================= HES POSTING ====================== 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 ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]