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January 17, 2006
What is a historian?
"Most people now take it for granted that history writing is distinctive from other kinds of non-fiction wriring, that history is a discrete discipline of learning, and that the goal of the historian is to uncover, record, and explain the past. Unlike 'literature'. which is produced in the creative and the imaginative mind of the fiction writer, history writing is held to be subject to commonly shared rules and conventions of evidence and argument. This is why the historian, unlike the novelist or poet, has to be trained. During his apprenticeship (the Ph.D.), the historian-to-be acquires the skills and the techniques of the trade, such as the ability to read a foreign language or a documentary style, along with attitudes towards evidence and argument - in short, his approach and temprament. He then begins to produce work, and although his idea may accord with or differ from the received wisdom, they are almost invariably expressed within an accepted idiom, such as the examined thesis, reviewed monograph or article, whose conventions reveal the underlying principles of his profession, and distinguish it from other kinds of written narrative."
Robinson, Chase F. Islamic Historiography, Cambridge Universty Press, Cambridge and New York, 2003. p. 83
Posted by Khodadad at January 17, 2006 10:05 PM
Comments
I am wondering, should a historian be only an objective reporter of the events of history? I have heard it said that those who are ignorant of history are condemned to repeat the same mistakes of past generations. Well, the world has no shortage of historians, and yet, the same mistakes seem to keep happening anyway. So, is the problem that the lessons of history are just not being widely desseminated? History is being taught in schools and colleges around the world, but are the students really learning anything beyond names and dates? I am wondering if historians should be taking more responsibility for not only presenting what they know of history, but also drawing inferences that can point to a better future for their students and future generations. Is this idea too idealistic or utopian?
Posted by: David at January 17, 2006 10:45 PM
David:
Thanks for the comment. I don't personally believe that we can learn from history and avoid mistakes. History is not a learning curve, it is just what we are told about the past.
This quotion is obviously not my saying of belief, but what Chase Robinson said and I found interesting. However, I do think your idea might be a little idealistic.
Posted by: Khodadad at January 18, 2006 09:55 PM
Hegel famously said, after writing his giant philosophy of history, that the only thing we learn from history is that we've never learned anything from history.
Be that as it may, still more dangerous I think is that some really believe to be objective. That is they take their subjectivity as objective and after a while believe it too, all the while a brief glance over their bio and cv shows all the political and pscychological baggage that they conveniently ignore in order for their claim to objectivity to be sustained.
And despite the fact that many of them do not follow the first step towards enlightenment as philosphically claimed and as layed out by Kant in his "Conflict of the Faculties" they nevertheless go on to get a "Philosphical Doctrate" as their apprenticeship which would then permit them the legal sophistry of selling their ideas in the name of having acquired tools of objectivity in universities.
The distinction set up above between fact and fiction indeed quite incongruent with most findings in philosophy department where now more than ever the free-play of the signifiers have come to trouble philosophers with definitive grand narratives that read much like the fictions against which they would like to set up their binary oppositions.
Thank you, enjoyed this one.
Posted by: Amir at January 19, 2006 01:02 PM