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Theory of History - Summary of Herman Paul
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A full summary of the book 'Key Issues in Historical Theory' by Herman Paul as used for the course Theory of History at Utrecht University ().
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Paul, Key Issues in Historical Theory1. What is historical theory?
1.1 Joseph Knecht
The meaning of history does not lie outside itself, in some ethereal space, but within everyday
reality. And this has consequences for the study of the past, historians do not possess infallible
methods or techniques by which they can uncover the past. Historical theory is not only
confined to reflection on the study of history at large, but also relates to everybody who feels
attracted, deceived, marked or rejected by the past. Historical theory is a rich and vibrant
tradition of reflection on how human beings relate to the past.
1.2 Philosophies of history
Originating in the late 18th century, the term ‘philosophers of history’ had hardly established
itself when historians and philosophers began to feel a need to distinguish between two types
of reflection on the study of the past. This distinction hinged on the double meaning of the
word history:
1. Historia res gestae; the course of events (historical reality)
2. Historia rerum gestarum; the stories that people tell about the course of events (study
of the past, what people assert about the past)
According to Hegel, reason presents itself in two forms; (1) order and regularity in nature
point to a reason which is at work in reality itself (objective spirit) and (2) human reason,
which critically scrutinizes reality (subjective spirit). The crux of Hegel’s philosophy is that
these objective and subjective spirits are manifestations of one and the same reason. For
Hegel history is an evolutionary process in which separation between the subject (humankind)
and object (world) is gradually annulled, the ultimate goal of history is perfect self-knowledge
or complete identification of the objective and subjective spirit. Augustine did not conceive
history as a process, but he did distinguish six phases (like the six days in Genesis) in which
the sixth phase (since the death and resurrection of Christ) is devoid of important events.
Augustine interpreted history from a biblical perspective and laid the foundation for Christian
philosophy of history which would influence Europe for a long time. Philosophers of history
in the historia rerum gestarum (reflection on the nature of historical thought) are engaged in
conceptual analysis of historical thought. They try to clarify key concepts such as facts,
stories and interpretation by analysing the logical structure of historical narratives and
examining what historians have to do in order to explain something. They do not offer
methodological advice, but contribute to self-reflection among historians. Whereas natural
scientists use a generalizing method (finding laws valid for all physical reality) historians
employ an individualizing method (focused on single ideas, objects or individuals). The
distinction between philosophy of historical reality and philosophy of historical thought was
originally a relative innocent one, drawing attention to 2 different objects of study but it
evolved into a polemical one when layers were added to it by arguing that 2 kinds of
philosophy also ask different questions and belong to different philosophical subfields. The
branched of thought were labelled as substantive and analytical philosophy of history or
speculative and critical philosophy of history.
,1.3 An entangled history
As long as philosophy of history amounts to reflection on the historia res gestae it reaches
back beyond the origins of modern science, reflection on the historia rerum gestarum only
came to fruition in the 19th century. Philosophy of history in the sense of reflection on the
historia rerum gestarum was born from uncertainty about what sort of a science historical
scholarship actually is, this question was given extra urgency because the 19 th century was an
age of history in which many spent great amounts of energy in uncovering the roots of their
nation state, language, religion or field of science. The age of history stimulated philosophy of
history in both senses of the word (reflection on historical thought as well as reality). The
philosophies of history devoted to unravelling the meaning of history boomed in the 20 th
century, reflection on the course and meaning of history was most in demand when cultural
conventions and existing expectations could no longer be taken for granted. There were two
other reasons why the genre came to be labelled as speculative philosophy of history, both
proceeded from the observation that 20th century totalitarian regimes legitimated themselves
in historical terms and engaged in something not unlike philosophy of history in a material
sense of the world. One complaint against such a use of history was that in sacrificed human
agency, another came from Karl Popper who drew attention to political atrocities committed
in the name of history. Both arguments threw serious doubt on the enterprise once known as
material philosophy of history.
1.4 ‘Speculative’ versus ‘critical’
William Walsh and other colleagues sharply distinguished between speculative and critical
philosophy of science. With Popper they claimed that theories can only be called scientific if
they are falsifiable, which is not easy in the case of history. If philosophy of history aspires to
intellectual rigor, it has to stay away from Hegel, Marx, Spengler and Toynbee. Rather than
reflect on the course or meaning of the historical process, critical philosophers of history
preferred to devote themselves to conceptual analysis of facts, inferences and explanations.
Speculative philosophers of history were supposed to specify by what route history achieves
its goal, what stages can be distinguished along this path and what the driving forces behind
the process are. Critical philosophers of history claimed to ask what distinguishes historical
thought from scientific thought as well as the reliability of historical thought and the meaning
of key concepts as fact, explanation, truth and objectivity. Whereas speculative philosophy
was defined as a branch of metaphysics (devoted to the reflection on the fundamental nature
of being, critical philosophy of history was presented as engaged in epistemology (focusing
on the nature of knowledge). Since the 1970s philosophers of history have been questioning
the distinction, three arguments have been mounted against it: (1) nobody can think about the
historia rerum gestarum without reflecting on the historia res gestae. Those who believe that a
metaphysics of history can be avoided overlook that words such as history, fact, event and
explanations are loaded with assumptions about the nature of historical reality and human
beings’ role in it. What someone accepts as a historical fact depends partly on his or her view
of historical reality. Also if historians seek to bring out the otherness of the past, they invoke a
speculative theory about the difference between past and present. (2) Thinking about history
is usually intimately connected with orientation in historical reality. (3) the features attributed
to speculative philosophy of history fail to do justice to what Augustine, Hegel and others
actually did: although they reflected on the historia res gestae they did it from very different
points and to claim that both were engaged in speculative philosophy says more about the
disdain of 20th century philosophers than about the projects in which they were engaged.
, 1.5 Renaming the field
We cannot practice critical philosophy of history without speculative philosophy, it seems
wise to drop the nomenclature and either return to philosophy of history or adopt a new name
for the field. The second strategy has been winning, philosophers of history nowadays present
themselves as historical theorists and use the phrase historical theory. For most historical
theorists the name historical theory expresses a move beyond the dichotomies of Walsh’s
generation, the new name signals that historical theorists no longer want to take sides in the
old conflict between speculative and critical philosophy of history. There is a great amount of
continuity between philosophy of history and historical theory; historical theory is to some
extent just a new name for an old traditions of reflecting on both the historia res gestae and
the historia rerum gestarum. Apart from the continuity there is discontinuity; contemporary
historical theorists no longer exclusively engage in philosophical analysis, historical theory
has become more of an eclectic field. They no longer confine themselves to analysis of
historical thought but also examine historical language, discourse, experience and memory.
Historical theorists have come to investigate what it means for people to be formed, haunted
or fascinated by the past and they have discovered that people relate to the past not only with
their brains but also with their heart and their hands. Paul proposes to view historical theory as
engaged in conceptual analysis of how human beings relate to the past.
2. What is the past?
2.1 A medieval church
In everyday language, the past refers to historical reality (to the world that existed at some
earlier moment in time). However, different kinds of pasts: chronological, completed, strange
and present past. Unlike historical reality, these four pasts exist only in so far as they are
shaped and refracted in the historian’s imagination. Therefore, everything that people say
about the past stems from present-day admiration, anxiety, fascination and/or study.
2.2 The chronological past
In practice almost everybody interprets the present as an extended present: as a certain length
of time better measured by a calendar than a clock. The present is ‘our time’, although the
duration of time we call ours is a continuous debate. Fortunately, everyday language follows
certain conventions as to what can be called past and present, although the distinction between
past and present depends strongly on the context and on the time scale considered appropriate
in this context, widely accepted conventions help avoid confusion. Most historians seem to
have assumed that time is what calendars and clocks suggest it is: (1) time is homogeneous,
(2) time is discrete, (3) time is linear, (4) time is directional and (5) time is absolute. Most
hesitations that historians often feel about contemporary history stem from the belief that the
period under investigation has not yet ended and therefore cannot yet be placed in the context
of its time. Historians prefer to investigate the ‘completed’ past.
2.3 The completed past
The completed past can be interpreted in 2 different ways: (1) as a series of homogeneous
epochs or (2) as a set of partly overlapping, partly complementary layers. Those who use the
first think about the past in terms of periods succeeding each other; Ranke saw history as a
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