- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226072791
- eISBN:
- 9780226072814
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226072814.003.0016
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
In the controversy over the constitution and recovery of the past, postmodernist narrativists had dealt with the issue of truth when they followed the linguistic turn to the borders of literature and ...
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In the controversy over the constitution and recovery of the past, postmodernist narrativists had dealt with the issue of truth when they followed the linguistic turn to the borders of literature and beyond. All order in historical accounts resulted from the imaginative use of the forms of literature and language. The French poststructuralist postmodernists chose a similar course but added philosophical considerations to the literary ones. The world was one of discourses and texts but its dynamic involved more than the forms of literature and language. For historians this meant that they would have to revise thoroughly the ways of “doing history.” Not with the aim of remedying epistemological failings but to destroy the link between truth and authority that legitimated the exercise of power on behalf of truth. As the poststructuralist postmodernists never tired to point out, the insistence on the truth of progress had been directly linked to the human catastrophes of the twentieth century.Less
In the controversy over the constitution and recovery of the past, postmodernist narrativists had dealt with the issue of truth when they followed the linguistic turn to the borders of literature and beyond. All order in historical accounts resulted from the imaginative use of the forms of literature and language. The French poststructuralist postmodernists chose a similar course but added philosophical considerations to the literary ones. The world was one of discourses and texts but its dynamic involved more than the forms of literature and language. For historians this meant that they would have to revise thoroughly the ways of “doing history.” Not with the aim of remedying epistemological failings but to destroy the link between truth and authority that legitimated the exercise of power on behalf of truth. As the poststructuralist postmodernists never tired to point out, the insistence on the truth of progress had been directly linked to the human catastrophes of the twentieth century.
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226072791
- eISBN:
- 9780226072814
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226072814.003.0018
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
The question of history's usefulness has all along been one about the degree to which the present could benefit from the past for illuminating human existence and its problems. The historical nexus ...
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The question of history's usefulness has all along been one about the degree to which the present could benefit from the past for illuminating human existence and its problems. The historical nexus suggested that history could yield useful answers. Ancient historians had tried to discern lessons in history that would stand the tests of life, especially those of political life. Medieval chroniclers had found guidance in history's events toward discerning Divine Providence. Much later and in a secular vein, Lord Bolingbrooke and many others saw history teaching the timeless lessons of philosophy through specific examples. Doubters have all along questioned such usefulness. Advocates of a “history for history's sake” stance, who tried to isolate the study of the past from the nexus, have denied that such utility should or could be of concern to historians. Now, poststructuralist postmodernists asked questions about the instructive role of the past and foresaw a world from which the guiding elements for the historical nexus had disappeared.Less
The question of history's usefulness has all along been one about the degree to which the present could benefit from the past for illuminating human existence and its problems. The historical nexus suggested that history could yield useful answers. Ancient historians had tried to discern lessons in history that would stand the tests of life, especially those of political life. Medieval chroniclers had found guidance in history's events toward discerning Divine Providence. Much later and in a secular vein, Lord Bolingbrooke and many others saw history teaching the timeless lessons of philosophy through specific examples. Doubters have all along questioned such usefulness. Advocates of a “history for history's sake” stance, who tried to isolate the study of the past from the nexus, have denied that such utility should or could be of concern to historians. Now, poststructuralist postmodernists asked questions about the instructive role of the past and foresaw a world from which the guiding elements for the historical nexus had disappeared.
