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The thoughtful responses by Anthony Brewer and Patrick Gunning to 
my discussion of Whig history carry the conversation further and 
require some kind of reply. Let me begin with Tony's comments 
because they incorporate some of the issues Patrick raises also, 
and then turn to the RELATIVISM that Patrick labels me with. 
 
I agree with Tony that my definition of Whig history differs 
somewhat from Butterfield's original conception. However, my 
emphasis on the "inevitability" of a particular group's victory 
in a Whiggish account is equivalent to the focus of Tony's 
reformulation of Butterfield -- Whig history is the production of 
a story that ratifies (if not glorifies) the present by 
emphasizing a particular set of principles regarding the nature 
of "progress." What is essential to recognize is that behind any 
Whig history is the *present's* principles of justification for 
knowledge--the historian's evaluation of the past is guided by 
the rules of justification used among the historian's 
contemporaries. 
 
This leads immediately to my response to Tony's remark: "We are 
surely concerned with the history of ideas and structures rather 
than groups. Hence Ross's 'losers' and 'winners' aren't relevant. 
To the extent that there is a current consensus, we are all 
(apparent) 'winners.'" Surely what is important for those who 
want to write histories of ideas is the *evaluation* of those 
ideas, and when historians choose to evaluate ideas by the 
principles of justification for which there is a current 
consensus, they are aligning themselves with the "group" (call it 
a "scientific community" if you want) which is, as Tony himself 
says, apparently the "winners." Whig history will surely follow. 
(BTW, I take the efforts to show why person or group "X" should 
be incorporated into the canon of *our* history as a branch of 
Whig history). 
 
The announcement of the death of Whig history of economics is 
therefore also the announcement that, among other things, 
historians of economics today are choosing to evaluate ideas in 
the context of the principles of justification contemporaneous 
with the ideas being studied. Or to be more precise, many 
historians of economics today are interested in how the ideas of 
past economists were accommodated to the contemporary principles 
of justification, and how they simultaneously resisted those 
principles (and hence de-/re-constructed those principles). 
Because the process of accommodation and resistance within 
economics has to be set in, and is in fact an integral part of, 
society's ongoing re-evaluation of those principles, non-Whig 
history of economics does not distinguish between internal and 
external factors. What matters is the answer to the question: how 
did that process of accommodation and resistance work in this 
particular instance? 
 
Tony closes with the questions "Can we tell the story of the 
history of science in terms of the growth of knowledge? Can we do 
so for economics?" and responds with an account of the history of 
science which suggests that we arrived at a "better criterion for 
judging theories." It would be hard for me to disagree with Tony 
regarding the judgement that the new criteria were "better" 
because every institutional aspect of my discursive context 
depends upon the preferential status our society gives to 
science. Yet I must say that discussions with medieval historians 
of science suggest to me that the story of the "growth" of 
scientific knowledge is not one from error (Church/ 
Aristotelianism) into truth (Newtonian science), but rather an 
interlocking set of processes of accommodation and resistance to 
church traditions, empirical evidence, philosophical traditions, 
new technologies, political movements, social norms (e.g., whom do 
you trust?), etc. Furthermore, and this is a point I will return 
to in a moment, we learn a lot more about the processes of 
accommodation and resistance within our own intellectual 
traditions by studying medieval history of science as an 
interlocking set of processes of accommodation and resistance than 
we do showing why the Church was "wrong" and Newton "right" 
(according to principles of justification which will always 
ratify Newton's claims as "advancements in knowledge" because 
they follow from or undergird his theory). 
 
Now we come to the heart of my differences with Patrick, and can 
address the dreaded sin of relativism. Patrick says: "In [Ross's] 
view, the historian should be free to choose which standards or 
modes of argumentative logic he/she will use. Whig history, in 
his view, takes away that freedom." Unfortunately, I DISAGREE WITH THE 
PERSPECTIVE PATRICK ASSIGNS TO ME: historians are not 
"free to choose" but rather are bound by the standards or modes 
of reasoning present in the discursive context in which the 
material they are studying is situated. The relevant questions 
are: what standards of rationality/modes of reasoning were 
dominant within the discursive context of the material I am 
studying (or if I am studying the reception of particular ideas, 
what were the standards/modes in the receiving interpretive 
community)? What were the key traditions, social norms, 
technologies, etc. that undergirded those standards/modes? In 
what ways was the material I am studying accommodated to those 
standards/modes? In what ways were those standards/modes 
resisted? etc. Notice that the historical study is one of 
arguments and counter-arguments, of interpretation and 
institutions/social conventions, and of the re-/de-con/struction 
of discursive contexts/interpretive communities. 
 
Historians also have the responsibility to find ways to 
communicate the historical material to their own contemporaries. 
What elements of my contemporary discursive context can I use as 
an entry point for introducing my readers to the alien context of 
my historical material? Are there elements of resistance 
/accommodation today that will make the historical material more 
accessible? 
 
My description of the twofold set of constraints faced by the 
historian implies that philosophical discussion of the categories 
rational/irrational, logical/illogical, absolute/relative are not 
ones the historian is particular comfortable with. In the process 
of historical study, we find that we can come to understand those 
whose standards of argumentation were different than our own, and 
we also recognize how their standards were shaped by the 
contingencies of their discursive context. Our historical studies 
suggest that, despite the contingencies of their experience, 
humans can understand those in other times/places (I once gave a 
lecture entitled -- "I began with the desire to speak with the 
dead" -- to which one of my friends replied, "I hope not: 
purgatory will be long enough"). They also suggest that much of 
what we describe as necessary/logical/ etc. in our own discursive 
context may be contingent. Quentin Skinner remarked in his famous 
essay "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas" that we 
learn from the history of thought that most of what we consider 
necessary is really contingent, and that aspects of what may 
appear to us as contingent are really universal. Our calling as 
historians requires us to remain open to being surprised by 
the universal and the contingent alike. 
 
I'm sure none of this will satisfy Patrick, but I'm happy to keep 
the conversation going. In the meantime, I'm off dancing for 
awhile -- after all, every human interest (including the desire 
to be understood) experiences diminishing returns! 
 
Ross 
Ross B. Emmett                Editor, HES and CIRLA-L 
Augustana University College 
Camrose, Alberta CANADA   T4V 2R3 
voice: (403) 679-1517   fax: (403) 679-1129 
e-mail: [log in to unmask]  or  [log in to unmask] 
URL: http://www.augustana.ab.ca/~emmer 
 
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