Postmodernism and the Truth of History

Historically Speaking · January/February 2005 Postmodernism and Historical Inquiry:Three Viewsm HAS POSTMODERNISM RUN ITS COURSE? After three authors ofrecently published books on postmodernism all the sound andfury didpostmodernist thinking make and history to offer their thoughts, any substantive impact on historical inquiry? We asked Postmodernism and the Truth of History C. Behan McCullagh The great contribution of postmodern thought to our assessment of human knowledge has been to remind us that our knowledge is generallycouched in language, so it does not mirror the world as we believe most ofour perceptions do. Our knowledge is constructed from elements ofour culture, employing concepts and forms ofargument thatwe have learned and believe to be appropriate . Our descriptions ofthe world reflect our interests, values, and purposes, so they are not perfectly impartial and complete accounts ofthe subjects they describe. They seldom capture every detail of the subjects we describe, so they are, in that sense, almost always incomplete. Furthermore, the meanings ofthe words we use, which depend upon their relations to other words, cannotbe fixed with any precision, so that the descriptions are always vague. These are true and important points, and they have been used by some to cast doubt upon the truth of historical descriptions. Frank Ankersmit, Beverley Southgate, and Alun Munslow, for example, have all denied that general interpretations ofpast events can be true for these reasons, though they have, rather inconsistently, allowed that descriptions of particular historical events can be true. Robert Berkhofer and Keith Jenkins have gone further, arguingthatwhen descriptions ofparticular historical facts are embedded in an interpretative narrative, theyfail to provide us with reliable information about the past.1 If these facts make narrative interpretations ofthe pastunbelievable, then theymake descriptions ofparticular events incredible as well. Whyon earth shouldwe thinkthathistorical knowledge, a culturally bound linguistic construction in the present, bears anyparticular relation to past events at all? The trouble is, thatifwe insistupon skepticism toward statements of particular facts about the past, we will have to abandon almost all the beliefs we five by. In practice we have developed very reliable methods of distinguishing statements about the world that are worthy ofbelieffrom those that are not. To defend the credibility of singular descriptions, we should study those methods and carefully consider their significance.2 To put it briefly, although we cannot perceive events in the past, we can draw reliable inferences aboutmanyofthem on the basis of observable evidence available to us. Logically speaking, historical inferences form an explanatorychain: we explain our perceptual experiences as caused by material things we perceive; we explain many ofthose material things, such as letters and buildings, as the product ofhuman activity; and we explain that human activity as a response to a situation faced by the agent or agents in their world at the time. These explanations rely, not just upon our perceptions, but also upon other particular and general facts we already believe to be true. But notice that the historical knowledge that results from these chains ofinference is notjustified simplyon grounds ofcoherence. Itis based upon, and controlled by, the observations ofevidence, which form its foundation. Sometimes the general knowledge thatmediates explanations is contested. For instance, historians often hold strong but differing opinions about the relative importance of ideas, cultural practices, economic interests, and the desire for power in determining human behavior. But the number of uncontested facts inferred about the past on the basis of observed evidence is enormous. This pattern of inference from perceptions is similar to that bywhichwe sometimes decide what exists in the world around us. Suppose you see a perfect flower in a vase, it could be real or artificial. To check, you feel and smell it, and when you find it feels like plastic and has no scent, you decide it is artificial : that best explains the evidence ofyour senses. We are only aware of the inferences involved when we are uncertain as to how to interpret our perceptual experiences. Normally the inference is quite automatic. For instance, we instantly assume people believe what they avow and desire what they ask for, since that is normally the case. But some- January/February 2005 · Historically Speaking times, on the basis ofwhat we already know, this seems unlikely. Ifa...