What Is History For?

Johann Gustav Droysen and the Functions of Historiography

Arthur Alfaix Assis

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781782382492
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historiography
• Index: History

A scholar of Hellenistic and Prussian history, Droysen developed a historical theory that at the time was unprecedented in range and depth, and which remains to the present day a valuable key for understanding history as both an idea and a professional practice. Arthur Alfaix Assis interprets Droysen's theoretical project as an attempt to redefine the function of historiography within the context of a rising criticism of exemplar theories of history, and focuses on Droysen's claim that the goal underlying historical writing and reading should be the development of the subjective capacity to think historically. In addition, Assis examines the connections and disconnections between Droysen's theory of historical thinking, his practice of historical thought, and his political activism. Ultimately, Assis not only shows how Droysen helped reinvent the relationship between historical knowledge and human agency, but also traces some of the contradictions and limitations inherent to that project.

CHAPTER 1

Functions of Historiography
until the Mid-nineteenth Century

A Short History of the Problem

The Rise of the Exemplar Theory of History

Long before Droysen began to systematize his ideas on the nature, methods, specificity and relevance of the science of history, the Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily in the first century BC included in the preface to his Historical Library a kind of catalogue in which he listed all the uses of history that came to his mind. According to him,

It is an excellent thing to be able to use the ignorant mistakes of others as warning examples for the correction of error, and, when we confront the varied vicissitudes of life, instead of having to investigate what is being done now, to be able to imitate the successes which have been achieved in the past. … One may hold that the acquisition of a knowledge of history is of the greatest utility for every conceivable circumstance of life. For it endows the young with the wisdom of the aged, while for the old it multiplies the experience which they already possess; citizens in private station it qualifies for leadership, and the leaders it incites, through the immortality of the glory which it confers, to undertake the noblest deeds; soldiers, again, it makes more ready to face dangers in defence of their country because of the public encomiums which they will receive after death, and wicked men it turns aside from their impulse towards evil through the everlasting opprobrium to which it will condemn them.¹

To sum up: in Diodorus’s view, histories remind us of the actions of notable and failed men, thereby establishing models for present agents to either imitate or avoid. Histories multiply the experience already possessed by the old and, moreover, convey to the young the wisdom accumulated in the past. Histories teach lessons on leadership and inspire leaders to perform great deeds, and they stimulate soldiers’ patriotism by offering them the hope of posthumous praise. Finally, they dissuade bad persons from evil by threatening them with perpetual disrepute.² Diodorus’s arguments weave what might be called an ‘exemplar theory of history’. Exemplar are those theories of history that hold that the major task of historians is to locate in the past timeless models of action to be immediately applied or avoided in the present.

One of the striking things about Diodorus’s catalogue is the number of centuries through which it lingered as a valid description of the value and functions of historiography. At least until the second half of the eighteenth century, nobody dared seriously question the assumption that history is written to underscore moral and/or political virtues and discourage vices. Throughout the centuries in between, those who thought historians do or should cater for the public’s demand for historical examples were also acknowledging that historians do not do their work merely to advance knowledge about the human past, or for the sake of arousing pleasant feelings in their readers. The assumption behind the exemplar theory of history was that histories straightforwardly exert influence over the way readers make decisions and act. Accordingly, historians were supposed to resort to the past in search of cases that would positively affect either the morality or the political judgement of the current readership.

I should mention here that the exemplary way of justifying historiography is not at all a singularity of so-called Western civilization. Within the Chinese historical tradition, for instance, the shis, who as early as around 1000 BC served as archivists, historiographers and astrologers in many courts, wrote histories to deliver practical orientation to their rulers.³ This was the case of many histories and annals, most notably Sima Guang’s (1019–1086) Zizhi Tongjian or, in literal translation, Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government (1084), a book that would become paradigmatic in many other East Asian cultures as well. As the title indicates, Sima’s was a textbook that, drawing on Confucian morality, explicitly aimed to convey historical lessons to the emperor (Shenzong, of the Song dynasty, 1048–1085), as well as to government’s bureaucrats.⁴ Scholars from several other times and civilizations frequently followed the same path whenever justifying the value of historiography. Early Indian historiographers, for instance, were no strangers to the idea that the past as conveyed by histories ‘can and does teach lessons, usually moral lessons’.⁵ Furthermore, Ibn Khaldūn (1332–1406), who surely was one of the most extraordinary historical thinkers of all times, testified very clearly to the significance of historical examples within classical Islamic justifications for historiography.⁶ In the general introduction to his universal history, which bore the convenient title of Book of Examples (Kitab al-Ibar), he ascertained that ‘[history] makes us acquainted with the conditions of past nations as they are reflected in their (national) character. It makes us acquainted with the biographies of the prophets and with the dynasties and policies of rulers. Whoever so desires may thus achieve the useful result of being able to imitate historical examples in religious and worldly matters.’⁷

In any case, throughout the history of Western historical thought, the habit of writing about historians as the providers of models for present agency was usually widespread among ancient, medieval and early modern intellectual elites. Granted, throughout the more than twenty centuries separating the classical Greeks from the intellectuals of the era of the Enlightenment, and within the broad space encompassed by the highly general idea of Western civilization, historical narratives conveyed much more than just exemplars of practical conduct. Even within the much smaller realm of the reflection on the nature and function of historiography, the empirical diversity of the arguments brought about in such a vast period surely hampers any generalizing attempt. In this regard, as Flavius Josephus (37–ca 100) long ago recognized, ‘those who essay to write histories are actuated … not by one and the same aim, but by many different motives’.⁸ Still, the continuity and frequency of the exemplary arguments throughout the centuries remains impressive indeed.

Several ancient, medieval and early modern intellectuals agreed (or would agree) with the famous old quote that defines history as ‘philosophy teaching by examples’.⁹ But in fact, the classical roots of the exemplar theory of history are to be traced within the rhetorical tradition. Isocrates (436–338 BC), a contemporary of Plato (ca 427–ca 347 BC), was a famous Greek rhetorician who saw education’s ultimate aim as instructing citizens so that they would be able to properly speak and act within the political arena. According to Isocrates, that aim could be materialized only through practical knowledge that accrued directly from experience, rather than through the theoretical knowledge privileged by the Platonic tradition.¹⁰ Later on, stoic philosophers would have a similar attitude, favouring reflection linked to practical experience instead of philosophical speculation.¹¹ Throughout classical antiquity, the idea of enhancing human action by direct reference to exemplary models worked out by historiography was relatively opposed to the mainstream of the classical philosophical tradition. The opposition was, however, only relative, since philosophers and rhetoricians (as well as historians) equally recognized the importance of moral education; at the end of the day, their disagreement was only over the didactic means to accomplish the same educative goals.¹²

It is important to point out that ancient rhetoricians developed their exemplar theories of history within the framework of a cyclical notion of time, that is, of a sense that the future was no horizon full of new and unexpected events, but rather a time in which already existing patterns would recur.¹³ Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to state that the ancient Greeks generally conceived of time as a circle, or that Jews and Christians, for instance, conceived of it exclusively in linear terms. Shifting the focus from classical philosophers and rhetoricians to classical historians does not necessarily reveal traces of a circular perception of time. Arnaldo Momigliano, who strongly condemned the argument that Greek and early Christian conceptions of time differed radically, affirmed that cyclical time played no crucial role at all in ancient Greek historiography.¹⁴ Momigliano’s thesis is largely confirmed by François Hartog’s argument that Herodotus and Thucydides (fifth century BC, both) conceived their histories not as exempla, but as perennial accounts (ktema) of what they self-confidently experienced as a great and unique present. According to Hartog, both historians were characterized by their efforts to draw a dividing line between epics and what could even then be called ‘historiography’. Within this context, they associated the latter with the written and the prose forms, raising ‘autopsy’ (i.e., seeing for oneself rather than listening to what others have seen) to the rank of a preferred basis for reliable knowledge. Accordingly, their writings referred back to events they were contemporary to (the Persian and the Peloponnesian Wars, respectively) – rather than to the long-ago and often mythical events typical of epic poetry. The kind of relationship with time inaugurated by Herodotus’ book actually downplayed the past as barely knowable, focusing instead on the present – that is, on the time one can experience for oneself – and more specifically on the events one could see with one’s own eyes. Classical Greek historians thus regarded their present time as superior to all past and at same time cast doubt on the knowledge of past events they could not have witnessed.¹⁵

As a matter of fact, this attitude did not fit in with the assumption that some segments of the past should be remembered as examples for the present. On the whole, the major works of both Herodotus and Thucydides lack exemplary justifications for writing and reading histories. Hartog argues that the exemplary use of the past only caught on during the fourth century BC, precisely after the Peloponnesian War strongly unsettled the general optimism that had characterized the times of Herodotus and Thucydides. The sense of the superiority of the present vis-à-vis the past was then turned upside down, and historians, following orators and rhetoricians, started to scan the recent past in search of modes of action that could be imitated or avoided. In doing so, they assumed they were elaborating a means for their present to regain its lost dignity.¹⁶

More than 250 years after Herodotus and Thucydides wrote their famous works, the opening statement of Polybius’s (ca 200–ca 120 BC) Histories testifies to the consolidation of the practice of ascribing an exemplary function to historiography. Unlike Herodotus and Thucydides, Polybius did not lay out a monograph on a specific war but a universal history dealing with a broader time span, 220–144 BC, and a more complex subject matter, the rise of Rome to a world power. He began his book by holding that there was no longer any need to justify the importance of historiography, since his predecessors had already established that ‘the study of history is in the truest sense an education, and a training for political life’. This statement shows that Polybius agreed that the general function of historiography is of a political-didactic nature – that history should be written specifically for the instruction of rulers and political actors.¹⁷ He further agreed that the method his alleged forerunners had used in order to effectively prepare readers to act in the political arena was indeed the most convenient one: the presentation of negative examples. For Polybius, histories teach examples of misdeeds warning the readership against falling into the same errors: ‘The most instructive, or rather the only, method of learning to bear with dignity the vicissitudes of fortune is’, he concludes, ‘to recall the catastrophes of others.’¹⁸ These quotes from the introduction of Polybius’s book convey only a statement of intent that his narrative may or may not have fulfilled. But it is significant enough that at least on the intentional level, Polybius clearly ascribed to history the function of extracting, from the past, negative examples that would retain validity for all times.

However, neither Polybius nor any other ancient historian would influence later discourses on the value of history more than Cicero, a Roman rhetorician of the first century BC who never wrote a historical work. The formula most famously associated with the exemplar theory of history shows up in a passage of Cicero’s De oratore, in which he remarks that history is an important support to speakers. Within this context...