Wesleyan University

Has History any Meaning? A Critique of Popper's Philosophy of History by Burleigh Taylor
Wilkins
Review by: Carol Wallace
History and Theory, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Oct., 1979), pp. 417-427
Published by: Wiley for Wesleyan University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2504538 .
Accessed: 22/01/2013 06:38
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
.
Wiley and Wesleyan University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to History
and Theory.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded on Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:38:46 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
REVIEW ESSAYS 417
tional modes of thought and practice while sliding over the structural im-
peratives of the contemporary order; Marxists of positivist and structuralist
inclinations construct theories in which the idea of the subject is treated as
a myth and people are treated as the mere bearers of socially produced
roles. If the portraits of these theories are exaggerated, the exaggerations
are illuminating. They point to analogues at the level of theory to pressures
in contemporary politics to close the space for a politics of enlightenment.
The ideal speech situation, serving as the centerpiece of Habermas'
theory, is more than an abstract theoretical construct. It symbolizes at
once the ideal of enlightened politics and the threatened closure of public
space for its realization. Unconstrained by any concrete political practice it
provides a sanctuary of sorts for political reflection. In this space thought
could run idle, even if politics ran out of control. We have here the
idealized speech of stoics frozen out of effective participation in public life.
The wish to expand the space for democratic politics and the anxiety that
democratic political discourse may become increasingly detached from the
concrete imperatives of our political economy are condensed into the sym-
bol of ideal speech.
WILLIAM E. CONNOLLY
University of Massachusetts
Amherst
HAS HISTORY ANY MEANING? A Critique of Popper's Philosophy of His-
tory. By Burleigh Taylor Wilkins. Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press,
1978. Pp. 251.
Followers of Popper will be dismayed to find that in Has History Any
Meaning? Burleigh Taylor Wilkins takes exception to nearly every claim
that Popper makes about the nature of historical inquiry and points out
fundamental inconsistencies between Popper's philosophy of history and
his general epistemology. But as Wilkins explains in his introduction, these
disagreements must be seen in the light of more basic common assump-
tions: "that there is a unity of method in the natural and social sciences,
that scientific and empirical statements are falsifiable, and that there is a
dualism between facts and moral standards" (14). Wilkins exemplifies Col-
lingwood's critic, "a reader who agrees with his author's views up to a
certain point, and on that limited agreement builds his case for refusing a
completer agreement,"1 by showing that acceptance of three of Popper's
1. R. G. Collingwood, An Essay on Philosophical Method (Oxford, 1933), 219.
This content downloaded on Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:38:46 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
418 REVIEW ESSAYS
main theses entails the impossibility of accepting his theory of history in its
entirety.
Antagonists of Popper, on the other hand, will be surprised by Wilkins'
claim that apart from the question of political influence, "Popper is as
important to contemporary philosophy of history as Hegel was to that of
the nineteenth century and for much the same reason: just as nineteenth-
century philosophy of history was mainly an extended commentary on
Hegel, so contemporary philosophy of history is largely an extended com-
mentary on arguments presented by Popper" (13). I am not convinced,
however, that this bold claim, rather misleadingly quoted on the jacket
cover, is either adequately supported by or necessary to the main argument
of the book. Popper may indeed emerge as the Hegel of the twentieth
century, but we must wait to see whether this hypothesis will be falsified
by the emergence of new trends in philosophy.
The most significant contribution of Wilkins' book does not lie in his, to
my mind, rather exaggerated predictions about the enduring importance of
Popper's work in the philosophy of history. Wilkins' approach is not in-
tended to be that of the historian of ideas, who would trace Popper's
intellectual development and his influence on his contemporaries. What he
has accomplished, however, is to provide us with the most careful, critical,
and comprehensive treatment to date of a relatively neglected aspect of
Popper's philosophy. Although, as I shall argue, Wilkins' continuation and
development of Popper's philosophy of history fails to resolve the difficul-
ties he finds in the original theory, his attempt is worthy of serious study,
because it raises and focuses a number of central problems for the contem-
porary philosopher of history.
The common interpretation of Karl Popper is that he is a philosopher of
science of the first rank, whose falsificationist model of scientific inquiry
attempts to solve the problem of induction and has been extremely influen-
tial, not only within academic philosophy, but in all the scientific disci-
plines. Popper's political philosophy is viewed by many as equally impress-
ive, providing a classic defense of liberal democracy and a social policy of
piecemeal engineering as opposed to utopian planning. Wilkins does not
question Popper's achievements as a political philosopher and philosopher
of science, but attempts to show that he is of equal importance as a philos-
opher of history.
Wilkins' task is complicated by the fact that Popper has written no major
work in the philosophy of history comparable to The Logic of Scientific
Discovery (London, 1959) and The Open Society and Its Enemies (Lon-
don, 1966). The main theses of Popper's theory of history are presented in
the brief concluding chapter of The Open Society, which bears the same
title as Wilkins' book. The argument here is, as Wilkins recognizes, cryptic
This content downloaded on Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:38:46 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
REVIEW ESSAYS 419
and puzzling. Popper argues that history has no meaning, because "his-
tory" in the sense in which most people speak of it does not exist. Al-
though no meanings or purposes can be discovered in the historical pro-
cess, according to Popper, human beings can impose their own purposes
upon it. History itself is meaningless, but we can give it a meaning through
our decisions.
These claims about the meaning of
history,
Wilkins argues, cannot be
properly understood apart from Popper's other works, particularly The
Poverty of Historicism (London, 1961). Drawing upon Popper's criticisms
of historicism, his theory of historical explanation and interpretation, his
discussion of wholes and trends,- and his moral philosophy, Wilkins arrives
at an interpretation of Popper's philosophy of history which is essentially
Kantian in its emphasis upon the dualism of facts and moral standards.
Wilkins detects a tension in Popper's thought between his commitment
to the unity of method in the natural and social sciences and what might be
called his "critique of historical reason." He concludes that while Popper's
attack on historicism is a valuable reminder of the dangers of uncritical
attempts to make predictions about the future course of history, he has
overestimated the limitations of historical knowledge. Wilkins writes, "I
cannot believe that historicism in some form or other will not persist or
recur-the desire or need to predict the future course of various societies
or even of the entire historical process is too deeply imbedded in many of
us to be eradicated by a thousand Poverties" (161). This statement is
reminiscent of Kant's declaration, "That the human mind will ever give up
metaphysical researches is as little to be expected as that we, to avoid
inhaling impure air, should prefer to give up breathing altogether.'2 There
are clear parallels between Popper's polemic against the positivists on the
one hand and the historicists on the other and Kant's attempt to steer
between empiricism and rationalism, although in Popper sometimes the
empiricist seems to outrun the Kantian. Just as Kant laid the groundwork
for a more self-consciously critical metaphysics, Wilkins believes that Pop-
per's arguments may help to "shape some more responsible versions of
historicism than we have had thus far" (161).
The organization of the book follows that of the concluding chapter of
The Open Society and Its Enemies. One might expect that before present-
ing an argument against the view that history has meaning, Popper would
first of all clarify the sense in which he is using the term "meaning"; but he
writes: "I do not wish to enter here into the problem of the meaning of
'meaning.' I take it for granted that most people know with sufficient clar-
ity what they mean when they speak of the 'meaning of history' or of the
'meaning of life'."' Wilkins points out, however, that the term "meaning"
2. Immanuel Kant, Prolegoinena to Any Future Metaphysics (Indianapolis, 1950), 116.
3. Open Society and Its Enemies, II, 269.
This content downloaded on Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:38:46 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
420 REVIEW ESSAYS
is not univocal, borrowing from W. H. Walsh a useful distinction between
"meaning in history" and "meaning of history." A meaning in history is an
explanation which renders some historical event intelligible, the proper
object of the historian's quest. There may be many meanings in history, but
the meaning of history is, on the other hand, necessarily singular. To
search for the meaning of history is to seek either a system of regular laws
or patterns governing the entire historical process or a goal which unifies it
and gives it moral significance.
In denying that history has meaning Popper clearly is intending to argue
against the possibility of discovering the meaning of history, not to deny
the validity of the historian's attempts to find meaning in history. Accord-
ing to Popper, historicists make the mistake of supposing that we can
discover the meaning of history, both in the sense of the laws governing the
historical process as a whole, which enable us to make predictions about it,
and in the sense of the end or goal of history. Furthermore, historicism
maintains that because history is moving in a certain direction, the end
toward which it tends is therefore morally desirable, thus illegitimately
drawing moral imperatives from allegedly factual premises.
In the Poverty of Historicism Popper mounts his attack against this view
by arguing that there are certain intrinsic limits to historical knowledge
which prevent the possibility of discovering history's meaning in Walsh's
second sense. First of all, what distinguishes history from the generalizing
sciences is a concern with actual, singular, or specific events rather than
general laws. Secondly, although these singular events can be explained by
deducing them from universal covering laws, Popper argues that there are
no distinctively historical laws. The covering laws that historians use are
derived from other sciences, and these laws are usually trivial. Take, for
example, the following explanation of the division of Poland in 1772 in the
face of the combined power of Russia, Prussia, and Austria which tacitly
appeals to the uninteresting law, "If of two armies which are about equally
well armed and led, one has a tremendous superiority in men, then the
other never wins." Thirdly, often historians' theoretical concepts are not
consciously employed, as in the sciences, but are implicit in their terminol-
ogy. Finally, historical knowledge is limited by the fact that history is
necessarily selective, depending upon a preconceived point of view through
which the evidence is viewed and organized, and which is generally unfal-
sifiable. Taken together, these theses about the limitations of historical
inquiry downgrade the importance of general considerations in history as
contrasted with science.
Wilkins challenges each of these arguments as imposing unnecessary re-
strictions upon historians' methods. Against Popper's claims that history is
concerned with specific events, he argues that such a sweeping, simplistic
characterization of what historians do indicates an insensitivity to the vari-
This content downloaded on Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:38:46 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
REVIEW ESSAYS 421
ety'of interests among historians. Although some historians may choose to
focus upon particular events, others attempt to write universal histories
about whole nations or periods. Furthermore, even if many historians em-
ploy trivial laws, concepts which are only unconsciously theoretical, and
untestable hypotheses, Popper has not shown that all histories must neces-
sarily be limited in these respects. Finally, although Popper is right to
emphasize the historian's need to be selective, and hence his reliance upon
preconceived interpretations, it has not been demonstrated that interpreta-
tion is any more central to history than to science.
This last argument seems to me to be the most damaging to Popper's
philosophy of history. Even if he were able to answer Wilkins' first two
criticisms by showing that historians should not be concerned with
"wholes" in any sense of the word and that triviality is a necessary and not
just an accidental or occasional feature of the covering laws historians
employ, Popper would have difficulty answering the charge that his philos-
ophy of history is inconsistent with his philosophy of science. Any kind of
systematic inquiry depends upon interpretations for the selection and orga-
nization of data. It is a commonplace now in the natural and social sciences
and the humanities as well that there is no such thing as a "pure given," no
facts which can be apprehended independently of conceptual frameworks.
Popper deserves much of the credit for replacing a naive empiricism in the
philosophy of science with a more Kantian model of scientific inquiry.
Of course, Popper is decidedly unKantian in his insistence that our concep-
tual frameworks are not permanent and universal categories of the human
mind. At the same time he vigorously opposes what he terms the "Myth of
the
Framework,"
the relativistic alternative to Kant's epistemology, accord-
ing to which we are all necessarily trapped in a particular framework, each
one of which is incommensurable with all others. He argues that "at any
moment we are prisoners caught in the framework of our theories; our
expectations; our past experiences; our language. But we are prisoners in a
Pickwickian sense; if we try, we can break out of our framework at any
time. Admittedly, we shall find ourselves again in a framework, but it will
be a better and roomier one; and we can at any moment break out of it
again." And yet in his philosophy of history Popper seems to revert to the
same kind of relativism which he opposes in his philosophy of science. His
arguments suggest that historians are prisoners of their interpretations
in a
literal rather than a Pickwickian sense. If historians' frameworks are in-
commensurable and impenetrable in a way that scientists' frameworks are
not, Popper would seem to be fortifying in his philosophy of history the
myth which he attacks in his philosophy of science as the "central bulwark
of irrationalism."4
4. "Normal Science and Its Dangers" in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, ed. Imre
Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (Cambridge, 1970), 56.
This content downloaded on Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:38:46 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
422 REVIEW ESSAYS
Wilkins not only exposes this paradox in Popper's thought but offers a
possible solution to it which he thinks is close to the spirit of Popper's own
approach in its emphasis on the unity of method in the natural social
sciences. Popper's case for the difference between history and science
rests on his argument that in history there are no theories or universal laws
capable of unifying and bringing order to the subject matter; therefore, the
unified points of view which operate as principles of selection in the writing
of history must be provided by preconceived, untestable interpretations,
such as the idea that what is important in history is the great man, or
national character, or economic conditions. Contrary to Popper, Wilkins
believes that the similarities between scientific theories and historical in-
terpretation are much more significant than the differences.
First of all, both history and science aim at providing causal explana-
tions. While accepting Popper's covering-law model of historical explana-
tion, Wilkins denies that covering laws are necessarily either trivial or
untestable. He cites examples of significant laws from economics which
Popper himself uses, such as, "You cannot have full employment without
inflation" or "You cannot introduce agricultural tariffs and at the same
time reduce the cost of living.' Once we admit the possibility of nontrivial
covering laws in history, Wilkins argues, there is no more reason to deny
that historical theories might be falsifiable than there is to deny this of
scientific hypotheses.
The fact that historians' selective principles are "preconceived" points,
not to a differentiating characteristic, but to a feature which history shares
with science, in terms of Popper's anti-inductivist philosophy of science.
Popper cannot consistently maintain that the use of preconceived theoreti-
cal frameworks is a virtue in science and a defect in history. Nor is the fact
that historical evidence is recorded and selected in accordance with a pre-
conceived viewpoint sufficient to show that historical interpretations are
unfalsifiable. In history, just as in science, observations made in the light of
one theory might be used to test some other theory. For instance, a letter
written home by a soldier concerned to show that he handled himself well
his first time under fire might provide evidence for testing a theory about
factors affecting morale or the hypothesis "that a certain retreat was an
orderly withdrawal and not a rout" (66). According to Wilkins, the histo-
rian's critical scrutiny of the evidence is in many ways analogous to a
crucial experiment in physics.
While Popper maintains that not all historical interpretations are of equal
merit, Wilkins contends that he has failed to provide a criterion for decid-
ing among a plurality of competing untestable interpretations. Popper's
encouragement of bold, improbable hypotheses in science avoids the pit-
5. Poverty of Historicismz, 62.
This content downloaded on Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:38:46 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
REVIEW ESSAYS 423
falls of irrationalism only because, while there are no restrictions on the
scientist's'freedom imaginatively to construct hypotheses, there are severe
tests to which these hypotheses must be subjected and definite criteria by
which we can judge rationally among them. Without the possibility of test-
ing historical theories, there is no way to distinguish "the heroic inves-
tigator who risks much from the charlatan who claims much, believing that
the risk of being found out is quite small" (94).
Popper recommends that we abandon the ideal of objective history as an
unrealizable goal and admit that we can never know the events of the past
as they actually did happen. But such a concession to skepticism and
relativism is bound to undermine Popper's efforts to refute historicism. If
each generation has the right to interpret history in its own way depending
upon its practical needs and moral concerns, there is no way in which the
historicist vision can be excluded from the realm of legitimate interpreta-
tions. An historicist could even appeal to Popper's arguments for the untes-
tability of historical interpretations and the right of each generation to
reinterpret history in accordance with conventional values in support of his
position. Popper's dilemma is similar to that of the radical existentialist,
concerned to oppose scientism and totalitarianism, who asserts that man's
freedom to create his own values is limitless, and is then left powerless to
argue rationally against an Ayer or a Hitler. Popper wants to claim that in
history (though not in science) conventionalism does not imply arbitrari-
ness, but he has not given a cogent argument showing why.
In short, if Wilkins is right, there is a serious gap between what Popper
intends to do and what he accomplishes in his philosophy of history. He
intends to block the historicist's attempt to determine the meaning of his-
tory, but to allow as legitimate the historian's quest for meaning in history,
in other words, in the explanation of particular historical events. What he
has unwittingly done, however, is precisely the opposite. By arguing that
we impose our own meanings on the historical process, Popper has, in
effect, given license to the historicist, no less than anyone else, to read his
own meaning into history. By denying that the historian can ever know the
past as it really happened, Popper has eliminated the possibility of discov-
ering objective meanings in history along with the possibility of discovering
the objective meaning of history as a whole.
Wilkins' attempt to reinterpret Popper's philosophy of history in order to
bring it more in line with his insight into the methodology of science is
certainly an improvement, both in internal consistency and pertinence to
the actual practice of historians. I suspect, however, that a kind of tension,
perhaps an inconsistency, remains even in Wilkins' reconstructed version
of Popper's view of history.
The foundation of agreement upon which Wilkins constructs his critique
of Popper includes the following two theses: that there is a unity of method
This content downloaded on Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:38:46 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
424 REVIEW ESSAYS
in history and natural science and that there is a basic dualism between
facts arid moral standards. By a "dualism" in this context, Wilkins seems
to mean no more than a logical distinction. To say that moral standards are
logically distinct from facts means simply that no statement of fact can
constitute sufficient logical grounds from which we can deduce moral con-
clusions. The historicist's claim to discover moral significance in the histor-
ical process represents, in Kantian terms, a "heteronomous" attempt to
bridge the logical gap between statements of fact and moral imperatives.
Wilkins agrees with Popper to the extent that our moral autonomy is pre-
served only by the recognition that "facts as such have no meaning; they
gain it only through our decisions." 6 Since no facts are sufficient to deter-
mine our choices, the only moral meaning history can have is the meaning
we decide to give it.
The difficulty I encounter with this argument is that it seems inconsistent
with the thesis about the unity of method. If we are committed to the view
that history and science are methodologically identical, then we cannot
erect a theory of what is distinctive about history upon the difference
between facts and decisions; the two disciplines must be distinguished
according to subject matter, not according to method.
There are two possible ways of attempting to avoid the inconsistency.
On the one hand, one could adhere to the unity of method between history
and science and argue that decision and creativity play as central a role in
science as they do in history. This position could be supported by arguing
that in science as well as in history uninterpreted facts are strictly meaning-
less, since all observation is necessarily theory-laden. No theory can be
confirmed by appeal to neutral facts, and therefore we can decide among
competing theories only in terms of such standards as simplicity, coher-
ence, completeness, or fruitfulness. Just as theories provide principles of
selection which unify our observations, our decisions to adopt certain stan-
dards for evaluation perform the same unifying function with respect to
scientific theories. No set of statements of scientific facts can entail stan-
dards of evaluation; thus in science, as well as in history, there is a dualism
between facts and decisions. "Facts as such have no meaning; they gain it
only through our decisions."7 Both Popper and Wilkins, however, resist
such a concession to conventionalism in natural science.
On the other hand, one could argue that the standards by which scientific
theories are evaluated have a different status from the standards that histo-
rians employ. Scientific standards are objective, grounded in the truth
about nature, while the historian's standards are subjective interpretations,
depending on the particular needs and interests of his own time, in which
6.
Open Society and Its
Enemzies, II, 278-279.
7. Idem.
This content downloaded on Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:38:46 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
REVIEW ESSAYS 425
case decision would play a far more important role in history than in
science. Then it would appear that we must abandon the hypothesis that a
single method is applicable in the two disciplines, but Popper and Wilkins
are unwilling to do so.
It seems to me that the tension in Wilkins' book arises from his attempt
to view history in two fundamentally different ways at once - as a creative
act of interpretation and as the discovery of objective laws. His acceptance
of Popper's view that history and science share a single method leads to his
emphasis on the covering-law model as even more important than Popper
himself thought it to be. At the same time his commitment to Popper's
dualism of facts and standards results in subjectivism with regard to the
meanings we impose upon history. Thus for Wilkins we can discover objec-
tive historical laws, but we can only create historical meaning in the moral
sense. Meaning in history is there to be found; the meaning of history must
be brought to it by our decisions.
This answer to the question, "Has history any meaning?" may seem
plausible initially, but Wilkins cannot have it both ways. If the meaning of
history is a subjective point of view which operates as the historian's
principle of selection and organization, it follows that the meanings it?
history which the selective principle includes must also be subjective and
arbitrary. For example, suppose that an historian decides to adopt the ideal
of the open society as the meaning of history. This point of view deter-
mines his selection of evidence and also the universal generalizations, such
as "Power tends to corrupt," which he uses to explain historical events.
Since his vision of the meaning of history is a creative interpretation
and not
a discovery about the historical process, there is nothing to guarantee the
objective status of the so-called "laws" to which he appeals in his particu-
lar explanations.
On the other hand, if historians can discover objective meanings it? his-
tory by explaining events in terms of covering laws analogous to scientific
laws, the meaning of history by which the covering laws are organized
must also be objective. If "Power tends to corrupt" is a genuine covering
law which can be used to explain events scientifically, a discovery about
the historical process and not merely a subjective decision, the historian's
knowledge of this law will limit his freedom to impose his own creative
meaning of history on the process. He will, of course, have the freedom to
approve or disapprove of this universal tendency in human affairs (which
presumably will depend in part on whether he expects to be among the
powerful or among those destined to suffer the effects of their corruption).
But this limited autonomy with respect to historical laws is no more rele-
vant to the methods of history than is the scientist's freedom to approve or
disapprove of the law of gravitation.
I have tried to show that Wilkins' attempt to avoid both absolutistic
This content downloaded on Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:38:46 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
426 REVIEW ESSAYS
historicism and historical relativism fails because two of the assumptions
which he borrows from Popper
-
the unity of method in history and
science and dualism of facts and standards
-
are incompatible. Although
Wilkins' approach to history is fundamentally wrongheaded, his book does
contain a clue toward a solution to the problems it raises.
Ironically, one of the most interesting and fruitful sections of Wilkins'
book is his discussion of Popper's notion of the logic of the situation, in
which he seems to forget his a priori assumption about the unity of scien-
tific method. The upshot of his analysis of Popper's situational logic is that
historians not only explain events by deducing them from general laws;
they also assess or evaluate the rational adequacy of the acts of historical
agents, given what they know about the agent's situation and his beliefs
about his situation. For example, if we are studying an edict of an emperor,
we must analyze the emperor's situation and rationally reconstruct the
reasoning which led him to the action he took. Then we are in a position to
understand the significance of the edict and to assess the adequacy of the
emperor's response to his circumstances.
This indicates, although Wilkins apparently does not recognize it, that
Popper does see an important difference in the methodology of the histo-
rian from that of the natural scientist, especially since Popper regards his
situational logic as a more important philosophical discovery than the
covering-law model of explanation. The subject matter of history is sig-
nificantly different from the subject matter of science, since it includes
intentional actions as well as natural processes. Thus the distinguishing
characteristic of history cannot be the discovery of objective universal laws
from which particular events necessarily follow. Although Wilkins is surely
right to insist that historians may borrow non-trivial laws from other disci-
plines such as economics, this is not their primary task. Nor can history be
viewed as essentially the creation of subjective interpretations which are
arbitrarily imposed upon an inherently meaningless process. The inten-
tional actions which historians study have meaning from the point of view
of the agents who produced them, and these meanings can be creatively
reconstructed, as well as rationally evaluated, by the historian.
If the distinctive feature of historical understanding is the rational as-
sessment of past actions by situational analysis, then Wilkins' neat dichot-
omy between facts and standards of evaluation
-
parallel to the distinc-
tions between meaning in history and meaning of' history and between the
discovery of objective meaning, as opposed to the creation of subjective
meaning
- would seem to break down. First of all, as far as subject matter
is concerned, the dualism between facts and standards is not as sharp in
history as it is in science. The standards of evaluation which the historical
agent uses are among the facts which the historian attempts to discover and
to assess. Secondly, as far as method is concerned, the dualism between
This content downloaded on Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:38:46 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
REVIEW ESSAYS 427
facts and 'standards does not parallel the distinction between meaning in
history
and
meaning of history. Evaluation by the historian of past actions
in accordance with the logic of the situation is involved at the level of
meaning in history as well as at the level of meaning of history.
Although the historian exercises creative imagination in his explanation
of particular historical events, and not only in his formation of grandiose
interpretations of the historical process as a whole, this does not necessar-
ily rule out the possibility of objective historical knowledge. In history,
unlike science, the creation and discovery of meaning are inseparable.
Verum factum, as Vico put it; we can only know truths that have been
made by man. The historian can discover meaning in the historical process
only because it has been created by our ancestors. He can creatively re-
construct the meanings of historical events only because they are already
implicitly there.
Wilkins assesses Poppers situational logic as "an ambitious attempt to
preserve Collingwood's theory of sympathetic understanding while avoid-
ing his subjectivism" (14). He expects that "should the current con-
troversy concerning the covering-law model ever subside, Popper's situa-
tional logic may well become the next most discussed topic in the philoso-
phy of history" (14). As one who has been bored nearly to death by
discussions of covering laws, I hope that he is right.
CAROL WALLACE
Rider College
THEORETICAL METHODS IN SOCIAL HISTORY. By
Arthur L. Stinchcombe.
New York: Academic Press, 1978. Pp. x, 130.
Arthur Stinchcombe can lay claim to being one of the leading American
sociological theorists. Theoretical Methods in Social History consequently
demands careful attention. And although Stinchcombe is a notoriously and
frustratingly difficult writer, the book merits study for it reflects the quality
of the impact the traditional disciplines of philosophy and history have had
on sociological science.
Stinchcombe navigates between what he sees as two erroneous views of
the connection between sociology and history. The first view is descended
from Kant and the Vienna Circle's empiricism. It argues that the task of
social theory is the construction of general laws and abstract concepts.
From these laws and concepts the theorist derives propositions of lesser
generality and tests them against historical data. While this position has a
philosophical lineage, Stinchcombe identifies it with that of contemporary
sociologists and with a positivist view of science. He contrasts such a view
This content downloaded on Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:38:46 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions