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Alexandre Grandazzi

THE FUTURE OF THE PAST

FROM THE HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY TO


HISTORIOLOGY

Alas, we chase
« after truth:
Ah! Believe me, error has its merit!
Voltaire

The history of historiography, in other words the history of his-


tory, is in vogue. In the realm of Classical Antiquity (whence
speaks the author of this essay), but elsewhere as well, increas-
ing numbers of pioneers set out each day to explore this new path
of history.
It is true that the tasks to be accomplished in this perspective
are immense and that everything, or nearly so, remains to be done.
Before achieving a true history of the historiography of ancient
worlds, for example, it will be necessary to publish, at least in
part, the huge amount of unpublished material that lies sleeping
in specialized libraries: correspondence between scholars; aban-
Translated by R. Scott Walker
1 This article develops an idea outlined in a work to be published by Éditions Les
Belles Lettres and entitled La Fondation de Rome.

51
doned or unfinished projects; exhuming (if they still can be found)
the programs of those research &dquo;SemmarS9’, laboratories of the
new history-science in which the latter, during the nineteenth cen-
tury, began testing its tools and methods; identifying, where pos-
sible, the audiences of these seminars. It is especially important
to have available as soon as possible modern and complete bi-
ographical dictionaries along the lines of what is being done in
Italy with the incomparable Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
(which is up to the letter D), in Germany with the Neue Deutsche
Biographic (which has just reached the letter M) and in France
with the Dictionnaire de Biographie française (now finishing the
letter G). e

As we can see, much work still remains to be done in the his-


tory of historiography, to such a point even that it may seem to
be passing through one of those blessed periods where, in the iron-
ic remark made by Arnaldo Momigliano with regard to orien-
talist studies,2 the search for and classification of new docu-
ments might seem to make it possible to dispense with any kind
of theoretical reflection.
Indeed, in light of present production, we cannot help but be
astonished by the contrast between the proliferation of detailed
studies and the absence (widespread apart from a very few ex-
ceptions) of any basic reflection on the status and the stakes of
the new discipline.
New? Is this really so certain? And what is it exactly: a com-
pletely separate discipline or an auxiliary science of history, as
archaeology once was; merely a diversion for historians who take
pleasure in evoking their predecessors or a new form of episte-
mology ; a return to the old history of ideas or a newly discovered
continent in the geography of sciences? But instead of answer-
ing such embarrassing questions, would it not be better to test
the movement by walking, so to speak (but where to go?), laying
aside theory for practice and immediately engaging in more posi-
tive studies, in particular the search for new documents that we
just mentioned?
However, to believe in this way that a new field of knowledge
2
In Contributo alla storia degli studi classici, Rome, Edizioni di storia e letter-
atura, 1955, p. 214.
52
will of itself reveal its still hidden riches, to postulate in this way
that the new arrival (if indeed there is a new arrival) will find
its place among the human sciences as the result of a natural and
inescapable evolution, would be a matter of a particular teleolo-
gy even if, paradoxically, the old recourse to a transcendental
authority were to put on the more attractive and more modern
garb of respectable pragmatism. Without mentioning that it would
be paradoxical to see a discipline (for the time being we will con-
tent ourselves with this hardly compromising appellation), whose
emergence can be explained in large part by a concern for com-
batting the cult of the document and of the &dquo;true&dquo; facts of
positivist history, to see this discipline, barely out of its infancy,
become lost in turn in a headlong pursuit of new documents. If
this truly is to be the evolution to come, then let us be sure that
it does not require a long time before the renovating contribu-
tion of the history of historiography can be integrated, diluted,
absorbed, neutralized, dissolved among already existing scientific
practices and devices and that this latest form of history does not
fall back into types and techniques from which it is barely begin-
ning to distinguish itself today. Not knowing what it is, it does
not know where it is going, that is where it might go, and the
risk is great that it thus return to the horizons that saw its birth
even though in a more elaborate and more &dquo;scientific&dquo; form than
before. Several signs, visible here and there, show that the vari-
ous types of biography, whose role in history has now been re-
stored after a period of exile and disdain; of bibliography, that
is of a very old auxiliary science of history that modern computer
technology is equipping with renewed possibilities and ambitions;
or even a very vague and imprecise cultural history: that all three
are prepared to welcome the return of a prodigal child.
The following pages have been written in order to struggle
against such an evolution, one that would cause the history of
historiography to lose the essential quality of its power, its origi-
nality and its innovative impact. a

Let us begin (and this is the least we can do when approaching


a discipline intended to be a reflection on the origins of historio-
graphic production) with a look at the origins of this history of
historiography.

53
A relationship with well-established academic practices can eas-
ily be admitted; clearly the academic tradition of a eulogy in the
form of notes &dquo;on the life and work&dquo; of some scholar or another,
that, when flowing from the pens of certain virtuosi, takes on
the dignity of a veritable literary genre, has played its role in the
birth of our discipline. It is also fitting to include in this category
prefaces written on the occasion of new editions of canonical scien-
tific works (even though the raw historiographical fact here is
the new edition itself). Moreover, the academic custom of prefac-
ing every scholarly work, particularly a thesis, with a &dquo;state of
the question&dquo; (status quaestionis), has certainly played an im-
portant role in the progressive constitution of a history of histori-
ography as an independent sector. It is also clear that we can es-
tablish a direct link between the history of historiography and
the collections of retrospective bibliography that began appear-
ing in the eighteenth century. Thus at the beginning of the cen-
tury, Ch. V. Langlois, the author of an Introduction to Histori-
cal Studies along with Seignobos, could write in his Manuel de
bibliographie historique, &dquo;’I~’here is nothing more legitimate than
to pause at certain moments in the quest of historical science in
pursuit of its past in order to measure the territory covered and
to seek the paths that the human spirit has taken before reaching
the truth&dquo;.3 bust even while tracing the affiliation leading from
bibliography to the history of historiography as it exists today,
these remarks also reveal the gulf that separates them. For it is
well known that today’s historians no longer believe in the kind
of truth with which Langlois justified his work. (However, this
was not without resulting in contradiction: if successive histori-
ans are simply moving toward the True, ever drawing nearer and
nearer, then why go backward? Hence a certain uneasy conscience
lies hidden behind the mask of an eloquent self-assurance).
It is correct to say that in the process that has led to an in-
creasingly clear illumination of the importance of the historian’ss
role in the development of history and in dissipating the illusion
of truth that was part of historicism, Marxist historians have made
a major contribution. Concerned with demonstrating the

3
1901-1904, vol. 1, pp. 234-35, quoted by C.O. Carbonell in the journal Storia
della storiografia, 1982, 1, p. 11.

54
prejudices of &dquo;bourgeois&dquo; historians in order to clear the path
to the truth of dialectical materialism, they were the first to rid
the history of historiography thoroughly of its original narcis-
sism on the basis of a conception that made of historic work,
placed in the sphere of the &dquo;superstructure9’, the direct expres-
sion of forces operating in the social &dquo;~nfrastructure&dquo; . Even
though it very quickly became evident that the kind of truth in
which proponents of this reading wrapped themselves was no less
precarious than the kinds it claimed to refute definitively; the prin-
ciple of an analysis of historiographic production, in particular
for the ninetheenth century, resulting in a relativism of historic
knowledge, provided the history of historiography with new
methods and ambitions.
Later, when historians of the Annals School, often by using
the history of mentalities, undertook criticism of traditional his-
tory, the legitimacy and usefulness of the history of historiogra-
phy became more and more evident.
Under cover of these various forms, then, we reach the end
of recourse to truth as absolute reference to the historical activi-
ty at the origin of emergence of the history of historiography as
an increasingly autonomous entity. It is still important to exa-
mine carefully all the nuances of such affirmations, which im-
mediately posit the history of historiography as the truth of his-
tory, for, as we clearly see in the examples we have just men-
tioned the new discipline was, in every one of these cases, per-
ceived much more as an auxiliary science of history, a simple
preliminary technique serving to clear away previous theories and
almost an instrument of a polemical order rather than as a specific
new field. Both its implications and its scope have remained largely
in the shadows.
In this history of a coming to awareness, which is as yet still
incomplete (as this very article proves), two additional factors
have played an important role. First was the occasion of the Bi-
centennial of the French Revolution and particularly all the works
that preceded it, often a long time before, that showed the thou-
sand and one manners of &dquo;thinking of the French Revolution&dquo;,
that showed, rather, that there was not a single and definitive
way of writing its history and that this Revolution could be
described as an evolution, that this rupture could be thought of

55
as continuity. Few books, such as that by Frangois F’uret;4 have
better demonstrated the value, usefulness and necessity of the new
type of approach permitted by the history of history.
The second factor lies in the characteristics of ancient history
that finds itself grappling with historiographic material it is una-
ble to use directly and that it must submit to a prior analysis.
Before being &dquo;®bJectlve9’ witnesses, the works of ancient histori-
ans are in fact primarily an expression of the times in which they
were written. This explains the fact that the history of historiog-
raphy attracted the attention of such specialists as Titus Livius,
Fabius Pictor or Herodotus. Undeniably, as well, the rarity of
ancient historical documents and the fact that most major histor-
ical sites have been dug up and have already yielded essentially
all that could be expected of them from this perspective serve to
reinforce the tendency of ancient Greek and Roman specialists
to turn toward the history of history. There at least, so it is
thought, major operations can still be undertaken, something
more than simply a continued search for more details. Moreover,
for the &dquo;humanities&dquo;, today filled with self-doubt and confronted
with an environment that, if not hostile, is at least indifferent,
the return to the grand era of A ltertumswissenschaft (the science
of Antiquity) offers scholarly ranks a mirror in which they can
look at themselves with pleasure, satisfaction and sometimes even
nostalgia for that golden age.
In any case, born of the convergence of all these elements, the
history of historiography is thus in the process of creating itself
before our eyes. But uncertain of its identity and concerned with
providing history an aid that is not always well accepted, it re-
mains hesitant with regard to its own legitimacy. The very ex-
pression employed to designate it-‘ ‘history of historiography&dquo;,
cumbersome and unwieldy in formulation and with an inelegant
prepositional phrase-clearly indicates the state of subordination
in which it remains relative to the realm of history as such, of
which it seems at best to represent but a recently annexed province.
However, as we will see, this truly is a new dimension of
knowledge that we are discussing; and a new creation merits a
new name. Therefore, even though I normally consider this kind

4
Penser la Révolution française, Paris, Gallimard, 1978.

56
of neologism with extreme circumspection, I would propose lay-
ing aside this cumbrous and, above all, inadequate designation
to give it a new name, one that seems to me simpler, more ele-
gant and, most importantly, more precise: historiology, &dquo;a dis-
course on history&dquo; (naturally understood as historia rerum and
not as res gestcce). There is every reason to think that the persist-
ing endurance of the old expression ‘‘history of historiography&dquo;
is meant to express a theoretical subjection in relation to tradi-
tional history, as well as the ambiguities it uses in an attempt to
escape the consequences, nevertheless inevitable, of the complete
disappearance of any transcendental reference, in the manner in
which the truth cited by Langlois and Seignobos previously ap-
peared. For, as frequently happens, here the new is in the process
of being born while still bearing features of the old, and the very
real danger is that mechanisms and positivities already receding
in relation to this evolution may rebound reinforced by the con-
frontation whose true stakes remain unperceived. In other words,
historiology (as we shall be calling it from now on) is presently
subject to different types of interpretations, each of which, in
its own manner, aims at restoring the primacy of Truth and a
trascendental foundation to historical discourse that historiolo-
gy initially seemed to eliminate.

* * *

What then are these attempts at diversion to which historiology


today is subject, the efforts at an annexation that it must resist?
First of all let us note that they are all the more difficult to iden-
tify in that the historian’s working methods normally lead him
to prefer &dquo;concrete&dquo; and precise research over theoretical con-
siderations and arguments, and that consequently the essential
methodological choices underlying every study remain, for the
most part, entirely implicit. But what most beclouds the issue is
the fact that in the final analysis the raw material used by the
historian to create history is language (even though his sources
are often purely statistical in nature). Even while rendering histori-

ology quite necessary, as we shall see, this evident fact also results
in reinforcing the idea of an historical science progressing ever

57
closer to the truth. Certainly it is relatively easy for today’s histori-
an (especially in light of several recent studies’) to remember
that ‘6’I’hucydidcs is not a colleague&dquo;; but it is much more difficult
when dealing-and here I am thinking of the history of the ori-
gins of Rome-with an excellent scholar like Perizonius or Vico
or Louis de Beaufort. This means, quite simply, that it is tempt-
ing to forget that the same words can, from one author to another,
assume a completely different significance and that, conversely,
quite different propositions can refer to one and the same mean-
ing. In the permanence of its forms and usages, language thus
produces an illusion of identity that quite often dissimulates a
change of concepts and of problematics.
It is for this reason that the most urgent solicitations addressed
to historiology emanate from the present forms of a neopositi-
vism that aims at recognizing in historiographic production on
one or another subject what might be called kernels of scientific-
ity, isolated by this sort of alchemy that is historiological analy-
sis, raised to the rank of epistemological stimulant by virtue of
its being an auxiliary science of historya66
What researcher, what author, what intellectual, in the tran-
quil stillness of a library, indeed has never experienced the reas-
suring illusion, which is that of all encyclopedism, of seeing un-
roll before him, in the multitude of these carefully arranged books
that seem ready to respond immediately to the questions of their
potential readers, the great unique book of Knowledge and of
the world? But the apparent order of these disciplined battalions
of books does not take long to reveal to him the greatest possi-
ble disorder, and from their multitude he soon hears a swelling
sound-confused, immense, continuous. For in the tangled mass
of dates, authors, works, subjects, readings, interpretations, com-
mentaries, ideas and words-always similar yet ever different,
behind the superficial uniformity of identical formulations there

5
Especially those of Arnaldo Momigliano published in the eight volumes of his
Contributi alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico from 1955 to 1987;
we are employing the expression that follows an article by Nicole Loraux published
in Quaderni di storia, Bari, 1980, No. 12, pp. 55-81.
6
Thus was it possible to define the history of historiography as a "reservoir of
problems" or as a "second critical deeper study" (D. Cantimori on Croce, quoted
by Jacques Le Goff in Histoire et Mémoire, Paris, Gallimard, 1988, p. 288).

58
arise variable parameters, provisional meanings, precarious sys-
tems. Not without contradiction positivism hoped that Truth,
when brought to light by the work of history, would be both ab-
solute in nature and yet progressively uncovered and always only
provisionally declared: thus the search for truth would provide
historical discourse with the support of a transcendental refer-
ence for a history whose ambition was to recover a lost totality,
rediscovered therein. As if, on the substratum constituted by each
question, the stream of Science had deposited in strata accumu-
lated one on top of the other, the alluvia of knowledge, certainly
mixed with scoria but intrinsically homogeneous in nature. But
this would amount to believing that, along the lines of tradition-
al epistemology it is possible to limit oneself to the study of the
slow but sure development of a scientificity taken solely for itself.
But what are the criteria for this truth in which it was hoped
to recognize the unifying principle of ~n &dquo;historical science&dquo;?
We are dealing with no more or less than notions of &dquo;facts&dquo;,
of &dquo;events&dquo;, of &dquo;cause&dquo;, of &dquo;document&dquo;, whose case would be
too lengthy to reopen here, ideas already established so many
times, namely by the Annals school, notions that formerly were
so distinct but today are so uncertain, so evanescent. They very
question that brought them all together, in Ranke’s famous
definition- &dquo;How did things really happen2 &dquo;®, long seen as the
objective of history itself, now seems to us to be the product of
a pre-determined choice and viewpoint, and the criterion of sim-
ple historicity that was its basis seems outmoded, insufficient and
historically dated. In other words questions that seemed in direct
relationship with the notion of historical truth were themselves
mediated questions, implying a position assumed previously; in
short these questions were, to a large extent, in fact answers. They
supposed that the historian had only to clear his research area
of the debris and deposits that covered it over in order to find
the Truth, buried but still intact, just like archaeologists of bygone
times who, with a scoop of their shovel, brought to the surface
a Venus de Milo or an Apollo Belvedere, come to reveal to them

(so they thought) the eternal truth of the beautiful. But, to the
contrary, what this historiology analyzes and what it identifies
are not the universal and unchanging categories of History-in-
itself, not eternal Truth gradually revealed, but a historical dis-

59
course studied in the detail of its emergence and of its insertion
in the fields of knowledge surrounding it, with its own form of
expression and internal coherence, becoming itself fully histori-
cized. For, behind the apparent identity of problematics and over
and beyond formal recurrences, it observes in depth impercepti-
ble shifts in terrain, silent movements that quite often, despite
the enduring nature of the words used, lead to the emergence of
new objects of knowledge, of new statements, of new concepts,
of new themes. Reflexively we can follow the example in the very
emergence of this history of historiography that we are discuss-
ing and that is not, as we hope to show at least, comparable to
present areas of knowledge and groups of problems; and this is
precisely why we propose for it the new appellation of historiol-
ogy. Through it the mirages of false universalities are dissipated
(the liberty of the Ancients is not our own, as Benjamin Cons-
tant remarked), along with presumed continuities and apparent
unities; at the same time, in place of imprecise notions of &dquo;men-
tality&dquo;, &dquo;change&dquo; and &dquo;IrlflLl~~cc’9, begin to appear the’rules for
exact formulation obeyed by scientific statements or those meant
to be such at a given moment, the transformations that can be
observed therein, the networks of positivity whose dissensions and
discontinuities outline the shifting geography. Alongside the ex-
plicit and continuous development of scientificity studied as an
autonomous ensemble closed in on itself, in the manner that tradi-
tional epistemology functioned, according to a viewpoint that
positivist history is ultimately fully ready to make its own, in par-
ticular through the use of retrospective bibliographies, historiol-
ogy thus gives birth to the signs of a history that is neither im-
plicit nor latent in comparison to the former, but simply other.
So true is this that there is no pure and simple bibliography (in
the sense of &dquo;simple bodies&dquo; in chemistry) that is not itself the
expression of prior theoretical choices, which, as such, then must
derive from historiology. The example of the General Catalogue
of the Royal Library, created from 1739 to 1753, whose theoret-
ical .p®stulates and scientific implications have both been well
studied, clearly illustrates the impossibility of reducing the his-
tory of historiography to a bibliography, even one with commen-
taries, and the necessity of moving on to historiology.
If we thus recall that the historian is no longer seeking the Truth-

60
as-such, which is well known and-theoretically-accepted, it is
in order to show how the reduction of historiology to a type of
epistemology.’ surreptitiously leads to validation of a positivist
interpretation of historical discourse considered in its formation
and its evolution. Chase the transcendental out of the front door
and it returns by the rear! To avoid this return that a direct usage,
naive as was said formerly, of the history of historiography seems
at first glance to encourage, we see it is thus necessary to analyze
within the development of historical discourse this systematicity
that, without being explicit, is also not merely implied and which
can be identified by noting the objects of knowledge, the declara-
tions, concepts and themes at work in the historical task. In short
the techniques and analyses of the archaeology of knowledge as
defined by Michel Foucault provided historiology with the means
to surpass the limits of an epistemology oriented in a purely cog-
nitive perspective. However, this does not mean, as we shall see
later in our study, that historiology follows the path traced by
the archaeology of knowledge. For, although emphasis has been
placed, and quite rightly so it would seem, on the contradictions
and difficulties inherent in the latter (which should not lead to
underestimating either its originality or its fecundity), the objec-
tions and difficulties which it came up against can be avoided
in the historiological operation. But before saying any more on
this point, it is necessary to examine briefly the other attempts
at annexation of which historiology has been the target. For if
the neo-positivist interpretation is the most evident risk confront-
ing historiology, there are other less apparent ones that are no
doubt even more represented in present currents of research. In-
deed, as historicism yesterday, the history of historiography to-
day lends itself to adaptations of an opposing bent. Alongside
the one represented by positivism, that we just described, at this
very moment forms of historiology are appearing of a type that
can be clearly recognized as being idealist. These terminate in what
could be called constructivism on the one hand and formalism
on the other.

7
See for example the opinion of L. Walker in the review Storia della storiogra-
fia, 1982, 2, p. 102. "Historiography may best be approached as a branch of the
history of science".

61
Following abandonment of the idea and of the objective of an
absolute truth, it became tempting indeed to transpose this de-
mand for truth from the level of facts (res gestae) to that of the
knowledge one has of these facts through history (historia rerum).
Thus the new 6 6hist®ry of historiography&dquo; today often proclaims
its ambition of bringing to light the invariables, the rules, the
universal typologies that, beyond the diversity of concrete and
factual material, constitute the thread, secret and original, of
historical discourse. A noble ambition, which is ultimately that
of saving History from the dangers of history, and in which the
young discipline hopes to find a stunning justification equal to
a definitive legitimation. It is important for this to show that,

beyond the diversity of subjects and periods dealt with by histori-


ans, there can be grasped a unique method of approaching and
constructing, which brings out a general organization of the cog-
nitive process, a veritable systematics of knowledge. In the his-
tory of sciences as it was practiced at the beginning of the centu-
ry by someone like Brunschwic, the aspiration to lay down the
bases for a veritable philosophy of knowledge can be clearly recog-
nized. Thus the historically real could only be perceptible through
the filter of a rationality always identical to itself. Today, even
though this ambition has been abandoned, it seems to us that it
has been shifted to a more properly historical level. Not without
an analogy, moreover, to the earlier passage of history from

providentialism to historicism, we see here the history of histori-


ography leaving the universality of a philosophy of knowledge
to be transformed into a historical epistemology that sets as its
objective to bring to light for each era of historiographical produc-
tion the process of awareness which this production expressed,
without being understood that it is no longer a matter of finding
universal thought patterns but an articulation of knowledge, valid
for a given period. Thus, the truth of things can no longer be
known, but the laws controlling (temporarily) creation of this truth
can be, so that the history of historiography thus practiced would
result in a sort of historical constructivism.~8
Undeniably this type of analysis can give rise to interesting and
even novel considerations. However, would it be a distortion to

8 See
the stimulating article by Krysztof Pomian given in the bibliography below.

62
say that here we are dealing with something similar to what has
sometimes been called external epistemology and that once was
designated by the generic appellation of 66h~st®ry of ~de~.s’9~ Cer-
tainly not. The danger of this type of quest is that after having
brought to light in an initial period the characteristics common
to the different sectors of knowledge at one or another era, one
very quickly falls back into conclusions that are correct only to
the extent that they are general. In other words, to borrow the
substance of an ironic remark that Arnaldo Momigliano placed
at the head of one of his studies intended precisely to be concen-
trated on a particular subject (in this case, &dquo;the concept of
Hellenism&dquo;, first published in Giornale critico della filosofia
italiana in 1935 and republished in his first Contributo), the risk
quite quickly arises of rediscovering that the sixteenth century
was humanist, that the eighteenth century was that of the En-
lightenment, or that the nineteenth was first of all romantic and
then scientific, all of which are hardly questionable verities but
ultimately of little use for the development of history to be
pursued. e

Still in the realm of idealism, certainly the most widespread


manner at present of practicing the history of history consists in
examining historiographic production from the point of view of
its formal fabrication (and this is the reason we spoke of formal-
ism), in the perspective of rhetoric and of narratology.9
However, this research trend is all the more powerful in that it
benefits from the full support of the various schools that have
succeeded (in the footsteps of Saussurian linguistics) in completely
renewing our view of the narrative: the works of Russian for-
malists, those of North American pioneers in semiotics, in the
1930’s, and then later those of the structuralists, in particular with
the 6 6new criticism&dquo; movement, thus provide literary analysis with
a very rich panoply of methods and problematics No doubt this
perspective has resulted in new viewpoints, ones that have fully
revealed the specific dimension of historical narration. Yes, Truth
is dead and history can no longer claim to be a science since ulti-

9 Here we cite the major work by Hayden White, Metahistory: the Historical Im-
agination in Nineteenth Century Europe, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press,
1973.

63
mately it is nothing more than literature! Thanks to the history
of historiography, we now can know that, far from producing
the true, history must be content with aiming for the probable,
and that it should be read no more from the angle of scientific
objectivity but from that of aesthetics and rhetoric. No longer
Ranke nor Marx, nor anyone else other than Cicero.
The disappearance of the transcendental referent of history is
thus the basis for this type of interpretation, quite in vogue at
the moment, where, in our opinion, it is not difficult under the
outward appearances of a formalism often inspired from neo-
structuralism, to detect the disguise of the old determinism. But
here, as in the case of historical constructivism, it is a matter of
replacing the realm of fact with that of the idea, of replacing the
referent to a necessary real with one to an intelligible that is no
less necessary (whether it be situated at the level of the laws of
knowledge or at that of the laws of narrative).
But the objections that this type of analysis can encounter are
too great to prevent the history of historiography from being
tempted by interpretations, less attractive perhaps upon initial
examination, apparently less fragile as well. The first, which can
be given the name 6 ‘presentisrr~&dquo; and that can be summarized in
the famous statement by Croce to the effect that &dquo;all history is
contemporary history&dquo; seems to subject history to this same theory
of relativity that was, during those years, precisely in the process
of founding a new physics. Nevertheless, it has been sufficiently
refuted for us not to need to repeat here what others have done
with great talent. Let us simply note that sociologism, quite fre-
quent in a certain type of history of historiography, represents
a frequent variation. Because the historian Niebuhr, for exam-
ple, was a member of the Prussian government, he would be pre-
sumed to represent the viewpoint of the Junkers (transposed of
course) when he speaks of social conflicts in primitive Rome. The
problem is that Niebuhr was in fact not Prussian but Danish and,
especially, that his historical work lends itself in reality to many
contrasting interpretations. Without leaving the realm of the ori-
gins of Rome, I would also recall in this respect the amusing
response made one day by Georges Dumézil to Momigliano, who
had explained the former’s work by listing the personal influences
and encounters of which it was supposed to be the reflection. In

64
his response Dum6zil noted that he had not attended the lectures
he was thought to have attended and had only occasionally met
those persons whose fervent disciple Momigliano declared him
to be.10
But the essential criticism that can be made of presentismll is
that it ignores the fact that the historian is dealing if not with
facts at least with questions of learning (not to say science) that
have their formulation, their problematic, their specific history.
Especially by wanting that all history be only a history of the
present, in the very moment in which he defines the past as inac-
cessible (since the historian only has access to it through his own
present), he posits it as existing independently of that which the
historian constructs, according to a conception that, as can be
seen, is in a position of reverse symmetry in relation to the con-
structivism of which we were speaking earlier. In other words,
although the Truth is no longer with us, it does exist somewhere,
even if we do not know where exactly. The fruit of a history of

historiography still in its early stages, this presentism (which is


soon transformed into a sort of sterile mechanism) then retains
close links to the positivism it was combatting.
It quickly yielded to a type of interpretation that apparently
differs from it radically even though it actually is simply a reverse
copy. According to this conception, since knowledge of the past
cannot be a science since it is not of the realm of the universal
and the general, since historic discourse cannot even find within
itself the principle for explaining itself relative to the circumstances
of its creation, to the social identity of its author or the rhetoric
it employs, it thus obeys only the fortuity of the talents, the sub-
jectivities, the choices of each historian; it signifies nothing other
than itself; it is and should be merely the singular description of
a singularity.
Nothing is more logical and more necessary upon first analy-
sis than this almost ascetic renunciation of yesterday’s ambitions
to which is resigned a history that takes note of the end of the
determinisms in which it once took delight. Now there are no more
final causes than first causes and all the rest is but literature. Thus

10 See L’Oubli de l’homme et l’honneur des dieux, Paris, Gallimard, 1985, p. 305.
11
See the examples listed by J. Le Goff in Histoire et Mémoire, pp. 190 to 193.

65
there is no more meaning, no more truth, no more causes; by
bearing witness to the diversity of possible approaches to a same
subject, the history of historiography rids history of the constraints
of causality and of objectivity (or if it retains the latter, it is in
order to reduce it to a form of know-how, to the simple obser-
vance of a technique) and opens up for it a realm of infinite liberty,
perhaps without noticing that under the outward appearances of
nihilism it thus restores the primacy of a new subjectivism. ’The
question of causality in history is a leftover from the paleo-
epistemological ~r~.9’, stated Paul Veyne.12 No matter how total
the claims of yesterday, however, a sort of inverse positivism can
be detected in such abdications, expressed somewhat in the manner
of an amorous frustration. Certainly if we restrict ourselves to
an immediately accessible and directly understandable causality
of a simple succession of events, it is then true that the problem
of causality belongs to a past context. That it no longer exists
as a transcendental substratum of history, in our opinion, does
not imply, however, that it does not exist at all, transformed and
relieved of its absolute value as heuristic principle; only that now
it is a matter of a causality that is no longer absolute, general,
universal, univocal, fixed, finite and definitive but of a relative,
partial multiple, plural, moving, infinite and provisional causal-
ity, no longer static and closed in on itself but dynamic and con-
stantly expanding. Nor does this mean that there will be as many
causalities as there are historians (in which case we would simply
be returning to the preceding situation), for once defined and set
up, the elements upon which historians work lead them to con-
fusions that are less arbitrary and personal than logical and neces-
sary, without, however, being absolute in nature. No doubt, for
present history, enlightened about itself thanks to the history of
historiography, there is no more a pure causality than there was
pure color for Impressionism And we can even continue further
with this comparison. When, in light of the work of Eugene
Chevreul On the Rule o the Simultaneous Contrast of Colors
and of the Assortment of Colored Objects according to This Law
in Its Relationship to Painting (1839), Impressionist painters dis-
covered that colors are not a property of things, that there is no

12 Comment on écrit
l’histoire, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1971, p. 115.

66
local color, that every color evokes its complementary color, that
the real is in constant chromatic activity, then they began to pro-
pose a world no longer made up of monochromatic tones but of
thousands and thousands of colors, always different, always
changing. The same holds true for history. The disappearance
of a unifying causality allows arrival of the glittering and varie-
gated facets, ever changing, of ever more numerous and more
refined causalities. However, what status or what value can be
assigned to them when the history of historiography has led to
withdrawing any transcendental legitimacy from them? Asking
this question does not mean a return once again to the ancient
argument about whether history should be defined as science or
as an art since this discussion itself should be resituated, to the
contrary, in the light generated by the history of historiography
or, more exactly, by historiology, whose newness and contribu-
tion are not exhausted in the interpretations or annexations that
we have analyzed.

* * *

If the criticism of history-science espoused by positivism is self-


evident today, we still believe that it is not possible to reduce
historiology to the study of the systematicities and the discon-
tinuities at work in historical discourse, along the lines of the ar-
chaeology of knowledge defined by Michel Foucault. In other
words, recognition of the historical nature of history (historia re-
rum), with all the implications this fundamental consideration
implies, should not, however, result in taking from it its full cog-
nitive nature. Of course (and is it necessary to point this out?)
we do not intend by that to say that the solution must be sought
in a sort of third way, with history being both a science and an
art, for this would mean simply disguising with a banality the
real difficulty remaining: how can history, despite awareness of
its own historicity, continue to claim any scientificity?
The answer, our answer, is that it is not despite this unveiling
of itself to itself performed by historiology that it can claim scien-
tific legitimacy, but rather because of it.
By creating a distinction between science and knowledge, the

67
Foucauldian architecture recognized in this way that classical
epistemology has its own territory upon which it did not intend
to trespass. But at the same time, it seems to us, this means radi-
cally separating the sphere of scientificity from that of historici-
ty and, ultimately, of making it possible, although more difficult,
to read a positivist reinterpretation of the former. Naturally such
a turn goes against the explicit objectives set out by the approach
defined by Michel Foucault. But, as has often been observed (in
particular by R. Machado in his contribution to the volume Razz
Foucault philosopher published in 1989, as well as Manfred Frank
in his essay on neo-structuralism dated the same year),13 the ar-
chaeology of knowledge is not clear on the question of the posi-
tivity that underlies it, and it appears, so to speak, opaque to it-
self. This was already the sense of the criticism addressed by Sartre
to the author of l’d4rc°he®l®~ie du savoir14 in which he said that
one could see a succession of epistemes without being able to ex-
plain how there can be a shift from one to the other. In reality
archaeology suspends the question, the illusion of truth and of
meaning, instead of dissipating it definitively, as expressed by H.
Dreyfus and P. Rabinov when they speak of &dquo;the archaeology
of knowledge that simultaneously affirms and denies the finite-
ness of its own disc®urse&dquo;,’S and Manfred Frank when he writes
that &dquo;the theory of Foucault does not avoid the question of its
own theoretical status&dquo; (p. 109, ibid. ) and that 6 6thc basic sub-
ject must always pass through the net of the structure it has woven
itself&dquo; (p. 109). In other words the paradox is that the archaeol-
ogy of knowledge restores the principle of a reflexivity that it does
not apply to itself and that, to say it in yet another manner, it
leaves aside, not without occasionally touching on a determinist
type interpretation that makes it move from the descriptive ord-
er to the prescriptive order (66this happened in this manner and
could not be otherwise&dquo;), the cognitive, scientific aspect of the
positivities it studies, thus condemning itself to returning, soon-
er or later, to the realm of epistemology, even though it is evi-
dently a matter of a deeper and renewed form of epistemology.
le néo-structuralisme?, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1989.
13 See
14
Qu’est-ce que
the review L’Arc, no.30, 1966, p. 87.
15 In their Michel Foucault: un
parcours philosophique, au-delà de l’objectivité
et de la subjectivité, Paris, Gallimard, 1984, p. 146.

68
As for the solution chosen by Foucault to overcome, if not
resolve, these difficulties, which consisted in going from archaeol-
ogy to genealogy, or to state it in simpler and even simplistic terms,
from the theoretical to the practical, that is the question of the
relationship between knowledge and power, no matter what its
astonishing methodological wealth and its novelty, it leaves un-
answered the problem that concerns us here: how can a history
(historia rerum) conscious of its own historicity and of its &dquo;ar-
chaeology&dquo; seek a cognitive productivity?
It can do so, in other words, and it must (for there is no other
route possible other than falling back into the illusions and
difficulties encountered previously), through the exercise of
historiological reflexivity. An eye that looks does not see itself,
but historiology allows the historian to recognize the existence
of such a blind spot in his vision of the past and to use the works
of his predecessors without forgetting the implicit presuppositions
that underlie them. Thus the reflexiveness permitted by histori-
ology in the very movement in which it sketches the limits of a
given problematic, designates the conditions for scientific produc-
tivity. It does not merely constitute a negative criticism of the
historical discourse, undertaking to demonstrate what was not
said or what was not seen; it is the only manner for a history that
no longer has any illusions about itself, for achieving cognitive

efficacy that is not methodologically and philosophically unfound-


ed. Consequently, far from marking the end of any cognitive am-
bitions for history, it alone is capable of creating it today.
In the heavens of history, nothing can be seen without optical
instruments. Once the instrument has been chosen, the objects
located in the field of observation will appear, but not those that
remain outside the field. The historiological view thus does not
bring to light the Truth, final and transcendental, of a History
at last determined for all eternity, but rather the new Cogito of
the historian: &dquo;I think whence I am&dquo;. This is why this historiol-
ogy cannot be considered only as the temporary scaffolding mak-
ing it possible to construct the definitive building of historical
Truth, for it is a constituent part of a 6 ‘truth&dquo; that cannot exist
without it. What we see, then, is less a discipline cultivated for
itself, autonomous in its function as well as in its objectives, and
whose rules would delimit a scientific territory totally unknown

69
until then, than a landscape full of already familiar objects, but
where a different lighting uncovers backgrounds that had been
unimagined before, a landscape given a new dimension through
the effects of reflexivity proper to historiology. And since there
is no historical truth already present sub specie aeternitatis, his-
tory is built up by a series of questions, which do not’appear com-
pletely formed but which each time must be formulated, calibrat-
ed, adjusted in light of the lens chosen, of the sources available
and of existing historiographical work. In other words since
&dquo;true&dquo; history ontologically does not exist, it is developed from
an analysis of a network of mediations and is the product of a
relation between various elements; more precisely it consists in
the very definition of this relation. o

The truth of this ‘~tr~~9~, if indeed there is one, its configura-


tion, is no longer that of a structure patiently built from one gener-
ation to the next on the foundation of a transcendental substra-
tum, but that of a moving ensemble, the center of which (but
is there still a center?) shifts and is outdone unceasingly.
Through historiology, the latest (in the sense of novissima, of
course, and not of ultima) conquest of history, a conquest per-
formed upon itself, history no longer escapes from itself and is
endowed with a reflexive lucidity that was long the prerogative
of philosophy alone. It is not surprising, therefore, to note that
the history of this conquest is characterized by stages that close-
ly recall those encountered by philosophy when it dealt with the
problem of representation, that is the problem of the relation-
ship between knowledge and its object.
Because it is simultaneously the theory of a practice and the
practice of a theory, historiology cannot, at least not without en-
tering into contradictions with itself, be defined as-an isolated
field of knowledge. This is the danger it faces today, or more
precisely its greatest temptation, which, under cover of an ac-
quisition of independence with the identity of a new cultural his-
tory, would mean an annexation of existing domains and a defini-
tive absorption into the present geography of the territories of
history. For by setting itself up as an independent ensemble, it
reinforces the ancient dichotomy between knowledge and science
and at the same time leaves History, of which it could be no more
than an auxiliary science, outside of and protected from its own

70
history. Limiting oneself to the realm of an autonomous, and
therefore general, discourse, in which history would soon seek
protection from self-observation, would mean creating a distanc-
ing, rapidly radical, in relation to its object (that is history in its
every form), a paradox that would lead to an impasse since histori-
ology can only be defined by the play and interaction of rela-
tions between the ‘~r~al~’ (documents) and the narrative, between
problematic and the authors, between the time of the referent
and that of the declaration of the historical discourse (without
speaking of the time in which it is read) and, once again, between
all these elements (and still others as well). To be effective, histori-
ology must thus become an essential and permanent component
of historical research. In short, rather than being added to histo-
ry as it is, its task now is to transform it.

* ~ *

Up until now we have spoken only of history, if simply in order


to remain somewhat confined to our own area of competence.
If the greatest reason for the appearance of historiology is what
Nietzsche called the death of truth, it is now clear that this histori-
ological operation, far from being limited to Clio, can likewise
be applied to all statements that determine, within a given field,
a representative relationship through creation of knowledge, that
is all human sciences (~ ~t®c~ hurrl~n~ ~ Nietzsche would have said)
and perhaps even to all the sciences to the extent that they can
all be called &dquo;human sciences&dquo;, that is sciences that, even when
man is not the object of their knowledge, are thought by a thinking

subject, inserted as such in a historical context, In other words,


all knowledge that risks forgetting its own historicity by think-
ing of itself as absolute (since ~6sci~rltific9~)~ that is of transform-
ing its norms of positivity into a transcendental referent, and in
particular that which has need of language as an instrument of
development and of formulation, will find the paths of its fu-
ture development in what, in the strong sense of the term, is a
reflection, of its past, through a historiological approach.
It suffices, for example, to replace the reference to the true of
positivist history with the category of the beautiful, as tradition-

71
al art history and literary history used it for so long, to under-
stand the necessity for an historiological approach to these dis-
ciplines. A recent incident has even made this necessity visible
in the field of art history. This incident is the restoration of the
Sistine Chapel that suddenly relativized several centuries of art
criticism. The Sistine Chapel that we see today, freed of its lay-
ers of smoke and restored to its original colors, is no longer the
sistine Chapel of Stendhal, of Taine or of Berenson. Is it indeed
that of Michelangelo? Yes and no, for the important thing is that
in the final analysis the painters of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries saw a darkened and smoky Sistine Chapel, believing that
this was the way Michelangelo had intended it, and in turn we
today look at the frescoes of the artist of the Last Judgement
through eyes formed by his successors.
Likewise in the field of literary history, we know how much
analyses based on the notion of reception have led to refining
and deeply renewing the understanding of works restored to a
dynamic multiplicity of meaning and of interpretations.
But it is probable that other sciences, particularly those whose
newness inclines them to be thought of in a positivist perspec-
tive, will encounter this historiological imperative before too long
a time.
It is clear, for example, that psychoanalysis cannot escape from
the crisis in ’which it has trapped itself without examining from
a historiological angle its problematics and its methods (the return
to Freud seen at present has its origin in this necessity). The same
is true as well for linguistics, which is today confronted with an
unprecedented extension of its territory (in particular through all
the phenomena linked to the concept of communication) and col-
lapse of the schools. Finally (although this list is far from being
exhaustive), economics can also greatly benefit from the contri-
bution of the historiological method: the &dquo;real&dquo; for economists
is undoubtedly no less rich in illusions and ambiguities than the

&dquo;true&dquo; of historians.
The time has come for all these sciences to be included in their
own research area if they do not wish to become opaque to them-
selves. Thus the combined acquisitions of the old history of ideas,
with its interest in the great movements of thought and the rela-
tions between different cultural domains; of epistemology with

72
its attention to the constant play of error and truth9 ®f the histo-
ry of historiography, concerned with scholars as much as with
knowledge; of Foucauldian archaeology seeking to bring to light
from underneath the surface of discourses the variety of
problematics and stakes; and finally of traditional positivism,
oriented toward objectives that are primarily cognitive: these all
lead to a historiological operation located at the heart of every
science, at the center of its heuristic process, in the very unfold-
ing of its future.
Is this program ultimately nothing more than what Nietzsche
called a &dquo;history of the genesis of thought&dquo;, but a history that
can only be written in separate chapters, corresponding to realms
proper to each science? Yes, these sciences have waited too long
for the moment to assume the task set out for them by the author
of Humain, trop humain (1, 2): &dquo;but everything has changed:
there are no eternal facts: just as there are no absolute truths.
This is why historic philosophy is now a necessity, and with it
the virtue of modesty&dquo;. o

Alexandre Grandazzi
Fondation Thiers, Paris
( )

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tion by A. Dufour, Geneva, Droz, 1968.
CHAUNU, PIERRE, Pour l’Histoire, Paris, Libraire académique Perrin, 1984.
CHRIST, KARL, Römische Geschichte und Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Darmstadt, Wis-
senschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 3 vol., 1982-1983.
FOCAULT, MICHEL, L’Archéologie du savoir, Paris, Gallimard, 1966.
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73
HASKELL, FRANCIS, De l’art et du goût. Jadis et naguère, Paris, Gallimard, 1989.
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—
"Psicoanalisi e storia delle scienze". Atti del convegno, Firenze. 26-28/6/1981,
edited by M. Ranchetti, Florence, L.S. Olschki, 1983.
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74

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