Based upon what particular facts or criteria can you come to the conclusion that modern history and historians are “objectively better” (as you put it) than those of the nineteenth century? Be specific please. Saying that Hegel has nothing to contribute to the understanding of history today is rather presumptuous. Why do you say such a preposterous thing? Just because he’s in the past? Who are your historiographic or methodological heroes then?
The point might be arguable at a philosophical level but not on a practical disciplinary basis, in the same way a modern aircraft is 'objectively better' than the balloons floated over Paris in the 19th century or a modern aeronautic engineer has an 'objectively better' understanding of flight than the Montgolfier brothers, so modern histories and modern historians, for exactly the same reasons of disciplinary progress, are 'objectively better' than 19th C. histories of historians. And, of course, the same applies to Hegel. He cannot usefully contribute to a subject whose disciplinary tools did not exist when he lived, any more than the Montgolfier brothers could tune a jet engine. It would be, in your words, 'preposterous' to begin from an assumption that he could. And Hegel has been intensively studied so there is little danger of some overlooked insight, his contributions have long since been worked into and absorbed by the collective discipline. That point can be nuanced but it cannot be argued in an intellectually honest way. White does not attempt to in Metahistory, he broadly is just interested in how 19th century historians did one specific part of their work, but sometimes he does (and certainly subsequent to that work) often treat that narrow discussion as if it had broad applicability to all of what a historian does and to all historians. I took the trouble to read White before talking about him, a good methodological practice, though I was already quite familiar with his work. Had you followed the same procedure you would have noticed that I have already addressed exactly this point in the comments (where it belongs, as it is not the subject of the video). This is my space and I have no issue with tone policing, be polite or be deleted.
The series Philosophy of the Humanities has an episode introducing the element of White's theory most commonly employed by subsequent postmodernists ua-cam.com/video/pT-OgRCkuUY/v-deo.html
Some books are 'good', some are 'bad', most have a mixture of the qualities to which those terms are applied and over time they shift towards the bad (as their insights become less novel and their errors more egregious). It is important to be honest about that, and misleading if you don't point out the bad, in which it is not even slightly controversial to include Evans. If this is read as a 90s postmodern position then taking a 'side' is a deliberate self-reflective position, Evans is on a morally indefensible one, and 'please be aware' a call to critical reflection that fundamentally misunderstands the issue. If this is read from a possibility of knowledge which does not reflect, reproduce, or contest structures of power then there are no 'sides' because there exists some defensible truth claim, and Evans still wrote a bad book, and 'please be aware' is still bad advice, or at least advice better taken than given. While it has its own issues the fact is MetaHistory has held up better than Defence and a student would get a stronger critique of the narrative turn by reading the former (particularly its narrowness of focus and lack of sense of disciplinary progress) than the latter.
@@BG-qb4ye The best critique is to read it. Metahistory is notorious for not being read, and it is both quite dated and quite specific. Once you see its specificity a lot of its apparent 'force' in the literature disappears - "Metahistory is something historians don't like. But some people in other disciplines do, philosophers and literary critics. Because what it does, or pretends to do, is to deconstruct a mythology, the so-called science of history." is itself a critique (its from an interview with White in Domanska's Encounters), but it also illustrates the issue, to what extent is a critique of positivism relevant to contemporary historians. That Metahistory is used by people who are not historians as a totemic text to critique a historical practice it does not discuss is a different issue. I don't know of any really good critiques of that, because it would require seriously engaging the heady philosophical circles of postmodernism but also the very grounded realm of methodology (practitioners of one generally do not read the other. Ohara covered that specific point in a recent Cambridge Elements pamphlet on The Theory and Philosophy of History). This is a very similar problem to the New Historicism (ua-cam.com/video/jNW4eKdr1r4/v-deo.html) which has also been used by the narrative turn (and postcolonial studies), and where the gap between what the theory describes and historical practice is even more marked. That explains the lack of good (or at least good and comprehensive) critiques, a good critique would in effect be both a history of the narrative turn and an isolation of its insights for actual historical practice, but that requires moving across fields which have not traditionally spoken to each other (and it is that which I suspect you want rather than an ad hominem critique of Hayden White).
Thank you so much for this video! Will help me a ton in writing an assignment about this book!
10:22 "...a synecdoche for the entire model." I see what you did there, very nice! Also great overview!
Love the video. I'd love to see you do a video on Michel de Certeau's "The Writing of History"
Thank you, I always appreciate suggestions suggestions for this sort of video.
great video thanks!
Helped me a shit ton. thanks
Outstanding. Thank you
Thank you!
Impressive, very nice
Based upon what particular facts or criteria can you come to the conclusion that modern history and historians are “objectively better” (as you put it) than those of the nineteenth century? Be specific please.
Saying that Hegel has nothing to contribute to the understanding of history today is rather presumptuous. Why do you say such a preposterous thing? Just because he’s in the past?
Who are your historiographic or methodological heroes then?
The point might be arguable at a philosophical level but not on a practical disciplinary basis, in the same way a modern aircraft is 'objectively better' than the balloons floated over Paris in the 19th century or a modern aeronautic engineer has an 'objectively better' understanding of flight than the Montgolfier brothers, so modern histories and modern historians, for exactly the same reasons of disciplinary progress, are 'objectively better' than 19th C. histories of historians.
And, of course, the same applies to Hegel. He cannot usefully contribute to a subject whose disciplinary tools did not exist when he lived, any more than the Montgolfier brothers could tune a jet engine. It would be, in your words, 'preposterous' to begin from an assumption that he could. And Hegel has been intensively studied so there is little danger of some overlooked insight, his contributions have long since been worked into and absorbed by the collective discipline.
That point can be nuanced but it cannot be argued in an intellectually honest way. White does not attempt to in Metahistory, he broadly is just interested in how 19th century historians did one specific part of their work, but sometimes he does (and certainly subsequent to that work) often treat that narrow discussion as if it had broad applicability to all of what a historian does and to all historians.
I took the trouble to read White before talking about him, a good methodological practice, though I was already quite familiar with his work. Had you followed the same procedure you would have noticed that I have already addressed exactly this point in the comments (where it belongs, as it is not the subject of the video). This is my space and I have no issue with tone policing, be polite or be deleted.
The series Philosophy of the Humanities has an episode introducing the element of White's theory most commonly employed by subsequent postmodernists ua-cam.com/video/pT-OgRCkuUY/v-deo.html
Richard Evans's book is not a "bad book", please be aware of the side you take
Some books are 'good', some are 'bad', most have a mixture of the qualities to which those terms are applied and over time they shift towards the bad (as their insights become less novel and their errors more egregious). It is important to be honest about that, and misleading if you don't point out the bad, in which it is not even slightly controversial to include Evans. If this is read as a 90s postmodern position then taking a 'side' is a deliberate self-reflective position, Evans is on a morally indefensible one, and 'please be aware' a call to critical reflection that fundamentally misunderstands the issue. If this is read from a possibility of knowledge which does not reflect, reproduce, or contest structures of power then there are no 'sides' because there exists some defensible truth claim, and Evans still wrote a bad book, and 'please be aware' is still bad advice, or at least advice better taken than given.
While it has its own issues the fact is MetaHistory has held up better than Defence and a student would get a stronger critique of the narrative turn by reading the former (particularly its narrowness of focus and lack of sense of disciplinary progress) than the latter.
@@HistoricalPerspectiveRBr what are good critiques of hayden white?
@@BG-qb4ye The best critique is to read it. Metahistory is notorious for not being read, and it is both quite dated and quite specific. Once you see its specificity a lot of its apparent 'force' in the literature disappears - "Metahistory is something historians don't like. But some people in other disciplines do, philosophers and literary critics. Because what it does, or pretends to do, is to deconstruct a mythology, the so-called science of history." is itself a critique (its from an interview with White in Domanska's Encounters), but it also illustrates the issue, to what extent is a critique of positivism relevant to contemporary historians.
That Metahistory is used by people who are not historians as a totemic text to critique a historical practice it does not discuss is a different issue. I don't know of any really good critiques of that, because it would require seriously engaging the heady philosophical circles of postmodernism but also the very grounded realm of methodology (practitioners of one generally do not read the other. Ohara covered that specific point in a recent Cambridge Elements pamphlet on The Theory and Philosophy of History).
This is a very similar problem to the New Historicism (ua-cam.com/video/jNW4eKdr1r4/v-deo.html) which has also been used by the narrative turn (and postcolonial studies), and where the gap between what the theory describes and historical practice is even more marked.
That explains the lack of good (or at least good and comprehensive) critiques, a good critique would in effect be both a history of the narrative turn and an isolation of its insights for actual historical practice, but that requires moving across fields which have not traditionally spoken to each other (and it is that which I suspect you want rather than an ad hominem critique of Hayden White).
Thank you very much.