was centuries -'O

Ankersmit then drew attention to two interconnectedunderlying assumptionsupon which this new languagecentred phaseof philosophy, in part, rested.In the first place, a kind of reductionist methodology was uncritically adoptedor, to rephrase,it was thought that nothing essentialto the comprehensionof complex issueswould be lost when reducing such issuesto their constituentor componentparts. This theoretical position can be associatedwith Bertrand Russell and `logical atomism 21 a philosophical belief which originated in the early twentieth century but which had lost favour by the later decadesof it. However, although this belief was eventually thoroughly discredited,for Ankersmit the philosophy of languageremained `atomist as far as method [was] concerned'.Z2 Thus, it was taken to be self-evident within the contemporaryphilosophy of languagethat only the investigation of propositions (these being, of course,the professional concernof historians) and their constituent componentswould lead to the discovery of the overarching conditions governing truth and meaning.

Given the foregoing, I think that the secondof the two assumptionswill logically follow. For the adoption of the essentiallyatomist methodologyjust noted informed the philosophy of languagein such a mannerthat it could only remain blind to the possibility of narrative meaning carried at the level of the text viewed as a complex whole. Or, to put this anotherway, the complex whole was regardedas a "non- problem" from the point-of-view of a philosophy of languagewhich failed to register any philosophical "stumbling block" at this level. Accordingly, all problems

20Ibid. p2 21 Principal exponentsof 'logical atomism' were (in addition to Russell)Rudolf Carnapand a pupil (later a colleague)of Russell,Ludwig Wittgenstein.Central to 'logical atomism' was the notion that the "world" can beunproblematically explained with referenceto fundamentallogical facts, or atoms,which cannotbe broken down any further. 'Logical atomism' thus stoodin oppositionto 'logical holism' -a belief articulated aboutthe notion that the world operatesin sucha way that no part can be known without the whole being known first. (Both Russelland Wittgensteinwere eventuallyto rejectthe atomist theory). 22 Ankersmit. History and Tmpology,pp2-3 97 weretaken to be reducibleto thoseencountered in the analysisof singular propositionsand their constituentparts.

Thesetwo interrelatedassumptions - the validity of the reductionistmethod coupled with its logicalcounterpart, the non-problematicnature of the text viewedas a complexwhole - werethen, Ankersmit explained, transported out of the philosophy of language and superimposedonto the philosophy of history to the extent that in fifties history focus .... the andsixties, philosophy of preferredto on the elementsof the historicaltext, like singularstatements about historical states of affairs,statements expressing causal connections, ...... Thehistorical text as a wholewas rarely, 'if ever,the topic of philosophicalinvestigation. This is all the moreto beregretted since the fortunes of philosophyof historyself- evidentlylie with the historicaltext andnot its parts.Only a philosophyof history concentratingon the historicaltext asa wholecould contribute importantlyto contemporaryphilosophy of historyand go beyonda mere applicationof whathad already been discovered elsewhere. 23

This unsatisfactory state of affairs, Ankersmit believed, might well have been explained by the general reluctanceamongst philosophers of history to attach any significance to the distinction betweenhistorical research and historical writing -a distinction which, as I have already shown, was "pivotal" to Ankersmit's earlier theorisations.Historical researchis an essentiallyempirical/epistemological pursuit, the results of which are typically expressedin the form of verifiable individual statementsabout the past. However, historical writing is arguably of an aesthetic kind; an imaginative activity which cannot be subject to truth claims at the level of the text. Its product, the historical narrative, embodiesthe facts and individual statementsarising out of historical researchbut is underdeterminedby them (as was explained in Chapter One). Thus, in this sense,within historical writing there exists a certain autonomyof activity with regard to the use of the product of historical research,and it was precisely this crucial point that was missed by twentieth century philosophersof history who focusedon the philosophy of historical researchto the exclusion of the philosophy of historical writing. I offer this following quotation as a

23 Ibid. p3 98 perplexing(to me at least)endnote regarding Ankersmit's absolutely clear and fundamentallysound distinction between these two quitedifferent categories; In Narrative Logic I startedwith the traditional,but now almostuniversally condemned,distinction between historical research and historical writing. 24

It is Ankersmit'sown descriptionof the receptionof his distinctionbetween historicalresearch and historical writing which invitescomment. He saysthat it was almostuniversally condemned, but surelyAnkersmit's distinction, once articulated, becomesconspicuously self-evident and beyond condemnation.

However,leaving that matteraside, my primarypurpose here is to makeit clearthat the foregoing"in sum" constitutesthe well conceivedbackdrop against which Ankersmitoffered his very individualand, from my point-of-view,poorly conceived ongoingassessment of Whitestheoretical position.

SectionThree: Ambivalence: An Unlikely Story.

In the closing paragraphof ChapterTwo - and fleshed out a little in footnote6 of this Ankersmit's chapter (page 89) -I suggestedthat the evolving shapeand style of theorisations might be seento be driven by a kind of paranoiaevidenced through his all pervasive compulsion to detachand distancehis own work from that of the spectral Hayden White. It was, of course,Ankersmit's misfortune (one of timing) that he arrived on the field of historical theory only to find that it had alreadybeen comprehensively"staked-out" by White, whose earlier well establishedintervention in the field had been monumentalto the extent that there remainedlittle spacefor any further original "narrativist" influence on the fundamentalsof historical theory (as opposedto more technical matters).25 And indeed(as I have alreadyargued), in terms of substantial theory Ankersmit had little new to offer at that time: the work

24 Doma.nska. Encounters p73 25I recognisehere that White's essentiallypragmatic "staking-out" of the historical field did, of course, leavespace for a more detailedinvestigation of the linguistic and poeticelements constitutive of PalgraveMacmillan., historical narratives(see Munslow, A, (2007). Ncsrative and History, Basingstoke: and in particular the sectionon `Tense/time:Mimesis, order, duration and frequency'. pp51-59). 99 he was doing might best be seenas a re-working of, or supplementto, the existing narrativist position in historical theory. Ankersmit's narrative substancewas an innovative and useful device, of course,but my point here is that it was worked-up from Walsh within a wider sphereof understandingdeveloped, in particular, by Hayden White and Roland Barthes. It is therefore, for me at least, not surprising that Ankersmit's aspiration or quest for originality motivated him to move away from the "Whitean" position, but I am surprisedby the poverty of the argumentswhich he employed to establish that separation.The first of these argumentsconcerns the notion of a presumed ambivalencein White's use of literary theory, two separate instancesof which were cited by Ankersmit in History and Tropology.

In the first placeAnkersmit believed that Metahistorywould, for mostreaders, presentonly a singularpoint-of-view on its subjectmatter. Or, to rephrase,White might be seento offer only a theoryof historicalwriting in the propersense of the word. However,for AnkersmitMetahistory is book how historical be .... not primarily a about truth can attainedand tested, et but how should history books. It cetera .... about we read was part of White's enterpriseto readthe greattexts of the nineteenth-centuryhistorians as if they were novels something no theorist had ever done before.... [furthermore] historiography historical instead .. since answers of philosophical questions, it might seem that Metahistory had no bearing on the kind of topics discussedby philosophers of history. Nevertheless, Metahistory did also imply a theory of history in the traditional sense....the book is a theory on historical representation as much as one on how to proceed in historiography. It is true that the major thesesof this theory (one may think here of White's thoroughgoing relativism, his advocacy of a linguistic turn for historical theory, and the way he argued his views) pointed toward a new phase in the history of historical theory; but as such these theses undeniably fell within the scopeof what traditionally was. perceived as the task of philosophy of history. Hence, Metahistory was ambivalent in that it tended to render historiography more philosophical and philosophyof history morehistoriographical; the borderlinesbetween the two disciplineswere effectively blurred.26

This, the first of Ankersmit'sdemonstrations of ambivalencein White's work, is arguablyconfusing and unsatisfactory.The confusionmight be partly attributedto the manypeculiar statements within it. In the first place,I do not think that is Ankersmit. History and Tropology. pp7-8 100 Metahistory is `primarily a book about how historical truth can be attained and tested'. I would suggest, in fact, that it is exactly the opposite. Nor is it presented as a normative discourse on `how we should read history books'. Furthermore, I do not think that it was White's `enterprise' to read the great historical texts of the nineteenth century `as if they were novels'. To be sure, White exposed thefictive nature of the historical narrative; that is, he explained the manner in which meaning is imposed onto the data of the past through the imposition of a culturally specific imaginarystory form on it (the fictive process),but this is quite anothermatter.

Moreover,Ankersmit's notion that Metahistoryis constitutedas `a theoryon historical representationas much as one on how to proceedin historiography' ignoresa distinctionwhich White frequentlymakes. This following quotefrom an interview with Ewa D omahskacan stand in for all of thoseoccasions: "I love Metahistory.I its to ....when people say to me, am applying principles my own work", I say,"It's not meantto be applied.It's analytical.It doesnot tell you how to do something!" Psychologistswrite to me andsay that they use the theoryof tropeswhich I developedto treattheir patients.So they will talk aboutthe metaphoricmind or consciousness,or metonymic;and I say,"That's beingvery literal-minded,I only usedthe conceptof the tropesmetaphorically. It's not supposedto betaken literally". 27

Hence,Metahistory does not (andwas never intended to) indicate`how to proceed in historiography'.And the restof Ankersmit'sabove extract, his first (so-called) exampleof White's ambivalence,can also be readilydismissed because it is immediately apparentthat Ankersmit has missed somethingfundamental to White's thesis. White explains the matter thus: history history. So in the sameway that I ... every presupposesa philosophy of seem to collapsethe distinction between fact and fiction, so too the distinction between history and the philosophy of history.28

27DomaIiska, E., (1993). `The HumanFace of a Scientific Mind. An Interview with HaydenWhite' in Storia delta Storiografia 24 no. 2: pp5-21 28White, H., (1997). `Facts,Fictions, and Metahistory: A Discussionwith HaydenWhite by Richard J. Murphy ' in Revued'etudes Anglophones no. 2: pp 13-30 101 Nevertheless,Ankersmit set-up an imaginary opposition between(what he construed as) the separate disciplines of, on the one hand history and, on the other, the philosophy of history, and in so doing found his ambivalence in what is a single entity. To sum up this particular issue,Ankersmit's interpretation of White's position standsin contradiction to White's clearly stated view, which is that history presupposesa philosophy of history without which the writing of that history could not take place. A philosophy of history is, then, an integral part of history itself and there are no boundariesto blur. There is no ambivalencehere.

Ankersmit then turned (for his secondexample of ambivalence)to the role of the tropes in the writing of history; here he identified within White's conceptualtheory or tropics what he called a more interesting and important ambivalence.According to Metahistory (Ankersmit observed) historical writing is always informed by one of the four tropes - metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche,or irony and the acceptanceof this tropological position of White's implied `a rapprochement29 between history and literature [because] the use of figurative language is what both have in common'. 30White's Metahistory, then, challengedhistorians to think of historiography not as a science.but as a form of literature and; thus conceived, history would becomethe subject of forms of literary rather than scientc analysis. It was from this exchangebetween scienceand literature that Ankersmit's second idiosyncratic example of ambivalence was to emergeas encapsulatedin the following complicated extract: Metahistory historical into literature..... [however] transformed writing ..... on the other hand, we should recall that Max Black already recognized the significance of metaphor for the sciences; and Mary Hesseeven went so far as to assert that concept-formation in the sciences is essentially metaphorical. In other words, when focusing on tropology White happened to single out precisely that aspect of historical writing which one, for good reasons,could say is shared by literature and the sciences.This, then, is the in White's theory Surely Metahistory inaugurated the ambivalence .... swing of historical theory toward literature, yet it managedto do so in such a . way as not to preclude a scientistic interpretation of historical writing. One might object, at this stage, that the ambivalence is merely apparent. That is

29Ankersmit, of course,uses the word `rapprochement' hereto suggesta return to the style of history which pre-dated its nineteenthcentury professionalisation. 30Ankersmit. History cad Tropology, p8 102 to say,arguments like thoseof Black and Hesseshould not be interpretedas an indication of the scientismof metaphor(and, hence, of White's tropology) but rather as an indication that philosophersof scienceare now preparedto recognize"literary" elementseven in the sciences.What we seein the argumentsof Black, Hesse,and White is, it might be said,an un- equivocalagreement to move awayfrom scienceand toward literature.Cer- tainly this objectionmakes sense. However, in reply to this objection,I now want to point out that in White's own view tropology doesnot necessarily meana radicalbreak with scienceand scientistic cognitive ideals and, moreover,that an independentargument can be conceivedto show that 31 tropology evenlies at the heartof thesescientistic cognitive ideals.

At the risk of soundingpedantic I must first commenton the openingstatement of this extract.Surely, it must be the casethat it is not literally historicalwriting that is beingtransformed; historical writing is, afterall, written down in the form of marks which remainconstant. Rather, it is in the "grasp"of the intrinsic natureof historicalwriting thatthe transformationtakes place: no doubtAnkersmit's sometimepuzzling style of expressionleads to muchconfusion and misunderstanding.

Turning now to the theoretical positions of Max Black and Mary Hessewhich (I believe) can be taken together for the purposesof this argument, I need here to simply refer back to my relevant explanation and conclusion under `The Illusion of Proof (laid out Section Two, Chapter Two). To briefly restate, I take the view that all disciplines are of a rhetorical kind. That is to say,that all so-called "knowledge" of the world (the human world) is contained within the metaphorsthat we humans in language.And use to describe it - knowledge is constituted meaning, as we humansconstrue it, is not a property of the world but rather an effect causedby the in to the language- the metaphors- which we impose on the world order endow world (not least for our own psychological needs)with a semblanceof familiarity. It follows then that Ankersmit's statement,`when focusing on tropology White happened to single out precisely that aspect of historical writing which one, for good reasons,could say is shared by literature and the sciences', reveals nothing new, for both literature and the sciences are of a rhetorical kind. Therefore, it

31Ibid. p9 103 seemsto me that right at the outsetAnkersmit's secondexample of ambivalence, which presupposesa rhetoric/sciencedistinction, is erasedwith the collapseof that very distinction.

Now, I wantto makeit clearthat for me this argumentis closedat this point, and I would prefer to let the matterrest here.However, for Ankersmit(who maintains `this, is Metahistory that then, the ambivalencein White's theory .... surely inaugurated the swing of historical theory toward literature, yet it managedto do so in such a way as not to preclude a scientistic interpretation of historical writing') the argument clearly continues, and this argument of Ankersmit's should be examined becauseburied within it are certain conclusions/ideas which are central to his developing theoretical position (and thus my thesis on it).

So, to continuewith my critique of the argumentas laid out in the aboveextract, Ankersmit momentarilyconcedes that `onemight object,at this stage,that the ambivalenceis merelyapparent' (thus suggestinga slight shift towardsmy point-of-view) andthat `Black and Hesseshould not be interpretedas an indication of the scientismof metaphor(and, hence,of White's tropology) but indication preparedto ratheras an .... that philosophersof scienceare now recognize`literary' elementseven in the sciences'.However, Ankersmit immediatelynegates this interpretationbecause he believesthat he can demonstratethat `in White's own view tropologydoes not necessarilymean a radical breakwith scienceand scientistic cognitive ideals and, moreover, that an independentargument can be conceivedto showthat tropologyeven lies at the heartof thesescientistic cognitive ideals'.

To again offer a brief summary.It seemsto me that Ankersmitis arguingthat White's thesis(in oppositionto the Black/Hessetheses) implies `the scientismof metaphorand, hence, of tropology', andthat linked to this is the (not exactly parallel) attendantnotion that White's theory of tropologyreveals the wholly literary natureof the historicalnarrative without implying a breakwith `science 104 and scientisticcognitive ideals'. Furthermore,Ankersmit believesthat this interpretationof White's position can be shownto be implicitly embodiedwithin White's texts. In orderto demonstratethis Ankersmitnow puts togetheryet anothercomplex andconvoluted argument.

Metahistory, Ankersmit first explains, carries the implicit notion that `historical insight and meaning are only possible thanks to the tropes'. 32(If Ankersmit has in mind here narrative insight and meaning as tropologically constituted within narrative construct called history, and I believe that he does, then I would say `yes, exactly so'). However, he continues, it follows that howthe discipline history is .... preciselytropology can showus of truly part of the Western,Faustian effort to conquercognitively the physicaland the historical world we live in. In oneword, tropology is for history what logic and scientific methodare for the sciences.3

Now, there is nothing at all in this extract that makes much senseto me, and in order to explain what I mean I want to comment on the various notions/ propositions contained in it.

" In the first place history has no status with regard to definitive knowledge about the actual past and, therefore, cannot add anything to worldly knowledge about it. This is not to say that individual statements within a historical narrative cannot, by consensuswithin the discipline etc., be taken to be true. But, of course, individual statements "in the raw" (prior to their organisation into narrative form) do not constitute a history. his laid in Ankersmit knows all this - it is, after all, central to thesis as out Narrative Logic.

" Taking the next point, tropology is the processby which `all discourse constitutesthe objectswhich it pretendsonly to describerealistically and to analyseobjectively' 34. Tropes generate figures in speechor thoughtand they do so by their deviations,or "swerves",from the normal or the

32Ibid. p9 33Ibid. p 10 34 White. Tropics of Discourse. p2 105 predictable.Consequently there is no prior logic or convention determiningthe mannerin which tropesmight function andI therefore havedifficulty with the notion that tropology, seenas a processin itself or as afigure of swerve,might directly or literally indicatehow oneentity can be `truly' part of another.

" Furthermore, the world itself cannot be historical. Historical means pertaining to history and a history can never aspire to being anything more than just one of a group of ultimately unverifiable competing propositions (of an aesthetic kind) about how some aspect of the past might have been. Histories are retrospectively worked-up accounts,generally in written form; the past isn't. Hence, the use of the adjective `historical' to describe the world as it presents itself to us constitutes a category blunder (since history - as fictive narratives etc. - and the world are ontologically different) and, thus, makes no logical senseat all.

" Finally (in the last sentence of the extract), Ankersmit appears to be working-up some unjustifiable comparison between two quite different relationships. The first of these two relationships (between tropology and history) operates internally. That is to say that tropology is a conceptual strategy which resides and functions from within the historical narrative and, depending on its governing mode of operation, endows that narrative with a particular meaning. Thus, tropology as an enabling device has the capacity to generate an apparently endless variety of different narrative meanings out of a single set of data. But, the relation of logic and method to the sciences appears to be of a quite different kind. Science is a structure which is constituted in, and thus determined in relation to, its language of description. There is, then, a certain "fixity" to science, albeit of a temporary (relative) nature. Logic and scientific method necessarily inhabit that same language of description and, together, they may be applied to the structure of science, or some aspect of it, to produce (unlike history) repeatable results. Such results would add to the collective knowledge of the world, bearing in mind that knowledge of the world is

106 always in relation to its overarchinglanguage of description.To briefly restate,the former internal relationshipis multifariouswith regardto its datawhich can be variously construed.Whilst, by contrast, the latter relationship,which refersto an external submissionto a fixed structure, movestowards a "knowledge" relative to a specificframework of language.Thus, Ankersmit's conviction that thesetwo relationshipsmay havea commonground for comparisonseems to collapse.

Now, my immediate purpose in the working through of certain Ankersmitean confusions in some detail is to illustrate a general observation with regard to Ankersmit's own arguments. That is, many of them (all the above being examples) are problematic becausethey are handicapped by a lack of internal coherence which arises out of contradictions, category errors, misrepresentations, misunderstandings, and so on. In the particular instances critiqued above, Ankersmit was attempting to establish a foundation for his own position based on flawed assumptions/propositions on which his subsequentargument was to be built. And the general observation to be noted here is that the bulk of Ankersmit's supporting arguments, certainly to this point in my thesis, can equally be shown to be informed and argued on the basis of unworkable positions. However, it should be quickly pointed out that Ankersmit's philosophical perspective, however argued, cannot be assumed to preclude the validity of his own theoretical conclusions. His conclusions as "ends", which stand apart from his philosophy as "means", must be assessedon a pragmatic derivation. But basis - that of their usefulness rather than their mode of the question that neverthelessremains is `why did Ankersmit bother with proofs at all when, arguably, they cannot ever reach closure?'

Returningnow to the argumentat hand which,to recall, concernsAnkersmit's two putative instancesof ambivalence35in White's useof literary theory (the

33Both of these `instances' have already been rejected by me but, as I have pointed out, I will follow his secondargument through becausewithin it can be identified the development of other 107 second of which is under consideration here). Ankersmit, then, is suggesting that White initiates `the swing of historical theory towards literature' but does so in such a way as `not to preclude a scientistic interpretation of historical writing', the latter of these two consideration being seen by Ankersmit as the `scientism of metaphor' and thus the `scientism of White's tropology'. Moreover, Ankersmit maintains that it can be demonstratedthat White's theory of tropology, in White's own view, `does not constitute a break with the scientistic and cognitive ideals of science' and that tropology in a scientised form `lies at the heart of these scientistic cognitive ideals'.

Believing to haveestablished these contentious points, Ankersmit then brought JeanPiaget into the picture in orderto substantiatehis claim that White himself can be shownto supporta scientisticinterpretation of Metahistoryand of metaphor.Piaget is mentionedby White in his Introductionto Tropicsof Discourseand the significanceof his appearanceneeds some clarification. White's argumentis, in fact, very clearon this matter; its centralpurpose being to establish sufficient reason for treating the theory of tropology (more precisely the fourfold pattern of the tropes) as a model of discourse and of consciousness in general. It was in the writings of three radically different thinkers working in different disciplines (along - Piaget, Freud and E. P. Thompson with others, but these found three were the primary exemplars) - that White theoretical structures analogous to the structure of the tropes as described within his own theory of tropology. These cross-discipline structural similarities were highlighted by White becausethey were suggestive of a certain (generally unnoticed) ubiquity with regard to the tropological model itself. Now, the point that must be made here is that White was not adopting or appropriating Piaget's theoretical work (which concerned the successivestages in the cognitive development of the child) in order to incorporate it, somehow, into his own work.

problematic assumptionswhich I will show, in due course, are to be used by Ankersmit to effect both his separation from White and his departure. from Kantian philosophy.

108 He wassimply using Piaget'sstriking conclusionsalong with the equallystriking conclusionsof other theoristsworking in different fields of study to demonstrate the generalrecurrence or reinventionof the structuralform of the tropological model, andthus (this is the "key" to White's argument)reveal the archetypal natureof the fourfold pattern of tropes.

However, Ankersmit took a very different view from this and concluded that White's theoretical position was actually informed by Piaget. Or, to rephrase,that White's adoption of Piaget's theoretical position can be cited as another proof of White's multiple ambivalences, and his scientism of metaphor and thus tropology. This is how Ankersmitexplained his position on the matter: White is even quite specific about how the common ground between history and the sciences has to be defined. He thus hazards the suggestion that each of the four tropes correspondsto one of the four stages that Piaget discovered in the cognitive development of the child. And as this cognitive development is conditional for the possibility of doing scientific research, so the tropes are conditional for the possibility of historical meaning and insight. What is of special interest in this suggestion is the following. As is well known Piaget's description of the cognitive development of, the child is in many ways similar to and to some extent even inspired by. Kant's transcendental analysis of the human mind, as expounded in his first Critique. I am convinced that the link between tropology and Kantian transcendentalism that is thus hinted at should be taken quite seriously. Indeed, this seemsto be in conformity with White's own explicit intentions: he incidentally compares his own tropology with the Kantian enterprise (t6)[1Wc«smic'sietermcel be [thus] justified in ...... we would attributing to White the wish to develop a quasi-Kantian critique of historical knowledge and to closely associate his own theory of history with that impressive culmination point of Western scientistic thought. Apart from the literalisation of historical writing Metahistory is no less an endeavour to provide us with a quasi-Kantian, epistemological investigation of the cognitive foundations that support historical representation and meaning. This then is the ambivalence in tropology that no reader of White's earlier work can afford to ignore. 36

However,on my fundamentallydifferent readingof White's Introductionto Tropicsof Discourse,as alreadyargued above, Piaget is incidentalto White's theory in the sensethat he could be replacedwithout compromiseto it.

36 Ankersmit. History and Tropology. pp10-11 109 Nevertheless, Ankersmit (on the basis of his own radically different interpretation of that same text) contrived a link between Piaget's description of the cognitive development of the child and scientific research which he then further linked meaning to historical and insight only to then link the whole matter to Kant's transcendental analysis of the human mind, finally concluding that there is an implicit link between Kantian transcendentalismand tropology. Ankersmit went even further when he stated that White actually `compares his own tropology with the Kantian enterprise'- witness Ankersmit's own reference(' in the above extract which refers to the following extract from White's Tropics of Discourse: The essaysin this bookall, in oneway or another,examine the problem of the relationshipsamong description, analysis, and ethics in the humansciences. It will be immediatelyapparent that this divisionof the humanfaculties is Kantian. I will not apologizefor this Kantian element in my thought, [for] I do not think that modem psychology, anthropology, or philosophy has improved upon it. Moreover, when it is a matter of speakingabout human consciousness, we have no absolutetheory to guide us; everything is under contention. It therefore becomesa matter of choice as to which model we should use to mark out, and constitute entries into, the problem of consciousnessin general. Such choices should be self-consciousrather than unconsciousones, and they should be made with a full understandingof the kind of human nature to the constitution of which they will contribute if they are taken as valid. 37

This statement by White seems absolutely clear. He was simply noting that the particular `division of the human faculties' adopted within his own theory is Kantian because,when `everything is under contention', the Kantian model is best for his purposes. This is a pragmatic choice of model and not, as Ankersmit insisted, an indication of a purposeful and total alignment with Kant: Thus, Ankersmit's claim that White was resolutely `developing a quasi-Kantian critique of historical knowledge' for the express purpose of `closely associating his own theory with that impressive culmination point of Western scientistic - thought' is unfounded if this is all that there is to go on and, as far as I can see from my readings of both Ankersmit and White, there is nothing else. It must then follow that Ankersmit's interpretation of Metahistory as `an endeavour to

37 White. Tropicsof Discourse.pp22-23 110 provide us with a quasi-Kantian, epistemological investigation of the cognitive foundations that support historical representation and meaning' (on which Ankersmit's ambivalence charge partly rests) is equally unfounded. I have, of course, already rejected the ambivalence argument on two previous counts and it now seemsto have fallen to a third - it is thrice discredited.

So what exactly was going on in all of this? Well, my suggestion is that Ankersmit, in the furtherance of his venture (his new "goal"), was working-up some foundation (flawed though it was) from which he could execute two tactical moves in the progress of his own thesis. First of all he wanted to rid himself of Kantianism (this move will be more fully investigated below) and in doing so he would effect his second move (also to be further investigated), namely, to achieve a clear separation between himself and White who (as Ankersmit saw it) would then remain trapped in `that well-ordered house of Kantian transcendentalism'. 38

Accordingly, Ankersmit's overall "design" (if I dare look at it in this way), seen in the round, rests on the progress of two arguments; first, that of White's multiple ambivalences which putatively linked him closely with Kant (explored and dismissed above) and, second, as we shall now see, that of the so-called `disappearanceof the tropes' from The Content of the Form (and all White's subsequentpublications) and to which I turn now.

SectionFour: The Caseof the VanishingTropes

Ankersmit confrontedhis readerswith a curiousobservation - or so it seemsat first sight - whenhe drew attentionto theprofound difference betweenWhite's earlier work andthe essaysthat havebeen in TheContent Form(1987) White does collected of the ...... not explicatethis differencehimself, but his apparentchange of mind is no less importantfor that.No readerof TheContent of theForm canfail to be struck

38Ankersmit. History and Tropology. p 17 111 by fact the thatthe tropesare all but absentfrom it. A clueto White'schange of mind can be foundin [etc.] 3.(my ...... emphasis). I deal vanishing will with the tropes in a moment but, before doing so, I am going to make an observation of my own. For throughout his works Ankersmit repeatedly uses a particular kind of argumentative strategy the effect of which is to seduce his readers into an unquestioned acceptanceof a wholly unjustified assumption. The above extract contains a very good example of his technique and it will be seen that for clarity I have emphasisedthe operative words.

This is the way it works. Ankersmit opens with a statement which, at least on the surface of things, might not seem unreasonable.The opening statement in this particular case refers to'an àpparentdifference' to be found in White's ongoing use of the tropes (that is, unlike White's earlier work the tropes appear to be all but absent from The Content of the Form and White's subsequentpublications). A few words later Ankersmit refers to White's àpparentchange of mind' with regard to the tropes - thus Ankersmit, building on his first statement and without presenting any supporting evidence whatsoever, is now suggesting that White has apparently turned away from his central interest in tropology. And then, a sentence later, Ankersmit drops the word àpparent' and refers to `White's change of mind', thus elevating the status of a presumed apparent change to what is now (for Ankersmit) the unequivocalfact that White has changed. Accordingly, it is the certainty of White's "turn" from tropology that is now insinuated into Ankersmit's own discourse as a concrete matter of fact; a contentious fact which escapesscrutiny to become a foundational presupposition to Ankersmit's briefly. continuing argument - which I shall now outline very

Convincedof White's turn from the tropes,and apparentlyin pursuit of his own design,Ankersmit proceededto demonstratethe closerelationship between `Kantiantranscendentalism on the onehand andWhite's tropologyon the other'40and, rather than taking tropology in the whole, he decidedthat he would

39 Ibid. p 13 40 Ibid. p 11 112 `restrict [his] expositionto metaphor41 which he said canadequately stand in for the whole. Ankersmit next observedthat metaphorcan be shownto be in fundamental inspiration Kantian ... agreementwith the main of transcendentalism- and this is why metaphoris a continuationof scientistic cognitive ideals,rather than being in oppositionto them.42 This statementis supportedby two observations.First, that Kantian transcendentalismand metaphor function in a similar way (in the sensethat they both enablethe organisationof knowledge)and second,that they both appropriateand then familiarise somepreviously strange or unfamiliar aspectof the world. By linking thesetwo similarities of function together,Ankersmit (by his interpretationand not mine) demonstratedthe `scientismof metaphor'and by extension`tropology' (for, as I havealready pointed out, Ankersmit's argument is predicatedon the assumptionthat metaphorcan adequatelystand in for tropology). Hence,for Ankersmit, metaphorand Kantian transcendentalismare read necessarilyinextricably linked andthis enableshim to into White's presumedrejection of tropology a logically entailed(but in White's case unrealised)rejection of Kantian transcendentalism.This is evidentin Ankersmit's assertionthat White favourably the historical with the beautiful (and ... contrasts sublime with tropology)... [and that] this is self evidently a move against Kantian transcendentalism for tropology.... [but] within.... not against -.... the sublime still has its logical place within the schematism of the Kantian system.43

Thus, Ankersmit is claiming here that White made his move against tropology but that he then failed to consolidate/endorse it becausehe failed to reject Kantian transcendentalism along with it. As far as I can make out this is, in skeletal form, Ankersmit's essential (for my particular purpose here) line of argument which putatively provided him with his confirmation of White's turn from tropology (linked by Ankersmit with a move to the sublime, discussed below on pagesl 15-118). But, and this is important to Ankersmit, this turn was seen to be accommodatedwithin the "architecture" of Kantian transcendentalism

41 Ibid. p11 42Ibid. p 11 43 Ibid. p16 113 andtherefore does not constituteWhite's escapefrom it. On the basisof this position Ankersmit can now declarehis own new directionof enquiry as follows;

I want to pursue the path suggestedby White's transition from the kind of views that were presented in Metahistory to those we may find in his Content of the Form. That is to say, following White, I want to explore the possibilities and the nature of a form of historical writing that breaks with the Kantian, Enlightened tradition that always strove for a domestication or appropriation of the past. However, in contrast to White [my emphasis], I shall try to do so by attempting to effectively break the spell of Kantian, transcendentalist patterns of argument. My motivation for looking for an anti- or a-Kantian argumentation will be obvious: in the foregoing, we have seen that the intellectual function of both transcendentalismand of metaphor has always been to effect an appropriation of the relevant parts of reality. Hence, the avoidance of appropriation in our approach to reality can only have a chance of success to the extent that we know how to resist the temptations of transcendentalism and of metaphor.

Now this time I am not going to dismember the finer points of Ankersmit's argument as laid out above (even though statements like `metaphor is a continuation of scientistic cognitive ideals' offer compelling reasonsto do so). Instead I want to reveal the underlying persuasive drift within it. Ankersmit, in the first two sentencesof this extract, indicates that up to this stage in his argument he had been `following' White. But - and this is the point that needs underlining -from this point on, by resisting the temptations of Kantian transcendentalism and of metaphor, Ankersmit believed that he could move ahead of White whose own progress was impeded by his continued entanglement with Kantian idealism. An argument like this makes good reading, but on brief reflection it immediately fails. For, broadly speaking, I take the view that very little common ground has existed between the theoretical positions of Ankersmit and White since Ankersmit's earlier development of his notion of the narrative substance; therefore the idea that Ankersmit was actually following White remains unconvincing. Furthermore, Ankersmit's earlier contention that White favoured the sublime over and above tropology, thus instigating his `move against tropology', lacks credibility. Add to this Ankersmit's conviction that White actually sought a non-Kantian form of historical writing and then, for me,

Ibid. ppl7-18 114 Ankersmit's whole argumentis reducedto an incoherentdistraction. For this reasonI think that it is the presuppositionupon which Ankersmit's argument reststhat now requirescloser attention, and this observationbrings me right backto the beginningof this sectionand the matterof the vanishingtropes. If this presuppositionwere to be "unseated"- if it can be shownthat White never abandonedtropes then Ankersmit's argumentwould collapse. . - subsequent

White's (alleged) change of mind with regard to the primacy of the tropes (his `turn from the tropes' which, we are informed by Ankersmit, is demonstratedby their virtual disappearancefrom The Content of the Form and White's subsequent writings) is also taken by Ankersmit, and this cannot be ignored, to be concurrent with `Whites turn to the sublime'45(as noted on page 113). Ankersmit is even more precise than this when he refers to `..: the later Hayden White who shows us the past under the aegis of the sublime (as in The Content of the Form)i46. Thus, White's supposed `turn from the tropes' and his equally supposed `turn to the sublime' are for Ankersmit closely associated movements.

Now, the `turn from' elementof this so-calledchange of mind is easyto dismiss, particularly when understoodin relation to a morerecent publication of Ankersmit's in which he actually pointed out that in his later White frequently relies on prefiguration (and .... work, more cognate concepts) than on the tropes. The title of his last collection of .essays was Figural Realism, suggesting that the notion offigura may help us understand how we conceive of historical reality and in what way figura 47 is conditional of our understanding of it.

For it is evident from this extract that Ankersmit makes a category distinction between `prefiguration (the primary stage of figuration in White's tropological theory) and figura' on the one hand, and `the tropes' on the other. But (and how could Ankersmit possibly forget this?), prefiguration is a tropological act - it is dispel a conspicuous instance of tropology in motion. And to finally any

45Domaüska. Encounters p83 46 Ibid. p83 47Ankersmit, F. R., (2009). `White's `Neo-Kantianism': Aesthetics,Ethics and Politics' in Ankersmit, F., Domanska,E., Kellner, H., (eds.) ReFiguring Hayden White. Stanford:Stanford University Press.p27 115 possibledoubt aboutthis, hereis what White hasto say in The Contentof the Form (that samepublication from which, ironically, Ankersmit found his contrarynotion): If there is any logic presiding over the transition from the level of the fact or event in the discourseto that of the narrative,it is the logic of figuration itself, which is to say,tropology. 48

The claimed non-tropological status of Figura, which arises out of another of Ankersmit's misunderstandings, can also be easily discarded. Figura is essentially a concept of fulfilment and it is erroneously described by Ankersmit as follows; fgura is historical phenomena(separated from .... meantto tie togethertwo eachother by sometimesthousands of years)on the basisof a certain structuralsimilarity...... [where] the secondcan be seenas a fulfilment of the first..... this way of dealing with historical eventsand our understanding of them is riddled with nasty problems.First, what is to count as a pair of structurally similar events...... Second, the figuralist approachreduces the scopeof historiansto only thoseevents that happento havea believable twin in the past.....Lastly, the approachfocuses on two eventsin the past itself, bypassingthe dimensionof languageand historical meaning.49

One can immediately see here that, for Ankersmit's, the notion offigura has something to do with the past itself. That is to say that Ankersmit is looking for his `believable twins' in the past. However, White is quite clear thatfigura as a figure of fulfilment its light back in .... casts - retrospectivelyand, the narrativeaccount retroactively- on the earlier figurationsof the characterof processbeing related....It can only meanthat the historianhas treated his enfigurationof a given setof eventsas an "end-as-fulfilment" which permits him to "recognise" in earlier eventsin the sequencedim andimperfect anticipationsof "what will havebeen the case" later on. The meaning- effect of the narrative accountof the sequenceis producedby the technique of relating eventsin order of their occurrencebut construingthem as "clues" of the plot-structurewhich will be revealedonly at the end of the 5° narrative in the enfigurationof eventsas fulfilment.

48 White. The Contentof the Form. p47 49Ankersmit. `White's Neo-Kantianism:Aesthetics, Ethics andPolitics'. p39 30This extract is taken from White's, H., (1999). 'H'istory as Fulfilment: Keynote Address' (unpublished copy paperdelivered at TulaneUniversity on 12/11/99and provided by Keith Jenkins). 116 Thus,for White,figura is a retrospectiveconfiguration of a sequenceof actions andthe outcomeof thoseactions, such that the outcomecan be seenas a fulfilment of the inauguralaction. Figura, then, is a projection (of figuration) onto the past andnot somethingthat can-befound in the past itself. Moreover,as an act of figuration figura is fundamentallytropological. It is, therefore, difficult to understandhow Ankersmit could fail to grasp(and thus misconstrue) White's clear explanationof the notion offigura, particularlysince there are at least threeconsistent accounts of it (that I havecome across) from threes' separatesources, one of which is in Figural Realism,cited aboveby Ankersmit. Moreover,White hashimself rejected(in correspondencewith me) the idea that he has moved away from his commitment to the tropes.sz

This completesmy investigationand dismissal-of Ankersmit's conviction that with the publication of The Contentof the Form White actuallyturned from the tropes.With this dismissalAnkersmit's dependantargument, outlined at the beginningof this section,is thus "unseated".

Next, I proposeto tackle the relatednotion that White executedan associated turn to the sublimeor, rather, a turn to Ankersmit's distinctly individual understandingof the sublime. The following excursioninto this matterwill also mark the end of my closereading of Ankersmit's texts. For it is now my intention to extricatemyself from what hasbecome a detailed(but nevertheless, indispensable)approach to Ankersmit's convoluted,developing argument. With this fresh approachAnkersmit's overall position might, I hope,be viewed from a more comfortableand perhapsmore advantageousdistance as I move towards my centralargument. Here then, with a double senseof closure,I offer my own resolutionto what canonly really be describedas the jumble andconfusion

H., 31My three sourcesare Hayden White's `History as Fulfilment: Keynote Address' cited above,White. WEBDu Bois (2005) `Cosmos,Chaos and Sequencein Historiological Representation'.Distinguished Lectures. 142: pp36-53and White. H., (1999),Figural Realism:Studies in the Mimesis Effect. Baltimore. JohnsHopkins University Press.pp89-90 52See footnote 60 of this chapter. 117 surroundingAnkersmit's claim in relation to White's putative `turn to the sublime'.

The conceptof the sublimehas beenthe subjectof centuriesof debateamongst philosophers,writers andartists. However,for my purpose,vis-4-vis Ankersmit's 'Journey' to sublime historical experience,I will concernmyself only with Romantic and postmodernnotions of it. Philip Shawhas usefully establisheda distinction betweenthese two different notionsof the sublime which he expressedthus:

If the aim of Romanticismis somehowto incorporatethe 'sensesublime', postmodernism,by way of contrast,seeks to retain a senseof the sublime as other, a 'something' that can neverbe 'interfused' through the useof metaphors,symbols or verbal connectives.53

The postmodernsomething or sublimething to which Shawrefers is un- presentableto the mind andbeyond apprehension in language(or ineffable). It thus resistsall attemptsat its appropriationand it is preciselythis conceptof the sublime which is evident in all of HaydenWhite's writings from the 1960's on.54 It hasalways beenhis position that following the nineteenthcentury disciplinisation of history, the undesirableconsequence of which wasthe suppressionof this notion of the sublime,we now history that discontinuity than .... requirea will educateus to more ever before; for discontinuity, disruptionand chaos is our lot.55

Undoubtedly,White was contemplatinga style of history which would explicitly recognise'our lot' as a chaoticand disruptive discontinuityunder the aegisof an incomprehensiblesublime. Thus White pondersthe possibility of history that its resistanceto the bourgeois .... a conception of would signal ideology of realism by its refusal to attempt a narrativist mode for the its truth [and the that this refusal might representation of .... possibility

53Shaw, P., (2005). TheSublime. London: Routledge.p9 54 Here I turn for supportto HermanPaul who categoricallystates that, White's understandingof the world as a sublime(that is, chaotic and meaningless)reality alreadyunderlay his criticism of political ideologiesin the 1960's' (Korhonen,K., (ed) (2006)Tropes for the Past: Hayden Whiteand the History/Literature Debate. New York: Rodopi.p40). 55 White, H., (1966). 'The Burdenof History' in History and Theory5 no. 2:p134 (Later to become ChapterOne of White's Tropics of Discourse). 118 signal] a recoveryof the historical sublimethat bourgeois historiography repressedin the processof its disciplinisation.s6

Now, there are two points which should be made here. In the first place White was just contemplating, as an imaginative exercise, the plausibility of a history which refused the narrative mode (refused the domestication of discontinuity and chaos) for the representation of its "truths". This, I think, can be read as a rhetorical proposition. And, in the second place, the historical sublime to which White referred is the postmodern notion of it (that is the incomprehensible, non- ontologizable, chaotic totality of the actuality of the past which escapes all attemptsat its apprehensionor appropriation).This secondpoint is of crucial importancebecause, as I will now show,it can be seento be at variancewith what I believeto be Ankersmit's Romantic,`incorporated' (as construedby Shaw), conceptof the sublime.

Turning now to Ankersmit who, not exactly grasping White's position, maintained that the nineteenth century disciplinisation of historical writing (on White's view as Ankersmit interpreted it) involved the stripping of the past from everything that would not fit the `tropological explanatory patterns..... devised for making senseof sociohistorical reality'. 57But, Ankersmit continues, there is no choice on that particular issue, for is it not the casethat figurative language in the task of .... metaphor and are our ultima ratio transforming the unfamiliar into the familiar [?]. However, it is precisely this category of the sublime that reminds us that the tropological appropriation of the past is not the only option that is open to the historian: leaves historian representation- and even historical representation- the the possibility of presenting the terrifying strangenessand sublimity of the past to his readers....[however].... I will not enter into a discussion of the plausibility of White's view that the disciplinisation of historical writing mainly consisted in an exchange of the sublime for the beautiful in historical 5. representation....

This extract is puzzling becausethe individual statementswithin it fail to cohere into any sort of comprehensibleargument. For instance,the `tropological

56 White. The Contentof the Fam. p81 37 AnkerSmit. History and 71ropology p16 38 Ibid. p16 119 appropriationof the past' and `historicalrepresentation' are construedby Ankersmit, on this occasion,to be of different kinds - his argumentis thus in conspicuouscontradiction to the centraltenets of his own, earlier theorisations. Moreover,I cannotfind anything in White's works which might confirm Ankersmit's contentionthat in White's view the disciplinisationof historical writing mainly consistedin `an exchangeof the sublimefor the beautiful in historical representation'.Ankersmit both declinedto enterinto discussionon the matterand he also failed to referencehis statement.There is, however,a clue in his argument,for it is evidentthat Ankersmit seesthe sublimeas an entity already (in a sense)resident in historical writing prior to its disciplinisation - otherwise its exchangefor the beautiful could not take place.Moreover, the notion of exchangepresupposes or suggestsa certaincomparison of orderbetween the sublimeand the beautiful. Accordingly, thesepoints takentogether, I think that what Ankersmit's has in mind is a quasi-Romantic`incorporated' notion of the 59 sublime-a sublimewhich submitsto appropriation- which isn't ineffable!

On this understanding some small sensecan now be made of Ankersmit's mistaken conviction that White turned to and somehow grasped the sublime. Ankersmit's argument is grounded on what he seesas a distinction between the theoretical position adopted by White in both Metahistory and Tropics of Discourse, and that adopted in all of White's subsequentpublications. Within these later publications, commencing with The Content of the Form, Ankersmit (who seemedto be unaware that White's sublime was and always had been an unfathomable sublime of Shaw's postmodern kind) imagined that he had found in White's writings a sublime of the accessible kind (his own Romantic kind) which embodied the facility to replace or exchange itself with tropology. Furthermore, Ankersmit interpreted White's supposedsublime "turn" (his disavowal of the tropes) as a remedy forced on him through the recognition of two insurmountable difficulties with tropology: (1) that the traces/archival evidence of any event in

59 Further supportfor this argumentmight be found in considerationof the title of Ankersmit's recent publication SublimeHistorical Experien e. For, in order to be experiencedAnkersmit's sublime must. submit to a form of order suchthat it may be consciouslyapprehended as experience.By contrast, White's sublime is chaotic and meaninglessand thereforedefies any form of apprehension:is non- ontologizable 120 the past may be tropologically encodedinto manydifferent yet equallyvalid narrativeversions of that event(Ankersmit construedthis as a fault with tropology) and (2) that the theoreticaloptionality of the tropesappeared to be negated(or called into question)when representing extreme events, the holocaust for instance.In this convolutedand muddled fashion (a complex,arduous argumentwhich, I hope,I have myself properly represented)Ankersmit found the cause for White's presumed "turn" in what he himself interpreted as an intractable problem with the tropes; a problem which, he then further presumed, forced White's rejection of them in favour of the sublime.

Pulling all theseabove arguments together, one can perhaps now makeout a certaindirection or design60in them.For Ankersmitappears to readinto (or project onto) White's theoreticalposition a duplicateof his own evolving position (essentiallya movement awayfrom the dominanceof linguistics realisedthrough the rejectionof tropologyand the adoptionof the sublimein its place).And on the basisof this (I haveto say contrived)comparison of

60 The precedingarguments comprising the current andthe previousSection of this Chaptershould be very briefly brought into focus here(at the risk of repetition), suchthat my useof the word `design' might not appeartoo extravagant.In the first place,and this is a sort of "base line", Ankersmit drawsa parallel betweenmetaphor and Kcnntian transcendentalism in that they both, in a sense,"strip" from the sublime, or the "whole", that which cannotbe conceptuallyincorporated/grasped by them. It is for this reasonthat Ankersmit, driven by his needfor the unmediated"whole", rejectsthem both togetheras a pre-condition him, to his argumentfor sublime historical experience(and I think that, for one entailsthe other so they both have to go anyway).Next, Ankersmit projects onto his readingof HaydenWhite a particular understandingof White's intentions. That is, he arguesthat White turnsfrom the tropesand towards a sublime which, in this case,`still has its logical place within the schematismof the Kantian system' (History and Tropology. p11) and, thus, that this combined move does not constitute a turn against Kantian transcendentalism- which, for Ankersmit, is the mode of thought within which White remains trapped. Now, I have myself separately arguedagainst each of thesetwo implied and linked so-called Whitean "turns", and I believe that I have shown that each one of thesearguments fails. To clarify this point, I see from my own exchangeof emails with Hayden White that he specifically said to me (on 27th March 2009) `As for the disappearanceof tropology from my later work, I would saythat I continuedto useit, I just did not wave it in the readers'face becauseI haveto admit that I havenot been ableto convincevery manypeople about its validity. I am going to comeback to it againin somework I am planning now' (no turnfrom, henceno turn to). Since,to my satisfactionat least,each of these argumentshas now beenseparately "dispatched", then of coursethe whole argumentfalls with it. However, eventaking Ankersmit's argumentin the whole as he presentedit, there seemsto be a problem. That is, Ankersmit's turn to the sublimefrees him from Kantian transcendentalismbut, as he himself insists, White's supposedturn to the sublimedoesn't offer that samefreedom and I cannotfind anything in Ankersmit's philosophyto explain this "picky" behaviourof the sublime.However, having madethese various argumentsAnkersmit has, in effect, suggesteda structuralsimilarity betweenhis andWhite's is I work up to this presumedjoint turn to the sublime - andthis the essentialpoint that wantedto make and which now returnsme to the argumentabove.

121 respective theoretical positions, he effects a kind of validation (a parallelism with White) of his own developing position up to this point. However, having arguably legitimated his work thus, it is also at this very same point that he disconnects from White who remains (as Ankersmit put it) `trapped' in a Kantian, transcendentalist mode of thought. Ankersmit, accordingly, appearsto emerge from this agglomeration of what are really quite extraordinary arguments as the primary exponent of what he believes will be his definitive non-Kantian and non-metaphorical replacement theory of history.

That completes my detailed analyses of Ankersmit's significant developmental arguments (principally arguments which carried him from the safe logic of the linguistic turn and thence, through various stages,to the threshold of experience), and I now propose to gather together and condenseall of these various elements into a brief and (perhaps) more accessiblegeneral discursive account of Ankersmit's progress up to this particular juncture. This account, which comprises the next section of the current chapter, will provide the essential cohesive context within and from which I shall then propose an explanation for the Ankersmitean `Journey' of my thesis title.

SectionFive: Consolidation

Ankersmit's writings prior to his publication of Sublime Historical Experience can be seen to fall into two broad categories (a) those which are informed by the linguistic turn and (b) those which seek to separatethemselves from it. Now, the significance and meaning of the so-called linguistic turn is very well documented,yet as a namefor a happeningof a particularkind it was badly chosenand canlead to confusion.This is what HaydenWhite hadto say on the matter: I don't it is linguisticturn, because .... think correctlycalled the a semioticor a structuralistapproach to the studyof culturaland social phenomena is more interestedin discoursethan in linguistics.Linguistics studies language phenomenaonly at the level of the sentence,but discourseworks at the level of 122 a numberof sentences....language and discourse are not the samething. Discourseis a highly sophisticated,self-conscious use of languageat a level moregeneral than the sentence,and I think it hada very importantimpact uponthe studyof the humanand social sciences. Because to considerthese not as sciences,not evenas disciplines, but asdiscourses allows you to understand why alternativeinterpretations of the samephenomena are possible. And this is what allowsfor oneseeing that in thehuman and social sdiences, indeed evenin the naturalsciences in largepart, what you study is a productof the way you describereality in discourse.61

Putthis way, White convincinglyargued his preferencefor the evidentlymore satisfactorydescriptive term `discursiveturn' - nevertheless,a first namingoften sticks andthus, confusion notwithstanding, the appellation`linguistic turn' seemsto havefound its placein commonusage.

Returning now to the two categoriesmentioned above, it should be understoodthat the favourable position that I have adoptedregarding Ankersmit's conclusionsin connection with category (a) is somewhatblighted by the incoherentand contradictory style of argumentwhich he used in support of these conclusions. Furthermore, with regard to category(b), I find that both Ankersmit's theoretical position and his mode of argument are flawed. In addition to these observations there is one final general matter to be taken into account which is this: Ankersmit brought a kind of discursive "double plot" to thesevarious texts under discussion here. Or, to be more precise, in History and 7ropology Ankersmit was principally engagedin the composition (the setting-up) of some validating structure of argument in support of his move towards a new experience-basedstyle of historical theory. However, running concurrently with this enterprise,in the form of a subsidiaryplot, he continuously (and with misplaced ingenuity) endeavoured- as we have seen- to separatehimself from the philosophy of Hayden White. I will come to all these matters in due course,however, first of all I shall reconsiderAnkersmit's earlier introduction of his linguistic instrument narrative substanceinto the discourseof historical theory.

in by 61White, H., (2000). `TheIronic Poeticsof Late Modernity' (an interview conducted Athens Angelica Koufou & MargaritaMiliori, December1999) in Historein: A Reviewof the Past and Other Stories 2: ppl83-184 123 So, briefly to recap. In his first book, Narrative Logic, Ankersmit focused on the often observedyet then scarcely worked distinction betweenhistorical researchand historical writing. Historical researchtypically producesverifiable facts and singular statementsreferring to the past, but the writing up of that researchinto a narrative form (a history) was shown by Ankersmit to refer internally to its own narrative substance(governed by the point-of-view of its author) and not to the past itself. Historical writing, seen as a coherent whole, is therefore an internally referenced imaginative product of an aesthetickind and, as such, cannotpossibly be subject to validation on the basis of truth claims at the level of the singular statement.So clear does this be it is point appearto that interesting, even curious, to note here- bearing in mind that (a) histories are necessarilyconstituted (and thus carry their meanings) in culture dependantstory forms and (b) that such story forms cannot be found in the pastitself - that Ankersmit'senormously helpful proposition,which identified the narrative substanceas the referentof its ownmanifest story form, receivedthe negativereaction that it did. After all his propositionpresented immediate solutions to a numberof problemswithin historicaltheory; not leastit offereda very plausible explanationfor the apparentlyinexhaustible growth in the productionof different, sometimesradically different but alwaysdifferent, historical accounts of a single vanishedpast -a pastevidenced only througha finite commonbase of traces remainingfrom thatsingle past.

Now, the narrative substance(which Ankersmit defined as the primary logical entity within narrative accountsof the past) functions as a kind of "filter" which processesavailable facts or narrative statementsaccording to their usefulnesswith respectto the particular narrative meaning intrinsic to the narrative substance in question. Or, to rephrase,it is from the point-of-view which governsthe historians chosennarrative substancethat a preferencefor a particular fact or statementis expressed.This preferencewill be for facts and statementswhich contribute to the individuation of that very samenarrative substance or point-of-view62which is, in

62 It shouldbe understood,as Ankersmit frequently points out, that a historian'sgoverning point-of-view will rarely if ever be "on view" in his/her textsas a comprehensibleand unambiguousfigure.

124 turn, itself an expressionof the historianspredisposition to a story form of a particularkind. Hence,in this circularfashion, Ankersmit showed that the writing of historyis alwaysan autonomousactivity in the extentto which narrativemeaning (meaningcarried by the narrativeviewed as a whole)is referencedinternally to its own.arbitrary point-of-view, rather than to the pastitself. Onthis understandingit follows thatthe factsand singular statements arising out of historicalresearch do not, and cannot, somehowfigure forth the truth about the past. Rather, they constitute the reservoir of raw unprocessed(and therefore"historically" meaningless)materials from which the historian makesa preferred selection in order to individuate a prefigured notion about the causality/direction/ meaningand so on, of the past. Having imagined and individuated a history, coherently articulated about its own governing but arbitrary narrative substance, some might then see fit to defend that meaning as if it were part of the past itself and not a projection onto it of an imaginary narrative proposal about an ultimately unfathomablepast which, of course,never possesseda narrative form in the first place.

On this understanding,Ankersmit found in his narrative substance the "key" to the logical structure of narrative accountsof the past and he presentedhis case,for the most part, as an original thesis. Now, I am not going to suggesthere that Ankersmit's was simply restating the work of others. For there is no doubt that his individual explanatory style, his focusedinsistence on the distinction between historical researchand historical writing, his intuitive derivation and naming of the narrative substance and his thoroughly argued account of the fundamentally metaphorical nature of it, represented a truly significant contribution to historical theory as informed by the linguistic turn. But one cannot ignore the earlier work of his contemporaries, particularly that of Hayden White, whose writings (as I have already argued) have always both presumed the metaphorical nature of language and also taken into account the historical research/writing distinction. Furthermore, as the following extract suggests(and this can be taken as a supplement to my argument as laid out in Chapter Two, pages 81-83), White's essay `The Burden of History' (which pre-dates Narrative Logic by some

125 seventeenyears) appears to similarly embodythe essentialelements that constituteAnkersmit's narrative substance. It now seemspossible to hold that an explanationneed not be assigned unilaterally to the category of the literally truthful on the one hand or the purely imaginary on the other, but can bejudged solely in terms of the richness of the metaphors which govern its sequenceof articulation. Thus envisaged, the governing metaphorof an historical account could be treated as a heuristic rule which self-consciously eliminates certain kinds of data from consideration as evidence. The historian operating under sucha conception could thus be viewed as one who, like the modem artist and scientist, seeksto exploit a certain perspectiveon the world that does not pretend to exhaust description or analysis of all of the data in the entire phenomenalfield but rather offers itself as one way among many of disclosing certain aspectsof the field 63

I believe that one can identify Ankersmit's notion of scope64 in White's phrase `richnessof the metaphors', and surely the `governing metaphorof an historical account' which behaveslike `a heuristic rule' (essentially a data filter) can be likened to the narrative substance itself. Moreover, White's allusion to a comparison betweenthe artist who `seeksto exploit a certain perspectiveon the world' and the historian who would appearto be similarly occupied,finds its parallel in Ankersmit's theorisations. One could thereforereasonably conclude that Ankersmit's central concerns,as articulated in Narrative Logic, are developments of, rather than additions to, historical theory.

Returning to Ankersmit's own account of his narrative substance one might now, againstthis explanatory background, re-examinethe statusof narrative accountsof the past vis-a-vis the actuality of the past itself Ankersmit conclusively arguesthat narrative accountsof the past are the imaginative constructsof their authors, and that they refer internally to their own unique narrative points-of-view or narrative substances.The linguistic entities narrative substances,so described,can be seento embody synthetic views of the past which are neither (logically) informed by, nor do they refer to, the past itself, although, as has beennoted, within each singular individuatingfact or statementcontained therein such reference to the pastis made.

63 White. `The Burden of History'. p130 64 As laid out in ChapterOne of this thesis. 126 However, with regardto meaningsand values, it shouldbe understood that the worked-upfacts and statements which comprisea narrativeproposal about the past, takenin isolation,are in a mannerof speaking"vacant"; that is to saythat asempty signifiersthey aredevoid of anynarrative meaning and direction, or `compassless' (to quoteAnkersmit). It follows that it is only relativeto their appropriationand organisationinto narrativeform underthe governingrationale of a narrative substancethat facts and statements have their narrativedependant (and hence relative)meanings and values impressed onto them in accordancewith the synthetic narrativepoint-of-view which they havebeen purposefully selected to individuate. Or, in short,the meaningsand therefore the valuesattached to historicalfacts and statementsare to be foundonly in relationto their useswhen organised into narrativeform.

Understoodthus, the writing of historyand the shapesor structuresof the meanings that it carriescan be seento ariseout of an arbitrary,unsanctioned organisation of the past- an internallyfunctioning organisation which drawsboth on its own narrativesubstance(s) and on languageand linguistic devices in orderto generateits manifest(and meaningful) story form. Accordingly,Ankersmit sees such organisationof the pastas a violationof the past... [t]elling of the past...... is unavoidably a violation of that past in order to effect such a narrative organisation of the past - an organisationthat is not intrinsic to the past itself.... '

The essential point that I thus wish to stress at this stage is that, on Ankersmit's view (and mine), the autonomous linguistic construct that we call history cannot provide accessto any meaning, direction or purpose found/emanating from and thus located in the past itself, indeed, the discourse of history has little at all to do with the past in that sense.What emerges from Ankersmit's own arguments is the wholly defensible proposition that historians, for purposes of their own, linguistically generate and then project imagined meanings onto a past that neither notices nor cares about them. History is "one way" traffic - nothing flows back from the past but the echo of the imaginative figure of history itself. There es Domanska.F. ncaunters p78 127 is, in short, an immutable disconnect (a dissonance)between history and the past which history purports to represent. It therefore follows that the notion that history could constitutes some sort of "bridge" to the actuality of the past is fundamentally flawed and cannot be sustained.

On my reading of Narrative Logic the foregoing paragraphsconstitutes the important substanceof, and the logical conclusions to, Ankersmit's position with regard to the narrative substance. Unfortunately however, notwithstanding that logic, Ankersmit was unable to completely "let go" of his lingering belief that the discipline of history, despite his devastating critique of it, might serve some useful purpose after all, a purpose which he was to express through his experimental garden of historiography.

Now, if onewere to take a generaland unclutteredview of the meaningful contentof Narrative Logic (andthis would involve the stripping.away of Ankersmit's endlessphilosophical/algebraic proofs andalso his controversialre- descriptions of the works of Hayden White), then two essential "movements" would become apparent: a positive step forward and a hesitant step back. Ankersmit's positive step forward is the development and evaluation of the relativistic/relativising narrative substance;,his hesitant step back the apparent negation of this original position brought about by both his `experimental garden of historiography' and his 'fact/value' arguments. These, it seemsto me, are the two oppositional movements which Ankersmit attempted to pull together into (what is for me) the somewhat problematic whole of Narrative Logic.

The first of these two negating movements, Ankersmit's experimental garden of historiography (evaluated in Chapter Two), centred on the notion that by .... we can test moral andpolitical values establishingwhether they inspiregood or badhistorical narratives.`

Ghosh,R., (2007). `Interdisciplinarity and the Doing of History: A Dialogue betweenF. R. Ankersmit and Raniad Ghosh' in RethinkingHistory 11no, 2: p244 128 Or, as Ankersmit insisted,if historicalnarratives inspired by one setof moral and political valuescan be systematicallyrefuted by historicalnarratives inspired by a seconddifferent setof moral andpolitical values,then the conclusionmust be that the secondset is that which is tobe preferredand therefore, by extension, longer first into .... we need no put practice moral and political values.... [rather], our compasshere is historical writing; write histories inspired by these values, next see which of them are best - and then you 67 will know what moral and political values you should adopt.

For Ankersmit then, historiography taken in bulk form (metaphorically perceived as a garden in which the plant that best flourishes is the one to which the greatest merit is to be assigned) was to assumethe function of arbiter on matters of moral and political values. Now, this argument is hopelessly inadequate for reasons already expressed,however that is not my immediate concern here. Rather, I want to turn to Ankersmit's fact/value argument (the second of his two negating arguments) on which his experimental garden of historiography is grounded. And my position here is that even if it were possible(and I do not believe that it is) to history find the definitive history of some past event -a kind of transcendental embodying the capacity to reject all competing accountsof that same event - there yet remainsan insurmountableproblem. That problem is that any happeningor fact, either past or present, does not entail, intrinsically within itself, afixed value which fact. might lead to a,flared ethical imperative or responseto that happeningor Values and meaningsare not in happeningsand facts, they are always projectedonto them in relation to enculturation, ideology, context (and so on) which, taken together, constitute a point-of-view. Values and meaningsare indisputably relative matters.It follows, therefore,that since values are neither in, nor entailed from, facts, that any perceived imperative or actual responseto the facts of a situation or happeningcan be seento be resting on a wholly-arbitrary rhetorical position. Thus, in any particular instance,one might ask `whosevalues are they that are in play, how and why are interestsdo such particular values privileged above all others and in whose they operate?'

67ibid. p. 244 129 Ankersmit, however, takes a very different view. For him fact and value, the is and the ought, are merely the extremeson a continuous scale'` and this pivotal observation/belief of Ankersmit's endorseshis unshakableconviction that from a set of true statementsone can move `automatically and naturally toward an answer to the question of how to act in the future' 69 Now, the modusoperandi of the experimental garden of historiography relies entirely on this (erroneous)assumed relationship (what Ankersmit calls the trait d'union) betweenfact and value and it can, accordingly, be seenas a kind of second-level70 enabling device for his "gardening" metaphor.

Referring back to the narrative substanceand the logic from which it is derived, one can therefore seethat a substantial incongruity ruins the coherenceof Ankersmit's overall argument as expressedin Narrative Logic. For whilst articulating his gardening metaphoron the basis that values are entailed (fixed) in facts, he is assumingthe position of afoundationalist. However, in order to validate his narrative substance argumentit was necessaryfor Ankersmit to demonstrate(as he did very satisfactorily) that the meanings and thereforethe valuesattached to facts and statementsdepend on the manner in which they are organised(emplotted, troped, etc.) into narrative form. He thus concludedthat `there are no facts devoid of interpretation in [narratives]' 71This is, course,that of narrative narratios . position of the relativist and it cannot coherently co-exist with afoundationalist point-of-view. Thesetwo oppositional/incommensurablepositions, merged(apparently unnoticed by Ankersmit) into a single book, and the consequenttextual incoherence/tension evident in it, no doubt contributed somewhatto its poor reception.

But, taking my argumenta little further, I think that Ankersmit's adoption of the notion of the experimental garden of historiography constituteshis first tentative turn away from the implicit, inescapablelogic of his own narrative substance. And Tropology it was this turn which was more confidently developed in History and

68Ankersmit. Historical Representation.p94. This citation is consistentwith, although more succinctly statedthan, Ankersmit's views as expressedin Narrative Logic. p242 69Ibid. p94 70The first-level enablingdevice beingthe belief in the possibility of a single definitive history. 71Ankersmit. Narrative Logic. p219 130 where, as I have tried to show, Ankersmit arguedfor a rejection of tropology and Kantian transcendentalismin exchangefor (what I have argued was) his own idiosyncratic quasi-Romanticperception of the sublime. Ankersmit wantedto avoid Kantian transcendentalismand metaphorbecause together they effected an appropriation and thus a domestication(a mediation of only that which could be apprehendedwithin the tropes) of reality. Instead of which Ankersmit wanted to grasp the "whole", in the the "plain", the the . raw, past pristine, unprocessedand the unstructured,and he believed that his searchfor a non-Kantian, non-metaphorical form of historical knowledge was the way forward. For Ankersmit only this direction of enquiry would hold within it the potential to successfullyavoid the hidden dangersof appropriation and thus truly (in his view) offer the possibility of a glimpse of the (Romantic) historical sublime. From this perspectiveAnkersmit, in a key.sentence or two, re-defined the direction and purpose of his theoretical enquiries as the development of

.... an alternativeto a Kantiantheory of history[which] shouldbegin with the recognitionthat Kantian transcendentalism is primarily a theoryof experience andof how experienceis transformedinto knowledge.So historical experience,the experienceof the past,will be our naturalpoint of departure.72

Now, at this juncture in Ankersmit's argumentthere is an extremely important point which needsto be made. It is this. Having already establishedthat languageis fundamentally metaphorical (this being, to again recall, the third essentialpillar of Ankersmit's argumentas proposed in Narrative Logic), it follows that Ankersmit's move towards experience(which is conditional on the rejection of metaphor)also entails the rejection of language.But, the bizarre idea that languagecan be (totally) disregardedor replacedby experience(sensation, etc., ) entails the dismissal of the meaningful world as we (humans) know it. The absurdity of holding this position rests on the understandingthat we humanslive in a rhetorical world of human making which is constituted in the languagewe use to describeit. Any thing that lies outside our capacity for its linguistic description could not be linguistically relatedto

72 Ankersmit. History and Tropology. p18 131 otherthings and thus could not (asRichard Rorty argues)be talkedof or thoughtof. Or, asRorty's Nietzschepoints out: Thatthings possess a-constitution in themselvesquite apart from interpretation andsubjectivity, is a quite idle hypothesis;it presupposesthat interpretation andsubjectivity are not essential,that a thing freedfrom all relationships would still be a thing.73 [my emphasis]

GlossingNietzsche, Rorty commentsthat whenNietzsche says that a thing conceivedapart from all relationshipswould not be a thing (for us), he is in effect sayingthat sinceall languageseems to be a matterof relatingsome things to other things,then what is not sorelated cannot be talked of or thoughtof. Lackof linguisticdescribability means lack of relationsand hence the only accessto the indescribablemust, on this account,be a sort of directawareness (perhaps of the sort that the mystichas with God).Much of the historyof WesternPhilosophy, continues Rorty, from Plotinusand Meister Eckhart down to Husserland Russell is the quest for suchdirect experience (the pursuit of reality"plain"). But this is an impossible questfor, asPlato recognised, the only way to escapefrom linguisticre-description is to accessa kind of absoluteknowledge unmediated by linguisticformulations. Thusto conceiveof a reality "plain" (directaccess to the realtruth of thingsas they are/were)is to conceiveof thatwhich cannotbe described and thus (this is the crucialpoint) cannotsubmit to re-descriptionor, asRorty putsit, is from .... to escape the linguisticallyexpressible to the ineffable.Only the ineffable- whatis not describableat all - cannotbe described dif erently.74

This contradictory desire to accessthe ineffable logocentrically constitutesthe motivational basis of metaphysicsand also (it should be added) it effects the source of a certain style of mysticism - exactly that sort of mysticism that "leaks" into and informs Ankersmit's position as expressedin SublimeHistorical Experience(the substanceof my next chapter).However, that aside for now, and by way of a concluding observation on this matter, it is of crucial importanceto note that it is precisely such a Nietzschian position that lies beneathWhite's own extremely Nietzschian/existentialistreadings of the inefiable/inaccessiblesublime (a constant n Ibid. pill 74 Ibid. p118 132 in White's thinking from his lateteens/early twenties through to his eighties).75 Accordingly,the point to be madeand underlined here is thatI do not think thatthis vital NietzscheaNWhiteaninsight ever entered into Ankersmit'sown theorisations at all or, if it did, thenit seemsto havebeen forgotten Ws-d-Ws the very ideaof sublimehistorical experience.

Returning now to my theme- my thesison Ankersmit'sdeveloping position - one can seethat his rejectionof a metaphoricaltranscendentalist conception of history (in which `the for his experienceof the objectsstudied.. .. counts nothing'76)and adoptionof conceptsof historicalwriting which takeaccount of experience,can togetherbe seenas the basisfor, andindeed the substanceof, his turn to experience. This turn will leadAnkersmit via the historyof mentalities77in History and Tropologytowards his own developmentin SublimeHistorical Experienceof historical [which ....a newtheory of experience..... recognises]the authenticity of historicalexperience as a tokenof its willingnessto abandonthe pretensions of the transcendental familiarise (historical) The self to the world.... notion of historical sensationas described by Goethe,Meinecke and Huizinga enables us to get a clearerview of whatis involvedin historicalexperience..... [and thus]the nostalgicexperience of the pastis proposedas the matrix for a satisfactoryanalysis of historicalexperience. 78

This is the extract that both establishesa "bridge" to the next chapter and marks the completion of my account of Ankersmit's gradual shift in theoretical position from his early involvement with language up to the threshold of what eventually became an overwhelming engagementwith (historical) experience.

Accordingly, let me now, finally, bring this section to a close with a brief resume/accountof Ankersmit's subplot which, as I have already pointed out, runs concurrently with (and interconnects with) his central arguments. This subplot is,

75 This is unquestionablythe position that White has alwaystaken concerningthe sublime. SeeJenkins, K., (1998). `A Conversationwith HaydenWhite' in Literature and History 7 no. 1:pp72-73 76 Ankersmit. History and Tropology.p28 "For Ankersmit, the history of mentalitiesimplements the movementagainst appropriation (and hence, by implication, the movementagainst Kantianism) and,furthermore (he says),it shouldbe seenas a breakwith most historical writings of the nineteenthand twentiethcenturies. But, his argumentis not convincing since metaphoricalappropriation is fundamentalto the useof all language,and that includes the languageof the history of mentalities. 7s Ankersmit. History and Tropology. pp30-31 133 of course,largely evidencedthrough Ankersmit's varioussignificant misrepresentationsof White's work, misrepresentationswhich haveperhaps been coveredin enoughdetail already(in this andthe previouschapter) such that it would be sufficient for me now to merelylist below the most importantof them, andthen to suggesta plausibleexplanation for them.

The principal misrepresentations that I have in mind are those concerning the translation rule argument, the ambivalence charge upon which Ankersmit's controversial interpretation of Metahistoy depends,White's alleged rejection of the tropes and Ankersmit's more recent misconstrual of White's actual account(s) offigura. In the closing paragraphsof Section Two of this chapter I offered a partial explanation for these matters, and I now offer for consideration an addition to that explanation which, in summary, comes down to this. Long before Ankersmit's intervention in the historical theory, White's new language- informed style of historical theory was largely completed and comprehensively "wrapped up" to the extent that there was little space left for any improvements on it. That is, there was no obvious room left for any fundamental additions or changes to what had already been said by White and, hence,Ankersmit found himself unable to make any significant and original contributions to narrativist historical theory during a crucial stage in its development. All he.could do was add to, develop and promote what was already there and that, it would seem, was not enough for him.

With all of this in mind I can now put forward an overarching speculative explanatory proposal which actually comes in the form of a spectre, or more precisely in the already hinted at form of "a spectre of White". This proposal rests on the observation that Hayden White is (as I have, I think, already shown) bottom, he omnipresent in Ankersmit's earlier theorisations to the extent that, at but might be shown to be articulating Ankersmit (Ankersmit speaks we are listening to White).. Perhaps,from this viewpoint, it is possible to see White (and his theoretical position) as the spectral embodiment of everything that Ankersmit found himself compelled (psychologically) to leave behind. Only a resolute dismissal of White (or rather, of that which he metonymically represented) 134 offered Ankersmit release from this spectre. Accordingly, perhaps subconsciously, this resolute dismissal of White affected/effected Ankersmit's description/redescription of White's position such that it might fall to his own arguments. On this reading White becomesAnkersmit's bite noire or haunting which he is driven to exorcise by whatever meanshe can find. However, whilst this is an interesting secondarythought, I now want to addressmy primary explanatory account of Ankersmit's turn from languageto experience,again in a sometime r6sume/sunmary fashion.

SectionSix: An Explanation

At the outset it must be understood that the following argument/proposal is based on the assumption that Ankersmit has always harboured a deep seatedneed to retrieve the past in some real/authentic form. In order to adequately explain this need I must, with a momentary glance towards the substanceof my next chapter, draw on the endnotes to page 281 of Sublime Historical Experience. Page 281 itself refers to Ankersmit's `fascination since early adolescence.... [with]..... a world we have lost'. 79The world referred to here is that which preceded and was traumatically terminated by the French revolution of 1789. Without wanting to "trespass" on the content of my next chapter, it should be sufficient for my purpose to simply draw attention to Ankersmit's following very personal recollections of his early years: The transition from childhood to early adolescenceon the one hand and [my] nostalgia for the eighteenthcentury on the other are, for me, most intimately linked. I must have transferredmy feelings about the loss of my happy do childhood days to 1789 -, and I am well aware of what things mademe this at that time in my life. Undoubtedly this is why I can now still feel the awarenessof what we lost in 1789 with the intensity with which one experiencesthe great lossesin one's personallife and why, for me, 1789 is still the historical event par excellence.This also mouldedmy relationship to the past, and this book is, in fact, an attempt to come to terms with the pain I can still feel about 1789.Needless to say, I fully recognizethat all this is peculiar to me and that I will not sharemy attitude toward the past with many others. On the other hand, was History, as we presentlyknow it, not bom from the rupture of the greatrevolution from the West's childhood days of the Ancien

79 Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.p281 135 Regime? Is History - again,as we presentlyknow it - not the offspringof the unhappymarriage of pastand present that was celebrated in 1789?80

Ankersmit makes other similar references to his childhood, but I think that one can already see here the origin of his passion to seek out and "know" the past. But, as we have seen, with the publication of Narrative Logic (which turned out to be so good in terms of its general conclusions) no empirical epistemologically- striving history could ever again be taken as the narrative embodiment of any kind of truth, knowledge, essence,meaning, purpose and so on, of the past. Ankersmit (following, for sure, in the theoretical "wake" of Hayden White) had in the courseof writing Narrative Logic systematically and brilliantly deconstructed history. He had indeed openedup and laid bare the essentialnature of the narrative form, describedits cognitive core and irrevocably severedall epistemologicalties betweenthe form of the historical narrative and the past which it was supposedto adequatelyrepresent. Thus history, which had once appearedto embracethe possibility of the discovery of truth and knowledge about the.past, was at once revealedas an empty vesselavailable for requisition by anyone for any purpose- an autonomousinternally referenced'imaginativeconstruct, underdeterminedby and categorically different from the past itself Ankersmit had, in effect, reduced academicmodernist histories to ruins and, in so doing, he had demonstratedthat therewas no possibleaccess to thepast by this particularroute.

As a directconsequence of the efficacyof his owndemolition job, Ankersmitthen foundhimself confronted with an impassefor, asI haveshown, he desperately wantedand needed some form of authenticaccess to the past,but therewas now no suchpath to the pastthrough history - he hadthoroughly and quite literally critiqued that ideato death.Ankersmit, therefore, needed to find his wayto the pastby some otherroute, a routewhich would not succumbto the samedevastating critique with which he hadso effectivelydemolished history. This is the "pivotal" point of my explanatoryargument and all mattersconcerning Ankersmit's new theoretical position,his misrepresentationsand his oftenimpenetrable logic, etc.,can arguably

80Ibid. p442 (endrote25) 136 betaken to link directlyback to this overridingsingle consideration. Accordingly, Ankersmit'scontinuing search for a solutionto whathad become his own dilemma wasessentially governed by the fine belief that only a non-Kantian,non- metaphorical link with the past of the direct experiential kind (experiencesof the past received directly from it in the form of sensations,feelings, etc.), could eventually lead to a meaningful engagementwith the past unmediated(and this is the crucial point) by language.

Now, reflecting on the plausibility of this explanation,all I can say is that for me there really seemsto be no other available. In its favour it takes into account Ankersmit's initial need to really know the past, his (somewhat ironic) demolition of the only (once seen as possible) path to it and the consequentsearch for another way, his endlesstheoretical posturing in support of (what I am arguing is) a `lost' causeand his extraordinary interpretationsof the works of others - interpretations which he put to work in the furtheranceof his own idiosyncratic cause However, in order to balance the account,I have to say that there is no doubt at all in my own mind that Ankersmit's early contributions to historical theory (albeit developments of original ideas) were inspirational and significant. Furthermore,I can and I do appreciateexactly what it was that Ankersmit was trying to achieve in the writing of History and Tropology and in his subsequentpublications. But, and this is a big but, there are arguably major problems with the fundamentalpresuppositions which Ankersmit brought to his argument for historical experienceand, as I shall argue in the following chapter, his overall position on historical experiencecollapses under the combined weight of theseand yet more unworkable argumentsto come. This collapse, in a sense,reflects back onto my explanatory proposalas laid out here. That proposal being, in essence,that Ankersmit's insatiableneed for the authentic past, both against his own logic of Narrative Logic (which he should have observed) and becauseof it (since it blocked his accessto the past through mainstream history), drove him towards and up an experiential cul-de-sac for, as we shall see in the next chapter, experiencecould never have given him the "real" history that he sought. And it is this argument which in my view, of course,represent the key to Ankersmit's controversial departurefrom the mainstreamof historical theory. 137 Before bringing this chapterto a close it is worth noting that there are arguably two essential (central) problems that Ankersmit carried with him from History and Tropology into his argument for sublime historical experience.In the first place he failed to recognisethat the past as an object of study is constituted only in its languageof description (as convincingly arguedby Hayden White and others). Thus it could not be assumedto continue to exist outside,language as would be necessary if it were to function in Ankersmit's new theory which rejectedlanguage in exchangefor experience.And the secondproblem, which in a senseparallels the first, is that Ankersmit also neglectedto question the idea that meaningful experiencesthemselves could actually exist outside language.Of course, sensations/feelings/moodsin isolation can so exist, but without conceptsof understanding(which are languagedependant) they cannotconstitute experiences81. Ankersmit's new theoretical argument,as he crossedthe threshold of experience, was thus to be considerably weakenedby the omission of thesetwo important considerations - it was off to a very bad start. However, for the moment, further investigation of thesetwo problems can rest pending their more detailed consideration in the following chapter.

So, having made all thesepoints, and also taking into accountmy views as expressedin this and the preceding chapter,it will by now have becomeapparent that it is my position that the writing of SublimeHistorical Experiencecould never have been anything but a "doomed" project. Nevertheless,an analysis of the book is essentialto my thesis since it representsthe completion of Ankersmit's venture his `Journeyfrom Language to Experience' - and it is, therefore, to Sublime Historical Experiencethat I must now turn in order to complete my story, or perhaps I should say my proposal on how best to read Ankersmit. However, before doing so there is to be one fmal concluding paragraph.

This very final conclusioncomes in the form of a kind of globalcontextualisation to date;a "birds-eye"view of the plot so far. In the first threechapters of my thesisI havetried to tracea line of developmentfrom anAnkersmit at his very bestto an

This, Kant's point, will be exploredin the following chapter. 138 Ankersmitmoving towards his very worstand, it is to be hoped,that following my analysisof his writings onecan now seehow andwhy my portrayalof Ankersmit hasbeen formulated in this particularway. In sum,these three chapters can be seen to describeand critique the combinationof unusual,generally controversial, argumentswhich carriedAnkersmit towards the thresholdof a new landwherein the solutionto his dilemma(his impasse)might befound - the landof sublimehistorical experience.The next chapterexamines exactly what hedoes when he getsthere.

139 ChapterFour SublimeHi ncalFxpaieace

In September 1994 Frank Ankersmit presenteda remarkablepaper at an International Conference in Uppsala, Sweden.This Conferencehad been organised by the Commission of Historiography under the title `The Pastof History', and one of its primary functions was to analyse philosophically the intellectual basis for the study of history. `Can We Experiencethe Past?' was Ankersmit's choice of title for his unique contribution to this analysis and it is the substanceof his paper,or more precisely the suppositionson which this substancerests, that I want to initially consider before setting out the broad structure of the final chapter of my thesis.

First of all, however, I should point out that I have describedAnkersmit's paperas remarkablebecause, as touched upon in the previous chapter,the new style of historical theory proposed in it was distinctly different from the also new (but neverthelessalways languagegoverned) exploratory proposalsadvanced in and especially towards the'end of History and Tropology. I am thinking here in particular of Ankersmit's excursionsinto the history of mentalities and micro- stories' and in generalhis searchfor a non-Kantian, non-metaphoricalform of historical writing; such endeavourscan only be languagebound. By contrast, Ankersmit's new theoretical style was predicated on the notion that it was only through the rejection of all forms of mediation - language,textualism, context, etc. direct, - that the past might be accessedplain in the form of and therefore unsullied, authentic historical experiences.Furthermore - and this is the main point that I wish his first to stressat this juncture - Ankersmit's Uppsala paperconstituted comprehensiveaccount of unmediateddirect historical experience;in fact,

' for in 2003 he Later Ankersmit expressedhis reservationsin relation to this particularline of enquiry, said: `I now feel that I may havebeen too generousin my interpretationof the micro-stories,that the little intellectual import of the micro-storiesis negligible andthat the fashionwas more than a temporary eccentricity' (see Ankersmit, F. R. (2003). `Invitation to H'istorian' in RethinkingHistory 7 no. 3: p428). 140 Ankersmit's accountwas so comprehensivethat his laterpublication, Sublime Historical 2 Experience,can betaken as a 480 pageexpansion and development of it.

In Section Two of his paper (subtitled The Nature of Historical Experience'), Ankersmit arguedthat whilst historical experiencehad rarely been the subject of discussion or debateamongst historical theorists, it was neverthelesspossible to find an adequateaccount of it (in fact, he says, the most complete accountof it) in the works of the Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga. Although Ankersmit found Huizinga's account of the phenomenologyof historical experienceto be `regrettably 3 sketchy', he neverthelessbelieved it to be `fundamentallycorrect.... [and thereforej. the departure for his thesis'.° But, .. . obvious point of .... and this diminishes Ankersmit's argument somewhat,Huizinga himself did not speak of historical experienceat all but rather, drawing on the works of the novelist and literary theorist Lodewijk van Deijssel, he spoke of historical sensation.However, wishing to avoid terminological confusion,Ankersmit preferred to discusshis variant of Huizinga's historical sensationunder what he consideredto be `the more neutral term "historical experience"'.' It thus seems,from the very outset, that Ankersinit was - through his changeof terminology - performing a crucial but unexplored, and apparently unnoticed, conceptualleap from the notion of sensation to the quite different notion of experiencewhilst continuing to use Huizinga's sensationbased theory as exemplar for his own theory of experience.Experience, as Kant long ago pointed out, is `the unification of a sensibleobject with a conceptof 6 understanding', and intuitions (or sensations)without conceptsof understandingare "blind". Accordingly, it follows that sensationsalone cannotconstitute experiences, rather they can be seenas providing, as it were, the occasionfor possible experiences.Seen this way, Ankersmit's apparentlyinnocuous shift from the term sensationto his preferred term experienceis anything but neutral. Nevertheless,

2 The distinction that Ankersmit's makesbetween `historical experience'and what he calls its variant `sublimehistorical experience'will be fully explainedlater in this chapter. 3 Ankersmit, Intellectual Social F. R, (1996). `CanWe Experiencethe Past' in History.-Making. - The and Formation of a Discipline (Proceedingsof an International Conference,Uppsala, September 1994). Torstendahl,11, Veit-Brause,I., (Eds.) Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.p50 4Ibid. p50 s Ibid. p50 6 Curtis, N., (2001).Against Autonomy:Lyotard Judgementand Action Aldershot: AshgatePub. p35 141 drawingon Huizinga'sdescription of historicalsensation, Ankersmit proposed his own theoryof historicalexperience which he summarisedin four pointsas laid out below:

1) It is effectedthrough quite insignificant cultural objects. 2) It is of shortduration (a matterof secondsor at mostof a few minutes),and it resistscontextualisation. In fact, Ankersmitwent further anddescribed it asa completelyde-contextualised experience with a high andimpenetrable fence aroundit, andthis de-contextualisationon the sideof the subjectis returned by a de-contextualisationof the object. 3) It comesunannounced and unexpectedly and cannot be repeatedat will. It is thus a gift of the momentwhich the historianundergoes rather than provokes. 4) It hasto be distinguishedfrom historicalinsight. For in the caseof historical experiencethe historian's mind is formed by the past itself whereashistorical insight is aformation of the past by the historian. However, Ankersmit explains, historical experiencecan be the sourceof historical insight and in so doing he provides a link, it seemsto me, between historical experience ' andthe practiceof history.

These points, listed on page 50 of his paper and derived from Huizinga's discourse on historical sensation,together constitute what Ankersmit claimed in his paperto be a definition of his conceptof historical experience.There is nothing more in the paperto support this claim except for brief anecdotalremarks elicited from the writings of Herder, Meinecke, Goethe,Byron, Ruskin, Proust, Burckhardt and be others, who are said to have describedevents which could construed,and are construed by Ankersmit, in such a way as to fall within his own so-called definition

7 his SublimeHistorical This is a point that is well worth a comment,for Ankersmit insistsin prefaceto do Experiencethat his thesis '.... has no bearingon what historiansdo andon the questionof why they they what they do... [and the kinds of issuesdiscussed in his book].... areas uselessas are meaningless Yet, in his Uppsala he from the perspectiveof the practice of historical writing' (pp xv-xvi). paper states, insight' (p52) contrary-wise,that 'self-evidently historical experiencecan be a sourceof historical and .... be he defines historical insight as '.... intuitions of how knowledgeof the past can organizedand in form presentedin a historical study' (p51). Now, the organizationand presentationof the past the of it appear history is preciselywhat historianstry to do - this is their primary sphereof activity - so would that on this matter Ankersmit is (without apparentlynoticing it) setting up two contradictoryarguments /positions. 142 historical be just brief of experience-a definition which turns out to a summarisationof effects and thereforenot a substantivedefinition at all. It thus seemsto me that everything8that has grown out of Ankersmit's embryonic, putative notion of the existenceof historical experience,including his position with regard to 9 sublime historical experiencewhich he claimed is a variant of it, refers back to this terminological muddle which, in its turn, rests on what is (by Ankersmit's own admission) a summarisation of a `regrettablysketchy account' of Huizinga's own very personaland imaginative belief that he could receive authentic sensations(not experiences)directly from the past.

Anticipating objections to his claim that the vanishedpast can be experiencedin the present, Ankersmit addedto his descriptive accountof it the explanatory observation that, since historical experience is ordinarily occasionedby some object from the past that is given to us here and now, then, it that in theseobjects an aura of .... seemsa perfectlyreasonable assumption the pasthas been preserved all throughthe centuriesand that the subjectof historicalexperience suddenly becomes aware of [this preservedaura]. Hence, the notion of historicalexperience does not necessarilyrequire a sudden 10 disappearanceof the dimensionof time or somemystical union with the past.

AlthoughAnkersmit failed to referencethis statementto the worksof Walter Benjaminin this particularpaper, it is undoubtedly(and is so footnotedin his book SublimeHistorical Experience) a referenceto Benjamin'sessay `The Work of Art in the Age of MechanicalReproduction'" and the notionof aura containedin it.

Now, to drawthese various points together, Ankersmit claimed in his paperthat a historicalexperience is a rare,short durational `gift of the moment'to the historian. It comesunannounced and ordinarily relies for its receptionon the historian's particularsensitivity to anaura which,Ankersmit affirms, can reasonably be

8 things The word `everything' can arguablybe extendedto include amongstother presenceand parallel `The Centrefor processing(both to be discussedlater in this chapter)and indeedthe establishmentof Metahistory', Groningen, setup for the purposeof investigatingall theseputative phenomena. Ankersmit, F. R, (2005). SublimeHistorical Experience.California: StanfordUniversity Press.p 127 10Ankersmit. `CanWe Experiencethe Past'. p55 in Illuminations. ii Benjamin,W., (1969). `The Work of Art in the Age of MechanicalReproduction' Arendt, K, (Ed.) Zohn, H., (Trans.). New York: SchockenBooks. pp217-252 143 be assumedto attachedto whatevercultural object from thepast it is thateffects suchexperiential transmissions. And finally, thathistorical experience is necessarily de-contextuaiised a experience,that is, anexperience outside the contextsof both subjectand object.

This argumentof Ankersmit'sunderlies and informs his, theoretical position as articulatedin SublimeHistorical Experienceand thus constitutes the footingupon which he proposedhis notionof sublimehistorical experience. However, as the basis for anargument in supportof the existenceof historicalexperience it already appearsto be slenderindeed. For thereseems to benothing in it, or its anecdotal corroborativeevidence, that canpossibly lend supportto the ideathat a small numberof appropriatelygifted historianscan step outside their owncontexts and thenreceive de-contextualised experiences directly from the pastby wayof auras (in the caseof cultural objectsfrom thepast given to us in the present)or by way of metonymy12(in the caseof monuments,texts or whatever).To me it hasthe appearanceof a flawedargument which rests on the unlikelysupposition that the subjectof historicalexperience (that is the historian)can, by somemeans or other not explained,achieve his/her own de-contextualisation(de-subjectification) at the momentof experientialreception. For, to be de-contextualisedis quite literally to be outsidecontext, to be outsidewhat we areor outsidethat which inscribesus and without which we arepre nascentagain. Much more plausible is the argumentthat everyindividual is by is embodiesand articulated a context-boundcondition ,which not of his/herchoosing. As ElizabethDeeds Ermarth explains: individuals do produce ideas ideas .... not or cultural systems; and systems are there already individuals born into themjust they born and .... get as are into a languageand into an entire set of assumptionsabout identity, conduct and How Things Work. 13

Surely,there can beno experienceof the sortthat Ankersmit describes outside or prior to this defining/governingcontext, for it is only within sucha contextthat the

12 The transmissionprocess involved in historical experiencewas eventually developedto include a form of non-aura dependantmetonymic transfer of feelings, intuitions etc. from pastto present.This matter be investigatedlater in l3will also this chapter. Ennarth, E. D., (2001). `BeyondHistory' in Rethinking History 5 no.2: p196 144 conditionsfor the possibilityof categoriesof understandingcan be saidto reside. This andother related considerations will be addressedin moredetail in the last sectionof this chapter.

However, I want to leave this for the moment and turn to addressanother matter; namely, that were Ankersmit's phenomenonof historical experienceto be accepted, then certain questionswould seemto arise in relation to it. For instance,what contributions to history and historical insight can be attributed to historical experience?What is to be the role of historical experiencein the future doing of history? And, above all, how exactly is a very personaland idiosyncratic experience, basedon sensationsand feelings, to find its validation in a discipline which trades in consensuallyagreed empirical data and representationalproposals? These are reasonableand legitimate questionsto raise, not least becauseit was Ankersmit himself who choseto prefix and thereby describethe experiencesin question with the adjective `historical' yet who then, somewhat perverselyI think, closed down all debateon this matterby arguingthat the investigationof historicalexperience couldnot be `an appropriatetask for a historicaltheorist". 14

On reflection, it therefore seemsto me that Ankersmit's notion of historical experience(as he himself describes'it here) might almost be seenas a form of religion establishedon the basisof the four primary points listed above which, understoodthus, would then be seento constitute its foundational beliefs or its absolute presuppositions.There is nothing in Ankersmit's position which might be seento lie beneaththese presuppositions:no validating theory, nothing that can be measuredor fixed, albeit even temporarily, such that it might becomepart of the broader theoretical discourseabout the past. Ankersmit is simply asking us to believe absolutely in his four descriptive points. Or, to rephrasefrom a slightly different perspective,one could only be a "true" follower of Ankersmit (on this matter) on the basis of the total acceptanceof each of these arguablyquasi-mystical propositions which, in order to support any favourable reading of Sublime Historical

14 Ankersmit. `CanWe ExperienceThe Past'. p55 145 Experience,must necessarilyoperate as the book's unquestioned,foundational presuppositions.

In this short preamble I have only referred to the underlying descriptive premises governing Ankersmit's theory of historical experienceas expressedin his Uppsala paper. The rest of that paper contained other dependantcomponents of Ankersmit's argument which, along with his founding premises,he eventually expanded/ developed into book form as Sublime Historical Experience.All of the principal elementsof these various arguments will be critiqued in the following four sections of this chapter under the subtitles: `SectionOne: Cultural Trauma and the Historian', `Section Two: Obsessionor Theory?', `SectionThree: Presence:A New Paradigm' and `Section Four: A Misleading Title'. But, beforeproceeding, I must take a moment to first clarify a terminological matter and then, second,explain my approachto my own reading of Ankersmit's text in this specific instance in a little more detail.

With regardto terminology,then, it will be evidentthat Ankersmit'sthesis can only be properly(and fairly) assessedon the basisof his own definitionsof the termsthat he uses,and it is for this reasonthat I mustclarify, with referenceto Ankersmit's developedthesis as laid out in SublimeHistorical Experience, the distinctionthat he himselfmakes between the threekey terms`objective historical experience', `subjective historical experience' and `sublime historical experience'. Dealing with these three in order, Ankersmit said that he used the term `objective historical for `referring how in itself, their experience' to people the past ... experienced world themselves'`S and, furthermore, that this form of historical experience,already well documented,would not be part of his exposition. However, `subjectivehistorical experience' (also shortenedto `historical experience' both by Ankersmit in his book and by me in this thesis) would be subject to examinationand it should, Ankersmit argues has its ....primarily be situatedin a contextin which the past alreadyacquired independencefrom the present:There is a pastthat is investigatedby the

13 Ankersmit. SubfinneHistorical Experience.p264 146 historianand, then, suddenly,seemingly out of nowhere,may arise this sudden fusion it is by the his- of pastand present .... anexperience of the past torian.....[and] is a direct encounternot only with the pastin its quasi- noumenalattire but alsowith the auraof a world we havelost. 16

However,`sublime historical experience' is the historian'sown experience of a past breaking from the The is then born from the .... away present. past . historian's traumatic experienceof having entereda new world and from the awarenessof irreparably having lost a previous world forever. In such cases the historian's mind is, so to say, the sceneon which-thedrama of world history is enacted.The fate of a civilization will then have its resonancein the historian's mind..... instancesof sublime historical experiencehave been decisive in the evolution of the West'shistorical consciousness(and hence in the writing of history itself). "The wisdom of the world" is then primarily expressedby historians.... [consequently]the historian then is a civilization's Delphic oracle through whose mouth the gods announcetheir will and speakto all who try to recover their way in the present.These are the most tragic moments for historians, but also the momentsof their greatesttriumphs. Historians will then feel themselvespart of what they are describing- viz. this divergence desperation loss of presentand past - and their about the of a familiar world will then motivate their writing and inspire in them their profoundest thoughts.What they then write about their civilization's fate, about its having beenthrown into a vortex of unfathomablepowers, is then, in the last analysis,an expressionof the historian'sown experience of the past:'?

Thus described appears distinction keep in it - and this is a key to mind - that, unlike `historical experience' (which arisesout of a suddenand momentary fusion of past and present-a transient closure of the "gap" betweenpast and present), `sublime historical experience' actually takesplace and unfolds on the `scene'of the historians own mind (a style of re-enactment)and thereforemanifests itself as an expressionof the historian's own experienceof the past; in this sensethere is no temporal "gap" to close. Now, this distinction betweenthe two phenomenais surely one of kind rather than degree,and it is partly18for this reasonthat I would question Ankersmit's assumptionthat the latter phenomenonis a variant of the former. However, my purposehere is to clarify Ankersmit's own distinction betweenthese two phenomenaahead of Section One in which the detailed nature of sublime

16Ibid. pp264-265 17 Ibid. p265 is There areother differences(to bediscussed later in this Chapter)which can only enforcethis argument for a categorydistinction betweenthese two variantsof historical experience.Nevertheless, Ankersmit arguesthroughout Sublime Historical Experiencethat the latter is a variant of the former. 147 historicalexperience will beexplained (revealing yet anotherdistinction between thesetwo typesof historicalexperience).

The second introductory point that I want to make is that when reading any text there is always a temptation to start at the beginning, end at the end and take one's compass,for the purpose of analysis and critique, from any identifiable introduction to that text. I used this approach in my ChapterThree analysis of History and 7ropology precisely becauseit was in Ankersmit's Introduction to the book that he sought to coherently pull together his chosen,disparate collection of essays.But in Sublime Historical ExperienceAnkersmit's Introduction fails to servethis purpose, for in it he confronts the reader with too many false starts,too many different definitions of his project (all of which sit uneasilytogether), thus precluding any clear idea of precisely what it is that he is going to be doing and saying.' 9By way of illustrating this point here is just a short selectionof statementsdrawn from the book's Introduction:

the is it is (historical) .... crucial question whether experiencethat may enable us to break through the walls of "the prison house of language"- and this is the main question to be addressedin this book...... the main topic of this book is to contribute to the resuscitationof the notion of experiencefrom its apparentdeath, to explore and to explain the parallelism of the relevant developmentsin historical writing and philosophy, and, more specifically, to show what lessonshistorical writing can teach the philosopher...... the claim that there is a variant of experiencepreceding and transcendingquestions of truth and falsity is precisely the main thesis of this book...... this book is mainly an attempt to do away with all the (quasi-)transcendentalistconceptions we may find not only in tropology but also in hermeneutics,deconstruction, (post-)structuralism,or semiotics...... more specifically this book is a rehabilitation of the romanticist's world of moods and feelings as constitutive of how we relate to the past...... [and finally]What is the experienceof the past underlying the languageused by the historian? That is the question asked in this book."

In additionto this (whatone might call) uncertaintyin relationto narrativedirection, it soonbecomes apparent that a straightforwardreading of the bookfrom beginning

19 This point was also raisedin Chorea,T. G., (2006). `F. R Ankersmitand the Historical Sublime' in History of Human Sciences19 4: 20 no. p92 Ankersmit. Sublime Historical Experience, pp4-14. 148 to end presentseven firher difficulties since Ankersmit does not enter into a substantial discussionof its ostensiblesubject matter, sublime historical experience (as indicated by its title), until reaching his very last chapter (that is Chapter Eight) some 317 pages into the text. It would seemto me, therefore, that any analysis of the book might sensibly first addressthe content of its last chapter.Accordingly, in Section One of this chapter I initially examine the meaningof collective sublime historical experienceas describedby Ankersmit in his Chapter Eight. I then look at its implications and impact, as construedby Ankersmit, at the level of the individual historian (in this instance necessarilydrawing on further referencesscattered throughout the book) and I also reflect on the confusionthat arisesout of Ankersmit's conflation of what are arguably different considerations.

I shouldpoint out herethat Ankersmit's conflation of thesetwo phenomena- the fording collectiveand the individual- hasalready been noted by Keith Jenkinswho, himselfinitially dissatisfiedwith his owncritique of SublimeHistorical Experience, finally managedto put his fingeron the problemas he sawit. This is howhe describedhis thoughtson the matter: I began it. For I had initially thought that I was .... slowly, to get whilst dissatisfied becauseI hadn't managedto adequatelyconnect two things that (as historians inform Ankersmit's text - sublime experience the existential this experienceof the sublime) and collective S.H. E. - as I reflected on I began to realise, too late in the day, that these two elementsdid not actually (and certainly did not necessarily)connect up any way: that the historian's experienceof the sublime and S.H. E. are totally different, separatethings. In one. fact, what we have here are two books in For although on the surface and it looks if that's the from the title - Sublime Historical Experience- as what book feeling that experiences is about - namely the collective a civilisation when it undergoesa rupture so profound that in its semanticfree-fall everything collapses irretrievably - in fact the bulk of the work is actually on the experienceshistorians (apparently) feel when `the past' they thought they knew becomesstrange as all that was solid indeed `melts into air'. And it is this phenomenonthat the book is primarily about; it is this which constitutesthe vast I had bulk of the first sevenchapters of this eight-chapteredtext...... so, once being realized Ankersmit's two-in-one, then my uneaseabout able to convey I the joined-up nature of the book or capture its coherencevanished as

149 recognisedthat the bookwas never coherent in the first place;that it is abouttwo very differentphenomena which just cannotbe elided.21

Taken together, both of the above mentioned unwarrantedelisions of ideas(first the conflation of the notion of experiencewith that of sensationand secondthe conflation of the idea of a collective historical experiencewith that of an individual, existential historical experience)arguably effected a distortion in, and substantially diminished the force of, Ankersmit's thesis. I will return to these matters in more detail later. However, to conclude my account of the layout of this current chapter, having establishedin Section One the natureof andthe, for me, irreducible distinction between collective and individual historical experience,I then consider its significance for the historian. In Section Two I evaluateAnkersmit's very personaland idiosyncratic obsessionwith a particularly negative and traumatic notion of sublime historical experience,whilst Section Three deals with the closely related phenomenapresence andparallel processing. In Section Four I then attempt to dismantle the whole idea of sublime historical experiencewhich, I argue, is not and cannotbe historical at all. Rather,it would appearto be a phenomenonof an it field existential kind and is I think more suited to - if suits anything at all - the of memory studies.

21 Jenkins,K., (2009). `Cohencontra Ankersmit' in At theLimits of History: Essayson Theoryand Practice. London: Routledge.pp311-312. In the someessay Jenkins suggested (and I am noting this as a point of interest which might add somethingto the more generalunderstanding of Ankeramit's motivationaldrive towardsthe sublime)that one might take as Ankersmit's governing thematic like Nietzsche'sdictum lies in to live, andthat these'lies' be seen .... something that we need order can as the variousways in which socialformations have constituted 'reality' - andespecially the way they haveexpressed this through language.And I think Ankersmitshares Nietzsche's view thatif we strippedaway these carapaces of the real (`realityeffects') to reveal'bare life' then without our usual fictive, Tabularshelters, we would bequite literally exposedto thenature of actualityplain before human beings got at it and (contingently) real-iced it. But Ankersmit's sublimethus realised,Jenkins continued, was and is an angst-riddenand terrifying sublimewhich failed to registerthe positive, expectantdimension of Nietzsche'sown thinking. his form Nevertheless,Ankersmit would have us follow his argument(this being contribution of a of authenticity to the discipline of history) in order that we might also experienceand benefit from a Nietzsche's sublime(albeit of his own idiosyncratic kind) which would otherwisebe deniedus by life if '.... soothingtissue of lies (linguistic/textual) which allow us to passthrough as sleepwalking', as have Jenkinsput it. My point herebeing that from this perspectiveAnkersmit's self appointedtask would becomeclear to him, he would tear away from the past all thosecarapaces of textualisationin orderto reveal it "plain" or, as Ankersmit himself expressedit, hewould 'break through the thick crusts of SublimeHistorical effective history and meet history in its quasi-noumenalnakedness'(Ankersmit. Experience.p277). 150 A very final point; a reminder.On pageseven of my IntroductionI saidthat in ChapterFour I would try to adopta morediscursive/impressionistic style of writing (whilst not entirely losingan analytical"edge") rather than the expositoryand analyticalstyle of the precedingchapters, and I now needto remindthe readerof the consequencesof this change.In orderto do so I referto my structuringof Chapter One whereI tried to outlinethe wholeof Ankersmit'snarrative substance argument (the logic of NarrativeLogic) beforelater, especially in ChapterTwo, concentrating in detail on its parts.However, by contrast,in this currentchapter I deal with Ankersmit'sSublime Historical Experiencenot chapterby chapteroutlining the whole,but by concentratingon thoseaspects or partsof it - andonly on those aspectsor parts of it - which servethe purposeof my thesis;that is, to showthat Ankersmit'sjourney from languageto experienceis a lost historicalcause (a cause that loseshistory along the way, displacingit into memorystudies). My treatmentof Ankersmit'stext in this chapteris thereforedeliberately impressionistic in the sense that theseparts arepulled together to give weightto my thesis,not to give a general readingof SublimeHistorical Exxperience...,though I think that sucha general readingwould not subvertmy thesis.

SectionOne: Cultural Trauma and the Historian

In the introductionto this chapterwhich you havejust read,I focusedmy attention on threeof Ankersmit'sunsatisfactory (in my view) theoreticalassumptions. These are(1) thatthe notionsof sensationand experience may beunproblematically conflated,(2) thata description,in this caseof historicalexperience, can be takenas an explanationof it and(3) that collectivesublime historical experience, as he himselfdescribes it, canproperly be seen as a variantof his conceptof individual historicalexperience. The first two of theseessentially unexamined presuppositions werebrought by Ankersmitdirectly into his expandedthesis (as laid out in Sublime Historical Experience)and, as a consequence,they canbe seen to haveinformed andto someextent governed his argumenttherein. The third mattermentioned above,which disturbsthe coherenceof Ankersmit'sgeneral position in relationto historicalexperience of bothkinds, will be furtherscrutinized below. However, first 151 I am going to turn to yet anotherof Ankersmit'sunexamined presupposition (touchedupon towards the endof the previouschapter) which, arguably, can also be seento lie beneathand govern the styleof argumentwhich he presentsin supportof his proposalon sublimehistorical experience. I am herereferring to Ankersmit's evidentbelief that (human)reality (not actualitybut reality) is prior to language(or doesnot presupposeit) andthat, in consequence,the realand language can be treatedas discreteentities. He plainly statedhis positionthus:

It certainlyneeds the philosopher'spropensity to dogmaand to intellectualisationto sincerelybelieve that a pre-or non-linguisticexperience of reality would be impossible.As Schusteruranmost perceptively comments: We philosophersfail to seethis because,disembodied talking-heads that weare, the only form of experiencewe recognizeand legitimate is linguistic:thinking, talking, writing. Butneither we nor the language which admittedlyhelps shape us couldsurvive without the unarticulated backgroundof pre-reflective,non-linguistic experience and understanding. I couldnot agreemore.... u

Ankersmitthen moved on to concludethat `theultimate truth we canhave of the world is a truth in which the world "exposes"itself to us free from all context'.23 And in sodoing he is undoubtedlyproposing that the world of humanreality (the "real" of our specieswhich is the only world that wehumans can possibly know) canbe revealedto us in the form of a contextfree, authentic experience. 24 That is to say,authenticity unmediated by languageand thus free from, or prior to, language. But, of course,this language/realityposition assumed by Ankersmitis not (I think) generallyaccepted and should, for clarification,be set against the positionsadopted by otherphilosophers/theorist in the samegeneral discursive field. For this purposeI haveselected four suchindividuals (Hayden White, Jacques Derrida, Richard Rorty andPaul Ricoeur) not leastbecause they all makefrequent appearances in Ankersmit'svarious theoretical arguments and one can, therefore, reasonably

22 Schusterman,R., Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.p254 (andAnkersmit's insetquote, (1992). PragmatistAesthetics: Living Beauty,Rethinking Art. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.p128 Ibid. p257 24 The readerwill have noticedat this point in Ankersmit's argumentthat his notion of `truth' appearsto have beenelided with his notion of `authenticexperience' which, as he elsewhereclaims, is not in itself truth generating.This problem will be further discussedand referenced on page205 (footnote1). 152 presumethat Ankersmitis aufait with their variouspositions on this particular matter;positions which I now briefly summarise.

As alreadynoted, White - in his Introduction to Tropics of Discourse (and one bear should in mind herethat this publication of 1985 was informed by White's Metahistory of 1973 which was, in its turn, an expansionof ideas expressedin `The Burden of History' right back in 1966) figuratively representedthe tropological use of languageas `the shadow from which all realistic discoursetries to flee'. 25 This flight was seen by White as futile becauserealism in discoursearises out of tropological languageuse, and he went on to explain (also noted) that `tropic is the processby which all discourseconstitutes the objects which it pretendsonly to describe realistically and analyseobjectively'. 26On this view it would appearthat reality, as the subject of discourse,is inextricably imbeddedin tropological language use and, as such, can be taken as a performative product of that tropology.

Derrida'sposition as succinctlyexpressed by oneof his formerstudents, the French philosopherJean-Luc Marion, is that we simplydo not haveand cannot have from in language.There .... accessto realityapart our engagement arenot first thingspresented to consciousness,that are then matched up with signsto representthem, but alwaysand only signsthat refer to othersigns or resonate assymbols in a webof meaning.Reality is not whatis presentin or behindthe signs,but effectivelyremains constructed by themas text. In otherwords, reality is alwaysand already mediated: we inhabita symbolicorder. 27 On this understandingit is not possible for human beings to standoutside the human systemof meaning (which Derrida refers to as `the text'), for we are always and already implicated in that system (we are `always in a text already').

Rorty's position(also already noted in previousdiscussions in this thesis)is one which takesthe view that,following Nietzsche,one must break absolutely with the notionthat things have a constitutionin themselvesoutside of all relationships,such relationshipsbeing expressed in systemsof meaning(or language).Thus, for Rorty as well, the "real" is constitutedin languageand language `goes all the waydown'.

25 White, H., (1978). Tropics ojDiscourse. Baltimore: The JohnsHopkins University Press.p2 26 Ibid. P2 Z' Horner,H., (2005). Jecni-LucMariarA TheologicalIntroduction. Burlington VT: AshgatePub. p43 153 And finally Ricoeur,whose three volumes under the title Timeand Narrative28 (describedby Ankersmitas a magisterial`landmark in thephilosophy of history'),29 andhis Rule of Metaphor30which precededthis triple volumework, recognisethe `powerof the metaphoricalutterance to redescribea realityinaccessible. to direct description'.31

Now, the crucial point hereis thatAnkersmit has taken a positionon the natureof reality which can be seento radicallycontradict these four alternativetheoretical positions,such positions being drawn from philosophers/theoristswho Ankersmit himself introducedinto his own theoreticalarguments for variouspurposes, whilst ignoringthe supremelyimportant point on whichthey all appearto agree.Namely, that whatconstitutes the real world for us humansis a real(a realityeffect) made meaningfulby language.Ankersmit's apparent disregard for this if not identicalat leastcollective position is furthercompounded when one takes into accounta wider perspective,for it is surelythe case that the complicityof languagein what we think we know as thereal is acceptedamongst a muchbroader group of prominent philosophers.It was,for instance,accepted by Jean-FrancoisLyotard who, as GeoffreyBennington pointed out, took the positionthat [r]eality is adequate .... neithersimply given andawaiting more-or-less transcription,nor is it magicallyproduced by a demiurgicact of creationon the part of a speaker,but is an unstablestate attributed to referentson the basisof operationsof nomination,ostension and description..... Reality is established as theresult of playinga language-gamewith specifiablecomponent parts. 32

And by Roland Barthes too, who writes that there is no `other side'33to language; there is no autonomousreality which is merely relayed by language.These same general assumptionswere also made by the later Ludwig Wittgenstein (whose latter works influenced Lyotard's position), Elizabeth Ermarth, Judith Butler, Emesto

28 ChicagoPress. Ricoeur, P., (1983 vol. 1,1990 vol. 2/3). Timeand Narrative. Chicago:University of 29 Ankersmit. History and Ti©pology. p68 3° Ricoeur, P., (1986).Rule ofMetaphor. London: Rutledge & KoganPaul. 31 Ricoeur, P., Timeand Narrative vol. 1, p. xi. 37 Press. Bennington,G., (1988). Lyotard." Writing the Event. New York: ColumbiaUniversity p121 33Barthel, R., (1977). Imagie,Music, Text.New York: Hill and Wang.P30 154 Laclau,much of the work of JeanBaudrillard and many others. In fact, suchanti- foundational/post-structuralistpositions are now commonin our intellectualculture.

In short, there is a substantial authoritative weight behind this specific proposition concerning the relationship betweenlanguage and reality. Surely (as a sometime postmodernthinker) Ankersmit should have addressedthis matter in detail in Sublime Historical Experienceprecisely becauseit is this argument/positionthat, if accepted,can be seento fatally undermine his central thesis which manifestly operateson the understandingthat an autonomouspast reality - not actuality but reality - (the authentic reality of the past that Ankersmit thinks he can grasp direct) does precede its constitutive languageof description. But nowhere in Ankersmit's theorizations is this matter substantially confronted - at best it is dismissed in his writing on Rorty; it is simply peremptorily excludedbecause it leaves for the the thatis .... no room possibilityof an experienceof world not predicatedon language...... [and moreover] the morelanguage and reality are integrated be by it. 34 .... the moreexperience will squeezedout of existence Or, in otherwords, his thesiscannot both tolerate it andremain intact, so herejects it. Thus,what is at stakehere right at the outsetis the viability of Ankersmit's overallthesis when seen against the backgroundof thesealternative presuppositions, presuppositionswhich canbe seento significantlyundermine or negatehis project. Accordingly,it is with thesecrucial prefacing points made and in mind thatI can now turn directlyto ChapterEight of SublimeHistorical Experience.

Chapter Eight opens with a short treatiseon the natureof forgetting, a particular type of which takesprecedence in Ankersmit's unfolding argument.The exact nature of this specific type of forgetting is explained by Ankersmit in relation to traumaticldisruptive past eventsof a particular kind and the irreversible identity loss associatedwith these specific events. The dislocation of this no longer accessible past identity, effected by its repudiation (understoodhere as an endeavourto forget) as a necessarycondition for the acquisition of a new identity, is (in brief) what lies at the heart of the phenomenonof sublime historical experienceand will be in its explained more fully in a moment. But first it should be stressedagain, view of

34 Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.p74 155 importance central to my argument,that the identity to which Ankersmit refers in instance this is not that possessedby an individual being but, rather, that possessed by a civilisation, a culture or a past epoch.It is therefore of a collective sublime kind and, as such, it would be my argumentthat it is categorically different from historical experience which is of an individual existential kind (as alreadyexplained in the early remarks to this Chapter). Having again highlighted this distinction between historical experienceand sublime historical experience,Ankersmit's later questionableconflation of thesetwo categorieswill becomeall the more conspicuous.

But to continue.Ankersmit found his paradigmaticexplanatory model for lossof collectiveidentity in the events,and the consequentrupture with a formerway of life, which togetherconstituted (for him) the substanceof the FrenchRevolution of 1789.For, asAnkersmit said, it is undoubtedlythe casethat thedramatic transformationswhich issuedfrom the FrenchRevolution `changed the livesof WesternEuropeans in everyconceivable aspect...... [and that they were]the most decisiveand profound changes that Western man had undergone in the courseof history' 35Furthermore, changesbrought to thelevel . thatthese of collective consciousnessthe realisationthat a formerway of life hadbeen lost forever.Or, to rephrase,Ankersmit is arguinghere that, as a directconsequence of the French Revolution,Western Europeans quite suddenly became aware of an un-reflected previousworld (their own previousworld or formercollective identity) which, at the precisemoment of its recognition,they wereforced to irrevocablysurrender in favourof a new identity.This lost identity,which hadto be surrenderedorforgotten at the very momentof its realisation,and the traumasurrounding this loss constituted(for Ankersmit)both the necessaryconditions for theoccurrence of sublimehistorical experience and also the basisupon which a newWestern Europeanidentity had to be established.Furthermore, Ankersmit argued that Westernhistorical consciousness itself canbe seento comeinto being36out of this

3s Ibid. p323 36 Ankersmit also arguesthat `modernWestern historical consciousnesscame into beingin sixteenth century Italy' (SublimeHistorical F.xperience. p356) and, accordingly,he finds (in this instance)its origin in the period which he refersto as the Italian Renaissance.But, he also statesthat the 'formation of 156 samepivotal andprofoundly traumatic transformation from a formerpre- revolutionaryidentity to a newpost-revolutionary identity. And he wenteven further whenhe suggestedthat `the fact thatthe Anglo-Saxonworld hashad the fortuneof neverhaving to undergosuch a traumaticexperience may help us to explainwhy historicalconsciousness is so muchan invention of the Europeancontinent'. 37

For Ankersmit, then,this kind of transformationfrom a former to a new identityis ...... alwaysaccompanied by feelingsof a profoundand irreparable loss, of cultural despair,and of hopelessdisorientation. In this sensesuch historical experiencesare undoubtedly traumatic too. But the stakeof the traumatic experienceis far moredramatic in suchcases-for hereone really loses oneself,here a formeridentity is irrevocablylost foreverand superseded by a newhistorical or culturalidentity. Hence, in caseslike theseany reconciliation of a formerand a new identityis categoricallyout of the question.-and this alsomeans that no room is left for a mechanismthat might give us the redemptionfrom trauma.This, then, is the kind of traumathat we will always carrywith us afterHistory has forced us to confrontit; it is a traumafor which no cureis to be found.The newidentity is mainly constitutedby the traumaof the lossof a former identity- preciselythis is its maincontent, and that this is the ineluctabletruth announcesitself in the realization(agonizing, resigned, or otherwise)that this lossis permanentand can never be undone. And then traumais just as permanentas the lossof the formeridentity is. In this way we cansay that our collectiveidentity largely is the sumof all the scarson our collectivesoul, scars that were occasioned by our forcedabandonment of formeridentities, scars that will neverwholly fadeand that will causein us a continuousand enduring pain. 38

Consequently,sublime historical experience (which is understoodby Ankersmitto ariseout of the saidtraumatic39 loss and consequent repudiation and forgetting of a former identity)is, particularlywhen taken in relationto the descriptionimmediately above,bound to befor him of a negative,pessimistic and melancholic kind. However,before pursuing this significantpoint, I shouldhighlight a distinctionthat

modernWestern historical into beingin the decadebetween 1790 and 1800' consciousness.... came (SublimeHistorical Fxperience.p443 fa,25). There are,throughout the book, many referencesto these two, ado periods but it is not clear to which one he definitively andfinally attributes`the coming into being of modernWestern historical consciousness'.There is thusa two to three hundredyear gap to explain here. 37 Ankersmit, F. R., (2002). `Traumaand Suffering: aForgotten Sourceof WesternHistorical Consciousness'in WesternHistorical Thinkaing." An Intercultural Debate, RosenJ., (ed.). New York: Berghakim.p75 ss Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Faperience.p324 39 For Ankersmit `the traumais the sublimeand vice versa'(Ankersmit.`Trauma and Suffering'. pp75-76) 157 Ankersmitmakes between this type of forgetting,which is associatedwith the traumaof identity loss,and a superficiallyrelated yet differentkind of forgetting which leavesidentity intact.

This other variant of forgetting, where a memory is too painful to be admitted to collective consciousness,is explained by Ankersmit in relation to the trauma of the Holocaust. The memory of this terrible event was, he argued,for the two decades following World War II, forgotten or withheld from consciousmemory. It was, at least during that period, literally unspeakable;it defied adequatenarrativisation and could not therefore be de-traumatised and thereby be subsumedinto the collective Jewish consciousness.However (Ankersmit continued),profoundly traumatic as it undoubtedly was, the Holocaust left the collective Jewish identity intact. That is to say that there was no rupture in the Jewish identity, it survived, and there was therefore no necessity for the Jewish race to repudiate it in order to build a new identity. One could say that forgetting in this instance(the closure of its associated trauma) assumedthe psychological aspectof a repressionand that there was no loss, and therefore no imperative to forget, at the level of identity. Understood in this way it is immediately obvious that the Holocaust could never function as one of Ankersmit's sublime sourcesof historical experiencebecause his defining element, `traumatic loss of a former identity', was never a componentof it. This illustration servesto again highlight the centrality of Ankersmit's traumatic identity loss theme within his concept of sublime historical experienceand it can be taken as its decisive causal element.

I return now to a previously mentioned point and the questionthat arisesout of it; namely, `why is it that sublime historical experienceis exclusively for Ankersmit of a negative, pessimistic and melancholic kind?' Well, an attempt at a more comprehensiveanswer will be the subject of the next section of this chapter, but for now the short answer is that it is so becausethat is how he repeatedly describes/definesit. For example he says history its into being .... as a reality of own canonly come asa resultof traumatic is painfulpast ; and collectiveexperience. -the past primarily a historiesrejoicing in thetriumphs of monarchs,soldiers and heroes will never 158 be ableto give us that essence....shared traumatic pain provides the collectivity with a commonbasis in a far deeperlayer of realitythan happiness andjoy could everbe capable of.... historical experience is alwaysan experienceof loss...... [experienceof a prehistoricalpast] can only comeinto beingas a figure of loss.... and,finally, historicalexperience is fundamentally tragic.40

Theseobservations are predictable, of course,since Ankersmit's notion of sublime historicalexperience is (asexplained) worked-up from andpredicated on his own foundingcondition for it (this conditionbeing that of its groundingin traumaand loss).There is, I recognise,an inevitableand unsatisfactory circularity in this explanation,but the matterwill haveto resthere for the momentpending Section Two.

However, (andthis is, I suppose,another matter - anaside) perhaps Ankersmit's notion of sublimehistorical experience should be re-examinedwith referenceto his paradigmaticaccount of it in relationto the FrenchRevolution. The pointthat needs to be madehere is thatin Ankersmit'sexplanatory example, the ideaof `traumatic lossof a former identity', canonly functionor haveany meaning at all when applied to the Frenchelite, the minority.For, seenfrom thepoint of view of the majority (say,the Frenchpeasants) the FrenchRevolution engendered a positive and radical identity wherebefore there had been scarcely any positive/progressive identity to lose.Or, to rephrase,the French Revolution arguably effected a transformationin the standingof its peasantswhich lifted themout of their collectivequasi-medieval modeof existencetowards the statusof modemcitizens. From the standpointof the peasantthis transformationcan be reasoned as havingthe appearanceof a progressiveromantic gain41 rather than a suddentraumatic loss. It mightthus be

40 Thesecitations are, in the order quoted,drawn from Ankersmit. `Traumaand Suffering'. p76(first three quotes)and Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Fgaeriencep 128& p234 (for the final two quotes). 41 On this longer perspectivethe FrenchRevolution, notwithstandingthe violence andatrocities occasionedby it, can be readnot as Ankersmit's sombreand pessimisticending but, rather,as a progressiveand optimistic beginning. This is also, of course,Kant's position. For him 1789was a sign of This is interestingbecause progressas indexedby its favourablereception by the sensescomnrunis. whilst fact for Ankersmit drawsheavily on Kant's notions of the sublime, he nevermentions the that although Kant 1789occasioned sublime feelings it did not occasionnegative ones. The sublimeas ascribedto an Lyotard event- is thereforenot determinedby it. Moreover, Cohen,Bennington and all makethis same point (see Cohen,S., (2006). History Out Of Joint. Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University Presspp182-282 andBennington, G., (1988).Lyotard: Writing the Event. Manchester:Manchester University Press.,in 159 concludedthat Ankersmit's new historical theory which appearsto be figuredout on the basisof the lossesoccasioned by privilegedminorities, is for those disadvantaged minorities/elitesonly. And he appearsto confirmthis observation whenhe statesthat by inexorable .....elites vanquished the courseof historywill bemost open to and mostfascinated by historicalfate as manifesting itself in the guiseof long-term developments.Only these theseformer and canmake elitesrealize why all their wisdom insightcould be so sadlyhelpless and ineffective against the inexorablecourse of History.Even more so, one may well surmisethat an unusuallyacute awareness of long-termdevelopments is the indeliblesign of the historicalcohsciousness of superseded elites, for theyare in the bestsocial position to identifythem... 42

Bearing in mind that sublime historical experiencesare, asAnkersmit hasalways insisted,only encounteredby a small numberof appropriatelygifted historians (connoisseurs), then it could be arguedthat suchexperiences, if taken seriously,are also exclusively confined to currentelites who receivemessages from former elites. And sincethese messages are connectedwith the traumaticloss of the former identitiesof suchelites then they can only be both non-representational(in a generalsense) and deeply pessimistic.

Now, so far this discussionconcerning the contentof ChapterEight of Sublime HistoricalExperience has only revealeda very generalidea of whatsublime historicalexperience is andwhere it comesfrom, andthis isn't really satisfactory.In order to get a more precise idea of what Ankersmit thinks that it actually is and, more to the point, how he thinks that it actually connectsup and manifestsitself at a conscious level within the subject of that experience(or, in short, how the historian actually "gets it") it will now be necessaryto turn back for a moment to the beginning of Chapter Five of SublimeHistorical Experiencewhere Ankersmit lays out what I want to call his `fabulousexplanatory story' in preciselythe detail sought.For Ankersmit's extraordinaryillustrative vindication of his thesis,which he claimsis elicited from (or describedwith the help of) Ludwig Wittgenstein'sPhilosophical

which Bennington expressesthis view in his ChapterFive'Le Difförend'. ppI06-I78 andwithin that Chapterunder the subtitle 'The Sign of History'. ppI62-165, Benningtonrelates Lyotard's similar view). 42 Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.p 142 160 Investigations,43 is presentedhere in ChapterFive as, perhaps, an early introduction to ChapterEight. Anyway,whatever the source or inspirationfor this story(which I quote here at somelength in orderto allowAnkersmit to explainhimself fully) heasks his readersto

think ...... now of a civilization, a culture, or a historical epoch as if it were some strangeand hybrid creature.... Such a creaturewould be "strange and hybrid" in the senseof being, on the one hand, far more than what we are and, on the other, far less - "more" in the senseof comprising, in some way or other, all the individuals that are part of this civilization, and so on but "less" so in the sensethat its level of self-awarenessis far less developedand far les articulate than usually is the casewith us as normal, waking human individuals. Moreover, think of this strangecreature to consist of nothing but these vague and inarticulate sensations,moods, and feelings. It lacks a "self' tying them together; thesecreatures are only these fleeting setsof sensations, moods, and feelings. In this way thesecreatures are setsof experienceswithout there being a subject of experience.Suppose, furthermore, that, for all their so very weak or, rather, nonexistentcapacity of self-awareness,these strange creaturesmay neverthelesssometimes become conscious of themselves,of their pains and sensations,although even then there is no 'r' to which (the awarenessof) these pains and sensationscould meaningfully be attributed. What could this entity possibly be? The paradox of a self-awarenesswithout self-awarenesscould then be solved by saying that the presenceof thesepains and sensationsarticulates itself only in the minds of some of the great poets, novelists, or historians living and writing in a certain civilization or culture. Thejob of self-awarenesshas been delegated, so to say,by thesecreatures to certain"subsystems" of theirs...... such as poets, novelists, and historians (and we may envythem for their capacityfor doingthis, for how morepleasant would humanlife be if we coulddo the same!). Thesepoets, novelists, and historiansare the creature's"nerves", so to say(although in orderto makethe metaphorwork, we shouldattribute to thesenerves also the capacityfor translatingthe firings of thesenerve cells to the level of consciousness).In that casethe disjunctionof experiencefrom truth andlanguage would hold alsofor whatthese "enthusiastic" (to usethe mostappropriate adjective here) poets, novelists,and historians say about their civilization,and so on. And the implicationwould be thatwe shouldnot try to fit their writingsinto the discourseof truth(as exemplified by statementssuch as "This catis black"); insteadwe shouldsee them as thegroanings [my emphasis]of this civilization.That does not imply, however,that they shouldbe meaningless to us.Once again: Far from it! Thesegroanings may overwhelm us with an unequalledforce and intensity, and they may beperceived in the basso continuoaccompanying all that a civilizationthinks and does. It means,rather, that we shouldnot interpretthem as beingabout something else in the waythat the true statementis aboutsome state of affairsin the world.We shouldtake them for whatthey are,that is, asthe groaningsof a civilization,as the textsin

43Wittgenstein, L., (1963). Anscombe,G. E. M. (trans.) PhilosvphicalImaestigations.Oxford: Blackwell. 161 which the pains,the moods,and feelings of a civilization articulatethemselves.. In this way thesegroanings are essentially poetic; just like a poemthey do not aim at truth but at makingexperience speak. And this is howwe shouldread them44

On my reading,what I believeAnkersmit is claiminghere is that fleetingsets of sensations,moods and feelings, all of them bereftof a subjectof experience,or a self,can nevertheless collectively constitute the painfulexperiences of past civilisations, cultures or epochs.These so called `hybrid creatures',made up of those painful experiences,drift about in a timeless limbo awaiting realisationthat is to say, awaiting a self onto which each might register its as yet un-manifest self- awarenessthrough the temporary possessionof a `subjectof experience' - the subject of experience being an unsuspectingand suitably gifted surrogatehistorian, poet etc. Such fleeting sets of sensations,moods and feelings (the actual stuff of sublime historical experience)have, according to Ankersmit, the capacity first to enter the central nervous system of that subject of experienceand then to manifest themselvesat the level of the subject's consciousnessas authentic historical experiences.These "epiphanies", Ankersmit maintains, are not presentedin the form of true statementsabout the past but rather as the authentic recovery, through the re- living at the level of the historian's, poet's, etc., individual existential self, of the collective pains, moods and feelings which civilisations (cultures or epochs)have experienced. And, furthermore, Ankersmit expectsthat we should take them for he in his what saysthey each are - the groanings of a civilisation the caseof example. This, as far as I can see, is the processby which Ankersmit's privileged historian is supposedto be able to effectively tap directly into the past (granted here as a gift of the moment which cannot be repeatedat will) through the agencyof sublime historical experience(the `hybrid creature') and render the collective experienceof that past into an individual, existential experiencein the historian's present.In this way Ankersmit offers a putative link betweencollective `sublime historical experiencei45and individual (existential) `historical experience'. Or to put

44 Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.pp 196.197 43 It is curiousto note that, at this earlier stagein his argument,Ankersmit's fleeting setsof collective sensations,moods and feelings(which I take to be sublimehistorical experiences"in the raw" and availablefor processingthrough the centralnervous system on receipt) arenot anywherein this particular explanationlinked directly to the idea of irretrievable lossof a former identity which is fundamentalto 162 it another way, this is how a historian, through the agency of sublime historical experience,is presumedby Anlcersmit to be able to experiencean authentic past that actually predates his or her own life. Now, before moving on to Section Two of this chapter, a very brief summary of the current section and then one final observation concerning Ankersmit's sequencingof Chaptersin Sublime Historical Experience.

In summary, then, I am arguing thus far that Ankersmit's own argument in support of sublime historical experiencerests on four contentiouspresuppositions which, had they been properly investigated, would have effectively negatedhis thesis. And, furthermore, that having initially set up his argumenton the basisof thesesuspect presuppositions,Ankersmit stretchedcredibility even further with his fabulous story about a `hybrid creature' which his readersare presumablyexpected to swallow whole. I do not doubt that in his book Ankersmit describedwhat sublime historical experienceis to him, but I think he failed to presentto his readersa comprehensible account of it at a theoretical level. His proposal that the traumatic `groaningsof a past civilisation' could, in the guise of a hybrid creaturedeprived of its own self- awareness,alight on the central nervoussystem of a gifted historian in order to releaseits own self-awarenessinto that surrogate'smind in the form of an unmediated authentic experienceof those samegroanings, isn't really a philosophy at all - arguably it's a fantasy. Nevertheless,it seemsthat Ankersmit pressedon with this idiosyncratic description of a profoundly traumatic and melancholic kind of sublime historical experienceonly to then mistake that imaginative description for anexplanatory account of it.

And my final observation for the moment, which takes me back to the introductory remarks to this chapter, concernsAnkersmit's choice of title for his book (Sublime Historical Experience) which, of course,suggests that `sublime historical experience'is its centraltopic. Yet, as noted,this subjectis not addressedin any substantialway until the book'svery lastchapter: how has this comeabout? Well,

Ankersmit's conceptof sublimehistorical experienceas later describedin ChapterEight of Sublime Historical Experience(as explainedat the beginning of this Section). 163 an explanatoryclue could lie in the book'srecurrent Romeo and Juliet theme which constitutesa coherentnarrative thread that runs right throughits first six chapters.For this is consistentwith the idea suggestedby the title of Ankersmit's bookwhilst in manuscriptform, HistoricalExperience: the Embrace of Romeoand Juliet, which waschanged (for no clarified reason)to the currenttitle shortlybefore the book'spublication. " Justa few examplesof this Romeoand Juliet themeare the kiss," the embrace andthe metaphorfor de-contextualisation49The pointhere is that the original title suggesteda bookabout historical experience of the individual kind andnot the collective,sublime kind (the wider significanceof this argument will be expandedin a moment).On this basisAnkersmit's description of collective sublimehistorical experience, his variantof historicalexperience, would then be expectedto follow andnot precedethe mainargument. One can perhaps now see somerationale for Ankersmit'sparticular sequence of chaptersand hence arguments-a rationalethat was,however, effectively lost with the book'schange of title.

SectionTwo: Obsessionor Theory?

I nowturn to addressChapter Seven of SublimeHistorical Experiencewhere a more adequateexplanation might besought for Ankersmit'sparticular preference for a profoundlymelancholic and pessimistic style of historicalexperience. However, for reasonswhich will becomeimmediately apparent, I first wantto returnto Ankersmit'sIntroduction to the bookwhere he contemplatesthe origin of the sublimity of historicalexperience; [it] involves,in first Gestalt-switchfrom timeless ...... the place,a a present into a world consistingof thingspast and present. This givesus the discovery of the pastas a realitythat has somehow "broken off' from a timelesspresent. This is "the momentof loss".But atthe sametime historicalexperience aims at a recoveryof the pastby transcendingagain the barriersbetween past and present.And this could becharacterized as "the momentof desireor of love". All of historicalwriting is to be situatedin the spaceenclosed by these

46See `footnote 148' in jay, M., (20(4). Songsof Experience.California: University of California Press. p216 7 Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.p121 48Ibid. pp130& 135 49Ibid. p125 164 complementarymovements of the discovery(loss) and the recoveryof the past (love) thatconstitute together the realmof historicalexperience...... The sublimityof historical experienceoriginates from thisparadoxical union of the feelingsof lossand love,that is, of the combinationof pain andpleasure in howwe relateto thepast. 50

It appears,then, that the sublimityof historicalexperience is, atthis introductory stage,in Ankersmitargument, situated in a spaceenclosed by `lossand love' or `painand pleasure' which, together, constitute the realm of historicalexperience. However,the pleasurelloveelement of this equationis lost withouttrace by thetime thatAnkersmit gets round to "nailing down", in the last two chaptersof his book,his final definitionsof both histöricalexperience and his variantof it, sublimehistorical experience.Exactly why andwhere pleasure and love disappear from historical experienceis hardto see,but by the time Ankersmitgets to his seventhchapter it seemsthat they havealready departed, thereby effecting a destabilisationof the harmonyof the loss/loveand pain/pleasure dichotomies established at the beginning of his book.

It is with this observation madethat I might now myself plunge into the arguably oppressively melancholic curiosities of Ankersmit's ChapterSeven (appropriately titled `Subjective Historical Experience:The Past as Elegy') which are collected together here and presentedin the form of an explanation for subjective historical experiences' Broadly speakingChapter Sevenbreaks down into two parts, the `Pulcinella' and the `Rococo' arguments,the first an illustrative example of subjective histori cal experiencethrough the analysis of a painting and the second, the more convoluted of the two, being concernedwith the establishmentof a link betweenrococo ornament,or rather the mode of artistic expressionembodied in it, and subjective historical experience.Both of these examplesare, in their own individual ways, of a negative kind and it is important to try to see how they work for Ankersmit if his text is to be understood.

30 Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Eq enema. p9 51 Ankeramit's To recap,subjective historical experienceis of the Huizinga kind (the secondof three kinds of historical experienceas explained in this Chapter's preface). 165 The Pulcinella(taken by Ankersmitto havebeen of the unpleasant,malicious, vulgar andegoistic type)52 was a traditionaland very distinctivecharacter from the dell'arte,53 commedia andgroups of thesebizarre hunchback masked figures were often depictedin Eighteenth-CenturyVenetian paintings. Ankersmit selected a Particularexample of this genreof painting,the capriccioS4`Arcade with a Lantern' by Francesco Guardi,as the definitivesource of historicalexperience in the sense that this painting,which pre-datedthe FrenchRevolution, could (hesupposed) in itself afford accessto `the "mood" of the ancientregime' 55 through its oppressive symbolicPulcinella theme of ennui,incarceration and hopelessness (the painting appearson the coverof his book). But, andthis is crucial,Ankersmit failed to observethat this accesscame courtesy of his own interpretationof themeaning of the paintingand what he himselfsaw in the loathsomePulcinelli depicted in it. In total Ankersmitwrote twelve pages of detailedperspectival, tonal and comparative analysesof Guardi'spainting in which,he believed,he had adequately demonstrated the that his hadindeed 'obliterate[d] case own experienceof the painting .... the barriersseparating [him] from the endof theeighteenth century', 57 thus revealing the authenticmoods and feelings of thattime. I havecarefully studied Ankersmit's interpretationof the Guardipainting but I will not enterinto any discussionof it here simply becauseit constituted(as wouldbe the casewith any suchinterpretation) a personalprojection onto the objectof its investigation;in this casethe projectionof Ankersmit'sown thoughtsand feelings onto the Guardipainting. My argumenthere

52 Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.pp266-267. 53 This ('the comedyof art') is a form of improvisedtheatre that beganin Italy in the 15th century. Unscriptedperformances, involving troupesof up to ten costumedand maskedperformers, were held in the openair using few props. They were funded by donationsand anyonecould view the performances free of charge.It is interestingto note that in his ballet "Pulcinella", Igor Stravinsky(on the basisof an eighteenth-centuryplay) cast his Pulcinella as a `traditionalhero of Neapolitanmedia dell arse' who, in this particular instance,negotiated a happy endingto the ballet andwas thusof a markedly different type from that describedby Ankersmit (seeKuenning, G., (1995), `Stravinsky:"Pulcinella" Suite Programmenotes' at http://fmg-www. es.ucla. edu/geofVprognotes/stravinsky/puleinella. htnif). In Italian capriccio meansthat which is capricious,whimsical or fantastic.In relation to paintingsof this periodthe term was usedto describeimaginary topographical scenes comprising extant architectural elementswhich were recombinedin inventive relationshipsfor decorativeeffect. Their capriciousnature for is in suggestsa certainlightness of being - an engagingwhimsy - and accordingly, me, there nothing this particular painting (as I arguebelow), and certainlynothing in Guardi's paintingsin general(not, perhaps,even in the genre itself), that suggestsAnkersmit's doom andgloom analysis. s Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Earperience. 56 p273 Ibid. P272 (see here for a more complete description of the dark and oppressive "Pulcinella" effect). 37 Ibid. p276 166 is that Ankersmit, assuminga morbid negative point-of-view (governed by a portentous, retrospectively imposed master-tropeof tragedy/trauma;an apprehensionof the Revolution to come), placedthe various elementsof Guardi's painting under a particular style of description. He then found meaningful relationships amongstthese elementssuch that the painting itself appearedto transmit, of its own volition, precisely the moods and feelings required of it by the point-of-view originally taken. And, indeed,this processwas helped considerablyby Ankersmit's choice of painting, for whilst I have looked at many other examplesof Guardi's work I have yet to come acrossanother of his pictures which could have been so advantageouslyappropriated for this precise use. There is arguably something of the notion of figura (as describedby Hayden White)58in all of this. That is to say that Ankersmit, without realising it, appearsto have retrospectively (in the light of privileged hindsight) applied an imaginativefigure onto Guardi's painting such that the imminent French Revolution, retrospectively figured by Ankersmit on the basis of traumatic, irrevocable loss, becameits fulfilment.

Now to considerAnkersmit's Rococo argument, which he prefacedwith an autobiographicalconfessional that occupiedtwo pagesof text and,in addition,a lengthyendnote (already mentioned in SectionFive of the previousChapter), all of which referredto his unhappychildhood. Ankersmit, in essence,explained that as a from he sickly child - confinedto his bedand cut off the outsideworld - was inevitablyovertaken by an overpoweringsense of boredom.However, he discovered that boredompossessed a special intrinsic quality because in boredomthe interactionsbetween ourselves and the world aretemporarily this invitesreality to manifestits true nature, suspended;and suspension 59 untaintedand undistorted by our interestsand preoccupations.

It wasthis `true' natureof the world which wasthus revealed to Ankersmitduring his sicknessthrough his boredominduced fascination with the repetitiveflower patternson his parentsbedroom curtains. These patterns seen in the wholeand thus drainedof their representationalcontent at the level of the individualcomponent

S8Already explored in somedetail in SectionThree of the precedingChapter. 59 Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.p286 167 flower, appearedto embodyan autonomousfreedom of interaction(an interaction which alsoencompassed various random stains and tears in the wallpaper)within which newshapes and new meanings emerged. Drawing (he claims) on Kant, Ankersmit arguedthat this free play of imagerycould be understoodas the product of originary de-contextualiredexperience and that this form of expressionis therefore

....the closestwe cancome to pureexperience, to completeopenness to what the sensespresent to us,for now neitherthe realworld nor our perceptionsof it is forcedany longerwithin pre-existingPatterns-60

Ankersmitis thereforearguing that, liberated from all the influenceswhich might requirereality to be seenin oneparticular way ratherthan another, `pure experience' is attained(since there is no mediatingdeterminant to fix or regulatethe freeplay of the imagination)and, through this pureexperience, `reality may manifest to us its quasi-noumenalqualities'. 61 This explanation,as Ankersmit admitted, presupposed the completesubjectivity of perceptionand thus the obscurationof the objectof perception.Yet, he insistedthat we canstill do in ..... agreewith Kant thatthe workingsof suchcognitive structures not the leastexclude the possibilityof knowledgeof objectivereality. 62

Now, very briefly, two things. First, this last statement- which, incidentally, Ankersmit failed to referenceto Kant's writings - arguably doesnot fit in with my own reading of Kant and, second,Ankersmit's argumenttaken in the whole seems to internally negate itself. However, discounting thesetwo problems for a moment, there yet remains anothermore fundamentalproblem with Ankersmit's argumentfor (as mentioned in the preface to this Section), in Kant's theorisationsexperience is the unification of a sensibleobject with a conceptof understanding.On this basis Ankersmit's idea of `pure experience', and his argumentfor it, can be seento be meaninglesssince experiencealready embodiescategories of understandingand therefore cannot be `pure' in the sensethat he means.This unexaminedconflation of

60Ibid. p281 61 Ibid. p289 62Ibid. p289 168 experiencewith sensationsas evidenced in the formerof thesetwo quotesis, as I havealready stressed, a seriousflaw in Ankersmit'stheoretical position.

However(rejoining the Rococoargument), Ankersmit next turnedhis attentionto the "secrets"of ornamentand decoration, initially with referenceto a late seventeenth-centuryengraving by JeanBdrain depicting an `elegantarrangement of grotesques'.This arrangement,to Ankersmit,exemplified Kantian free play and, furthermore,the engraving'sthree-dimensional central tempietto (motif) setwithin a two-dimensionalornamental depiction of the surroundingframework, suggested to Ankersmitthat the engravingwas in essencea representationof dimensional transition.For whereasnormally a pictureis detachedfrom three-dimensional reality (its realsurroundings) by a separatepurpose made two-dimensional picture frame,in this particularcase the ornamentalframe was subsumed into the picture itself. Thusdimensional change became the subjectof thepicture, and Bbrain's engravingwas accordingly deciphered by Ankersmitas a depictionof the transition betweenpicture andornamental frame. This unexpectedline of argumentwas expandedas Ankersmittook-off on somethingof a journeythrough the world of rococorepresentational art, duringwhich he particularlynoted the merging of ornamentwith representationalreality andthe rococoartist's play with spaceand 63 time which foundits expressionin the symmetryof the ornamentalC-curve Seen altogether,the purposeof Ankersmit'sargument, which I haveonly very briefly its sketchedhere, was (on my readingof it) to showhow rococo(or, rather, expressionof moodsand feelings) moved from its earlyform as ornamental frameworkinto the representationof reality itself - the picture- which its original purposewas to frameonly (thusinvading reality with ornament).The next stageof the developmentof ornamentwas to truly supersedeitself by becoming (transformingitself into) part of reality itself.In this mannerornament, Ankersmit explained,`paradoxically disappeared at the very momentfit] becameeverything

it be 'u The C-curve is primary in rococo. It is suggestiveof depth,movement and mobility and can said dimension).It is, Ankersmit an to representthe four dimensionalworld (time being the fourth argues, hasits in affirmative expressionof the artistic confidenceof the rococoperiod which parallel the infinite in itself it Enlightenment'sconfidence in Newtonian science.The C-curvecurls up the - reduces Historical Experience. 299- infinity into a form which can be surveyedin a single glance.(see Sublime pp 306) 169 it 6a .... died in its higheststate' Now, this argumentwith all its ramifications constitutedwhat Ankersmit called `the secretof the ornamentalpicture frame'. 65

For Ankersmit then, as he explains himself in his ChapterSeven, rococo represents and expressesa world of moodsand feelings which resonatedeeply within himself, and it is in these moods and feelings that he finds that the past object and the present subject merge in pure experience without a subject of experienceto experience it. Moods and feelings are, on this view, both subjectlessand objectlessand they precedethe differentiation betweenself and the world (or subject and object). They are, for Ankersmit, embeddedin an indivisible totality of experiencewhere moods and feelings are expressionsof both the self and of the world. Extending and stretching this argument, Ankersmit then claimed - in what is surely a non-sequitur - that `becauseof this moods and feelings have natural affinity with historical .a experience...... and one might well say that sublime historical experiencepreferably makes itself felt in these moods and feelings.`

This is the substanceof Ankersmit'sRococo argument on my readingof it and,as such,it canbe seen as an attemptby Ankersmitto raiserococo ornament to a new status;that of a form of expression(articulated through ornament) which sharedan equivalenceor correspondencewith sublimehistorical experience. To me the argumentis convoluted,complex, confusing and fragile at best.

Nevertheless,the structure and contentof the Pulcinella and the Rococoarguments - the two principal elementsof Ankersmit's ChapterSeven, as noted above - may afford further insights into the nature of Ankersmit's position in relation to historical experience(of both kinds). But (referring back to this Chapter's openingparagraph), there is nothing at all in thesearguments that might, as was hoped, help explain Ankersmit's particular preferencefor a negative and pessimistic style of historical

64 Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.p306 6sIbid. p297 Ibid. p308 170 experience.However, an explanationmight be foundthrough further examination of Ankersmit'sreference, again previously mentioned, to the complementarymovements of the discovery(loss) and the recoveryof the past(love) thatconstitute together the realmof historical experience....[followed by his italicised statementthat] The sublimity of historical experience originatesfrom this paradoxical union of thefeelings of loss and love, that is, of the combination ofpain and pleasure in how we relate to thepast. 67 This quotationmight at first sight leavethe impression(asit did for me) thatthe historicalexperience itself inhabitsa spacebetween loss/pain at oneextreme and love/pleasureat the other,and that within this spaceone could then reasonably expectto find historicalexperiences of the non-negativepleasurable kind. But, in the italicisedpart of the quotationAnkersmit is actuallyassociating the loss/loveand pain/pleasurecombinations with `howwe relateto the past' andnot with the experienceof the pastitself So-thesecombinations are, in a sense,to do with the stateof mind that the historianbrings to the experience(or needsto possessin order to havesuch an experience)rather than the modein whichthat historicalexperience is registered.Thus it is `thesemost personal feelings.... [that] areabsolutely indispensablefor.... beingopen to the experienceof the past'.` Or, again, `... [historical be the surface, subjectand experience]must situated... on where in the objectmeet, where they lightly toucheach other a mosttactful gesture... .of subtlestand most delicate love' 69 All of this is to do with the mannerin which the historianmakes contact and not aboutwhat comes through having made that contact.

for But even this does not properly answerthe question of Ankersmit's pessimism, there must have been many past eventswhich could have intrinsically satisfied Ankersmit's conditions for the occurrenceof sublime historical experience(an irreparablebreak with the past, the necessaryrebuilding of identity, etc.) that are not of a profoundly pessimistic kind. For instance(and in addition to the "happy peasants"of 1789), following the 13th Amendmentof 1865which abolishedslavery in America, the community of recently freed slaveswould have experienceda

67bid, p9 '8 Ibid. p191 69Ibid. p152 171 radical break with their collective past which requiredthe building of a new collective identity out of that break. It could well have beentraumatic for some of them at the time, but it seemsunlikely that the majority of ex-slaveswould have wanted to reverse events and regain their pre-emancipationslave lives and slave identities. Surely one can presumethat their changein statuswould generally have been seen by them themselves as a positive, perhapseven a romantic move towards, at the least, a better post-emancipationhuman condition. A similar argument,no doubt, could be applied to the beneficiaries of post-World War II decolonisationand countlessother instancesof advantageous(to the benefit of one group or another) breaks with the past. Why Ankersmit should have excluded,without explanation, thesehappier sorts of collective transitionsbetween old and radically new modes of existenceremains unclearto me. So perhapsall that can be said is that sublime historical experienceis, after all, Ankersmit's conceptand that, as I have already pointed out, he defined it in a particular way and worked his thesis aroundthat definition. 70And in so doing I think that he also demonstrated(whether he noticed it or not) that sublime historical experienceis of an elitist kind. For it can by definition only come into being as a figure of loss'71and that loss can only apply to the traumatic and irretrievable lossesof the minority groups it favours- his vanquished elites72- or, as he elsewheredescribes them, `the most responsibleamong [those constituting the Socrateses,so to speak'.73 a civilisation] ....

Whateverthe reasonsfor it, however,Ankersmit's pre-occupation with a deeply pessimisticnotion of the sublime(a kind of dark obsessionwhich excludesany other possiblereading of it) certainlycolours his ominousreading of the pastand the mechanismwhich (he says)afford consciousawareness of it. Buried in his own terrifyinghistorical sublime he haslittle at all to sayabout positive emancipatory possibilitiesfor the future.For (arguably)we shouldnever

70On reflection,Chapter Seven of SublimeHistorical Experience could never, of course,have offered the explanationsought, for Ankersmitchose as his secondarytitle to it `ThePast as Elegy' and seen as a nairatiw substance,which is exactlywhat it is, thiscolligating device would filter out all statementsof thenon-elegiac kind, the happyand positive kind, and admit only those of the elegiacor mournfully reflectiveand melancholic kind. 71 Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.p128 72Ibid. p 142 73 Ibid. p367 172 fail .... to give up (asDerrida urged us neverto giveup) on thatgreat 'fable' of [we the it belongs emancipation.... and should]place pastwhere categorically - behindus.... the pastisn't somethingwe shouldnostalgically dwell in or on,but somethingwe shouldget out of, not leastby stressingthe positiveaspects of `sublime' 74 experience....

Moreover, although the argumentsAnkersmit used in support of sublime historical experience can (as he himself accepted)be seen to reflect his own very personal "spin" on it, there seems little doubt that, nevertheless,he wished to carry his readerswith him such that they could also, like him, believe in and benefit from those fleeting unmediated experiential moments through which the sublime would (Ankersmit supposed)reveal the past in all its authentic nakedness.I shall return to this `authentic nakedness'later in Section Four, however, one final observation to conclude this Section. Ankersmit presentedhis argumentfor the existence of sublime,historical experience in a writing style which was suggestiveof its own collective acceptance.I am referring here to his ubiquitous use of the word `we'; an umbrella term under which Ankersmit included himself and all his readerswho, figured in the form of a like-minded community, were assumedby Ankersmit to be picked up and swept along by the affirmative logic of his argument. My point is that Ankersmit,in effect, left no spacefor dissentin his text becauseit presupposed andmanufactured its own singular,collectively understood thrust towards its one andonly conclusion.

SectionThree: Presence: A NewParadigm.

This critique of (sublime)historical experience cannot be completewithout a brief contextualisingaccount of its offspring,presence, and the relatedphenomenon of parallel processing,not leastbecause Ankersmit himself, along with the psychologistand historian Eelco Runia, established a departmentat the University of Groningen(the `Centrefor Metahistory')for the studyof thesephenomena. Accordingly,my shortdescription of presenceis articulatedin relationto the output of what (aspreviously noted) I shallbe referringto hereas the "GroningenSchool".

74 Jenkins,K. `Cohencme a Ankersmit'. p311 173 It seemsthat the wordpresence was first coinedin this connectionat an International Conferenceat GroningenUniversity, entitled `Presence: A viable alternativeto representation?'. Its centraltheme, which (it is interestingto note) soughtto diminishthe representationalismexpounded by HaydenWhite in his book Metahistory,was that such a notion hadlost its vigour,rigour, andexplanatory Powerwhen faced with the morerecent phenomena of memory,remembrance and traumastudies. Collectively, the developmentof thesenew studies (according to the Conferenceprogram notes) constituted the emergenceof a newparadigm for which the Centrefor Metahistory`boldly gavethe name"Presence"'. '

A secondInternational Conferenceat Groningen in 2007, entitled `Moved by the Past', again focused on (or, perhapsone could say, was again obsessedwith) Hayden White, and choseas its point of departurean analysis of his expression `what is fictive in all putatively realistic representationsof the world, and what is realistic in all manifestly fictive ones'.76 Taking the secondpart of this quotation, what is realistic in the manifestlyfictive, and misunderstandingWhite's purposein writing it, the declaredobjective of the conferencebecame the searchfor how be fictive .... realitycan besaid to `present'in representationsof the [and the here world ... to] explorethe waythe pastmay engulf and now...[having been].... transported through time, asa kind of stowaway,in the laws,histories, it .... novels, myths,traditions, monuments etc. we consider our duty to makeand transmit. " Furthermore,it wasproposed that the conferencewould investigatehow the transportedpast could be saidto exertan influenceon thepresent. 78

In this contextI now turn to EelcoRunia who, in his essay`Presence', refers to presencenot as a manifestationof meaning79but asa conditionof "`beingin touch"

75 Seethe promotional literature for `Presence:A Viable Alternative to Representation',An International Conferenceheld at Groningenuniversity, 1" & 2°dDecember 2005 or (http://www. rug. nl). 76 From the prefaceto a conferencepamphlet distributed at a colloquium entitled 'Moved by the Past' ýningen University 27h & 28mSeptember 2007) p6. Also availableat (http://www. rug. ni). Ibid. p17 78 Altogetherthese objectives constituted a radical conceptualdeparture from the substanceof White's original argumentwhich, in point of fact, analysedthe functionaldistinction betweenthe sign, symbol andicon in languageuse and neither mentionednor implied any passageof agencies,stowaways or anythingelse directly from the pastinto the present.(See White, H. Tropicsof Discourse.p88). 79 For Runia '.... all strategiesof emplotment,including the strategyWhite calls metonymy,belong to the sphereof "Metaphor". They are metaphoricalbecause they are in the businessof 'transferof meaning", 174 literally - either or figuratively- with people,things, events, and feelings that ma[k]eyou into the personyou are'.$0 In this sensefor himpresence is `the unrepresentedway the pastis presentin the present'," andhe furtherexplains that this transferfrom pastto presentis effectedby the rhetoricalfigure of metonymy. Runiagoes on to saythat: [a] metonymy is a "presencein absence"not just in the sensethat it presents something that isn't there, but also in the sensethat in the absence(or radical inconspicuousness)that is there, the thing that isn't there is still present. The presenceof the past thus does not reside primarily in the intendedstory or the manifest metaphorical content of the text, but in what story and text contain in spite of the intentions of the historian. One might say that historical reality travels with historiography not as a paying passengerbut as a stowaway...... the wonder of the historical text is.... that it, despiteits textuality, somehow,sometimes, does bring us into contact with historical [for) the is in the [and historical reality .... past present present.... moreover] reality is, so to speak,very able to get into contact with us,112

However, Ankersmit in his essay `Presenceand Myth', explains that `Presenceis a new word in theoretical reflections on the humanities' and that there dictionary discussions "presence" .... are no meanings or authoritative of that fix the significance of this word in a way that ought to be acceptedby everybody using it. So we are in the welcomepossession of great freedom to manoeuvrewhen using the term. In fact, the only feasible requirement for its use is that it should maximally contribute to our understandingof the humanities.... [and] I am convinced that this really is the kind of notion we now need more than anything else. For the lingualism of the philosophy of language his become threat to the intellectual health of our .... a serious discipline. The notion of "presence" may help us to entera new phasein theoretical reflection about the humanitiesand to addressa set of wholly new and fascinating questions.

Notwithstanding this apparentconfusion (which is particularly evident in Ankersmit's claim that a word of no fixed meaning or significance can, nonetheless, signify a notion which can be of use to the humanities), all thesevarious accountsof

E., (2006). `Presence' whereasmetonymy, by presentingan absence,is a "transfer of presence,..(Runic, in History and Theory45 no. 1: p29). 80 Runia. `Presence'.p5 81Ibid. p1 87Ibid. p1 83Ankersmit, F. It, (2006). `Presenceand Myth' in History and Theory45 no. 3: p328 175 ' presencedo, in fact, sharea commoncharacteristic. That is, they areall to do with immediate,untarnished, abrupt, intuitive andunmediated modes of accessto the past - the past"plain". The pureessence of the backthere suddenly flooding directly into the hereand now in all its authenticity.Or, in short,the "stuff' of historical experienceon which the conceptof presenceis manifestlybased and then further developed(as I shall now show)into anagencjP, that of parallel processing.

Runia's9' concept of parallel processing essentiallyrests on Freud's observation that an experiencewhich is not adequatelyremembered may be repeatedby a patient under (psycho)analysis in the form of an unconsciousre-enactment of that experience.Runia then further observed,drawing also on the works of the American psychoanalystHarold Searles,that inadequatelyremembered experiences (those that are not adequatelyhistoricised) may not only shapere-enactments through patient/psychoanalystinteraction but may also shapethe interactionsbetween psychoanalystsand their supervisors(as Runia calls them). Runia then takes this Freud/Searlescombination of ideasinto the field of historical theory and calls it parallel processing in order to distinguish it from Collingwood's theory of re- enactment.87 It should be noted herethat Runia's parallel process, as he described it, canonly operateon the basisof bothof thesepropositions; first, the ideathat an inadequatelyremembered past experience can interactwith andshape the mind of the subjectof thatexperience and, second, that this kind of re-experiencingprocess can,in effect,be displacedsuch that it canperform its interactionsin another location. Armed with this theoretical tool Runia found in his descriptionof a particular event, the SrebrenicaMassacre which took place during the Bosnian War of 1992/5,his postulatedparallel process which he then championedas the (his) definitive proof of the existenceof parrallelprocessing.

84 Even in `Presenceand Myth', for instance,Ankersmit goes on to illustrateshis argumentwith an form exampleof parallel processingwhich, as I will explain in a moment,relies on a of unmediated contact with the past(see `Presenceand Myth'. pp333-335), 95 . Becauseit is assumedto be ableto exert aninfluence on the present. a; Although Ankersmit arguesenthusiastically for parallel processing,it wasRunia who first imported the idea into historical theory from the sphereof psychoanalyticresearch (see Runia, E., (2004). `Forget About It: ParallelProcessing in the SrebrenicaReport' in History and Theory43 no. 3: p293-320 r' The essentialdifference here being that Collingwood's theory refersto the consequencesof intended (conscious)action in an artificially reconstructedenvironment whilst Runia's conceptrefers to an unconsciousprocess in a putatively real environment- the presenceof the past. 176 The event is explained (storied) by Runia as follows. In July 1995 a large number (latterly reported as 8373) of Bosnian Muslims, under the protection of a Dutch UN peace keeping force, were slaughteredby Bosnian Serb forces in and around Srebrenica.This event, the greatestEuropean mass murder since World War II, reflected badly on the peacekeeping operationsof a nation which believed in its own decencyand moral propriety. The Dutch government's slow and confused reaction to the event -a replication of its own military authority's reaction- was interpreted by Runia as a failure to adequatelyhistoricise (or remember)the catastrophe,this being the Freudian key to the theory of parallel processing. The matter was then turned over to the historians of the MOD (Netherlands Institute for War Documentation) who were askedto do what the Dutch military and Dutch (or historicise) But, politicians had failed to do - to account for the catastrophe. and this was Runia's point, the MOD merely replicated the previous actions of the Dutch authorities in that they wrote 7000 pages(2.45 million words) of literary for obfuscation which - this being the point -failed to properly account the tragedy.

Runia(and Ankersmit) seized on this descriptionof the sequenceof eventsas both the definitiveexample of, andthe proof of, the existenceof parallel processing which was presumedto havebeen demonstrated through the MOD researchers're- enactmentof their principals'behaviour in a parallel process,as evidencedby their very lengthy,indecisive and obscure report on it. And, whataccording to Ankersmit thatreport unintentionally did, wasto

`.... try to perpetuatethe myth of the Dutch people as a sensible,decent and fundamentally well intentioned nation... [for] myth manifests itself when historicisation has reachedits limits and. then beginsto leak into representation,and the continuum betweennature and history emergesin which representationturns into a copying of the past.... [whence]the representationof action becomesthe action of representation....[and] precisely this transformation make us aware of the blind spot of the MOD report: its authors started to behavein the sameway as their principals but without being aware of it, and of what makes them copy their principals. We had best characterisethis blind spot as the report's myth: for we have to do with myth 89 when the past determinesour actions'

ss idea 'In Another of Runia's examplesof the pastdetermining actions in the presentrelied on the that the cells and corridorsof Abu Ghraib, SaddamHussain's torture practiceswere so overwhelmingly loomed large, later Present,and the sheerpossibility of using them - though horrifying - so that sooneror the Americanshad to repeatthem' (Runia, E., (2006).`Spots of Time' in History and Theory45 no. 3: p- 177 Seenin relationto the descriptionof presenceat thebeginning of this Sectionand this very complex90developed version of it (or parallel process),presence can now be seento operateat two distinctlydifferent levels. That is to say thatthe pastis presumedto momentarilyflood into the presentwhere, at the first level,it is simply registeredas an individual'sexistential experience of it but,at the secondlevel, the presenceof the past(personified as `thestowaway') itself takesaction and imposes its own autonomousdesigns on the present.Or, asRunia himself prefers to put it, by in .... we as subjectsare overwhelmed the presenceof the pastas sehnsuchtand nostalgia, in JohanHuizinga's "historical sensation", in what FrankAnkersmit calls "sublime historical experience", and finally in the mind- bogglingcases where our objectcontrols and prefigures the historieswe, historians,write. 91

Now, for me, the essentiallypassive notion ofpresence and, by contrast,the active `mind-boggling'notion of parallel processing,consign these phenomena to different categories.Nevertheless, Runia's statement (immediately above) appears to tie together,for him andthe "GroningenSchool" at least,the notionsof presenceand parallel processing.And furthermore,it relatesthem to sublimehistorical experience and historical sensation;the latter of which, as I have already argued,is the underlying founding concept upon which this whole branch of experience studies is based.Just for the moment this completesmy excursion into the alluring sphereof presence.

308). Theseand manyrelated phenomenainvolving the intervention of the past in the presentwere the (which central concernof the previously noted conference`Moved by the Past' I attended).However, no be influencedin one presentthought to questionits underlying presuppositionthat the presentcan the aboveway; this central ideawas simply taken,as a conferencedefining given. 89 Ankersmit. `Presenceand Myth'. pp334-335 90A simple explanationmight be that the Dutch politicians andthe NIOD historians,being profoundly Dutch UN disturbedwhen they becameaware of the effective (throughneglect) complicity of their own disguise peacekeeping battalion in the massacreof theseBosnian Muslims, tried to concealedor matters as bestthey could through obfuscationin order to mitigate National embarrassment.That is what others be in nationsmight well havedone in similar circumstancesand sucha responsecould easily explained Runia terms of humannature or political expediency,so why should Ankersmitand needto explainthis affair through the mysticism and the arguableincredulity of a notion like parallel processing? 91Runia. `Spotsof Time'. p7 178 SectionFour: A Misl Title

In this final Sectionof ChapterFour I am first goingto very briefly gathertogether all the essentialpoints that I havetried to makein the previousthree Sections such that my critiqueof historicalexperience might be moreeffectively presented. I then questionmore closely Ankersmit's notion of de-contextualisationand the significance of his assumption that all considerationsrelating to languagecan be unproblematically ejected from his theorisations.Having dismissedAnkersmit's thesis on these and other grounds, I then hope to show that historical experienceas construedby Ankersmit is not historical (nor for that matter, experiential) at all and, therefore, it could never have given Ankersmit the style of history he seemedto be after. Rather, if it can give or do anything at all (and I argue here that this is questionable)it does so only at an individual existential level and, therefore, it would have beenmore appropriate for Ankersmit to have located hisphenomenon in the rapidly expanding field of memory studies- to which its timely appearance could also almost certainly betaken as indexical.

So,first the generalpoints in connectionwith the argumentsraised in this Chapter. Ankersmit'sundertaking in the writing of SublimeHistorical Experiencecan now be seenas an attemptto developan alternativetheory of historycapable of providing anunmediated and thus direct entryinto a real,authentic experiential relationshipto the past.In addition,his argumentwas to accountfor the natureand occasionof the emergenceof a modernWestern historical consciousness which he inextricablytied-in to his notion of sublimehistorical experience. And, furthermore, sublimehistorical experience itself wasunderstood by Ankersmitto be a variantof historicalexperience which, as i haveargued, rested not only on a problematic interpretationof Huizinga'sthesis on historicalsensation, but alsoon a seriesof presuppositionsthat were never properly investigated by Ankersmit.Now, with these generalpoints made, a brief summaryof the natureof sublimehistorical experience canfollow.

179 For Ankersmit the FrenchRevolution of 1789,which gaverise to `themost decisive andprofound changes that westernman has undergone', 92 is the paradigmcase for his theoryof sublimehistorical experience. The irreversiblerupture with a previous of way life occasionedby the FrenchRevolution and the necessaryabandonment of its traditions,familiarity andso on - the sheddingof a previousidentity in orderto into enter a radicallynew way of life with a newidentity - wasa painful experience. And this pain (thepain of profoundloss and cultural despair)which lingeredon after the eventas a constantpresence (seen by Ankersmitas a componentof his `groaningsof civilisations') is the essenceof the "stuff' thathistorians are presumed to connectwith whenexperiencing the historicalsublime - an experiencewhich, Ankersmitinsists, can only comeinto beingout of the traumaof loss.Now, concurrentlywith this propositionAnkersmit's ran the closelyrelated argument that in orderto get a historicalconsciousness in the first place,a civilisationor culture hasto go througha traumaticcultural experience of this sort.For it is only whena civilisation's or a culture'spast has been ripped away from its present,causing that civilisation or cultureto loseall "bearings"as it facesthe uncertainty.of its collectivefuture, that the processof historicalchange - the pastbreaking away from the present- becomessuddenly very apparent.Accordingly, for Ankersmit,it is preciselyout of this suddenrecognition of a previousidentity which (becauseit has "brokenaway" andbecome irretrievably lost) hasto be consciouslyshed in favour of a new identity,that the conditionsfor the acquisitionof historicalconsciousness arises.

Now, at this stage in his argument Ankersmit (it appears)assumed that he had identified a collective sublime experience,his `groaningsof a civilisation' which, as he himself explained, had no subject of experience,no self. However, through the inventive introduction of the `hybrid creature' metaphor,Ankersmit endeavouredto name, give shapeto and articulate this collective notion suchthat it could be linked to the individual being of the subject of historical experience.Ankersmit, in effect called on his readersto acceptthat this hybrid creature,adrift in the ether and bereft of self-awareness,possessed a facility which endowedit with the capacity to make

92 Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.p323 180 contactwith (or intersectand enter in someway or other)a historian'scentral nervoussystem, thereby to registerin thathistorian's mind (asa surrogatese#) the authentic,unmediated feelings and sensations transmitted by the experiencein question.Such an argument,if onewere to supposethat it could beseriously entertained,would provideAnkersmit with his requiredlink betweencollective sublimehistorical experience and individual (existential) historical experience. But, evenso, there are yet furtherproblems because historical experience itself rests,as I haveargued, on a flawedset of pre-suppositionswhich are(1) thatthe notionsof sensationand experience are identical (2) thatdescription can constitute explanation (3) thatsublime historical experience can be unproblematicallytaken as a variantof historicalexperience and (4) thathuman reality (not actualitybut reality) is prior to language(or doesnot presupposeit) andthat, in consequence,the real andlanguage can be treatedas discreteentities.

Thatcompletes my brief summary,but thereis anotherassumption that shouldbe revisitedhere, for it lies beneathand shapes Ankersmit's explanation of historical experienceunder the overarchingrhetorical figure of his Romeoand Juliet metaphor.93 I am referringto Ankersmit'sconviction that the subjectof historical

" Ankersmit's Romeo andJuliet metaphor,as I have alreadyexplained, figures his argumentin support of historical experience(as the original title to Ankersmit's book suggests- seepage 164above). This metaphorfunctioned for Ankersmit on the basisof what he called 'a doublemovement of do- contextualisation',in the sensethat both Romeoand Juliet had to free themselvesfrom the influencesof their respectivemutually belligerent families in orderthat they could eventually cometogether in the embrace,or kiss, which effecteda transferof true feelings andsensations. Projecting this ideaonto his theory of historical experience,Ankersmit illustrated his convictionthat both the historianand the past haveto, in like manner,rupture their contextualties in orderto hurry togetherto the locus of contact where similar authentic exchangeswould then take place.Now this metaphorof Ankersmit's has,I think, not beenproperly thoughtthrough, for Romeo'sand Juliet's withdrawalsfrom their respectivefamilies cannotbe seenas actsof de-contextualisationat all. Rather,I would arguethat they both addedto, or modified, their contextsin the sensethat their identities becamemore complex with the repudiationof their families. Accordingly, it is my argumentthat neither Romeonor Juliet moved outsidetheir respectivecontexts and that thereforeAnkersmit's omnipresent metaphor fails to 'work its passage'. Furthermore,I shouldpoint out that Ankersmit's particular useof the Romeoand Juliet metaphorappears to conflict with his own contextualnotion of self identity as he explainedit in Narrative Logic. For (as I have already explainedin ChapterOne) he takesself identity to be a logical entity which refers to a narrrattvesubstance (per)formed on the self andwhich is comprisedof statementswhich expressall the experiencesand perceptions of that self to date(which would, of course,in the fullness of time, include those.to come). On this (Ankersmit's own) understandingof the structureof self identity - that is, as an always on-going performativeproduct of contextualisation- his introduction of the ideathat onecan somehow"shed" context/identity is absurd/unworkable.Thus, Ankersmit's underlying articulatoryuse of his Romeoand Juliet metaphorin the first six chaptersof SublimeHistorical Experiencearguably representsyet anothercontradictory tension within the rhetoricalstyle of his thesis. 181 experience,the historian, can indeedbecome de-contextualised, as required by Ankersmit's theory, and thus meet the necessarycondition for the receipt of (de- contextualised) historical experiences.I will now more thoroughly explore this assumption on which, by his own definition, Ankersmit's theory of historical experience actually dependsand thereforewithout which it basically collapses.For the oppositional point that needsto be made is that arguably we are, all of us, born into ongoing social formations which constitutea context, or a life-giving, life-long processof socialisation and enculturation, which identities, .... performatively produces/reproducespersonal/interpersonal etc., relative to hegemonic (and hence contingent/unstable)`conditions'.... we just are, as Derrida has expressedit many times, `our inheritances' (know it or not, like it or not); we are `always in a text already' without any originary moment, `full without any chanceof any metaphysical/ontological.... actual presence'....

On this understandingthe Ankersmiteanshedding of context/identity(literally the emptyingout of the experiencingsubject) reduces that subjectto neutralblankness; an unformedpre-natal being without the wherewithal,the self identity,which is requiredby Ankersmit'stheory in orderto registerthe historicalsublime or remembera previousidentity or, for thatmatter, anything at all. It is interestingto notein this connectionthat the historicaltheorist Torbjäm G. Chorell,in his review articleT. R Ankersmitand the HistoricalSublime'95 (already referred to in `footnote 19' above),produced an argumentfrom a slightly differentperspective which supportsmy scepticalposition with regardto de-contextualisation.

Chorell arguedthat the notion of de-contextualisationas construedby Ankersmit was internally incoherent,in that Ankersmit claimed that historical experience referred to an experience in (andthe thereof)has .... whichthe history of the experiencingsubject memory no roleto play-it is an experiencewithout a subject.The subject has to divest itself from its ownhistory which ordinarilycontextualizes and historicizes his or

" Jenkins,K., `Referee'sReport' concerningthe publicationof Runia,E., `Inventingthe New from the Old: From White's `Tropics' to Vico's `Topics" (Both to be published,along with Runia's reply to the Jenkinsreport, in a forthcomingedition of RethrmtingHistoryin 2010). Thanksto Keith Jenkinsfor early sight of thesepapers. 9 Chorell. `F. R. Ankersmit andthe Historical Sublime'. pp9l-102 182 her experience- andin this waythere is nopreceding subject of experience.The subjectofexperience comes into beingonly with andthanks to the experiencein question.It is only thanksto this emptyingof thesubject of anyprior structure, content,memory, and so onthat we canmove on from dialecticalErfahrung (andthus from Gadamerand Adorno) to the sublimityof historical experience.%

Yet, this explicit understandingof the de-contextualisationprocess seems to defeat itself, for the subjectof experience,stripped of anyprior structure,content, memory, etc.,lacks the cognitiveframework within which anythingat all could be recognised.So how, onemight ask,could that subject,whilst suspendedin a de- contextualised"nothingness" state of being,somehow recognise a previousself irretrievablebroken away from the present?As Chorellpointed out, whatthe subject of experiencemust, actually, be recognisingis the hasbrought thatthey lost .... changethat experience about,not met a part of themselvesin the momentof experience....[and, furthermore, he asks]in what way doesthis differ fromthe dialecticalexperience that Ricoeur and Gadamerand othersspeak about, where the experiencechanges and influences the subject?9' had it was Moreover - and crucially - since Ankersmit claimed that through the phenomenonof historical experiencethat we can recognisea lost part of ourselves, surely the new identity formed out of that experiencecannot be seenas a complete break with that previous identity.. For we must be retaining some sort of memory of what has been in order to be aware of what we have lost and what is new; therefore we cannothave de-contextualisedourselves after all. Rather, this whole process must logically entail some form of continuity with the former self and, accordingly, Chorell has suggestedthat `the loss [that] we think we have had has.... been " dialectically incorporatedinto the new memory'. Chorell's critical evaluationof Ankersmit's position compliments my own critique of de-contextualisationand also accords with Ankersmit's earlier and much better characterisationof identity as a narrative substancewritten or inscribed on the self (as discussedin ChapterOne, pages29 and 30) and which he now seemsto have forgotten.

% Ankersmit, F. R., (2005). SublimeHistorical xperience.California: StanfordUniversity Press.p146 97Chorell. T. R. Ankersmit and the Historical Sublime'. P98 '8 Ibid. p99 183 I would now like to tie this observationinto anotherimportant matter, namely the performativefunction of languagewhich constitutesthe humanreality (built out of `our inheritances')in which we areall immersed.I will be, in part,drawing for this purposeon an argumentlaid out by Martin Davisin the last Sectionof Variation Four (`History as SymbolicRe-enactment') of his recentpublication Historics.

Davies argueshere that within our (human) historicised world there is nothing which become cannot or has not already becomea historical symbol - the past is all around us in our "historic" environment which is `a collective memory containing stories written in.stone, brick, wood, glass, steel; stories inscribed in field patterns, hedgerows,designed landscapesand on '. 9Accordingly, the so .... past which no longer exists can only (putatively) make itself known through some kind of existing historical text within the historicised semiotic system. There is, therefore,no extra- textual referent for the historical text, no knowable objective reality, nothing beyond the semiotic-systemwhich describesit.

Thushumans, as symbol using language animals, consciously operate reflexively throughsystems of representations- sign-systems (notations) of humanmaking - withoutwhich humanobjective reality would be unthinkableand thus unknowable. This world of wordscreates the world of thingsor, to restateagain one of my previousHayden White quotes,`.... tropics [meaning tropological language use] is the processby which all.discourse constitutes the objectswhich it pretendsonly to describerealistically and analyse objectively'.

Returning to Historics, Davies, drawing support from George Steiner,100 is in agreementwith the latter's notion that; [tihe pastis thinkableand knowable only throughthe current semiotic or symbolicsystem. `Our sense of the past,not as immediately,innately acquired

" Davies,M. L., (2006). Histories. WhyHistory DominatesContemporary Society. Abingdon: Routledge.p233 100 Steiner,G., (1975). &lraterritoriai. " Paperson Literature and theLanguage Revolution, Harmondsworth:Peregrine Books. (Davies quotesfrom p70). 184 but is... reflexes, asa shapedselection of remembrance, .radically linguistic. History, in the humansense, is a language-netcast backwards.... ' 101

Davis's argument,then, is articulatedaround the understandingthat we humanslive in a rhetoricalworld of humanmaking which is constitutedin the languagewe use to describeit. Any thing that lies outsideour capacityfor its linguisticdescription could not be linguisticallyrelated to otherthings and thus could not (aswe have seenRichard Rorty argue)be talkedof or thoughtof. For, to stepoutside a language of descriptionis to stepinto an ineffablevoid. A void which,in a conversesense, finds itself in seriouswant of a languageof description(and any familiarising languagewould do, providingthat it hassufficient utility valueto allow us humans to get aroundin it). Thereis, then,no escapefrom language,and (incidentally) I thereforecannot agree with oneaspect of MichaelRoth's argument in his recent review bf SublimeHistorical Experiencein which hemaintained that, following the `demise'of the linguisticturn, language...has [and] to look ...the massivetide of . receded... we arenow able acrossthe sandto seewhat might be worthsalvaging before the next waveof theory begins As language 102 .... to poundthe shore. recedes.... etc%tc.

For here the point is that arguablythe medium of languagedoes not, nor cannot, itself recede it is not, in Roth's sense,'tidal': languagecannot succumb(to use his metaphor) to the moon's gravity and thereby leave us beachedoutside its reach in an ineffable void. As symbol using languageanimals we are always continuously and is how it is. totally submergedin language- like it or not, that

Now, I haveargued these two connectedpoints (the inextricably context bound conditionof humanexistence and the languagedependant nature of that context)in orderto demonstratethe questionablenature of the ideathat these arguments can be ignoredor thatthey can,without explanation, be assumed to havebeen circumvented.There is nothingin Ankersmit'swritings that indicatesto me thathe hasgrasped the implicationsthat these considerations have for his thesison historicalexperience, and certainly nothing that effectively negates these two

10' Davies.Hisiorics. p235 102 Roth, M. S., (2007). `EbbTide'in History and Theory46 no. 1: p66 185 arguments such that his move beyond them might be seento be adequatelyjustified. Nevertheless,Ankersmit does move on, apparentlysecure in the knowledge that de- contextualisation holds no problems for him, and it appearsthat the "Groningen School" itself reflects this position. 103However, the last and essentialpoint that I wish to stresshere is that Ankersmit's assumption(in the furtheranceof his thesis), that one can unproblematically "step out" of both context and language,is not supported anywhere in his writings by any form of argument whatsoever.But, as I have shown, there is a coherent and powerful counter-argumentto Ankersmit's position which (in my view) fatally undermineshis overall thesis and which he continues to ignore, even though it can be seento be leaking into and destabilising his and the "Groningen School's" position on the matter.

So,to makeit quite clear,my argumentis thatthese two interconnected"4 propositionswhich, it canbe convincingly argued, undermine the validity of Ankersmit'scase for the existenceof the phenomenonof sublimehistorical experience,were either unnoticed, ignored or dismissedby him whilst arguinghis thesis.This oversightof Ankersmit'sis compoundedwhen taking into consideration a furthertwo mattersas follows:

103 for in For instance,responding to Jenkins' `Referee'sReport' on his essaysubmitted publication Rethinking History (referredto above,footnote 94), Runia very positively confirmed that 'yes, I am `originary sayingthat we are not `always in a text already', yes, I do maintain that there are moments', yes, I do believe that things may start ex nihilo, yes, etc....' This constitutesa clear statementof position which, effectively, emanatesfrom the "Groningen School", yet it is not entirely coherentfor in Runia's bound. instance essayhe makesmany referencesto his centralsubject presence as context For our live but culture is madeup of `presences'....institutions not only determinethe way we also constitute the spherein which we communicateabout the way we live.... presencesucceeds in getting 'on board' unnoticedin as far as texts tap living culture and (in Runia. 'Spots of Time'. p315) presence...... despite coincideswith our culture. In a senseit is our culture.' On my readingof thesetwo texts, and .... (and historical Runia's protestationto the contrary, it appearstome that he locatespresence thus experience)precisely in that samecultural contextdiscussed a few pagesback, the contextof our inheritances.This apparentcontradiction of his own argumentundermines Runia's theoreticalposition and by inferenceundermines the collective position of the "GroningenSchool". from its language 104Ankersmit's presuppositionthat the human"real" precedesand is thusdisconnected (argued of description,such that languageand reality can eachbe takenas discreteentities at the beginningof this section),can betaken as implicit to and thusincluded in the secondof these interconnectedarguments. 186 (1) Ankersmit'swhole argument and its derivatives(presence, parallel processingand other products of the "GroningenSchool"), '°5 rest on Huizinga'stheory of historicalsensation. Moreover, when Ankersmit took Huizinga'sdescription of historicalsensation and adopted it asthe basisfor his own phenomenonof historicalexperience, he apparentlyfailed to notice the categoricaldistinction between these two terms.For a descriptive example of what I mean, let's say that walking down the high street I suddenlyreceive a sharp blow betweenthe shoulder blades.At the instant of the occurrencemy awarenessis one of sensationand only that (shock, pain, fear for instance). However, a moment later, having turned and observedthe piece of masonry fallen from above or my assailantstill grasping a club (or whatever), I can then fit my received sensationof being struck into the human "real" - that is, into the context in which I function - and thereby transform my sensation,through categoriesof understanding(as Kant explained), into an experience.Now, categoriesof understandingare context bound and context, our human context, is (as I have already argued in various places) constituted in its linguistic (symbolic) description. On this view it follows that experiencealready and always embodiesa languagedimension within it which, ironically, is precisely what Ankersmit wanted to circumvent (and he believed that he had done so) through his use of the notion of experience.To sum-up on this point, it seemsto me that Ankersmit's shift in descriptive terminology from historical sensationto what (for the avoidance of terminological confusion) he called the more neutral term, historical experience,effected a fundamentaldisjunction from, and thereforebroke all ties with, Huizinga's phenomenon.Yet, Ankersmit continued to use Huizinga's now "disconnected"-thesisas a kind of validating authority and exemplar (even explanation) for his own thesis. Moreover, Ankersmit failed to seethat having made this questionableshift, he was,in effect,also moving backinto the mediumof language- the placehe wantedto avoid.

ios For instance,Rick Peterson `Fascismas a PresenceBased Culture', Michael Bently and his notion of U. `chronism' - bringing presence(authenticity) back into historical studiesand Hans Gumbrechton the "transportation" of presencethrough language. These and otherpresence related essays can be found in (2006). History and Theory45 no. 3 (a themededition). 187 (2) My secondpoint is in connection with Ankersmit's apparentassumption that, once described, a phenomenonis somehowexplained and "up and running". For example, Ankersmit's `hybrid creature' metaphorwith which he linked the collective (sublime) and individual forms of historical experience,is a description presentedas an explanation. Here Ankersmit presumesto be actually explaining how a historian can genuinely and authentically re- experience somethingpredating his/her birth date - somethinghe/she never witnessed- that is to say, something which residesoutside the identity of its subject of experience.Now, Ankersmit's hybrid curiosity has already featured twice in my thesis and there is no needto run through its mode of operation again, but there are severalobservations that I would like to add to it. For instance,this metaphoricaldevice of Ankersmit's is buried in his Chapter Five on Gadamer(page 196, right in the middle of the book), and is not in plain view in ChapterEight where it belongs. For it is, after all, absolutely fundamental to the supposedfunctioning of the operating mechanismof ChapterEight's subject matter, sublime historical experience. Indeed, Ankersmit's curious idea could easily be and indeedhas been missed,` for nowhere else in his book does he again refer directly to this transferenceapparatus which purports to render a wandering, ethereal, '07 experiential collectivity at an existential, individual level - it is simply taken for granted that this can happen.So how might this "disappearance" have come about?Well, perhapsthere is something elseof significance going on in Ankersmit's text, for having completedhis hybrid creatureargument he effectively displaced both it and its explanatory mechanismby renaming it and thereby masking (in a way) its imaginative descriptive origin. That is, he told his readersto take the hybrid creaturenot metaphorically but for what it really/actually was, the groaningsof a civilisation', and, accordingly, the creaturevanished from Ankersmit's text at this point whilst the replacement `groanings'(just anothermetaphor) got four mentionsin ten linesto

106 And it is missedto the extent that (to my knowledge)none of Ankersmit's commentators/reviewets haveever mentionedit. 107Hence, this is the only link betweenwhat appears to betwo booksrolled up intoone. 188 reinforceits new status.No doubtthe `groaningsof a civilisation',as a metaphor,better fits (or finds its naturalhome) in memory/experience discourseand, following the demiseof the hybrid creature,it readily superseded108its predecessor and hence (this beingthe pointof my observation)it effectivelyobscured its origins.However, the mainpoint that I want to makeis thatbehind what is intendedto be a familiarisingmetaphor lies a bizarreold metaphor,and beneath that lies anastonishing description of a phenomenon.A descriptionwhich Ankersmit must havetaken as some sort of explanation109for that phenomenonbecause his subsequentargument is unquestionablybased on the assumptionthat suchexperiential clusters of pastmoods and feelings really do existand do exactlywhat he saysthat they do.110

To recapfor a moment.Over the previousfew pagesI havelaid out four arguments in oppositionto Ankersmit'sfour positionsregarding, respectively, (1) the notionof de-contextualisation(my point beingthat one cannot step out of context),(2) the languagedependant nature of thatcontext, (3) the conflationof experienceswith sensationsand (4) the very ideaof the hybrid creaturewhich providesthe connective link betweencollective (sublime) and individual experience.

Now, items(2) and(3), asI havealready intimated (in the openingcomments to this chapterand the beginningof its SectionOne), can be takenas unexamined presuppositionimported by Ankersmitinto his argumentas articulated in Sublime Historical Experience,whereas items (1) and(4) are worked-upwithin that argumentitself. And I think thatone could further argue that Sublime Historical Experience- internallyat the level of its owntext andignoring all philosophical presuppositionsbrought to it - couldbe reducedto items(1) and(4) as its two

108 Albeit with the word gracam'ngs,on someoccasions, becoming moods, feelings or experiences. 109 An explanation,both necessaryand sufficient, cannotbe generated within a description.However, there is a distinction betweena descriptionthat only attemptsto be a descriptionand an attemptat an explanationof what is being described.I do not think that Ankersmit makesthat explanatoryattempt. 11 I could equally haveused for my examplehere Ankersmit's four point descriptionof historical experiencewhich, asevidenced in his following arguments,was takenby him to constitutea satisfactory explanationof it. 189 essential,central issues (i. e. his claimsregarding first de-contextualisation and, second,the conflationof collectivesublime historical experience and individual historicalexperience) for, in a mannerof speaking,these are the sequencedenabling strategieswhich, were they to be accepted,would make his argumentwork. I have usedthe word sequencedin the sensethat de-contextualisation,as expressed through Ankersmit'somnipresent Romeo and Juliet metaphor, is the necessaryenabling devicefor historicalexperience itself andits variantas Ankersmit put it (although seenin my argumentas of a differentkind), sublimehistorical experience. Then, havingargued this much,Ankersmit's subsequent conflation of thesetwo different termsunder the validatingauthority of the hybrid creaturerendered collective (sublime)experience at an individualexperiential level andgot him, he thought, preciselythe all embracingdirect experiencetheory that he wanted.This appearsto bethe underlyingthematic "story" of SublimeHistorical Experience,a storywhich Ankersmittried to hold togetherwith his imported,unworkable philosophies.

However, to continue, it seemsto me to be the casethat any one of the points/ arguments mentionedabove poses,at the very least, a serious threat to the validity of Ankersmit's argument for sublime historical experience.But, I am convinced that all . four together demolish it and, accordingly, from my point-of-view the concept of sublime historical experience is now effectively dead. For this reasonthe completion of this Section (and Chapter) will have the appearanceof a post-mortem on sublime historical experiencewhich will initially focus on Ankersmit's choice of title for his book. Accordingly, I first of all want to consider Ankersmit's use (in his title) of the word `Historical' which, and one must assumeits purposeful use here,describes a phenomenonof a historical kind. So, what is it about sublime historical experience that is historical? .

Well, I think thathistorical means pertaining to historiesor storiesabout the past (`the-past-as-history'"'being the only form in whichthe pastcan be thoughtof and

11 In various placesAlun Munslow hasstressed the point that we can only "know" the pastthrough historical 'the-past-as-history' he variousconstructed accountsof it - or as which suggestscould usefully replacethe word 'history' to remind us that '.... the past existsnow only as a form of created(written, physically built, filmed or whatever)phenomenon' (Munslow. Narrative and History p8). 190 debatedin the hereand now) and there is no history,as far asI cansee, which does not haveall of thosecharacteristics which HaydenWhite attributedto it in his book Metahistory,my readingof which canbe briefly summarisedas follows. For White the pastis sublime,it cannever be knownin itself andfor itself, but it leavestraces andwhen seen in a certainlight (from a particularpoint-of-view) a preferred selection of these traces can becomeboth the sourcesfor, and the evidencein relation to, the caseto be supported from that point-of-view. This data, written-up in culturally meaningful story forms within the formalist literary structure identified by 112 White (its architecture being that of emplotment,argument and ideological positioning coherently integrated within tropological modes of meaningmaking) constitutes a history. In this sensehistory can be seen as the performative product of an on-going point-of-view which both launchesthe processof its own production and carries that processto its conclusion in the form of a narrative representationof,

or proposition about, the past - and nothing more. Moreover, these componentsand processesare, in effect, White's conditions of possibility for any sort of history at all, be it of an empiricist, feminist, Marxist, reflexive postmodern(or whatever) (no White history But, and this is my point, style: - no ... one might say). sublime historical experiencedoes not have any of these characteristicsin it, indeed it specifically rejects them all. And Ankersmit himself confirmed this point when he stated that Sublime Historical Experienceis not about `historical explanation, causality, narrative or representation'."' So, whatever it is about, one can very reasonablypresume that it has nothing to do with history and it is thereforenot historical.

112However, one should note that as a formal structurewithin which multiplicities of conceptualand explanatorychoices exist, it clearly doesnot nor cannotdetermine the style or contentof histories organisedwithin its structure(it is not a form of linguistic determinism).It is a structurewithout a substanceof its own but within which the substanceot; for example,Nazism, Marxism, Imperialism (or it is, in (a whatever) can beimported andarticulated - short, an emptyyet necessarymechanism necessarycondition) for the productionof all storiesincluding histories.White then, on my readingof him, is not sayingthat thesecomponent formalist elementsdetermine what is to be said but he is saying that nothing can be saidwithout them, that they are the narrative's enablingdevices. Accordingly, White is describing/explaininga metaphysicalconcept/structure of a literary fictive kind within which all is (hi)stories arenecessarily told. Moreover,the fictive elementin historical writing is irreducible,that to saythat onecannot get rid of it precisely becauseit is the structurewithin which tracesof the pastare worked-up into the coherenttexts we call histories. 13 Ankersmit. SublimehistwrcalErperienee. p14 191 Next the word `Experience' which is equally inappropriately used in Ankersmit's title. For, as I have beenarguing throughout this chapter, his book is not about experience.Rather, it is about sensationswhich do not in themselvesconstitute experiencesper se but do, as I have previously argued,refer back to Huizinga's account of historical sensationsupon which Ankersmit (without, as far as I can determine, noticing his conflation of categories)constructed his theoretical argument for historical experience.

And finally, as I haveargued in ChapterThree, when Ankersmit talks of the sublime he has in mind a quasi-Romanticnotion of it. For the aim of Romanticismwas to somehowappropriate and subsume.a `sensesublime' 14 into itself andAnkersmit talks of his sublime in ratherthe sameway. That is, as somethingimaginable with a theoreticallydiscoverable shape and discoverable boundaries to the extent that its apparentindeterminacy might evenbe solved mathematically."' By

'14 'A presencethat disturbs me with the joy / Of elevatedthoughts; a sensesublime', Wordsworth, W., (1798). 'Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey' in Lyrical Ballads, London: J. & A. Arch. 15 This, anotherof Ankersmit's complex andconvoluted arguments, involves the sublime, mathematics andBurckhardt's synchronicapproach to the past(his attempt to liberate pastevents from their historiographical ties to the events- the context- which surroundsthem). Thesesynchronic cross sections(Querschnitte) of the pastare eachpresumed to constitutean instantaneousde-contextualised image of the past. Burckhardt's pastis thusdenuded of its protectiveshell of narrativeand revealednot as a setof dramasunfolding with time but as a setof isolatedpictorial compositions- works of art - and the past, encounteredthus, retainsthe characterof a work of an. Thatis to saythat the.apprehension of any momentin the past (a snapshot),on this view, can be likenedto an encounterwith a work of art - an experiencewhere all that truly mattershappens precisely on the trajectory betweenthe work of art and the observingsubject andnowhere else.Such isolated snapshots of the past denythe narrative organisationof any before or after andthus denythe discoveryof any mediatingtemporal orderin the past which would, were it to be established,devalue the notion of direct experienceas referredto here. Ankersmit then arguesthat this `doingaway with narrative', which is centralto Burckhardt's thesis,is in a senseinitially parasitic becausethe act of doing awaywith narrative' presupposesthe existenceof narrativein the first place.Or, to rephrase,Burckhardt's argumentoperates on the basisof the prior existenceof narrativewhich it then strivesto dismiss- his argumentthus feeds on narrativist historism. Ankersmit accordingly concludesthat this act of de-historieising(de-eontextualising) can only take place if everything is first historicised(contextualised). In this mannerhe finds a link betweenhis so called 'de- contextualisedhistorical experience'and the 'contextualisednarrative'; that is to saythat the former both presupposesand depends on the latter. Consequently,what is to be learnedfrom Burckhardt,Ankersmit explains,is that professionalised(historist) historical writing shouldnot be sacrificedin favour of historical experiencebecause, although narrative and experienceare incommensurable,'historical experiencemakes sense only andexclusively againstthe backgroundof professionalisedhistorical [for] before historical historical writing .... andwithout professionalised writing, experience is... (SublimeHistorical Experience, 173). Accordingly, Ankersmit proposedthat .meaningl ess' p. historiansshould recognisethe creative interactionof the interdependence,yet incommensurability,of 'historical experience' andof'professionalised historicalwriting'. However,says Ankersmit, there areno rules for fixing the juste milieu (his words) betweenthe two of them. Moreover, if there werefxing rules then thesetwo elementswould no longerbe incommensurable.And this is where the argumentdrifts into differential calculusfor Ankersmit arguesthat.... 192 contrastthe post-modernsublime is an ineffablesublime which resistsall attemptsat its appropriationprecisely because it is unfathomable,un- ontologizableand therefore beyond grasp. To somehowpenetrate the ineffable (a logical contradiction)and apprehendits sublimity (place it underdescription) would be to negateits sublimity, yet this is effectively what Ankersmit seemsto be doing when he engageswith this post-modernsublime (of White, Derrida, Rorty et al) from the standpointof a datedRomantic sublime. Moreover, Ankersmit's understandingof the notion of the sublimeis, as Ewa Domal ska hasalso pointed out (in a recentpaper in which shefocused on the conceptof SublimeHistorical Experience),inadequate to the needsof his argument,and shesuggested that it would havebeen useful to her to havehad from Ankersmit

it follows ifwe a creativeinteraction of ... that acceptthe category ofthe sublimeas a meaningfulcategory, narrativeand experience must exist,although we will neverbe able to figure out a priori whereto find it. be it. We just It is the kind of thing thatwe just hit upon- andmore cannot saidabout canonly hasbeen in observeor establishthat some tpiimum or creativeinteraction achieved the relationship betweennarrative and experie ceswithout ourbeing able to deducethis. observation from the application of someset of ruffs for how to negotiatebetween the two (SublimeHistorical Experience,p. 175). Ankersmitthen likensthis indeterminacywith that of the differentialequation in mathematics(an equation which containsboth anunknown function andits derivatives)wherein optimum values of the fimction, prior to Newton's/L.eibniz's differentialcalculus, could only beestablished by trial anderror commencing with an initial intuitive (logically inexplicable)guess or, in Ankersinit'swords, `somethingwe just hit upon'. Thus, Ankersmitcontinues, differential calculus can be said to perform what, analogously,could not possibly beperformed .... is for the relationshipbetween narrative and experience. So one might saythat historical writing in muchthe samesituation as mathematicswas beforethe discovery of differential calculus by Newton and Leibniz. Before this discoverythere was something"sublime" about the questionof local One where the equation f(x) - %x$+ 54x2-12.x would attain its optimum and minimum: could only hit on it experimentally (that is, by simply trying out different values for x), but no adequateexplanation could be given for this. It hasbeen Newton's and Leibniz's feat of geniusto reducewhat was "sublime"to what could be figured out, or to reduce what was differential incommensurableto what could be madecommensurable thanks to the magic of like calculus,whereas this is not (yet) possible in the domain of historical writing. I would to add here that Leibniz's theory of the substance(which is in manyrespects the ontological for counterpartof his mathematics)may also showus what sucha "differential calculus" the humanitieswould probably have to look like and how we could thus eliminate sublimity from the humanities- althoughthis will remain in all likelihood a merelytheoretical rather than actual possibility (SublimeHistorical Experience,p. 175-6). This in be from the humanities appears claim of Ankersmit's - that the sublimecan, theory, eliminated - it to me to be basedon the belief that it is theoreticallypossible to transcendthe sublime,appropriate and then reduce it to the equivalenceof a componentof a mathematicalequation. I have followed this Ankersmit's argumentthrough in detail becausewithin it onecan, in fact, discernthe origins of three of in the 'doing underlying ideas.First the notion of de-contextualisationin generaland, particular, away historical the with narrative'. Then the notion of linkage between'de-contextualised experience'and Ankersmit's 'contextualisednarrative'. And finally (supportingthe current argument)an extension of conceptof the sublimewhich, for him, also includesthe possibility of its theoreticalreduction through a proposed"'differential calculus" for the humanities'. 193 someexplanation of his `.... theory of the sublime,the instrumentsfor its analysis,and understanding of its aesthetics."6 Thus,also for Domabska, nowherein his argumentdoes Ankersmit clearly statehis own position on the statusof the sublime-- a position which, were it to be revealed,would (I believe)locate him outside currentphilosophical discourse on the matter.

Accordingly, taking each of these three arguments in order, it would appear that one can immediately and reasonably strike the word `Historical' from the book's title because the book has nothing to do with history. Along with it goes the word Èxperience', because the book is about sensations and not about experiences and, furthermore, the word `Sublime' can also be struck out because, as Domaliska argued (and I agree), Ankersmit's particular understanding and use of this word is inadequateto his argument. This apposite exercise, of course, leaves the book without a title. However, turning to the very last page of Sublime Historical Experience, one can see that the book is part of a series of books published under the collective title Cultural Memory in the Present. And this is very interesting, for (on my reading of it) this is precisely the subjectof Ankersmit's book. What he is talking aboutin SublimeHistorical Experience,but he scarcelyseems to notice it, is the subjectof enculturation. The transmissionof cultural identity (or humancontext) from the past into the presentin the form of a kind of latent memory;memory which is alreadyand always in the presentas embeddedin our laws, our institutions,our religions, practices, norms, every-day ìsms' and so on, which are collectively referred to by Derrida as òur inheritances' or, by Davies, as the `collective memory of our already historicised world'. On this understanding, Ankersmit's excursions into the sublime can be re-situated where they really belong: in the field of sociology and memory studies from whence they appear to have escaped in the guise of the historical. Ankersmit's writings on sublime historical experience can, on this view, be explained in terms of the ancient sociological conceptof habitus, more

116Domaäska, E., (2009). `FrankAnkersmit: From Narrative to Experience' in RethinkingHistory 13 no. 2: p187 194 recentlyre-elaborated by the Frenchsociologist Pierre Bourdieu who argues that what is taken-for-grantedin the world flows from instilled by ." .practical sense.... the childhood learning that treats the body as a living memory pad [a receptaclefor enculturation], an automatonthat `leads the mind unconsciouslyalong with it'.... [in a] form of blind or symbolic thought [a] into into .... social necessityturned nature, converted motor schemesand body automatisms...[thus] agentsnever know completely what they are doing [but] what they do has more sensethan they know.... [and] every social order systematicallytakes advantageof the disposition of the body and languageto function as depositoriesof deferred thoughts that can be triggered off at a distancein spaceand time by the simple effect of replacing the body in an overall posture which recalls the associatedthoughts and feelings, in one of the inductive statesof the body which, as actors know, give rise to statesof mind. ' 17

This line of argument can be applied equally successfullyto the phenomenonof presence which, in the light of the foregoing explanation,can also plausibly be seen as the natural, explicable consequenceof enculturation and hence need not be explained in terms of myth, stowaways,de-contextualisation, pre-lingual statesof mind or anything else. Moreover, there is a rich, compelling and brilliantly argued contemporary sourceof literature to support this generalview on the nature and effect of enculturation, yet it lies "untapped" by Ankersmit (and also by Runia/ Ankersmit in relation to presence) and which, were it to have been explicitly taken into account in their experiencelpresencediscourse, could have enhancedthe standing of the "Groningen school" and the literature produced by it. But Ankersmit does not appearto have attachedany value to these explanatory politico-sociological sources(included in the works of, for instance,Badiou, Deleuze, Derrida, Lyotard et al) for, despitethis vibrant and significant body of analysis,he preferred to find his definitive referencesin Huizinga, Burckhardt, Schiller, Goetheetc. Ewa Domal ska has more to add to this critique, for in her essayfor Rethinking History (mentioneda moment ago) she notes that in his discussion historical Ankersmit ignoresthose .... of experience not only trendsin historiographywhich emergedin the 1990s,when he wasformulating his theoryof experience,but alsofails to acknowledgethose works which first drewhistorians' attention to the categoryof experience,such as `historyfrom below' with E. P. Thompson'sclassic The making of the Englishworking class

Bourdieu, P., (1990). TheLogic ofPractice. Chicago: StanfordUniversity Press,pp68-69 195 andthe journal History Workshop,focusing on the experienceof real life. Further,Ankersmit does not acknowledgethe long traditionof women's history, which concentrateson the everydayexperience of women,or the historyof gender.In SublimeHistorical Experience he nevermentions Joan W. Scott'sclassic and influential 1991article `Theevidence of experience'....[in which] sheexpresses an ambivalentattitude towards [and] experience.... cautionsagainst the notion of experiencebecause it can essentializeboth the experiencingsubject and experience itself [whilst] Frank Ankersmitaddresses experience within the aestheticframework of the sublime [andthus] his view of experienceis radicallyopposed to that of Scott. Adoptingthe conceptof the sublimebased on theclassic theories of Burke and Kant, Ankersmitseems to invitethe kind of criticismthat is generallyaimed at the discussion the historical projectof modernity....a of sublimeshould take into accountthe critical viewsof it.... 118

And thesecritical views,to follow Domaliska'sdeveloping argument, further underminethe integrityof Ankersmit'sBurke/Kantian sublime because they oppose a sublimeof this sort which is foundedon a gender-specifictradition. Or, to restate, the sublimedescribed by the classicsis - as Domalskastresses - associatedwith a masculineperception of the world whereasthe beautifulis associatedwith a feminineone, and this division of the world into the masculinesublime and the femininebeautiful (which is implicit in Ankersmit'sBurke/Kantian sublime) has become,in the work of Scottet al, the focusof feministcriticism. "9 It is curiousto

1'aDomafiska. 'Frank Ankersmit: From Narrative to Experience'.pp186-187 J19 Domafiskais the fourth (of the very small numberthat my researchhas revealed) critic of Ankersmit's SublimeHistorical Experiencementioned so far in this thesis,the former three being Jenkins('Cohen contra Ankersmit'), Chorell ('F. R. Ankersmit andthe Historical Sublime') andRoth ('Ebb Tide', a distinctly negativereview, but a review which arguably failed to graspthe underlying substance/styleof Ankersmit's argument).Another however(a fifth), is that of the historianJohn H. Zammito (Zammito, J. H., (2007). 'Frank Ankersmit: Sublime Historical Experience' in 27mJournal of modernHistory 79 no. 1: pp166-167) who also questionedAnkersmit's notion of the sublime,a critique which to someextent reflected Chorell's position. For not only doesZammito reject the notion of experiencewithout a subject of experience,but also, picking up Ankersmit's claim that the '.... changesin how peoplein the past experiencedtheir world can be perceivedonly if they havea resonancein how historiansexperience their (SublimeHistorical E*erience. he that this is ' to worlds' p 105), points out notion .., as amenable "dialectical" as to "sublime" experience;indeed, the former is more reasonableand likely' (op. cit. pp166-167). Moreover, Zarnmito questionedAnkersmit's ambiguity with regardto the role that historical experiencemay actually play in the writing of history, finally concludingthat, in any event,the sublime cannotbecome the basisof normal historical practice.Now, thesefive commentatorsproduced individual yet distinctly negativeassessments of SublimeHistorical Experience,and it thereforecame to me as a hadbeen genuinesurprise to learn- late in the day for this thesis- that the book awardedthe 2007 SocratesPrize for 'the best philosophybook in the Dutch language'(see 'ProfessorAnkersmit Wins Prize for BestPhilosophy Book', University of Groningen,faculty of arts, http://www. rug.nl/letlnieuwst LetArchieflAnkeramitSocratesWisaelprijs). Perhaps there are somefavourable comments on, or reviews oiy the book, but my researchhas not yet found one publishedin English. I should mentionhere, to concludewhat hasbecome this brief footnoted survey of Ankersmit's critics, that in his recentpublication (Jay, M., (2005). Songsof Experience.Berkeley: University of California 196 here note that Ankersmithardly everdraws on femalehistorians or theoristsin any of his works.

Coming back now to my main argument,I think that all of the various anecdotal accountswhich Ankersmit appropriatedin support of his original argumentfor historical experiencecan now, from this broadly construedsociological perspective, be taken as manifestations of the on-going all-embracing processof enculturation (identity acquisition). To take just one more caseas a general example, Ankersmit how recounts the German philosopher and literary critic Johannvon Herder, whilst participating in the 1765feast of Saint John in Riga, observedduring its celebratory dances `the living remainsof ancient savagesongs, of rhythmic movement and dance still presentin a people living now' 120Ankersmit interpreted this anecdote121 historical as a experiencewhich afforded Herder `an immediate contact with a world thatseemed to be lost andforgotten forever' 122 and an 'experience/sensation of a union of pastand present'. 123 However, my counter-argumentwould bethat Herderobserved a representationof someaspect of the pastseen through the mediumof dancewhich, articulated at a particularmoment in the developmentof thelanguage of choreographyas expressedin Riga,produced a realityeffect . which referredinternally to its ownchoreographic instruments of meaningproduction and not to the "real" of the past- this process,of course,being precisely Ankersmit's

Press.pp255-260 and pp306-308), Jay devoteda numberof pagesto Ankersmitand his notion of the sublime.But, as Jaypointed out, the intention behindthe writing of his own book was '.... not to provide yet anotheraccount of what experience"really" is or what it might be, but ratherto understandwhy so manythinkers in so manydifferent traditions have felt compelledto do preciselythat, (SongsofEtrperience. p1). Accordingly, rather than being the subjectof any comprehensivetheoretical analysis,Ankersmit's theory of sublime historical experiencewas registered by Jay mostly as part of a chronologicallisting of descriptionsof variouspast attemptsto graspthe notion of experience.Nevertheless, within it lay did questionAnkersmit's lack of explanatoryguidance in certain respects.For instance,he asked what exactly is it in the historian's own presentexperience that allows privileged momentsof accessto the past?(thus, for Jay, Ankersmit's explanationwas clearlyinadequate). And again,how is oneto decide which historical experience,bearing in mind the rather privateand henceunverifiable natureof them, is to win validation within the discipline of history?My answerto Jay's first questionwould be 'nothing', whilst to his secondI would simply say(as I arguebelow) that the questionis strictly speakingirrelevant, sinceAnkersmit effectively stoppedtalking history when he startedtalking about experience. 120 about Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.p 146 '21 Which, alongwith many other storiesof a similar kind (from Goethe,Byron, Baudelaire,Proust and manymore), were collectively presentedby Ankersmit as proof of the existenceof historical experience. 122Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical &q p 146 123 erience. Ibid. p147 197 very own theoryof narrativesubstances addressed to the narrativeof dance.Such traditionaldances with their symbolicfigures and routines would indeedbe inherited from, andcontinue to bepart of, a naturalon-going process of enculturation,but they shouldnot bemistaken for a directencounters with an unmediatedpast.

Finally, and appropriately I think, I now want to gather thesevarious conclusions together and locate them within what Kerwin Lee Klein's has called the `memory industry' as he described it in his seminal essay`On the Emergenceof Memory in historical Discourse';124 a paperto which, to the best of my knowledge, Ankersmit has never referred. Of course,the memory industry is, as the concept of industry brings to mind, a massivephenomenon and no attempt is made hereto do anything other than to point out a seriesof its associatedcharacteristics that so "fit" the Ankersmit and Groningen style that such a close approximation of featuressuggests more than a mere coincidence.

Klein arguedin his essay,then, that outside experimental psychology and clinical psychoanalysis,few academicspaid much attention to memoryuntil the 1970swhen a surgeof interestin autobiographicalliterature, family genealogyand museums focusedattention on it to the extentthat folk history history history ... wherewe oncespoke of or popular or oral or public historyor evenmyth we nowemploy memory as a metahistorical categorythat subsumesall thesevarious terms. Indeed, one of the salient featuresof our new memorytalk is the tendencyto makefairly sweeping philosophicalclaims for memory,or evento imaginememory discourse as part of what is vaguelyhailed as the riseof theoryin departmentsof literature, history,and anthropology. 123

Furthermore,he explainedthat this seeminglyantithetical `memory discourse' had combinedwith the vocabulariesof the post-modem(essentially anti-historical) discourseto, form a now rapidlyexpanding `new cultural history' articulatedon the basisof a kind of commonsense which prioritisedmemory as its governingconcept.

124 Klein, K. L., (2000). `On the Emergenceof Memory in Historical Discourse' in Representations69 (SpecialIssue: Grounds for Remembering).pp] 27-150 125Ibid. p128 198 Thus,the key emergent wordmemory is `....replacing old favourites- nature, culture,language - asthe wordmost commonly paired with history; 126it is, in effect, reworkingthe boundariesof historyas its replacementrather than its supplement.

Examining the history of memory studies and drawing on the works of the American sociologist Michael Schudson,Klein investigatedthe notion of memory not as a property of individual minds but as a sundry, shifting collection of material artefacts and social practices.Memory, on this view, becomes`a structural phenomenon rather than an individual phenomenon,and it makes a seemingly endlessarray of physical objects [thus] Lenin is just part of memory.... a statueof not a mnemonic device to help individuals remember,but memory itself. "' At this point in his text, and to elaborateon the `memory as structure' argument,Klein quotesbriefly from the writings of the theorist and Jewish historian Amos Funkenstein.For my argument,however, I needto somewhatenlarge his quotationas follows; No memory, not even the most intimate and personal,can be isolated from the socialcontext, from the languageand the symbolic systemmoulded by the societyover centuries.We shouldnot, therefore, abandon the conceptof collective memory,but must reformulate the relationship between collective memory and the individual act of personalremembering. The following analogymay help. Modem linguistics has developed the fundamental distinction, first introducedby the Swiss linguist de Saussure,between "language" (langue) and "speech" (parole). Languageis a system of symbols and the rules of their functioning: the inventory of phonemes,words, letters, rules of declension and syntactic rules available at all times to the speaker.Yet a languagedoes not exist as an independentabstraction; it exists in that it is instantiatedin every actual act of speech.And becauseevery such act differs from the next even where its linguistic componentsare completely identical, every act of speech also changesthe languagein someway. This distinction should be useful in the attempt to define collective memory. The latter, like "language",can be characterizedas a systemof signs, symbols, and practices:memorial dates, namesof places,monuments and victory arches,museums and texts, customs and images even languageitself (in de Saussure's manners,stereotype ...:, and terms). The individual's memory - that is. the act of remembering- is the instantiation of thesesymbols, analogous to "speech"; no act of remembering is like any other. The point of departureand frame of referenceof memory is the system of signs and symbols that it uses.128

126Ibid. p12ß 127Ibid. p131 128 Funkenstein,A, (1993). PerceptionsofJewfsh history. California: University of California Press.p6 199 Now, this extract,it seemsto me,needs to beread with cautionsince the relationshipthat it establishesbetween collective and individual memory could perhapsbe misunderstood.For whereasit placesboth collectiveand individual memorywithin a commonstructural framework of signsand symbols, it neverthelessidentifies and separates the individualact of memoryas a unique instantiationof thatcollective structural symbolic system. The point beingthat the structuralsystem itself which constitutes`collective memory' is categorically differentfrom anyparticular act of `individualmemory' which, nonetheless, is inevitablymediated by thatstructure. That is to say,for example,that I cannot actuallyremember the NormanInvasion of 1066because I wasn'tthere to observe it, but the socialconsequences of thatinvasion are part of my inheritances(a collectivememory system of signsand symbols). Hence, any of my own actsof memoryin relationto eventsthat I haveactually witnessed will, accordinglyand unavoidably,occur within andthus be mediatedby theseand other sociological contextswhich arein somepart a consequenceof multifariouscollective inheritances,including those of the 1066sort. On this readingof Funkensteinand in connectionwith this extractat least,it followsthat collectivememory and individual memoryare of differentkinds and that they cannottherefore be reducibleone to the other.

Nevertheless,Klein did indeedidentify, I think, a significantdrift towardsthe conflationof collectiveand individual memories in Funkenstein'ssubsequent arguments,but the distinctionbetween them as impliedin the aboveextract seems to me to denythe possibilityof thatsort of categoryreduction. However, as Klein continues, justifying leap from .... the mostcommon strategy for the analogical individual memoriesto Memory-social, cultural,collective, public, or whatever-is to identify memoryas a collectionof practicesor material artefacts.This is the new structuralmemory, a memorythat threatensto becomeMemory with a capitalM andalthough Funkenstein's account is unusualin its sophistication,the general.sense has grown so popularthat Michael Schudsoncould describeit as the genericsocial science understandingof the term. The itemsadduced as memoryare potentially endless,but certaintropes appear time andagain. The most obviousare archivesand public monumentsfrom statuesto museums....[such tropes 200 emerging]as oneof the commonfeatures of our new cultural history in where monographafter monograph,readers confront the abjectobject: photographsare torn, mementosfaded, toys broken.129 Seenin theseterns, memorytakes on a material,empirical appearance which rendersit suitablefor historicalstudy. Individual memory thus becomes`Memory' (collective cultural memory),a subjectin its ownright, andthis newmaterialisation of memorysanctions its `.... elevationto the statusof a historicalagent, and [hence] we entera new agewhere archives remember and statues forget'. 130 Klein gave examplesof this modeof `newage' historical theory, some of which he argued`go to the edge',but (andthis is a pity) he did not refer to Ankersmitalthough this following extractcould beseen as a generaladmonition of Ankersmit'stheoretical style,described by Klein as `memoryas re-enchantment' which itself .... represents asan engagement with postmodernismand appeals to the ineffable- the excess,the unsayable,the blankdarkness, the sublime,or some otherAbsolute whose mysteries can be grasped only by thoseinitiates armed with the secretcode. 131 Exactly!

This is all that I need from Klein for the moment then, except to say that he concludedhis argumentwith the observation that the rapidly increasinguse of memory as a supplementto or (as is more often the case) a replacementfor history, reflected a growing discontentwith the current academichistorical discourse.In fact, he argued that it was the historiographic crisis itself which, by its own default, assistedthe growth of memory studiesas a therapeuticalternative to it.

However, my immediate purpose in quoting these particular extractsand arguments from Kleine's essayis to add weight to my contention that Ankersmit's excursions into the sublime and the experiential (which are not of a historical kind as I have already argued) are of a sociological kind. And within the discourse of sociology they can, more precisely, be seen to belong to the field of memory studies which has, as Klein has again convincingly demonstrated, recently re-invented itself in the style of a `new age' history that presupposes the conflation of collective

129 Klein. `On the Emergenceof Memory in Historical Discourse'. pp135-136 130Ibid. p136 131Ibid. p137 201 memory, individual memory and history into a single category. Accordingly, I think that it is this same conflation of terms which (as I have already argued) underlies and "enables" Ankersmit's theory of sublime historical experience and, moreover, (referring back, for a moment, to the introductory remarks to Chapter Three of my thesis) David Carr is currently working towards a similar conflationary goal. His objective, as he himself announcedit at the second Groningen conferenceon presence, is to combine historical representationand memory into a single study of experiencewhich, it seemsto me, amountsto much the same sort of project. Carr, as I have also pointed out, is one of the central figures at Groningen University's `Centre for Metahistory' (along with Ankersmit and Runia) and he appearsto be voicing a collective "Groningen School" position. Another matter which invites comparison betweenAnkersmit's position and the `new age' field of memory studies is that of vocabulary, and Klein very usefully listed (or implied) key words from its preferred lexicon; trauma, melancholia, transference,mourning, darliness,sublime, historical agent, secret, initiate and, with something of a theological resonance,witnessing, testimony, ritual, and so on.132 The evident"close fit" of theseterms with the vocabularyof Sublime Historical Experienceis remarkableand arguably cannot be ignored.

Now to my concluding remarks which bring this Section and the Chapteras a whole to a close. In my Introduction and Section One of this Chapter,I traced the developmentof Ankersmit's notion of sublime historical experienceand raised some arguably serious theoretical problems with it. In Section Two I explored and tried to explain Ankersmit's very personaland idiosyncratic obsessionwith his theory and then, in Section Three, I extendedmy critique to cover the closely linked phenomenaof presenceand parallel processing. Drawing all thesematters together in this Section, I have arguedthat Ankersmit's thesis, when placed under scrutiny and measuredup against the better (in my view) argumentsof contemporarysocial the theorists and philosophers,fails to adequatelycohere. It simply collapsesunder least because(as I totalised weight of its own inconsistenciesand contradictions,not have argued) it effectively disavows his own theory of narrative substanceswhich,

132Ibid. pp137 & 141 202 Ankersmitcontinues to positivelyinsist, he neverthelessdoes not recant.133 Moreover,Ankersmit's overall project is misplaced.That is, he is arguingfor a historical theorywithout noticing that he hasfirmly plantedhimself and his theorisationsin the sociologicalfield of memorystudies.

Seenfrom this perspectivethen, and asjust noted, Ankersmit's theory of sublime historical experience can arguably be seento be indexical to (in the sensethat it is part of the development of and can be gaugedagainst) the inexorable rise and rise of memory studies of the popular and dominant `new age' history kind as identified by Klein in his seminal paper.Furthermore, if one can accept(as I do) Klein's argumentthat this new style of memory studies is becoming a replacementfor rather than a supplementto academichistory, then Ankersmit's thesis could also be seen as indexical to an inversecollapse in the relevanceof the academicdiscourse of history per se.

I shall now finally close this Chapter with the observationthat, on the basis of all the precedingarguments, one could reasonablyconclude that Ankersmit's book, Sublime Historical Experience,bears on its front cover the wrong or at leasta very misleading title which, if corrected,would remove his book from its Dewey classification under `history' and insert it into an entirely different sphereof studies under the general classification of `sociology' and the sub-classification: `contemporarymemory studies'.

'33 It is interestingto note that (perhapsperversely in the circumstances)Ankersmit waseven continuing to very effectively defend the centralrole of the narrative substancein historical writing in the sameyear that he publishedSublime Historical Experience.I am referring hereto his excellent 'Reply to Professor Saari' (see Ankersmit, F. R., (2005). 'Reply to ProfessorSaari' in RethinkingHistory 9 no. 1: ppZ3-33). 203 In essence,the centralpurpose and thrust of my argumentas laid out in this thesis hasbeen to challengeAnkersmit's own belief that hehad found, or thatit is even possibleto find, a non-representational/textualform of history;of historical consciousness.Accordingly, Ankersmit's resolutejourney from his early language centred/mediatedpost-modernist style of historical theory to the (unsupportablein my view) world of unmediateddirect historical experience,has beenpresented here as a failed "historical" enterprise.In fact, Ankersmit's endeavourto move towards a definitive kind authentic history of a pure and unsullied - the past "plain" - through his theoretical notion of historical experienceand its variants, has ironically, althoughhe hasshown little if any realsign of noticingit, steeredhim right back into the mediatedworld from whichhe hadhoped to escape- namely,the complex world of enculturationwith all its implicationsvis-ä-vis the humansocial condition.

So, a broad summarisationof my thesis and someadditional concluding thoughts. Since the 1980's Frank Ankersmit has been both a devastatingcritic of academic, epistemological histories (metanarrativeshaving, of course,long gone) and, at the same time, a sometimepromoter/promulgator of a certain kind of postmodern representationalismand its aestheticisation.Indeed, I think that one could say that, with the exception of Hayden White, nobody has "taken apart" academichistory as thoroughly as Ankersmit. With his theoriesof the narrative substance,of anti- foundationalism, of linguistic performativity and so on, Ankersmit emptiedall histories of their apparentmeanings and in so'doing revealedthem as vacant vessels/structuresor empty signifiers such that they could be refilled with multiplicities of different imagined meanings- the past as the plaything of historians. But, with the publication in 2005 of Sublime Historical Experienceit becameclear that Ankersmit had moved on to a new style of theory in which experience,worked-up out of both collective and individual memory and also propped-upwith the notion of its authenticity (the "real" of recalled experiences),

204 had become his new foundation. On this basis, as we have seen,Ankersmit Presumedto offer a way of accessingthe past which was able to expressits feelings, impressions, moods, etc., directly and authentically (not truthfully, for he says explicitly that sublime historical experience is not truth generating)'. It was precisely through such historical experiences,Ankersmit argued,that a relationship with the past could now be establishedwithout having to break through those distorting `thick crusts' of textualism, representation,linguistics, facticity, and so on. Proposedas an alternativeto, ratherthan a replacementfor, his previousposition, this newtheory nevertheless provided Ankersmit with the facility to "sidestep" aspectsof his older theoreticalworks (most notably, of course,the narrative substanceof Narrative Logic) and,when understood in this way, it canbe taken as a kind of explanatorykey to his textson experienceand the sublime.

But my argument has been,and is, that none of this later theorising works for history conceived as 'the-past-as-history' (seeChapter Four, footnote111). For, arguably, history to be a history has to be a representation,a figure or a device ('no representationno past', to recall),2 and its manifold shortcomings,which vary from huge for the epistemologistto minimal for the aestheticist,are clear - Ankersmit brilliantly made them so. Ankersmit was (and is) therefore forced, not leastby his own previous un-recantedtheorisations, to leavethat history behind - even in its more radical linguistic forms - as he embraceda non-representationalmemory based way of thinking about the past. Now, Ankersmit's attempt to circumvent his own critique of historical representationby accessingthe past through sublime

` It is interestingto note hem vb.-Wstnrth', that Ankersmit statesclearly in SublimeHistorical Experiencethat `Sublimity will, by its very nature,teach us no truths aboutthe past,for from the perspectiveof cognitive truth this kind of encounterwith the past simply doesnot andcannot exist. Sublime lives in different from that truth I like to insist.' (Ankersmit. experience a universe of ....as would SublimeHistorical Fxperience.p23 1). However,one might also note that for Huizinga- from who's theory of historical sensation,as we have seen,Ankersmit derived his notion of historical experience - sensationdid producehistorical truth. For, as Huizinga put it: '.... a contactwith the pastthat is accompaniedby the absoluteconviction of completeauthenticity and truth [sic], can be provokedby [sensation]:a line from a chronicle, by an engraving,a few soundsfrom an old song' (Ankersmit. SublimeHistorical Experience.p120). There is clearly a contradictionhere, perhapsno matter,but it is a contradictionand Ankersmit must know this sinceHuizinga's conviction that historical sensationis truth generating is written down, right there, in the middle of Ankersmit's own translationfrom Huizinga's original text, yet it is not brought into his own theory of historical experience.Ankersmit appearsto adopt a "pick andchoose" policy with regardto Huizinga's writings as he movesunreflexively from Huizinga's theory of 'historical sensation'to his own theoryof `historical experience'. Seefioanone3 in my Introduction to this thesis(page 2).

205 experienceis all very well if that is whathe wanted(or wants)to do, but it shouldbe understood(or so it seemsto me)that theconcepts and vocabulary that he used to effectthis accessto the pastare drawn essentially from memorystudies. They cannottherefore work for historyold style,nor for historynew (postmodern)style, nor for experimentalhistories, all of which arestill representationalwith all of representationalisms associated limitations. And postmodernists(and experimenters),in particular, accept such limitations given that they are contentwith limited proposals and failed experimentations- the actual fate/destinyof all representations.3 Moreover, it appearsthat, on the back of his critique of modernist /postmodernist histories, Ankersmit also rejectedthe positive and emancipatory positions adopted by postmodernistphilosophers/theorists such as, say, Lyotard, Deleuze, Derrida, Baudrillard, Ermarth et al, in exchangefor the sombre pessimismsof Huizinga, Schiffer and Burckhardt through whom he found his escape from the "history trope". But, it has beenargued, Ankersmit's escapeis illusory given that it only came about (if it came about at all) through his substitution of memory for history.

These,then, are some of the reasonswhy I have arguedthat sublime historical experienceis situated in the field of memory studies and, furthermore, that this siting can be taken as indexical to the huge and growing contemporary,popular interest in it. Such interest is everywheretoday as evidencedthrough, for instance, museumand open air re-enactmentsof past eventssuch that we can now ostensibly know and therefore "remember" who we were; through a multiplicity of radio and

3 jean Baudrillard makesan interestingdistinction betweencritical andfatal theory, the consequencesof the latter for history beingthat all historical representationsinevitably fail. Critical theory is a subject-led dialectic, for it is the subject which dreamsof a transparentlink betweenthe signIfter/signf ed andthe referent, leadingto kmiwledgi of the object (the thing in itself). But, the object alwaysescapes such dialectical designsbecause it representsthe "excess"situated outside the subject's restrictive, critical practices.Accordingly, thepay as object will always be beyond(and so, in a sense,deconstruct) the it. critical discoursewhich strivesbut fails to constructand imposefull meaningon For Baudrillard, the longer it is, object (the past) is always victorious since`.... the subjectis no the masterof representation.... form, its henceforth,the object which refiactsthe subject andimposes upon it its presenceand its random discontinuity, its fragmentation,its stereophonyand its artificial instantaneity.It is the power of the object which cuts a swathethrough the very artifice we have imposedon it. There is somethingof revengein this: the object becomesa strangeattractor. ' (Baudrillard, J., (1996). ThePerfect Crime. London: Verso. p76). For Baudrillard, then, whoseposition is informedby fatal theory, the object (the thing in itself, the "excess"which is the object) forever slipsaway intact beyondthe critical discoursewhich seeksto grasp it, to "know" it in itself; the fate (fatal theory) of all suchdiscourse thus beingthat it is destinedto fail. language it defeats One could then saythat the objectdefeats language - and therefore,as users, us. 206 television programmesin searchof personalidentities (by meansof trans- generational memory recall, heritage and docudramaproductions), through media articles and presentations,through the figuring/re-figuring of testimony into stories of identity, and through `... such well known phenomenaas oral history, autobiography and commemorativerituals..... pastedtogether into something called memory'. 4 The rise of these individuated, individualising personalisedmodes of activity wherein everyone can be his or her own historian or, better still, his or her own authentic self - this `privatisation of the past's as Ankersmit himself once put it - precisely demandsthe experiential and the authenticity of "feeling". And it is into this whole complex of phenomenathat memory studies, heritage studies, living history and other routes to a presenceof the literally absentpast in the present,6 are currently being installed at a theoretical level: a grand memory makeover' of history as past and presentmeld into tropes of nostalgia, of retro, and of "being there".

But, the arguabletragedy and irony of all this for Ankersmit is that, apparently unnoticed by him, his own journey towards a "pure" form of historical experience moved him not only away from history and into the complex sociological sphereof but had the drawing the of (not least memory studies, .also effect of attention others his followers) away from history towards this insatiable,authenticating memory industry which both generatesand validatespersonal identities. Accordingly, it could perhapsbe arguedthat Ankersmit, as a largely unwitting contributor to the declining interest in the discipline of history, has actually effected an undesired counter-moveagainst history, even towards an end8to history altogether.What once was history for Ankersmit (and for the public majority) is now becoming memory

69: 4Klein, K. L.,(2000). 'On the EmergenceofMem ry in Historical Discourse'in Representations p128. from ' Suchthat, as Ankersmit argues,'.... there no longeris oneor more self-evidentdisciplinary centre in which knowledgeof the pastis organised.Our relationshipto the pasthas becomeprivatised the sense that it primarily is an attribute of the individual historianand no longerof a collective disciplinary StanfordUniversity historical subject' (Ankersmit, F. R., (2001). Historical Representation.California: p153). ch, I have argued,is a natural processof humanenculturation - our inheritances. 7 be lengthhere (for The rise and rise of memory studieswhich, as I havenoted already,cannot chartedat it is vast), arguably incltuies,as symptomaticof it, the breakdownof grandnarratives and the shrinkageof (as history to its articulation asproper histories (academichistories) which have becomecut off in academicstalk only to themselvesin ever decreasingcircles) from the wider community's interest public, memorybased (so-called) histories of the sortsoutlined above. Seethe last section,'Endisms', in, Jenkins,K. andMunslow, A. (eds.) (2004). TheNature of History Reader.London: Routledge.pp243-332. Also Jenkins,K. (1999). Why History? London: Routledge. 207 per se,and if this generaltrend towards the exchangeof historyfor memorywere eventuallyto be successfullycompleted, then postmodern and other experimental alternativesto modernisthistories (as once so effectivelypromoted by Ankersmit) would simply becomeirrelevant and drop out of useas irrelevancesdo.

Of course,as noted, this was never Ankersmit's intention. He still wants a history. But it would appearthat Ankersmit is now "stuck" with the notion of sublime historical experiencewhich cannotgive him one. For (and this seemsto be at variance with his claim that his "sublime book" should not be interpretedas a recantation of his earlier work) his purpose,as he himself said, was to replace `.... all that came to be known over the last twenty to thirty years by the nameof "theory" [theory be rejectedhere in the of the notion of experience'9and .... which] will name that, of course,includes postmodernreflexive histories. The good (early postmodern) Ankersmit of my thesis, then, is being repudiatedby Ankersmit himself becausehe is still searchingfor something else- something historical yet... A lost Yes. For I think that neither he nor anyoneelse can something else. cause?.... ever get anything better than reflexive/experimental post-modemkinds of histories if it is, as I say,histories (and that ever problematical historical consciousness) that arewanted.

had And these, of course,are precisely the kinds of histories that Ankersmit actually until he rejected them in favour of the sublime. Mystical experiences,mythological daydreamingand presence are all very well, but arguably they cannotproduce a be historical representationwhich (tautologically) is the only way that the past can historicised (or presentedhistorically). Having rejectedpostmodern kinds of historicisations for the experiential, Ankersmit's manoeuvringshave thus effectively him seen him "trapped" between old modernisthistories (which are not much use to since Narrative Logic convincingly subvertedthem) and his current sublime theories From and practicesof presence which really have no "historical" traction at all. this perspectiveone could say that Ankersmit's works reflect and refract the arguable by disintegration of the hope, heralded by White and consolidated the good early

9 Ankeesmit.Sublune Historical Experience.p10 208 Ankersmit,for highly reflexive,adventurous, ideologically sensitive, ethically democratisingand emancipatory histories. As that hopefades, the possibilityof radical,reflexive, generous histories ends too andexperience, sublime or not, is scarcelya worthyalternative to that.

Coda

Now, it had beenmy intention to end my thesis at this point, but an afterthought of precisely some relevance-a post script or coda - occurred to me at this moment of closure and I would like to briefly lay out this reflection, if I may, which goes like this. Looking back over my researchand its product (this text), I find to my surprise (and I am aware that I may look somewhatimmodest here) that, arguably, I seem to have been able to undermine and dislodge Ankersmit's more recent argumentsin order to show that his move from languageto experience does not, contrary to his own intentions, constituteany sort of substantialcontribution to history. And I think that I have also beenable to show that Ankersmit's endeavourscan be interpretedas being of a tragic kind; the work of an otherwiseerudite thinker who has simply lost his way and wanderedout of the sphereof historical theory without noticing it. So, and this now becomesthe final thought/questionthat I wish to address,if my critique of Ankersmit can be taken as valid, then how is it that I have beenable to executethat task comparatively easily (or if not easily, at leastexecute it)?

In order to try and answer this question, I need to briefly (very briefly) reflect somewhatwidely on the idea of history and the changesto, or the re-shaping of that idea, over the last few centuries. I start (melo)dramatically and abruptly by saying deep that, once upon a time, here in the West and embodied in Western culture, there was a Christian God who provided the explanation andjustification for but that that God had, by everything - the omniscient repository of absolutetruth - the middle of the nineteenthcentury, (to put it into Nietzsche's words) died. A death

209 that gave rise to new secularmanifestations in the style of metaphysical metanarrativeswhich constituted, in essence,attempts to find a substitutefor religion through the organisation of contingent events into some kind of unity of human trajectory (the `grand narrative' of Marxism being an example). However, the democratising twentieth century and its increasingly democratic `sovereign fractured subject', and splintered any such unity through individuated multiple claims on the past; self-validating claims from this or that perspective(ethnic, feminist, this class/thatclass, gay and so on). Consequently,this combination and concentrationof expanding numbers of different individual historical points-of-view this democratisation history - of - appearsto have dismissedand replacedprevious notions of a `unity of historical trajectory' and, moreover, is currently in the process of dismissing, along with it, the idea of a history as being for more than one person. For - and this brings me to the crucial point - history qua history must always befor more than one. So if, for example, I were to researchand work-up a written history home Haslemere, history be for of my town, then that would everybody - anyone could have it - it would not be a history just for me. But since individuating democracyengenders histories just for one, and since history qua history is always for more than one, then these individuating histories are not histories at all; they are memories.Consequently, this individualising democratisationof-history leadsto a move from history (alwaysfor more than one) to a personal,solipsistic "projection" from the individual self for that selfonly. And, to again restateand further elaborate the point, as soon as history becomesa history for oneperson only then it ceasesto be history a at all - it becomesprivatised, a projection of one's memory onto things beyond memory: things made familiar through reading texts, hearing testimonies, being there at a particular re-enactmentof a past event or standing at a place where some battle was once fought and (in consequenceof that voluntary engagement) believing to havefelt the past authentically; a direct "historical" [sic] consciousness, etc. The point is thereforethis: that one's own memories,one's own solipsia (accumulatedexperiences of living in the world which, in part, individuate one's identity), do not and cannotconstitute a history. A history is a representational substitutefor, or retrospectiveproposition about, or a proposal for, the past

210 (primarily takingthe form of a literaryartefact) for morethan one:memory is simply not "historical".

Now, my reading of Ankersmit leadsme to suspectthat, ironically, he must to some degreehave intuited all of this but disavowed it. For (as we have seen)Ankersmit says in his Preface to Sublime Historical Experiencethat his new theory (the product of his move from `the-past-as-history',or history for anyone,to an individuallo experiential phenomenon)`has no bearing whatsoeveron what historiansactually do [and is] from historical " Here, .... meaningless the perspectiveof writing'. Ankersmit appearsto graspthat the subjectsof his investigation (experience, consciousnessand memory, both collective and individual), are not of a historical kind; that they have, as he put it, `no bearing whatsoeveron what historiansdo'. Which is, of course,to producehistories. Now, ifAnkersmit had stoppedright there, everything would (or could) have beenfine. We would have been left with Ankersmit's quite separateand very substantialcontributions to two different fields of study. That is, we would have had the good, early Ankersmit of the narrative critique of history (expandedsomewhat over the years), and the new Ankersmit who is not, as he intuits here, really talking about history at all, but rather about how he personally wants to validate memory; not least his own. And, of course, since it follows that such a contribution to memory studies would have had nothing to sayto Ankersmit's previous narrativist position/accounts,he would have had no need to deny or make any recantation of them.

"dilemma" does, of course,still This reading of - let's call it - Ankersmit's current (in support and confirm my contention that Ankersmit's mistake was to call some places) his memory work historical, to then propose(in other places)that it was a replacement/substitutefor history, but then (elsewhere)that it was never less than a

his `sublime 10Ankersmit's `historical experience' is for one persononly andthis must also apply to the historical experience: which, as he sayshimself; actually (andnecessarily) takes place andunfolds on itself 'scene' of the historiansown mind (a style of re-enactment)and it thereforemanifests as an SublimeHistorical expressionof the historian's own, singular experienceof the past.(Ankersmit" Experience.p265). 11Ibid. p(er) 211 substantialand governing supplement to it; 12substantial in the sensethat it Pawned to explainthe very originsof, andthe modesof acquisitionof, historical consciousness.From this (in my view mistaken)position, it wouldappear that Ankersmit himselfwas convinced that he could saysomething about "experience" which wouldhave an impacton history itself;not an immediateimpact in the sense that it might inform historicalwriting, but an impactin the sensethat it couldhave had the effectof shifting the understandingof what historyis actuallyabout. That is to saythat Ankersmit, somehow confusing history with memory(or not rigorously maintainingtheir ontologicaldifference), wanted us, his readers,to understandthat "real" historycomes only by wayof individualand cultural (collective) traumatic experiences.And, furthermore,that it is through- andonly through- the interceptionof unmediatedtraces of thesetraumatic experiences that the (gifted) historiancan engage authentically with the past.

Thus, my central point is that when Ankersmit startedto confuse and break-down the ontological distinction between-historyand memory in the mannerdescribed above (such that he could write a book essentiallyabout memory and existential sensationwhilst believing himself to be writing a book about history and historical theory), he was accordingly bound to generate,within that book, a structurally incoherent argumentshot through with ambiguities and internal contradictions.And it was this vulnerablelde-constructibleaccount of sublime historical experience (which overtly issued forth the substanceof its fatal critique), that was received by Ankersmit's critics as in a sensea "gift" and, moreover, a gift to me personally as one of them.

Nevertheless,even though in the end (and this is the end) Ankersmit might appear on my reading to be somewhatundeserving, he is, undoubtedly,an immensely important historical theorist. Nothing, absolutely nothing, I have said in this thesis is

12 Ankersmit is ambiguouson this point throughouthis texts and it is neversatisfactorily resolved.For instance,he clearly statesin the Introduction to SublimeHistorical Experience(p 14)that he doesnot recanthis previousnarrativist position,yet (seecitation on page208 above)he clearly stateshere that all previoushistorical theory is rejectedin favour of experience.This hasallowed me, as mayhave been noticed,a certain flexibility when presentingmy own argumentsin relation to what is an ambivalent position.

212 meant to question his integrity and sincerity; nor would I want to diminish in any way the infectious enthusiasmwhich he brings to, and is so evident in, his works (works from which I have myself much benefitted). Ankersmit writes, I think, with the very best of intentions for history and for historians. But (and my thesis is, I suppose,this but) all that said, Ankersmit's enthusiasmand zest for new ideas (never less than provocative and ambitious), and his remarkableerudition, do not in my view, despite his reputation for logic, make his position as it moves from languageto experienceappear either tenable or attractive to either that history or those historians. Somewherein that dark wood - and over the years Ankersmit's (elegiac) wood seemsto have grown increasinglydark - the argumentof this thesis is that he has lost his way. Whether or not he should be found and saved `for history' is a question that this thesis has,I think, at least raised.

213 Bibliography

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