Humboldt, Ranke, Burckhardt, Weber Historicism II Humboldt, Ranke, Burckhardt, Weber Dr Claudia Stein

Def. Historicism Involves the fundamental historisation of all thinking about mankind, its culture and values. What does it mean ‘to historicise’ all thinking about mankind? To historizise our thinking means to recognize and acknowledge that everything in the human world – culture, values, institutions, practices-- …. is made by history, so that nothing has an eternal form, permanent essence or constant identity which transcends historical change. The historicist holds, therefore, that the essence, identity or nature of everything in the human world is made by history, so that it is entirely the product of the particular historical process that brought it into being.’ (Beiser, The German Historicist Tradition, p. 2)

Herder’s claims which became central to other historicist thinkers: the past should not be judged by the standards of the present each culture is individual and a unique whole each age has its own standards of happiness and virtue (Middle Ages are not barbaric as Enlightenment thinkers argued) past should be ‘relived’ and ‘felt’ rather than just described and explained through empirical evidence from the sources; empiricism and empathy History develops like an organism. All epoques and cultures are linked together in a continuum where earlier stages are the basis for the growth of later ones. Although there is no single uniform set of values for all nations, they are also not self-sufficient and independent from each other, rather they form a chain of continuum where each learns from past cultures and gives lessons for future ones. While each nation has its centre of happiness in itself, there is still a growth and progression because it builds according to is individual nature on the achievements of the past. History follows a secret plan unknowable for mankind (God’s plan; providence)

Humboldt University, Berlin (ca. 1811) Bildung: engl. education/formation but broader meaning German tradition of self-cultivation, wherein philosophy and education are linked in manner that refers to a process of both personal and cultural maturation. This maturation is understood as a harmonisation of the individuals mind/spirit and heart and in a unification of selfhood with broader society (e.g. Bildungsbürger) Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835)

An event is only partially visible in the world of the senses, the rest has to be added by intuition, inferences and guesswork. The manifestations of an advent are scattered, disjointed, isolated. What it is that gives unity to this patchwork, puts the isolated fragments into a proper perspective, and gives shape to the whole, remains removed from direct observation. It is the historian who must separate the necessary from the accidental, uncover its inner structure and make visible the truly activating forces. (Humboldt, On the Historians Task)

Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886)

Deutsches Reich in 1871

Romanticism; Romantic period): intellectual, artistic, and literary movement in Europe towards end of 18th century - ca.1850).It was partly a reaction to the changes related to the Industrial Revolution (e.g. scientific rationalisation of nature) but also a turning against the social and political norms of the Enlightenment. The Romantic movement considered strong emotion – particularly in confronting nature - as an authentic source of aesthetic experience (e.g. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774) Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840)

Philology: the study of language in written historical sources. It is a combination of literary criticism, history, and linguistics. It is more commonly defined as the study of literary texts and written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning; it aims to produce ‘critical editions’ Barthold Georg Niebuhr ( 1776-1831), historian of antiquity

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

‘The strict presentation of facts, no matter how condition and unattractive they might be is undoubtedly the supreme law of any historian.’

… to such high office the present work does not presume; it seeks to only show the past ‘how it essentially was’ (wie es eigentlich gewesen) (History of the Latin and Teutonic Peoples, 1824) A productive ‘error’ of translation: eigentlich – really eigentlich -- essentially

Wissenschaft(en) = science(s): any scholarship that follows a systematic methodology NOT only natural sciences Geisteswissenschaft(en) (human science(s) – Naturwissenschaft(en) (natural sciences) both are sciences

Geist (spirit, sometimes also translated as mind) Georg Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) "World history... represents the development of the spirit's consciousness of its own freedom and of the consequent realization of this freedom.” This realization is seen by studying the various cultures that have developed over the millennia, and trying to understand the way that freedom has worked itself out through them.

NOTE: Ranks is NOT a positivist! Positivism: Holds that only true and authentic knowledge is knowledge that is based on actual sense experience. Such knowledge can only come from affirmation of theories through strict scientific method. Any metaphysical speculation is supposed to be avoided. Positivism also holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. Introspective and intuitive knowledge is rejected, as are metaphysics and theology. Although the positivist approach has been a recurrent theme in the history of western thought, the modern sense of the approach was formulated by the philosopher Auguste Comte in the early 19th century. Comte argued that, much as the physical world operates according to gravity and other absolute laws, so does society.

History is a science and an art   ‘The historians task, however, is at once art and science. It has to fulfil all the demands of criticism and scholarship to the same degree as a philosophical work; but at the same time it is supposed to give the same pleasure to the educated mind as the most perfect literary creation. (Ranke, Wissenschaft und Kunst)

An event is only partially visible in the world of the senses, the rest has to be added by intuition, inferences and guesswork. The manifestations of an advent are scattered, disjointed, isolated. What it is that gives unity to this patchwork, puts the isolated fragments into a proper perspective, and gives shape to the whole, remains removed from direct observation. It is the historian who must separate the necessary from the accidental, uncover its inner structure and make visible the truly activating forces. (Humboldt, On the Historians Task)

Providence ‘Every epoch is immediate to God and its worth is not at all based on what derives from it but rests in its own existence, in its own self’ ‘Every human being, something eternal, comes from God, and this is a vital principle.’ ‘it is not necessary for us to prove at length that the eternal dwells in the individual. This is the religious foundation in which our efforts rest. We believe that there is nothing without God, and nothing lives except through God.’

Ranke’s considers the state’ an individual and a living being, driven by an inner life force ‘A nation must feel independent in order to develop freely… It is necessary for the state to organise all its international resources for the purpose of self-preservation.’

Objectivity is Impartiality for Ranke ‘It would be impossible not to have one’s own opinion in the midst of all the struggles of power and of ideas which bear within them decisions of the greatest magnitude. Even so, the essence of impartiality can be preserved. For this consists merely in recognizing the positions occupied by the acting forces and in respecting the unique relationships, which characterize each of them. One observes how these forces appear in their distinctive identity, confront and struggle with one another; the events and the fates, which dominate the world, take place in this opposition. Objectivity is also always impartiality.’

Modern definition of objectivity is NOT Ranke’s understanding of the term ‘Objective’ accounts are attempts to capture the nature of the object studied in a way that does not depend on any features of the particular subject who studies it. An objective account is, in this sense, impartial, one, which could ideally be accepted by any subject, because it does not draw on any assumptions, prejudices, or values of particular subjects’. Stephen Gaukroger, in: N. J. Smelse and P. B. Baltes, P. B. (eds.) International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (Oxford, 2001), pp. 10785.

Ranke’s understanding of objectivity/objectivity The term impartiability in the Enlightenment sense meant often simply that the historian should abstain from deliberately lining up with one side of the historical parties he was reporting about.  But it did not mean that the historian must take on a value-free position Ranke considers his research method, the ‘critical method’, as objective.

Cultural history as a rejection of Rankean political history Jacob Burckhardt, 1818-1897

Rejection of modernity (modern nationalism, mass culture and democracy, industrialisation, destruction of traditional values and modes of production) Full individualism (male and elite, autonomous and rational) was only possible in the Italian Renaissance Individual finds its full potential, its fulfilment in the arts the spirit of the time is to be find in ‘culture’ not in politics

‘In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness – that which turned within as that which was turned without – lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossessions, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation – only through some general category. In Italy this veil first melted to air; an objective treatment and consideration of the State and of all the things of this world became possible. The subjective side at the same time asserted itself with corresponding emphasis; man became a spiritual individual, and recognised himself as such.’ (Burckhardt, The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, part 2, p. 87)

The End of Historicism Max Weber (1864-1920) One of the founders of sociology which he defines as the study the ‘togetherness’ of people Pessimistic outlook on modernity

Continues the focus on the individual ‘for sociological purposes there is no such thing as a collective personality, which ‘acts’. When reference is made in a sociological context to a state, a nation, a corporation, a family or army corps, or to similar collectives, what it means is … only a certain kind of development of actual or possible social action of individual persons.’ (Weber, economy and Society, 1968, p. 13)

Sociology of ‘Verstehen’ (understanding) ‘There is no absolutely ‘objective’ scientific analysis of culture... All knowledge of cultural reality... is always knowledge from particular points of view. ... An ‘objective’ analysis of cultural events, which proceeds according to the thesis that the ideal of science is the reduction of empirical reality to "laws," is meaningless... [because]... the knowledge of social laws is not knowledge of social reality but is rather one of the various aids used by our minds for attaining this end.’ Max Weber, ‘Objectivity’ in Social Science, 1897 empathetic liaison of the observer with the observed Natural sciences ‘explain’ nature’s laws – human sciences ’understand’ human nature

Weber does not belief that the past can be grasped by human reasons: ‘Ideal types’ – concepts– help to get close to what it was. They are idea-constructs that help put the seeming chaos of social reality in order.’

Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904, engl. 1913) Investigates the relationship between the rise of capitalism and religiously inspired way of life Central for him is the question of ‘rational’ capitalism. Def. of ‘rationalisation’: ‘a set of interrelated social processes by which the modern world had been systematically transformed.’ Rationalisation has lead to ‘disenchantment of modern life’ Origin lies, so he argues, in Calvinist belief in predestination – creates anxieties for afterlife and makes people work hard. Hard work is understood as a sign of God’s favour. Over the centuries this religious origin has been forgotten but what is left is the ’protestant work’ ethic.

‘How is it at all possible to salvage any remnants of 'individual' freedom of movement in any sense given this all-powerful trend?’