DOCSLIB.ORG

Historism in Late Nineteenth Century Constitutional Thought Stephen Siegel

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Historism in Late Nineteenth Century Constitutional Thought Stephen Siegel DePaul University From the SelectedWorks of Stephen Siegel 1990 Historism in Late Nineteenth Century Constitutional Thought Stephen Siegel Available at: https://works.bepress.com/stephen-siegel/52/ +(,121/,1( Citation: Stephen A. Siegel, Historism in Late Nineteenth-Century Constitutional Thought, 1990 Wis. L. Rev. 1431 (1990) Provided by: Rinn Law Library Content downloaded/printed from HeinOnline Thu Apr 25 12:28:20 2019 -- Your use of this HeinOnline PDF indicates your acceptance of HeinOnline's Terms and Conditions of the license agreement available at https://heinonline.org/HOL/License -- The search text of this PDF is generated from uncorrected OCR text. -- To obtain permission to use this article beyond the scope of your HeinOnline license, please use: Copyright Information Use QR Code reader to send PDF to your smartphone or tablet device ARTICLES HISTORISM IN LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY CONSTITUTIONAL THOUGHT STEPHEN A. SIEGEL* It were far better, as things now stand, to be charged with heresy, than to fall under the suspicion of lacking historical-mindedness, or of questioning the universal validity of the historical method.f Table of Contents I. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 1433 II. H ISTORISM ................................................................................. 1437 III. THE COMMENTATORS ............................................................... 1452 A. John Norton Pomeroy....................................................... 1453 i. POMEROY'S PRIVATE LAW JURISPRUDENCE ............. 1455 a. Pomeroy's Municipal Law ............................... 1455 b. Pomeroy's later private law writings ............... 1464 c. Conclusion: historism in tension with natural law .....................................................................1467 2. POMEROY'S CONSTITUTIONAL JURISPRUDENCE ....... 1469 a. Pomeroy's Constitutional Law ........................ 1469 (i) Pomeroy's discussion of constitutional theory ........................................................ 1470 (ii) Pomeroy's discussion of the permanence of the Union ........................ 1472 (iii) Pomeroy's discussion of constitutional interpretation ............................................ 1476 * Professor of Law, DePaul University. Over the years that this Article has been in progress, I acquired a large number of debts, the most prominent of which are to Susan Bandes, Robert Bone, Erwin Chemerinsky, Maria O'Brien Hylton, Sanford Levinson and Dorothy Ross. They all collegially and constructively criticized various parts of former drafts. I hope I have been a sensitive listener; they certainly are not responsible for remaining errors in this Article's analysis or conclusions. I also thank the Faculty Research Fund of DePaul University College of Law for its support. t A. DICEY, INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE LAW OF THE CONSTITUTION 14 (1885) 1432 WISCONSIN LAW REVIEW b. Pomeroy's later constitutional writings ...........1481 c. Conclusion: historism in tandem with natural law ........................................................1483 B. Thomas McIntyre Cooley .................................................1485 I. COOLEY'S PRIVATE LAW JURISPRUDENCE ................1488 a. Cooley's philosophy of law ............... 1488 b. Cooley's common law thought............ 1497 c. Conclusion: historism ascendant..................... 1500 2. COOLEY'S CONSTITUTIONAL JURISPRUDENCE ..........1502 a. Cooley's theory of constitutional law............... 1502 b. Cooley's theory of American constitutional law .....................................................................1505 c. Cooley's theory of constitutional interpretation..................................................... 1506 d. Cooley's practice of constitutional interpretation..................................................... 1508 (i) Cooley's discussion of the phrase "legislative power". ..................................1508 (ii) Cooley's discussion of the power of American legislatures to control the charges of private enterprise ....................1510 e. Conclusion: historism ascendant .....................1514 C. Christopher Gustavus Tiedeman ................. 1515 I. TIEDEMAN'S PRIVATE LAW JURISPRUDENCE ...........1518 a. Tiedeman's Unwritten Constitution ...............1518 b. Tiedeman's later private law writings............. 1523 c. Conclusion: historism in tension with legal positivism ..........................................................1525 2. TIEDEMAN'S CONSTITUTIONAL JURISPRUDENCE ..... 1527 a. Tiedeman's Unwritten Constitution ...............1527 (i) Tiedeman's constitutional theory ............1527 (ii) Tiedeman's analysis of constitutional law .............................................................1529 (a) Tiedeman on the contract clause .... 1529 (b) Tiedeman on the tenth amendment ................... 1531 (c) Tiedeman on natural rights............. 1534 (iii) Tiedeman's normative theory .................1536 b. Tiedeman's later constitutional law writings.. 1537 c. Conclusion: historism in tension with legal positivism ..........................................................1538 IV. CONCLUSION: FROM NATURAL LAW TO HISTORISM TO LEGAL POSITIVISM ....................................................................1540 1990:1431 Historism in Constitutional Thought 1433 I. INTRODUCTION Ever since Dean Pound's1 and Professor Corwin's 2 seminal stud- ies, it has been a truism of American constitutional history that the early proponents 3 of laissez-faire constitutionalism 4 grounded them- 1. Pound, Liberty of Contract, 18 YALE L.J. 454, 460-68 (1909). 2. Corwin, The Basic Doctrine ofAmerican ConstitutionalLaw, 12 MICH. L. REV. 247, 247-54 (1914); Corwin, The "HigherLaw" Background ofAmerican ConstitutionalLaw, 42 HARV. L. REV. 365, 382-83, 395-409 (1929). In E. CORWIN, LIBERTY AGAINST GOVERN- MENT xi-xii (1948), Corwin says that the purpose of these articles was to account for the rise of substantive due process. Pound and Corwin did not originate this observation. See, e.g., McMurtrie, A New Canon of Constitutional Interpretation,41 AM. L. REV. 1, 8-9 (1893); McMurtrie, The Jurisdiction to Declare Void Acts of Legislation, 41 AM. L. REV. 1093, 1095 (1893); Lewis, The Proper Canon of Interpretationof Bills ofRights in a Written Constitution, 41 AM. L. REG. 782, 783-84 (1893); infra text accompanying note 508. Still, Pound's and Corwin's work became the standard references for the notion and seem to have established its authoritativeness for subsequent scholars. 3. See, e.g., L. TRIBE, AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 560-67, 570 (2d ed. 1988). Pound and Corwin wrote about the origins of laissez-faire constitutionalism. Their thesis has been generalized into the proposition that, throughout the reign of that doctrine, jurists grounded it in natural-law jurisprudence. See, e.g., C. HAINES, THE REVIVAL OF NATURAL LAW CONCEPTS 143-232 (1930); B. WRIGHT, AMERICAN INTERPRETATIONS OF NATURAL LAW 298-306 (1931); Horwitz, Rights, 23 HARV. C.R.-C.L. L. REV. 393, 395, 399 (1988). Thus, at present, it is a truism that throughout its career laissez-faire constitutionalism was an aspect of natural-law thinking. This Article disputes the truism only with regard to the doctrine's early proponents because the evidence it draws from is limited to them. It speaks of the time period from roughly 1865 to 1900. It does not discuss the jurisprudence of those who carried laissez-faire jurisprudence forward from 1900 to 1937. Thus, this Article sheds no light on the validity of the truism for the conservative jurists who inherited and adhered to the already established doctrine for another two generations. But see Siegel, Understandingthe Lochner Era: Lessons from the Controversy Over Railroadand Utility Rate Regulation, 70 VA. L. REV. 187, 250- 59, 262 (1984) (discussing survival of laissez-faire constitutionalism in the rate regulation context in the 1920s and 1930s) [hereinafter Siegel, Understanding]. Occasionally a scholar traces laissez-faire constitutionalism, in whole or in part, to a constitutionalization of the common law. See, e.g., L. TRIBE, supra, at 562; Balkan, The Footnote, 83 Nw. U.L. REV. 275, 287, 295 (1989). This Article suggests that this claim is closer to the mark than the dominant truism and seeks not only to demonstrate that it is so, but also to explicate the jurisprudence that underlies it. See infra text accompanying notes 455-61, 691. 4. Laissez-faire constitutionalism describes the approach to constitutional law which appeared in legal commentary and judicial dissents soon after the Civil War, which began to influence the decisions of state courts in the 1880s and that dominated the Supreme Court from 1890 to 1937. Laissez-faire constitutionalism overturned many governmental regulations of private property. It struck down social welfare legislation in order to protect the free market economy from governmental control. See, e.g., L. TRIBE, supra note 3, at 560-68. See also infra note 15 (discussing the doctrine further). Historians used to attribute laissez-faire constitutionalism to the judges' fear of the rising tide of socialism and their inbred sympathy for the interests of the wealthy elite. See, e.g., A. PAUL, CONSERVATIVE CRISIS AND THE RULE OF LAW: ATTITUDES OF THE BAR AND BENCH, 1887-1895 (1969); B. Twlss, LAWYERS AND THE CONSTITUTION: How LAISSEZ FAIRE CAME TO THE SUPREME COURT (1942). In the past 25 years, a revisionist historiography has appeared, which attributes the doctrine to the anachronistic
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Antisemitismus Im 19. Jahrhundert Aus Internationaler Perspektive
    Marcel Stoetzler Durkheim’s and Simmel’sreactionstoantisemitism and their reflection in their views on modern society If one ever asked oneself what sociologyisall about, one could do worse than consulting Auguste Comte’s 1822 manifesto, Prospectus des travaux scientifiques nØcessaires pour rØorganiser la societØ,the Plan of the Scientific Works Necessary for the Reorganization of Society.1 It sketches out the historical-structural task that the new discipline,whose name Comte later popularized, was supposed to fulfil, namely to end-but-preserve—as the Germans would say, aufzuheben—the Revolution: safeguard its achievements from reaction as well as from further revolutions. Sociologywould do so by separating the good bits of modernity from the bad bits. The former Comte sawasgrounded in asecular,macro- historical trend of European historyand civilization, the latter in the undis- ciplined hubris of troublemakers led astraybymetaphysicalnonsense peddled by the Enlightenment, or more precisely,bythe non-positivistic strand of the Enlightenment.Sociologywould study and understand the laws of historyand silence the metaphysical troublemakers. Sociology’s commitmenttomaking thatmessy thing called societysafe for modernity(the industrial-capitalist world system of nation states constituted and populated by modernindividuals) remained tricky.Spanners were thrown into the machineryleft, right, and centrebypeople whowere not so positive about the positivestate of society. Rather ironically,most of those whocontinued and developed the Comtean projectofsociologydid so by basing it on some of those ghastly metaphysical ideas from the Enlightenment, notably those of Immanuel Kant. Sociology, at least in France and Germany, emerged mostly as a set of differing blends of positivism and Kantian, or neo-Kantian, idealism.
    [Show full text]
  • Stanislaw Brzozowski and the Migration of Ideas
    Jens Herlth, Edward M. Świderski (eds.) Stanisław Brzozowski and the Migration of Ideas Lettre Jens Herlth, Edward M. Świderski (eds.) with assistance by Dorota Kozicka Stanisław Brzozowski and the Migration of Ideas Transnational Perspectives on the Intellectual Field in Twentieth-Century Poland and Beyond This volume is one of the outcomes of the research project »Standing in the Light of His Thought: Stanisław Brzozowski and Polish Intellectual Life in the 20th and 21st Centuries« funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (project no. 146687). The publication of this book was made possible thanks to the generous support of the »Institut Littéraire Kultura«. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Na- tionalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommer- cial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (BY-NC-ND) which means that the text may be used for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ To create an adaptation, translation, or derivative of the original work and for com- mercial use, further permission is required and can be obtained by contacting [email protected] Creative Commons license terms for re-use do not apply to any content (such as graphs, figures, photos, excerpts, etc.) not original to the Open Access publication and further permission may be required from the rights holder. The obligation to research and clear permission lies solely with the party re-using the material.
    [Show full text]
  • Some Aspects of the Philosophy of Science in Japan
    Some Aspects of the Philosophy of Science in Japan By Hiroshi NAGAI I Philosophy in its strict sense had not been in Japan until her mod ern age, which broke out at Meiji Revolution about one hundred years ago. It must be remembered that the proper notion of philosophy has its historical origin in ancient Greece and that its development is performed on the basis of Greek tradition in Western Europe. From this point of view we Japanese have been in quite different circum stances from those of European peoples, whose philosophies, I presume, for all varieties in their character and trend, are united in a common mental circle, so that they are on intimate terms with one another. Of course, as generally recognized, it is an irresistibly clear fact that Buddhism and Confucianism had influenced intrinsically on the mental life of Japanese people for a long time, but their doctrines may not be called philosophic in the proper sense. We prefer to consider them respectively a sort of religious speculation or peculiar worldly Wisdom rather than as philosophy. This state of affairs will be said to be due to the special historical and geographical conditions in which our country was so long situated that we could hardly take any chance of international contact with European peoples and their philosophical thoughts. As the leading and decisive one of those conditions we can especially point out the political and social influences of the feudal -63- 64 government, which was established by the Tokugawas and lasted for almost three hundred years; its political absolutism strictly prohibited our countrymen living in four small islands from taking foreign informations.
    [Show full text]
  • From Premodern to Modern American Jurisprudence: the Onset of Positivism
    Vanderbilt Law Review Volume 50 Issue 6 Issue 6 - November 1997 Article 1 11-1997 From Premodern to Modern American Jurisprudence: The Onset of Positivism Stephen M. Feldman Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr Part of the Legal History Commons Recommended Citation Stephen M. Feldman, From Premodern to Modern American Jurisprudence: The Onset of Positivism, 50 Vanderbilt Law Review 1387 (1997) Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr/vol50/iss6/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Vanderbilt Law Review by an authorized editor of Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. VANDERBILT LAW REVIEW VOLUME 50 NOVEMBER 1997 NUMBER 6 From Premodern to Modern American Jurisprudence: The Onset of Positivism Stephen M. Feldman* I. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... 1387 II. PREMODERN LEGAL SCIENCE .............................................. 1394 III. MODERN LEGAL SCIENCE .................................................... 1417 IV. CONCLUSION ........................................................................ 1439 I. INTRODUCTION What distinguished premodern from modern American juris- prudence? Whereas most commentators agree that the transition from premodernism to modernism occurred around the Civil War,' * Professor of Law and Political Science, University of Tulsa. I thank Paul Finkelman, Thomas C. Grey, Robert W. Gordon, Tony Sebok, Jim Mooney, Mark Tushnet, Marty Belsky, and Bill Hollingsworth for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. I also appreciate the financial support of the Faculty Summer Research Grant Program of the University of Tulsa College of Law. 1. See Stephen M. Feldman, From Modernism to Postmodernism in American Legal Thought: The Significance of the Warren Court, in Bernard Schwartz, ed., The Warren Court: A Retrospective 324, 329 (Oxford U., 1996) (stating C.C.
    [Show full text]
  • The Problem of Relativism.Indb
    Richard Schantz, Markus Seidel The Problem of Relativism in the Sociology of (Scientific) Knowledge P h i l o s o p h i s c h e A n a l y s e P h i l o s o p h i c a l A n a l y s i s Herausgegeben von / Edited by Herbert Hochberg • Rafael Hüntelmann • Christian Kanzian Richard Schantz • Erwin Tegtmeier Band 43 / Volume 43 Richard Schantz, Markus Seidel The Problem of Relativism in the Sociology of (Scientific) Knowledge Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. North and South America by Transaction Books Rutgers University Piscataway, NJ 08854-8042 [email protected] United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, Turkey, Malta, Portugal by Gazelle Books Services Limited White Cross Mills Hightown LANCASTER, LA1 4XS [email protected] Livraison pour la France et la Belgique: Librairie Philosophique J.Vrin 6, place de la Sorbonne; F-75005 PARIS Tel. +33 (0)1 43 54 03 47; Fax +33 (0)1 43 54 48 18 www.vrin.fr 2011 ontos verlag P.O. Box 15 41, D-63133 Heusenstamm www.ontosverlag.com ISBN 978-3-86838-126-9 2011 No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed
    [Show full text]
  • The Lack of Historism: the Leftists' Experience
    The Lack of Historism: the Leftists’ Experience and its Contemporary Meaning Vlad Navitski, M. Phil., lecturer European Humanities University, Vilnius, Lithuania The article is devoted to the historical views of the different branches of the leftists in the last century and a half. But beyond this content a foundational – and constitutional for this paper – interest lies. I tend to show that theoretical stances of the leftists on history not only predetermined their own practice (and, surely were influenced by it), but also are exercised in the worldwide contemporary social and cultural trends, not related to the leftists practice at all. Among them globalization, practices of the multiculturalism/fundamentalism and identity politics should be mentioned in the first place. Key words: historicity, borders, transcendent order, subjectivity, modernity, temporality, technics Introduction In general, the peculiar imitation of the leftists’ practices – once specific for them – by the contemporary social trends was explicitly clarified by the leftists themselves (Gilles Dauvé)1 and by the more moderate researches (Jean Baudrillard). But, to my mind, in order to see what are the reasons or causes of such imitation we have to go further than just to identify this doubling with the cunning of the society of consumption, assuming even previously contradictory practices for its own sake (Baudrillard).2 Similarly, we shouldn’t stop on the mere statement of this doubling as the ridiculous parallelism (Dauvé). What we should here is to understand this imitation as the phenomenon bearing the constitutional meaning for the comprehension of the contemporary social and cultural trends. And this understanding, I believe, is – not only but mainly – possible, when we pay our attention to the leftists’ standpoints on time and history and their perturbation in the mentioned trends.
    [Show full text]
  • Absolute Relativity: Weimar Cinema and the Crisis of Historicism By
    Absolute Relativity: Weimar Cinema and the Crisis of Historicism by Nicholas Walter Baer A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Media and the Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Anton Kaes, Chair Professor Martin Jay Professor Linda Williams Fall 2015 Absolute Relativity: Weimar Cinema and the Crisis of Historicism © 2015 by Nicholas Walter Baer Abstract Absolute Relativity: Weimar Cinema and the Crisis of Historicism by Nicholas Walter Baer Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Media Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory University of California, Berkeley Professor Anton Kaes, Chair This dissertation intervenes in the extensive literature within Cinema and Media Studies on the relationship between film and history. Challenging apparatus theory of the 1970s, which had presumed a basic uniformity and historical continuity in cinematic style and spectatorship, the ‘historical turn’ of recent decades has prompted greater attention to transformations in technology and modes of sensory perception and experience. In my view, while film scholarship has subsequently emphasized the historicity of moving images, from their conditions of production to their contexts of reception, it has all too often left the very concept of history underexamined and insufficiently historicized. In my project, I propose a more reflexive model of historiography—one that acknowledges shifts in conceptions of time and history—as well as an approach to studying film in conjunction with historical-philosophical concerns. My project stages this intervention through a close examination of the ‘crisis of historicism,’ which was widely diagnosed by German-speaking intellectuals in the interwar period.
    [Show full text]
  • 2019 Durkheim
    Durkheim’s and Simmel’s reactions to antisemitism and their reflection in ANGOR UNIVERSITY their views on modern society Stoetzler, Marcel Antisemitismus im 19. Jahrhundert aus internationaler Perspektive DOI: 10.14220/9783737009775.83 PRIFYSGOL BANGOR / B Published: 22/05/2019 Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Cyswllt i'r cyhoeddiad / Link to publication Dyfyniad o'r fersiwn a gyhoeddwyd / Citation for published version (APA): Stoetzler, M. (2019). Durkheim’s and Simmel’s reactions to antisemitism and their reflection in their views on modern society. In M. König, & O. Schultz (Eds.), Antisemitismus im 19. Jahrhundert aus internationaler Perspektive (pp. 83-102). (Schriften aus der Max Weber Stiftung; Vol. 1). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Unipress (Schriften aus der Max Weber Stiftung). https://doi.org/10.14220/9783737009775.83 Hawliau Cyffredinol / General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please
    [Show full text]
  • Lessons Learned from German Sociology, 1933–45: Contexts and Content Wiebke Keim
    Lessons learned from German sociology, 1933–45: contexts and content Wiebke Keim To cite this version: Wiebke Keim. Lessons learned from German sociology, 1933–45: contexts and content. Social Science in Context. Historical, Sociological, and Global Perspectives, Nordic Academic Press, pp.95 - 114, 2013, 978-91-87351-04-4. halshs-01077333 HAL Id: halshs-01077333 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01077333 Submitted on 24 Oct 2014 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Keim, Wiebke (2013): Lessons learned from German sociology 1933-45: Contexts and content. In: Danell, Rickard; Larsson, Anna; Wisselgren, Per (Hg.): Social Science in Context. Historical, Sociological, and Global Perspectives, Lund: Nordic Academic Press: 95-114. – Manuscript – Lessons learned from German sociology, 1933–45: contexts and content Wiebke Keim This essay deals with a specific historical context for sociology: the period 1933–45 in Germany. It raises questions about the definition and self-definition of the discipline.i How far did the given historical,
    [Show full text]
  • Hayden White and the Aesthetics of Historiography" (PDF)
    History of the Human Sciences http://hhs.sagepub.com Hayden White and the Aesthetics of Historiography Paul A. Roth History of the Human Sciences 1992; 5; 17 DOI: 10.1177/095269519200500102 The online version of this article can be found at: http://hhs.sagepub.com Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for History of the Human Sciences can be found at: Email Alerts: http://hhs.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://hhs.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Citations http://hhs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/5/1/17 Downloaded from http://hhs.sagepub.com at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on December 5, 2008 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES Vol. 5 No. 1 © 1992 SAGE (London, Newbury Park and New Delhi) 17- Hayden White and the Aesthetics of Historiography PAUL A. ROTH ... one cannot appeal to any specific ’sense of history’ as a basis for excluding any given critical practice from the list of proper critical approaches.... In short, one cannot check the fall into ’radical relativism’ to which pluralism in general is prone by appeal to ’a sense of history’, as if this were an unproblematic concept not threatened by the same ’relativism’ which critical pluralism wishes to avoid. (White, 1986, ’Historical Pluralism’) Ironies pervade debates concerning the nature of historical knowledge. Tra- ditional debates between, e.g., historists and positivists, center on whether or not there are differences in kind between the sort of knowledge produced by the human as opposed to the natural sciences.
    [Show full text]
  • Voltaire and the Necessity of Modern History Pierre Force Department of French, Columbia University E-Mail: [email protected]
    Modern Intellectual History, 6, 3 (2009), pp. 457–484 C Cambridge University Press 2009 doi:10.1017/S147924430999014X voltaire and the necessity of modern history pierre force Department of French, Columbia University E-mail: [email protected] This article revisits what has often been called the “naive presentism” of Voltaire’s historical work. It looks at the methodological and philosophical reasons for Voltaire’s deliberate focus on modern history as opposed to ancient history, his refusal to “make allowances for time” in judging the past, and his extreme selectiveness in determining the relevance of past events to world history. Voltaire’s historical practice is put in the context of the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns, and considered in a tradition of universal history going back to Bossuet and leading up to nineteenth-century German historicism. Paradoxically, Voltaire is a major figure in the history of historiography not in spite of his presentism (as Ernst Cassirer and Peter Gay have argued), but because of it. A significant proportion of Voltaire’s enormous output is historical in nature: alifeofCharlesXIIofSweden(1731),1 a cultural history of France under Louis XIV (1751),2 a history of the War of 1741 (1755),3 a history of Russia under Peter the Great (1760),4 aprecis´ of the age of Louis XV (1768),5 a history of the Parliament of Paris (1769),6 and a very ambitious Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations (1756),7 which was a secular continuation of Bossuet’s Discourse on Universal History. Yet Voltaire’s status as a historian is an ambiguous one.
    [Show full text]
  • Hayden White
    Modernism and the sense of history Hayden White The poet . is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living.1 – T. S. Eliot Whoever has approved this idea of order . will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past.2 – T. S. Eliot When, however, one’s existence is inauthentically historical, it is loaded down with the legacy of a ‘past’ which has become unrecognizable, and it seeks the modern (Die uneigentlich geschichtliche Existenz dagegen sucht, beladen mit der ihr selbst unkenntlich gewordenen Hinterlassenschaft der ‘Vergangenheit’, das Moderne).3 – Martin Heidegger Many years ago my professor of philosophy, Lewis White Beck, told me that when two equally intelligent and sincere philosophers are unable to resolve differences of opinion on some matter of genuinely philosophical concern, it is more likely that it is because they share a common error or false enabling proposition than that they are doing philosophy badly. I want to suggest that this may have been true of many of those modernists and antimodernists I will be considering. Moreover, I want to suggest that one error or false enabling proposition that they may have shared is to be found in the conception of history and the historical or historicality in general which lay at the basis of many of their disagreements over the nature of time, temporality, the past, tradition, heritage, culture, civilization, and just about everything else that is implied in the label ‘modernist.’ 1 T.
    [Show full text]