===================== HES POSTING ==================== Ross Emmett's definition and discussion of Whig history clarifies the issue very usefully. Thank you Ross. I am still not convinced that it is the last word. Some comments. Definition. Emmett - "Whig" history justifies the "victory" of a particular group over their adversaries by recounting why the victory was "inevitable" in terms established by the victorious group themselves. Butterfield - the tendency in many historians to write on the side of the Protestants and Whigs, to praise revolutions provided they have been successful, to emphasise certain principles of progress in the past and to produce a story which is the ratification if not the glorification of the present. Ross seems to me to have added "inevitability", which is a difficult concept (to a determinist, whatever happened was inevitable). I prefer Butterfield's original stress on justification. One of his main points was that historians should explain and describe, not pass judgement. Also added are "groups". 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 concensus, we are all (apparent) "winners". The best fit I can think of to either definition of Whig history is Marxist history as done in communist countries (when there were such things). Western Marxism (and Marx's) seems to be a variant - justifying future, confidently anticipated, victory as inevitable. Internal and external history seem to me to be orthogonal to the Whig/non-Whig distinction. That isn't the impression given by James Henderson or Roy Weintraub. I agree with Ross's "thick" history, but the internal/external balance may vary with the question posed. Whig history of ideas and truth - I used "truth" and "error" in full knowledge of how loaded and difficult the terms are. Can we tell the story of the history of science in terms of the growth of knowledge (however uncertain and provisional that knowledge is)? Can we do so for economics (harder to justify)? To dismiss the question on the grounds that we set the terms in which "truth" is defined is to evade the issue. A naive scientist would argue that Newton's account of the solar system defeated earlier accounts because it was (more nearly) true. It led to better predictions, etc. Of course one can say that this rests on the definition of truth as "consistent with empirical evidence" rather than, say, consistent with the bible, or Aristotle. (I am aware that this argument can be made much more complex - I don't think that affects the main issues.) My naive scientist would not be greatly fazed by this objection, I think, and would be right not to be. We arrived at a better criterion for judging theories. I am happy to be naive on this one. There is then an empirical question (not one of principle). Is the history of ideas more affected by changes in the notion of truth or whatever (each theory "true" by the standards of the time) or is it more a question of improving theories relative to a comparatively unchanging standard of "truth" (or "adequacy" or whatever word you want to use)? For the physical sciences over the last few centuries, I think, clearly the latter. For economics I am not so sure, but the question is worth asking. Has the history of economics been dominated by Whigs? For the study of classical and preclassical economics, perhaps Marxist-Whigs have dominated, but I don't think that is what people in this debate have been saying. Neoclassical-Whigs seem to me to be few and far between. Sam Hollander, perhaps, but despite his remarkable productivity he didn't dominate single handed. ---------------------- Tony Brewer ([log in to unmask]) University of Bristol, Department of Economics 8 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TN, England Phone (+44/0)117 928 8428 Fax (+44/0)117 928 8577 ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]