On 'History as Historians' do it?

There is a kind of low-level gripe one hears among so-called 'contextual' historians of philosophy that have found a home in professional philosophy departments. These 'contextualists' are often trained in HPS programs or are inspired by the so-called Cambridge school of intellectual history associated with names such as Quentin Skinner and John Pocock (neither at Cambridge now). The gripe goes something like this: professional philosophers that do history of philosophy are not really doing history as historians understand this.* Now, there is a sense in which the gripe is trivially true: whenever professional philosophers produce 'history of philosophy' -- and this has astonishing diversity in methods and products -- it is almost never intended to meet the standards of professional historians; if they are not writing for each other, such historians of philosophy in philosophy departments write for fellow philosophers.  But the gripe is also based on some very dubious commitments. I offer five considerations to substantiate the claim in the previous sentence.

1. Standards/methods evolve (sometimes) rapidly in professional history as done by historians. The writing of history has a long history, and familiarity with this history bears out my claim. In particular, a lot of professional historians think their own field became 'mature' (in the Kuhnian sense) some time between Gibbon and Ranke. (I return to this below) So, this makes professional historians unwilling or even unable to see non-trivial writings of history of their earlier predecessors as really 'history;' my favorite (negative) example of this is Pocock's incapacity to see Adam Smith's "History of Astronomy" as a contribution to history. It's a telling example because in that history, Smith had thought through what such Kuhnian commitments as the one exhibited by Pocock, does to practitioners caught within a paradigm (for more criticism of Pocock).+
2. Often when 'contextual' philosophers emulate professional historians in their approach to history of philosophy, they emulate standards of a previous generation of professional historians. This is to be expected if those standards evolve. It is rare to be so up-do-date in a neighboring discipline that one can recognize emerging standards as they, well, emerge. That the standards are dated is no argument against them, of course. But it does reveal the parochial-ness of particular standards if they are merely taken as unquestioned.
3. Now, at any given time, there is no doubt that what professional historians think relevant 'context' is, is very different from what even the most historical of contextual historians of philosophy think is relevant. This was brought home to me (again) at a very fine conference on Newton's General Scholium that I recently participated in. [See here for the videos!] One of the great joys of Newton scholarship is that historians of science and historians of philosophy are actively learning from each other (while disagreeing between each other and among themselves, of course). The conversations are civil and fruitful. On both sides of the history and philosophy divide there are critical masses of scholars. From my vantage point as a professional philosopher, it's clear that 'the historians' have a far more, fine-grained temporal sense of 'context'; theirs evolve sometimes on a weekly basis. The historians working on Newton also often have a more microscopic geographic focus (Cambridge, England, etc.) and often based on deeper familiarity with archives and non-traditional source materials.  (Don't get me wrong some professional philosophers have very deep archival knowledge too!) But professional philosophers do sometimes have special training such that we can discern argument patterns that sometimes remain invisible to historians of science. (Just like literature scholars are amazing at foregrounding literary tropes and rhetorical strategies!) As standards among historians of science have evolved to emphasize cultural, material and social factors, philosophers have taken on the duty to maintain and sometimes even develop a working knowledge of the contents of the Principia (as it evolved and as it was interpreted by Newton and his hostile and friendly peers).
4. We shouldn't pretend that professional historians are monolithic--there are debates among historians about what their own practice is, Sometimes, these debates are constricted to specialists in historiography or philosophy of history, but sometimes they bubble to the surface among professional historians more generally. Moreover, as I hinted above, professional historians have their own founding myths and practices that allow for systematic patterns of exclusion (in their ranks, topics etc.). The development of professional history as practiced by historians is caught up in practices of nation-building and colonial supremacy. While much of the nineteenth century legacy has been repudiated in word and deed, it is striking (for example) how patriotic and national, professional history remains, say, in my own country: the Netherlands.
5. Crucially, a lot of professional history done by historians has tacit philosophical presuppositions that are not questioned at all by philosophers who wish to emulate professional history within professional philosophy doing history of philosophy (often they figure in debates of (4)). In particular, there are positivist strains and very unsubtle views about meaning and truth built into whatever figures as 'history as historians' do it. Now, don't mistake me: when professional historians have to work with sources they develop a very rich understanding of the complexities of their own philosophical commitments; at any given moment there are many decisions that enter into how to treat sources as sources. Most such decisions are routinized by the standards adhered to. But these standards are not eternal; they have a history and they fit some needs better than others.

So, the very idea that there is such a thing as 'history as historians' understand it and this thing ought to have normative authority within history of philosophy, is fraught with difficulties when used as a way to settle discussions among philosophers. More importantly, the gripe is often presented in a dialectical context in which the assumption is that those of us that do not wish to practice 'history as historians' do, are really being irresponsible about what we're doing and ignorant of what we're rejecting. It is possible, of course, that among the varied community of non-contextual historians of philosophy within professional philosophy that refuse to practice 'history as historians' there is a degree of irresponsibility and ignorance. And there is no doubt we can learn from historians how to be receptive to our sources and to avoid some systematic patterns of exclusion (gender, race, geography...) But I would argue that many of us take our responsibilities very seriously and that we know what we're rejecting and that we do so for a mixture of opportunistic, philosophical, and -- to be frank -- deeply moral reasons.

 

*This blog post originates in several facebook discussions I have had with the very promising, young historian of philosophy, Benny Goldberg. Obviously, his considered views are more subtle than that I represent here.

+ Many generations have preferred Thucydides as a historian over Herodotus. But Herodotus has many virtues that are relevant for doing history, not the least are inquisitiveness, a willingness to allow all subjects agency, and a willingness to challenge one's own cultural standards, that partisans of Thucydides have mistakenly downplayed. [Some other time I hope to write a bit about the functional even philosophical role of Herodutus's deviations from standards of accuracy.] Hume's rejection of Herodotus in favor of Thucydides tells us much about Hume's commitments, but less about their relative merits. None of these, of course, qualify as professional historians in Ranke's sense.