http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/CCREAD/etscc/kant.html

What Is Enlightenment? Immanuel Kant 1

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know!(Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on--then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Those guardians who have kindly taken supervision upon themselves see to it that the overwhelming majority of mankind--among them the entire fair sex--should consider the step to maturity, not only as hard, but as extremely dangerous. First, these guardians make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading-strings to which they have fastened them. Then they show them the danger that would threaten them if they should try to walk by themselves. Now this danger is really not very great; after stumbling a few times they would, at last, learn to walk. However, examples of such failures intimidate and generally discourage all further attempts.

Thus it is very difficult for the individual to work himself out of the nonage which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown to like it, and is at first really incapable of using his own understanding because he has never been permitted to try it. Dogmas and formulas, these mechanical tools designed for reasonable use--or rather abuse--of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting nonage. The man who casts them off would make an uncertain leap over the narrowest ditch, because he is not used to such free movement. That is why there are only a few men who walk firmly, and who have emerged from nonage by cultivating their own minds.

It is more nearly possible, however, for the public to enlighten itself; indeed, if it is only given freedom, enlightenment is almost inevitable. There will always be a few independent thinkers, even among the self-appointed guardians of the multitude. Once such men have thrown off the yoke of nonage, they will spread about them the spirit of a reasonable appreciation of man's value and of his duty to think for himself. It is especially to be noted that the public which was earlier brought under the yoke by these men afterwards forces these very guardians to remain in submission, if it is so incited by some of its guardians who are themselves incapable of any enlightenment. That shows how pernicious it is to implant prejudices: they will eventually revenge themselves upon their authors or their authors' descendants. Therefore, a public can achieve enlightenment only slowly. A revolution may bring about the end of a personal despotism or of avaricious tyrannical oppression, but never a true reform of modes of thought. New prejudices will serve, in place of the old, as guide lines for the unthinking multitude.

This enlightenment requires nothing but freedom--and the most innocent of all that may be called "freedom": freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters. Now I hear the cry from all

sides: "Do not argue!" The officer says: "Do not argue--drill!" The tax collector: "Do not argue--pay!" The pastor: "Do not argue--believe!" Only one ruler in the world says: "Argue as much as you please, but obey!" We find restrictions on freedom everywhere. But which restriction is harmful to enlightenment? Which restriction is innocent, and which advances enlightenment? I reply: the public use of one's reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring enlightenment to mankind.

On the other hand, the private use of reason may frequently be narrowly restricted without especially hindering the progress of enlightenment. By "public use of one's reason" I mean that use which a man, as scholar, makes of it before the reading public. I call "private use" that use which a man makes of his reason in a civic post that has been entrusted to him. In some affairs affecting the interest of the community a certain [governmental] mechanism is necessary in which some members of the community remain passive. This creates an artificial unanimity which will serve the fulfillment of public objectives, or at least keep these objectives from being destroyed. Here arguing is not permitted: one must obey. Insofar as a part of this machine considers himself at the same time a member of a universal community--a world society of citizens--(let us say that he thinks of himself as a scholar rationally addressing his public through his writings) he may indeed argue, and the affairs with which he is associated in part as a passive member will not suffer. Thus it would be very unfortunate if an officer on duty and under orders from his superiors should want to criticize the appropriateness or utility of his orders. He must obey. But as a scholar he could not rightfully be prevented from taking notice of the mistakes in the military service and from submitting his views to his public for its judgment. The citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes levied upon him; indeed, impertinent censure of such taxes could be punished as a scandal that might cause general disobedience. Nevertheless, this man does not violate the duties of a citizen if, as a scholar, he publicly expresses his objections to the impropriety or possible injustice of such levies. A pastor, too, is bound to preach to his congregation in accord with the doctrines of the church which he serves, for he was ordained on that condition. But as a scholar he has full freedom, indeed the obligation, to communicate to his public all his carefully examined and constructive thoughts concerning errors in that doctrine and his proposals concerning improvement of religious dogma and church institutions. This is nothing that could burden his conscience. For what he teaches in pursuance of his office as representative of the church, he represents as something which he is not free to teach as he sees it. He speaks as one who is employed to speak in the name and under the orders of another. He will say: "Our church teaches this or that; these are the proofs which it employs." Thus he will benefit his congregation as much as possible by presenting doctrines to which he may not subscribe with full conviction. He can commit himself to teach them because it is not completely impossible that they may contain hidden truth. In any event, he has found nothing in the doctrines that contradicts the heart of religion. For if he believed that such contradictions existed he would not be able to administer his office with a clear conscience. He would have to resign it. Therefore the use which a scholar makes of his reason before the congregation that employs him is only a private use, for no matter how sizable, this is only a domestic audience. In view of this he, as preacher, is not free and ought not to be free, since he is carrying out the orders of others. On the other hand, as the scholar who speaks to his own public (the world) through his writings, the minister in the public use of his reason enjoys unlimited freedom to use his own reason and to speak for himself. That the spiritual guardians of the people should themselves be treated as minors is an absurdity which would result in perpetuating absurdities.

CALL FOR RESEARCH PAPERS ON WITH EXTENDED DEADLINE TILL 5TH APRIL 2012 

Revelation of Truths: Critical Perspectives on Autobiographies and Biographies in English 

Editors Dr. Arvind Nawale, (Head, Dept of English, Shivaji Mahavidhylaya, Udgir, Dist: Latur (M.S.) Ms. Ankita Khanna, (Lecturer in English, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat (Gujarat) 

No Contribution/Subscription fees. Papers will be accepted and published free of cost and only on basis of quality and each contributor will get a free complimentary copy from publisher 

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But should a society of ministers, say a Church Council, . . . have the right to commit itself by oath to a certain unalterable doctrine, in order to secure perpetual guardianship over all its members and through them over the people? I say that this is quite impossible. Such a contract, concluded to keep all further enlightenment from humanity, is simply null and void even if it should be confirmed by the sovereign power, by parliaments, and the most solemn treaties. An epoch cannot conclude a pact that will commit succeeding ages, prevent them from increasing their significant insights, purging themselves of errors, and generally progressing in enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature whose proper destiny lies precisely in such progress. Therefore, succeeding ages are fully entitled to repudiate such decisions as unauthorized and outrageous. The touchstone of all those decisions that may be made into law for a people lies in this question: Could a people impose such a law upon itself? Now it might be possible to introduce a certain order for a definite short period of time in expectation of better order. But, while this provisional order continues, each citizen (above all, each pastor acting as a scholar) should be left free to publish his criticisms of the faults of existing institutions. This should continue until public understanding of these matters has gone so far that, by uniting the voices of many (although not necessarily all) scholars, reform proposals could be brought before the sovereign to protect those congregations which had decided according to their best lights upon an altered religious order, without, however, hindering those who want to remain true to the old institutions. But to agree to a perpetual religious constitution which is not publicly questioned by anyone would be, as it were, to annihilate a period of time in the progress of man's improvement. This must be absolutely forbidden.

A man may postpone his own enlightenment, but only for a limited period of time. And to give up enlightenment altogether, either for oneself or one's descendants, is to violate and to trample upon the sacred rights of man. What a people may not decide for itself may even less be decided for it by a monarch, for his reputation as a ruler consists precisely in the way in which he unites the will of the whole people within his own. If he only sees to it that all true or supposed [religious] improvement remains in step with the civic order, he can for the rest leave his subjects alone to do what they find necessary for the salvation of their souls. Salvation is none of his business; it is his business to prevent one man from forcibly keeping another from determining and promoting his salvation to the best of his ability. Indeed, it would be prejudicial to his majesty if he meddled in these matters and supervised the writings in which his subjects seek to bring their [religious] views into the open, even when he does this from his own highest insight, because then he exposes himself to the reproach: Caesar non est supra grammaticos. 2    It is worse when he debases his sovereign power so far as to support the spiritual despotism of a few tyrants in his state over the rest of his subjects.

When we ask, Are we now living in an enlightened age? the answer is, No, but we live in an age of enlightenment. As matters now stand it is still far from true that men are already capable of using their own reason in religious matters confidently and correctly without external guidance. Still, we have some obvious indications that the field of working toward the goal [of religious truth] is now opened. What is more, the hindrances against general enlightenment or the emergence from self-imposed nonage are gradually diminishing. In this respect this is the age of the enlightenment and the century of Frederick [the Great].

A prince ought not to deem it beneath his dignity to state that he considers it his duty not to dictate anything to his subjects in religious matters, but to leave them complete freedom. If he repudiates the arrogant word "tolerant", he is himself enlightened; he deserves to be praised by a

grateful world and posterity as that man who was the first to liberate mankind from dependence, at least on the government, and let everybody use his own reason in matters of conscience. Under his reign, honorable pastors, acting as scholars and regardless of the duties of their office, can freely and openly publish their ideas to the world for inspection, although they deviate here and there from accepted doctrine. This is even more true of every person not restrained by any oath of office. This spirit of freedom is spreading beyond the boundaries [of Prussia] even where it has to struggle against the external hindrances established by a government that fails to grasp its true interest. [Frederick's Prussia] is a shining example that freedom need not cause the least worry concerning public order or the unity of the community. When one does not deliberately attempt to keep men in barbarism, they will gradually work out of that condition by themselves.

I have emphasized the main point of the enlightenment--man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage--primarily in religious matters, because our rulers have no interest in playing the guardian to their subjects in the arts and sciences. Above all, nonage in religion is not only the most harmful but the most dishonorable. But the disposition of a sovereign ruler who favors freedom in the arts and sciences goes even further: he knows that there is no danger in permitting his subjects to make public use of their reason and to publish their ideas concerning a better constitution, as well as candid criticism of existing basic laws. We already have a striking example [of such freedom], and no monarch can match the one whom we venerate.

But only the man who is himself enlightened, who is not afraid of shadows, and who commands at the same time a well disciplined and numerous army as guarantor of public peace--only he can say what [the sovereign of] a free state cannot dare to say: "Argue as much as you like, and about what you like, but obey!" Thus we observe here as elsewhere in human affairs, in which almost everything is paradoxical, a surprising and unexpected course of events: a large degree of civic freedom appears to be of advantage to the intellectual freedom of the people, yet at the same time it establishes insurmountable barriers. A lesser degree of civic freedom, however, creates room to let that free spirit expand to the limits of its capacity. Nature, then, has carefully cultivated the seed within the hard core--namely the urge for and the vocation of free thought. And this free thought gradually reacts back on the modes of thought of the people, and men become more and more capable of acting in freedom. At last free thought acts even on the fundamentals of government and the state finds it agreeable to treat man, who is now more than a machine, in accord with his dignity. 

Notes

1. Translated by Mary C. Smith. 

2. [Caesar is not above grammarians.] 

CC 1102. Required Readings

Philosophy of history

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the work by Hegel, see Lectures on the Philosophy of History.

The term philosophy of history refers to the theoretical aspect of history, in two senses. It is

customary to distinguish critical philosophy of history from speculative philosophy of history.

Critical philosophy of history is the "theory" aspect of the discipline of academic history, and

deals with questions such as the nature of historical evidence, the degree to which objectivity is

possible, etc. Speculative philosophy of history is an area of philosophy concerning the eventual

significance, if any, of human history.[1] Furthermore, it speculates as to a possibleteleological end

to its development—that is, it asks if there is a design, purpose, directive principle, or finality in

the processes of human history. Part of Marxism, for example, is speculative philosophy of

history. Though there is some overlap between the two, they can usually be distinguished;

modern professional historians tend to be skeptical about speculative philosophy of history.

Sometimes critical philosophy of history is included under historiography. Philosophy of history

should not be confused with the history of philosophy, which is the study of the development of

philosophical ideas through time.

Speculative philosophy of history asks at least three basic questions:

What is the proper unit for the study of the human past — the individual subject?

The polis ("city") or sovereign territory? The civilization or culture? Or the whole of the

human species?

Are there any broad patterns that we can discern through the study of the human past?

Are there, for example, patterns of progress? Or cycles? Is history deterministic? Or are there

no patterns or cycles, and is human history random? Related to this is the study of individual

agency and its impact in history, functioning within, or opposed to, larger trends and patterns.

If history can indeed be said to progress, what is its ultimate direction? What (if

any) is the driving force of that progress?

Contents

  [hide] 

1   Pre-modern history

2   Cyclical and linear history

3   Sustainable History

4   The Enlightenment's ideal of progress

o 4.1   Social evolutionism

o 4.2   The validity of the "Great man theory" in historical studies

5   Does history have a teleological sense?

o 5.1   Historical accounts of writing history

o 5.2   Michel Foucault's analysis of historical and political discourse

o 5.3   History and education

o 5.4   Narrative and history

o 5.5   History as propaganda: Is history always written by the victors?

6   See also

7   References

8   Further reading

9   External links

[edit]Pre-modern history

In the Poetics, Aristotle argued that poetry is superior to history, because poetry speaks of

what must or should be true, rather than merely what is true. This reflects early axial concerns

(good/bad, right/wrong) over metaphysical concerns for what "is". Accordingly, classical

historians felt a duty to ennoble the world. In keeping with philosophy of history, it is clear that

their philosophy of value imposed upon their process of writing history—philosophy influenced

method and hence product.

Herodotus, considered by some as the first systematic historian, and, later, Plutarch freely

invented speeches for their historical figures and chose their historical subjects with an eye

toward morally improving the reader. History was supposed to teach one good examples to

follow. The assumption that history "should teach good examples" influenced how history was

written. Events of the past are just as likely to show bad examples that are not to be followed, but

these historians would either not record them or re-interpret them to support their assumption of

history's purpose.[citation needed]

From the Classical period to the Renaissance, historians alternated between focusing on subjects

designed to improve mankind and on a devotion to fact. History was composed mainly

of hagiographies of monarchs or epic poetry describing heroic gestures such as the Song of

Roland about the Battle of Roncevaux Pass, during Charlemagne's first campaign to conquer

the Iberian peninsula.

In the 14th century, Ibn Khaldun, who is considered one of the fathers of the philosophy of

history, discussed his philosophy of history and society in detail in his Muqaddimah (1377). His

work was a culmination of earlier works by Muslim thinkers in the spheres of Islamic

ethics,political science, and historiography, such as those of al-Farabi, Ibn Miskawayh, al-

Dawwani, and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi.[2] Ibn Khaldun often criticized "idle superstition and

uncritical acceptance of historical data." As a result, he introduced a scientific method to the

philosophy of history, which was considered something "new to his age," and he often referred to

it as his "new science," which is now associated withhistoriography.[3] His historical method also

laid the groundwork for the observation of the role

of state, communication, propaganda andsystematic bias in history.[2]

By the 18th century, historians had turned toward a more positivist approach focusing on fact as

much as possible, but still with an eye on telling histories that could instruct and improve.

Starting with Fustel de Coullanges and Theodor Mommsen, historical studies began to progress

towards a more modern scientific form. In the Victorian era, the debate in historiography thus

was not so much whether history was intended to improve the reader, but what causes turned

history and how historical change could be understood.

[edit]Cyclical and linear history

Further information: Social cycle theory

Given that human beings are currently understood by humans to be the single Earthly creatures

capable of abstract thought, a perception of time, and a manipulation of thought concerning the

past, the future and the present, an inquiry into the nature of history is based in part on some

working understanding of time in the human experience.

History (as contemporarily understood by Western thought), tends to follow an assumption of

linear progression: "this happened, and then that happened; that happened because this happened

first." This is in part a reflection of Western Thought's foundation of cause and effect.

Most ancient cultures held a mythical conception of history and time that was not linear. They

believed that history was cyclical with alternating Dark and Golden Ages. Plato called this the

Great Year, and other Greeks called it an aeon or eon. Examples are the ancient doctrine

of eternal return, which existed in Ancient Egypt, the Indian religions, or the Greek Pythagoreans'

and the Stoics' conceptions. InThe Works and Days, Hesiod described five Ages of Man: the Gold

Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, the Heroic Age and the Iron Age, which began with

the Dorian invasion. Other scholars suggest there were just four ages, corresponding to the four

metals, and the Heroic age was a description of the Bronze Age. A four age count would be in

line with the Vedic or Hindu ages known as the Kali, Dwapara, Treta and Satya yugas. The

Greeks believed that just as mankind went through four stages of character during each rise and

fall of history so did government. They considered democracy and monarchy as the healthy

regimes of the higher ages; and oligarchy and tyranny as corrupted regimes common to the lower

ages.

In the East cyclical theories of history were developed in China (as a theory of dynastic cycle)

and in the Islamic world by Ibn Khaldun.

The story of the Fall of Man from the Garden of Eden in Judaism and Christianity can be seen in

a similar light, which would give the basis fortheodicies, which attempts to reconcile the

existence of evil in the world with the existence of God creating a global explanation of history

with the belief in a Messianic Age. Theodicies claimed that history had a progressive direction

leading to an eschatological end, such as theApocalypse, given by a superior power. Augustine of

Hippo, Thomas Aquinas or Bossuet in his Discourse On Universal History (1679) formulated

such theodicies, but Leibniz, who coined the term, was the most famous philosopher who created

a theodicy. Leibniz based his explanation on the principle of sufficient reason, which states that

anything that happens, does happen for a specific reason. Thus, what man saw as evil, such as

wars, epidemia and natural disasters, was in fact only an effect of his perception; if one

adopted God's view, this evil event in fact only took place in the larger divine plan. Hence,

theodicies explained the necessity of evil as a relative element that forms part of a larger plan of

history. Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason was not, however, a gesture of fatalism.

Confronted with the antique problem of future contingents, Leibniz invented the theory of

"compossible worlds", distinguishing two types of necessity, to cope with the problem of

determinism.

During the Renaissance, cyclical conceptions of history would become common, illustrated by

the decline of the Roman Empire.Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy (1513–1517) are an example.

The notion of Empire contained in itself its ascendance and its decadence, as in Edward

Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), which was placed on

the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

Cyclical conceptions were maintained in the 19th and 20th centuries by authors such as Oswald

Spengler, Nikolay Danilevsky, and Paul Kennedy, who conceived the human past as a series of

repetitive rises and falls. Spengler, like Butterfield was writing in reaction to the carnage of the

first World War, believed that a civilization enters upon an era of Caesarism after its soul dies. He

thought that the soul of the West was dead and Caesarism was about to begin.

The recent development of mathematical models of long-term secular sociodemographic cycles

has revived interest in cyclical theories of history (see, for example, Historical Dynamics by Peter

Turchin, or Introduction to Social Macrodynamics[4] by Andrey Korotayev et al.).

[edit]Sustainable History

“Sustainable History and the Dignity of Man” is a philosophy of history proposed by Nayef Al-

Rodhan, where history is defined as ‘a durable progressive trajectory in which the quality of life

on this planet or all other planets is premised on the guarantee of human dignity for all at all

times under all circumstances.’[5] This theory views history as a linear progression propelled

by good governance, which is, in turn, to be achieved through balancing the emotional, amoral,

and egoistic elements of human nature with the human dignity needs of reason, security,human

rights, accountability, transparency, justice, opportunity, innovation, and inclusiveness.[6]

‘Human dignity’ lies at the heart of this theory and is paramount for ensuring the sustainable

history of humankind. Among other things,human dignity means having a positive sense of self

and instilling individuals with respect for the communities to which they belong. Thus,

reconciling humans’ predisposition for emotionally self-interested behavior with the imperatives

of human dignity appears as the one of the most important challenges to global policymakers.[7] At national level, they have to protect their citizens against violence and provide them with

access to food, housing, clothes, health care, and education. Basic welfare provision and security

are fundamental to ensuring human dignity. Environment and ecological considerations need to

be addressed as well. Finally, cultural diversity, inclusiveness and participation at all levels, of all

communities are key imperatives of human dignity.

In this respect, the sustainable history philosophy challenges existing concepts of civilisations,

such as Samuel Huntington’s ‘clash of civilisations’.[8] Instead, it argues that human civilisation

should not be thought of as consisting of numerous separate and competing civilisations, but

rather it should be thought of collectively as only one human civilisation. Within this civilisation

are many geo-cultural domains that comprise sub-cultures. Nayef Al-Rodhan envisions human

civilisation as an ocean into which the different geo-cultural domains flow like rivers, “The

Ocean Model of one Human Civilization”. At points where geo-cultural domains first enter the

ocean of human civilisation, there is likely to be a concentration or dominance of that culture.

However, over time, all the rivers of geo-cultural domains become one. There is fluidity at the

ocean’s centre and cultures have the opportunity to borrow between them. Under such historical

conditions the most advanced forms of human enterprise can thrive and lead us to a ‘civilisational

triumph’. Nevertheless, there are cases where geographical proximity of various cultures can also

lead to friction and conflict.

Nayef Al-Rodhan concludes that within an increasingly globalised, interconnected and

interdependent world, human dignity cannot be ensured globally and in a sustainable way through

sole national means. A genuine global effort is required to meet the minimum criteria of human

dignity globally. Areas such as conflict prevention, socio-economic justice, gender equality,

protection of human rights, environmental protection require a holistic approach and a common

action.

[edit]The Enlightenment's ideal of progress

Further information: Age of Enlightenment  and Social progress

During the Aufklärung, or Enlightenment, history began to be seen as both linear and

irreversible. Condorcet's interpretations of the various "stages of humanity" or Auguste

Comte's positivism were one of the most important formulations of such conceptions of history,

which trusted social progress. As in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile (1762) treatise on education

(or the "art of training men"), the Aufklärungconceived the human species as perfectible: human

nature could be infinitely developed through a well-thought pedagogy. In What is

Enlightenment? (1784), Immanuel Kant defined the Aufklärung as the capacity to think by

oneself, without referring to an exterior authority, be it a prince or tradition:

Enlightenment is when a person leaves behind a state of immaturity and dependence

(Unmündigkeit) for which they themselves were responsible. Immaturity and dependence are the

inability to use one's own intellect without the direction of another. One is responsible for this

immaturity and dependence, if its cause is not a lack of intelligence or education, but a lack of

determination and courage to think without the direction of another. Sapere aude! Dare to

know! is therefore the slogan of the Enlightenment.

In a paradoxical way, Kant supported in the same time enlightened despotism as a way of leading

humanity towards its autonomy. He had conceived the process of history in his short treaty Idea

for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784). On one hand, enlightened

despotism was to lead nations toward their liberation, and progress was thus inscribed in the

scheme of history; on the other hand, liberation could only be acquired by a singular

gesture, Sapere Aude! Thus, autonomy ultimately relied on the individual's "determination and

courage to think without the direction of another."

After Kant, Hegel developed a complex theodicy in the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), which

based its conception of history on dialectics: the negative (wars, etc.) was conceived by Hegel as

the motor of history. Hegel argued that history is a constant process of dialectic clash, with

each thesis encountering an opposing idea or event antithesis. The clash of both was "superated"

in the synthesis, a conjunction that conserved the contradiction between thesis and its antithesis

while sublating it. As Marx famously explained afterwards, concretely that meant that if Louis

XVI's monarchic rule in France was seen as the thesis, the French Revolution could be seen as its

antithesis. However, both were sublated in Napoleon, who reconciled the revolution with

the Ancien Régime; he conserved the change. Hegel thought that reasonaccomplished itself,

through this dialectical scheme, in History. Through labour, man transformed nature so he could

recognize himself in it; he made it his "home." Thus, reason spiritualized nature. Roads, fields,

fences, and all the modern infrastructure in which we live is the result of this spiritualization of

nature. Hegel thus explained social progress as the result of the labour of reason in history.

However, this dialectical reading of history involved, of course, contradiction, so history was also

conceived of as constantly conflicting: Hegel theorized this in his famous dialectic of the lord and

the bondsman.

According to Hegel,

One more word about giving instruction as to what the world ought to be. Philosophy in any case

always comes on the scene too late to give it... When philosophy paints its gray in gray, then has

a shape of life grown old. By philosophy's gray in gray it cannot be rejuvenated but only

understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.

— [9]

Thus, philosophy was to explain Geschichte (history) afterward. Philosophy is always late, it is

only an interpretation of what is rational in the real—and, according to Hegel, only what is

recognized as rational is real. This idealist understanding of philosophy as interpretation was

famously challenged by Karl Marx's 11th thesis on Feuerbach (1845): "Philosophers have

hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it."

[edit]Social evolutionism

Further information: Sociocultural evolution

Inspired by the Enlightenment's ideal of progress, social evolutionism became a popular

conception in the 19th century. Auguste Comte's (1798–1857) positivist conception of history,

which he divided into the theological stage, the metaphysical stage and the positivist stage,

brought upon by modern science, was one of the most influential doctrines of progress. The Whig

interpretation of history, as it was later called, associated with scholars of

the Victorian and Edwardian eras in Britain, such as Henry Maine or Thomas Macaulay, gives an

example of such influence, by looking at human history as progress from savagery and ignorance

toward peace, prosperity, and science. Maine described the direction of progress as "from status

to contract," from a world in which a child's whole life is pre-determined by the circumstances of

his birth, toward one of mobility and choice.

The publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species in 1859 introduced human evolution.

However, it was quickly transposed from its original biological field to the social field, in "social

Darwinism" theories. Herbert Spencer, who coined the term "survival of the fittest," or Lewis

Henry Morgan in Ancient Society (1877) developed evolutionist theories independent from

Darwin's works, which would be later interpreted as social Darwinism. These 19th-

century unilineal evolution theories claimed that societies start out in a primitive state and

gradually become morecivilised over time, and equated the culture and technology of Western

civilisation with progress.

Ernst Haeckel formulated his recapitulation theory in 1867, which stated that "ontogeny

recapitulates phylogeny": the evolution of each individual reproduces the species' evolution, such

as in the development of embryos. Hence, a child goes through all the steps from primitive

society to modern society. This was later discredited.[citation needed] Haeckel did not support Darwin's

theory of natural selection introduced inThe Origin of Species (1859), rather believing in

a Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics.

Progress was not necessarily, however, positive. Arthur Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of

the Human Races (1853–55) was adecadent description of the evolution of the "Aryan race"

which was disappearing through miscegenation. Gobineau's works had a large popularity in the

so-called scientific racism theories that developed during the New Imperialism period.

After the first world war, and even before Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979) harshly criticized it,

the Whig interpretation had gone out of style. The bloodletting of that conflict had indicted the

whole notion of linear progress. Paul Valéry famously said: "We civilizations now know

ourselves mortal."

However, the notion itself didn't completely disappear. The End of History and the Last

Man (1992) by Francis Fukuyama proposed a similar notion of progress, positing that the

worldwide adoption of liberal democracies as the single accredited political system and even

modality of human consciousness would represent the "End of History". Fukuyama's work stems

from an Kojevian reading of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (1807).

Unlike Maurice Godelier who interprets history as a process of transformation, Tim

Ingold suggests that history is a movement ofautopoiesis[10]

A key component to making sense of all of this is to simply recognize that all these issues in

social evolution merely serve to support the suggestion that how one considers the nature of

history will impact the interpretation and conclusions drawn about history. The critical under-

explored question is less about history as content and more about history as process.

[edit]The validity of the "Great man theory" in historical studies

Further information: The validity of the "hero" in historical studies and Great man theory

After Hegel, who insisted on the role of "great men" in history, with his famous statement

about Napoleon, "I saw the Spirit on his horse",Thomas Carlyle argued that history was the

biography of a few central individuals, heroes, such as Oliver Cromwell or Frederick the Great,

writing that "The history of the world is but the biography of great men." His heroes were

political and military figures, the founders or topplers of states. His history of great men, of

geniuses good and evil, sought to organize change in the advent of greatness. Explicit defenses of

Carlyle's position have been rare in the late 20th century. Most philosophers of history contend

that the motive forces in history can best be described only with a wider lens than the one he used

for his portraits. A.C. Danto, for example, wrote of the importance of the individual in history,

but extended his definition to include social individuals, defined as "individuals we may

provisionally characterize as containing individual human beings amongst their parts. Examples

of social individuals might be social classes [...], national groups [...], religious organizations [...],

large-scale events [...], large-scale social movements [...], etc." (Danto, "The Historical

Individual", 266, in Philosophical Analysis and History, edited by Williman H. Dray, Rainbow-

Bridge Book Co., 1966). The Great Man approach to history was most popular with professional

historians in the 19th century; a popular work of this school is the Encyclopædia Britannica

Eleventh Edition (1911), which contains lengthy and detailed biographies about the great men of

history. For example to read about (what is known today as) the "Migrations Period," consult the

biography of Attila the Hun.

After Marx's conception of a materialist history based on the class struggle, which raised attention

for the first time to the importance of social factors such as economics in the unfolding of

history, Herbert Spencer wrote "You must admit that the genesis of the great man depends on the

long series of complex influences which has produced the race in which he appears, and the

social state into which that race has slowly grown....Before he can remake his society, his society

must make him."

The Annales School, founded by Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch, were a major landmark on the

shift from a history centered on individual subjects to studies concentrating in geography,

economics, demography, and other social forces. Fernand Braudel's studies on theMediterranean

Sea as "hero" of history, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's history of climate, etc., were inspired by

this School.

[edit]Does history have a teleological sense?

For further information: Social progress and Progress (history)

Theodicy claimed that history had a progressive direction leading to an eschatological end, given

by a superior power. However, this transcendent teleological sense can be thought as immanent to

human history itself. Hegel probably represents the epitome of teleological philosophy of history.

Hegel's teleology was taken up by Francis Fukuyama in his The End of History and the Last

Man (see Social evolutionism above). Thinkers such as Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Althusser

or Deleuze deny any teleological sense to history, claiming that it is best characterized by

discontinuities, ruptures, and various time-scales, which the Annales School had demonstrated.

Schools of thought influenced by Hegel see history as progressive, too — but they saw, and see

progress as the outcome of a dialectic in which factors working in opposite directions are over

time reconciled (see above). History was best seen as directed by a Zeitgeist, and traces of the

Zeitgeist could be seen by looking backward. Hegel believed that history was moving man

toward "civilization", and some also claim he thought that the Prussian state incarnated the "End

of History". In his Lessons on the History of Philosophy, he explains that each epochal

philosophy is in a way the whole of philosophy; it is not a subdivision of the Whole but this

Whole itself apprehended in a specific modality.

[edit]Historical accounts of writing history

Further information: Historiography

A classic example of history being written by the victors—or more precisely, by the survivors[11]

—would be the scarcity of unbiased information that has come down to us[who?] about

the Carthaginians. Roman historians left tales of cruelty and human sacrifice practiced by their

longtime enemies; however no Carthaginian was left alive to give their side of the story.

Similarly, we only have the Christian side of how Christianity came to be the dominant religion

of Europe. However, we know very little about other European religions, such as Paganism.[citation

needed] We have the European version of the conquest of the Americas, with an interpretation of the

native version of events only emerging to popular consciousness since the early 1980s. We

have Herodotus's Greek history of the Persian Wars, but the Persian recall of the events is little

known in Western Culture.

In many respects, the head of state may be guilty of cruelties or even simply a different way of

doing things. In some societies, however, to speak of or write critically of rulers can amount to

conviction of treason and death. As such, in many ways, what is left as the "official record" of

events is oft influenced by one's desire to avoid exile or execution.

However, "losers" in certain time periods often have more of an impetus than the "winners" to

write histories that comfort themselves andjustify their own behavior.[11] Examples include the

historiography of the American Civil War, where it can be argued that the losers (Southerners)

have written more history books on the subject than the winners and, until recently, dominated

the national perception of history. Confederate generals such as Lee and Jackson are generally

held in higher esteem than their Union counterparts. Popular films such as Cold Mountain, Gone

with the Wind and The Birth of a Nation have told the story from the Southern viewpoint. Also,

despite "losing" theVietnam War, the United States produces more scholarship on the war than

any other country, including Vietnam.[12] Popular history abounds with condemnations of the

cruelty of African slave traders and colonists, despite the "winning" status of those people in their

heyday.[11]

As is true of pre-Columbian populations of America, the historical record of America

being "discovered" by Europeans is now sometimes presented as a history of invasion,

exploitation and dominance of a people who had been there before the Europeans. This

reinterpretation of the historical record is called historical revisionism, which can take the form

of negationism, which is the denial of genocides and crimes against humanity. The revision of

previously accepted historical accounts is a constant process in which "today's winners are

tomorrow's losers", and the rise and fall of present institutions and movements influence the way

historians see the past.[11] In the same sense, the teaching, in French secondary schools, of

the Algerian War of Independence and of colonialism, has been criticized by several historians,

and is the subject of frequent debates. Thus, in contradiction with the February 23, 2005 law on

colonialism, voted by the UMP conservative party, historian Benjamin Stora notes that:

As Algerians do not appear in their "indigenous" conditions and their sub-citizens status, as

the history of nationalist movementis never evoqued, as none of the great figures of the resistance

— Messali Hadj, Ferhat Abbas — emerge nor retain attention, in one word, as no one explains to

students what has been colonisation, we make them unable to understand why the decolonisation

took place.[13]

Obviously the victors do have advantages in promoting their version of events, even if they don't

erase their enemies completely from existence. The victors may have control over the churches,

the courts and schools. This may give the ruling elites nearly total control over the molding of

consciousness and discourse over those they rule. In dictatorships, ruthless censorship allows

only the state-approved version of events to be made public, and much that happened remains

secret if it proved hurtful to the ruling elite. Liberal democracies are not immune however. In the

West for example, the concentration of media into ever fewer hands has given the captains of

major media and the Public Relations industry increased control over the parameters of public

discourse that form the boundaries of debate we all have in classrooms, and with friends and co-

workers on matters such as war and politics.

[edit]Michel Foucault's analysis of historical and political discourse

The historico-political discourse analyzed by Michel Foucault in Society Must Be

Defended (1975–76) considered truth as the fragile product of a historical struggle, first

conceptualized under the name of "race struggle" — however, "race"'s meaning was different

from today's biological notion, being closer to the sense of "nation" (distinct from nation-states;

its signification is here closer to "people"). Boulainvilliers, for example, was an exponent of

nobility rights. He claimed that the French nobility were the racial descendants of the Franks who

invaded France (while the Third Estate was descended from the conquered Gauls), and had right

to power by virtue of right of conquest. He used this approach to formulate a historical thesis of

the course of French political history—a critique of both the monarchy and the Third Estate.

Foucault regarded him as the founder of the historico-political discourse as political weapon.

In Great Britain, this historico-political discourse was used by the bourgeoisie, the people and the

aristocracy as a means of struggle against the monarchy - cf. Edward Coke or John Lilburne. In

France, Boulainvilliers, Nicolas Fréret, and then Sieyès, Augustin

Thierry and Cournotreappropriated this form of discourse. Finally, at the end of the 19th century,

this discourse was incorporated by racialist biologists andeugenicists, who gave it the modern

sense of "race" and, even more, transformed this popular discourse into a "state racism" (Nazism).

According to Foucault, Marxists also seized this discourse and took it in a different direction,

transforming the essentialist notion of "race" into the historical notion of "class struggle", defined

by socially structured position: capitalist or proletarian. This displacement of discourse

constitutes one of the bases of Foucault's thought: discourse is not tied to the subject, rather the

"subject" is a construction of discourse. Moreover, discourse is not the simple ideological and

mirror reflexion of an economical infrastructure, but is a product and the battlefield of multiples

forces—which may not be reduced to the simple dualist contradiction of two energies.

Foucault shows that what specifies this discourse from the juridical and philosophical discourse is

its conception of truth: truth is no longer absolute, it is the product of "race struggle". History

itself, which was traditionally the sovereign's science, the legend of his glorious feats, became the

discourse of the people, a political stake. The subject is not any more a neutral arbitrate, judge

or legislator, as in Solon's orKant's conceptions. Therefore, - what became - the "historical

subject" must search in history's furor, under the "juridical code's dried blood", the

multiple contingencies from which a fragile rationality temporarily finally emerged. This may be,

perhaps, compared to the sophistdiscourse in Ancient Greece. Foucault warns that it has nothing

to do with Machiavelli's or Hobbes's discourse on war, for to this popular discourse,

the Sovereign is nothing more than "an illusion, an instrument, or, at the best, an enemy. It is {the

historico-political discourse} a discourse that beheads the king, anyway that dispenses itself from

the sovereign and that denounces it".

[edit]History and education

Further information: Education, Pedagogy, and Philosophy of education

Since Plato's Republic, civic education and instruction has had a central role in politics and the

constitution of a common identity. History has thus sometimes become the target of propaganda,

for example in historical revisionist attempts. Plato's insistence on the importance of education

was relayed by Rousseau's Emile: Or, On Education (1762), a necessary counterpart

of The Social Contract (also 1762). Public education has been seen by republican regimes and the

Enlightenment as a prerequisite of the masses' progressive emancipation, as conceived

by Kant in Was Ist Aufklärung? (What Is Enlightenment?, 1784).

The creation of modern education systems, instrumental in the construction of nation-states, also

passed by the elaboration of a common, national history. History textbooks are one of the many

ways through which this common history was transmitted. Le Tour de France par deux enfants,

for example, was the Third Republic's classic textbook for elementary school: it described the

story of two French children who, following the German annexation of the Alsace-

Lorraine region in 1870, go on a tour de France during which they become aware of France's

diversity and the existence of the various patois.

In most societies, schools and curricula are controlled by governments. As such, there is always

an opportunity for governments to impose. Granted, often governments in free societies serve to

protect freedoms, check hate speech and breaches of constitutional rights; but the power itself to

impose is available to use the education system to influence thought of malleable minds,

positively or negatively, towards truth or towards a version of truth. A recent example of the

fragility of government involvement with history textbooks was the Japanese history textbook

controversies.

[edit]Narrative and history

A current popular conception considers the value of narrative in the writing and experience of

history. Important analysts in this area includePaul Ricœur, Louis Mink, W.B. Gallie and Hayden

White. Some have doubted this approach because it draws fictional and historical narrative closer

together, and there remains a perceived “fundamental bifurcation between historical and fictional

narrative” (Ricœur, vol. 1, 52). In spite of this, most modern historians, such as Barbara

Tuchman or David McCullough, would consider narrative writing important to their approaches.

The theory of narrated history (or historicized narrative) holds that the structure of lived

experience, and such experience narrated in both fictional and non-fictional works (literature and

historiography) have in common the figuration of ‘’temporal experience." In this way, narrative

has a generously encompassing ability to “‘grasp together’ and integrate[] into one whole and

complete story” the “composite representations” of historical experience (Ricœur x, 173). Louis

Mink writes that, “the significance of past occurrences is understandable only as they are

locatable in the ensemble of interrelationships that can be grasped only in the construction of

narrative form” (148). Marxist theorist Fredric Jameson also analyzes historical understanding

this way, and writes that “history is inaccessible to us except in textual form […] it can be

approached only by way of prior (re)textualization” (82).

[edit]History as propaganda: Is history always written by the victors?

See also: Truth by consensus

In his "Society must be Defended", Michel Foucault posited that the victors of a social struggle

use their political dominance to suppress a defeated adversary's version of historical events in

favor of their own propaganda, which may go so far as historical revisionism (see Michel

Foucault's analysis of historical and political discourse above). Nations adopting such an

approach would likely fashion a "universal" theory of history to support their aims, with a

teleological and deterministic philosophy of history used to justify the inevitableness and

rightness of their victories (see The Enlightenment's ideal of progress above). Philosopher Paul

Ricoeur has written of the use of this approach by totalitarian and Nazi regimes, with such

regimes "exercis[ing] a virtual violence upon the diverging tendencies of history" (History and

Truth183), and with fanaticism the result. For Ricoeur, rather than a unified, teleological

philosophy of history, "We carry on several histories simultaneously, in times whose periods,

crises, and pauses do not coincide. We enchain, abandon, and resume several histories, much as a

chess player who plays several games at once, renewing now this one, now the another" (History

and Truth 186). For Ricoeur, Marx's unified view of history may be suspect, but is nevertheless

seen as:

the philosophy of history par excellence: not only does it provide a formula for the dialectics of

social forces—under the name of historical materialism—but it also sees in the proletarian class

the reality, which is at once universal and concrete and which, although it be oppressed today,

will constitute the unity of history in the future. From this standpoint, the proletarian perspective

furnishes both a theoretical meaning of history and a practical goal for history, a principle of

explication and a line of action. (History and Truth 183)

Walter Benjamin believed that Marxist historians must take a radically different view point from

the bourgeois and idealist points of view, in an attempt to create a sort of history from below,

which would be able to conceive an alternative conception of history, not based, as in classical

historical studies, on the philosophical and juridical discourse of sovereignty--an approach that

would invariably adhere to major states (the victors') points of view.

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is a fictional account of the manipulation of the historical

record for nationalist aims and manipulation of power. In the book, he wrote, "He who controls

the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future." The creation of a

"national story" by way of management of the historical record is at the heart of the debate about

history as propaganda. To some degree, all nations are active in the promotion of such "national

stories," with ethnicity, nationalism, gender, power, heroic figures, class considerations and

important national events and trends all clashing and competing within the narrative.

[edit]See also

Whig history is the approach to historiography which presents the past as an inevitable progression towards ever greater liberty andenlightenment, culminating in modern forms of liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy. In general, Whig historians stress the rise ofconstitutional government, personal freedoms and scientific progress. The term is often applied generally (and pejoratively) to histories that present the past as the inexorable march of progress toward enlightenment. The term is also used extensively in the history of science for historiography that focuses on the successful chain of theories and experiments that lead to present-day science, while ignoring failed theories and dead ends.[1] Whig history has many similarities with the Marxist theory of history, which believes that humanity is moving (through historical stages) to the classless, egalitarian society of communism.[2][3]

Whig history is a form of Liberalism, that puts its faith in the power of human reason to reshape society for the better, regardless of past history and tradition. It demonstrates the inevitable progress of mankind. Its opposite is conservative history or "Toryism." English historianA.J.P. Taylor explains, "Toryism rests on doubt in human nature; it distrusts improvement, clings to traditional institutions, prefers the past to the future. It is a sentiment rather than a principle."[4]

Contents

  [hide] 

1   Terminology

2   Butterfield's intervention

o 2.1   Butterfield's formulation

o 2.2   Subsequent views

3   The Whig historians within a tradition

4   Other applications of the term

o 4.1   In the history of science

o 4.2   As teleology

o 4.3   In popular culture

5   Further reading

6   See also

7   Notes

8   External links

[edit]Terminology

The British historian Herbert Butterfield coined the term "Whig history" in his small but influential book The Whig Interpretation of History(1931). It takes its name from the British Whigs, advocates of the power of Parliament, who opposed the Tories, advocates of the power of theKing.

The term has been applied widely in historical disciplines outside of British history (the history of science, for example) to criticize anyteleological or goal-directed, hero-based, and transhistorical narrative. The abstract noun "Whiggishness" is sometimes used as a generic term for Whig historiography. It should not be confused with "Whiggism", which is a political ideology, and has no direct relation to either theBritish Whig or American Whig parties. (The term "Whiggery" is ambiguous in contemporary usage: it may either mean party politics and ideology, or a general intellectual approach.)

[edit]Butterfield's intervention

When H. A. L. Fisher in 1928 gave the Raleigh Lecture on The Whig Historians, from Sir James Mackintosh to Sir George Trevelyan he implied that "Whig historian" was adequately taken as a political rather than a progressive or teleological label; this put the concept into play.[5] P. B. M. Blaas has argued that Whig history itself had lost all vitality by 1914.[6]

Butterfield's book on the 'Whig interpretation' marked the emergence of a negative concept in historiography under a convenient phrase, but was not isolated. Undermining 'whiggish' narratives was one aspect of the post-World War I re-evaluation of European history in general, and Butterfield's critique exemplified this trend. Subsequent generations of academic historians have similarly rejected Whig history because of its presentist and teleological bent. According to Victor Feske, there is too much readiness to accept Butterfield's classic formulation from 1931 as definitive.[7] A study, Herbert Butterfield and the Interpretation of History by Keith Sewell, was published in 2005.

[edit]Butterfield's formulation

The characteristics of Whig history as defined by Butterfield include interpreting history as a story of progress toward the present, and specifically toward the British constitutional settlement. Butterfield wrote:

“ It is part and parcel of the whig interpretation of history that it studies the past with reference to the present [...][8] ”

Typical distortions thereby introduced are:

Viewing the British parliamentary, constitutional monarchy as the apex of human political development;

Assuming that the constitutional monarchy was in fact an ideal held throughout all ages of the past, despite the observed facts of British history and the several power struggles between monarchs and parliaments;

Assuming that political figures in the past held current political beliefs (anachronism); Assuming that British history was a march of progress whose inevitable outcome was the

constitutional monarchy; and Presenting political figures of the past as heroes, who advanced the cause of this political

progress, or villains, who sought to hinder its inevitable triumph.[9]

Butterfield argued that this approach to history compromised the work of the historian in several ways. The emphasis on the inevitability of progress leads to the mistaken belief that the progressive sequence of events becomes "a line of causation," tempting the historian to go no further to investigate the causes of historical change.[10] The focus on the present as the goal of historical change leads the historian to a special kind of abridgement, selecting only those events that seem important from the present point of view.[11]

Butterfield's antidote to Whig history was "to evoke a certain sensibility towards the past, the sensibility which studies the past 'for the sake of the past', which delights in the concrete and the complex, which 'goes out to meet the past', which searches for 'unlikenesses between past and present'".[12]

[edit]Subsequent views

Butterfield's formulation has subsequently received much attention, and the kind of historical writing he argued against in generalised terms is no longer academically respectable. Despite its polemical success, Butterfield's celebrated book itself has been criticised by David Cannadine as slight, confused, repetitive and superficial.[13]

Michael Bentley [14]  analyses the "Whig theory" according to Butterfield as equivalent to the formation of a canon of 19th-century historians of England (such as William Stubbs, James Anthony Froude, E. A. Freeman, J. R. Green, W. E. H. Lecky, Lord Acton, J. R. Seeley, S. R. Gardiner, C. H. Firth and J. B. Bury) that in fact excludes few except Thomas Carlyle; the theory identifies the common factors. Bentley comments that,

Carlyle apart, the so-called Whigs were predominantly Christian, predominantly Anglican,

thinkers for whom the Reformationsupplied the critical theatre of enquiry when considering the

origins of modern England. When they wrote about the history of the English constitution, as so

many of them did, they approached their story from the standpoint of having Good News to

relate.

Roger Scruton, in his A Dictionary of Political Thought (1982), takes the theory underlying "Whig history" to be centrally concerned withsocial progress and reaction, with the progressives shown as victors and benefactors. Cannadine[15] wrote of the English tradition that:

It was fiercely partisan and righteously judgemental, dividing the personnel of the past into the

good and the bad. And it did so on the basis of the marked preference for liberal and progressive

causes, rather than conservative and reactionary ones. [...] Whig history was, in short, an

extremely biassed view of the past: eager to hand out moral judgements, and distorted by

teleology, anachronism and present-mindedness.

[edit]The Whig historians within a tradition

Paul Rapin de Thoyras's history of England was published in 1723 and became "the classic Whig history" for the first half of the 18th century.[16] Rapin claimed that the English had preserved their ancient constitution against the absolutist tendencies of the Stuarts. Rapin's history was, however, replaced as the standard history of England in the late 18th century and early 19th century by that of David Hume. Hume challenged Whig views of the past and the Whig historians in turn attacked Hume; but they could not dent his history.

In the early 19th century some Whig historians came to incorporate Hume's views, dominant for the previous fifty years. These historians were members of the New Whigs around Charles James Fox and Lord Holland, in opposition until 1830, and so "needed a new historical philosophy".[17] Fox himself intended to write a history of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 but only managed the first year of James II's reign. A fragment was published in 1808. James Mackintosh then sought to write a Whig history of the Glorious Revolution, published in 1834 as the History of the Revolution in England in 1688. William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–9) and Henry Hallam'sConstitutional History of England (1827) reveal many Whiggish traits. According to Arthur Marwick,[18] Hallam was the first Whig historian.

Hume still dominated English historiography but this changed when Thomas Babington Macaulay, utilising Fox and Mackintosh's work and manuscript collections, published the first volumes of his History of England in 1848. It was an immediate success, replacing Hume's history and becoming the new orthodoxy.[19] While Macaulay was a popular and celebrated historian of the Whig school, his work did not feature in Butterfield's 1931 book. According to Ernst Breisach [20]  "his style captivated the public as did his good sense of the past and firm Whiggish convictions". Perhaps the pinnacle of Whig history is his widely read multivolume History of England from the Accession of James II. Macaulay's first chapter proposes that:

I shall relate how the new settlement was, during many troubled years, successfully

defended against foreign and domestic enemies; how, under that settlement, the authority

of law and the security of property were found to be compatible with a liberty of

discussion and of individual action never before known; how, from the auspicious union

of order and freedom, sprang a prosperity of which the annals of human affairs had

furnished no example; how our country, from a state of ignominious vassalage, rapidly

rose to the place of umpire among European powers; how her opulence and her martial

glory grew together; how, by wise and resolute good faith, was gradually established a

public credit fruitful of marvels which to the statesmen of any former age would have

seemed incredible; how a gigantic commerce gave birth to a maritime power, compared

with which every other maritime power, ancient or modern, sinks into insignificance;

how Scotland, after ages of enmity, was at length united to England, not merely by legal

bonds, but by indissoluble ties of interest and affection; how, in America, the British

colonies rapidly became far mightier and wealthier than the realms

which Cortes and Pizarro had added to the dominions of Charles the Fifth; how in Asia,

British adventurers founded an empire not less splendid and more durable than that

of Alexander.

... (T)he history of our country during the last hundred and sixty years is eminently the

history of physical, of moral, and of intellectual improvement.

A crucial figure in the later survival and respectability of Whig history was William Stubbs, the constitutional historian and influential teacher of a generation of historians. According to Reba Soffer [21]

“ His rhetorical gifts often concealed his combination of High Church Anglicanism, Whig history, and civic responsibility. ”

George Kitson Clark writes[22]

“ ...the survival of the myth through the times of Stubbs is one of the most interesting and significant facts in its history. [...] ... indeed it was largely later 19th century historians who converted that very equivocal, essentially medieval characterSimon de Montfort into a forward-looking, Liberal-minded statesman with a profound understanding of the virtues of representative government. ”

[edit]Other applications of the term

[edit]In the history of science

It has been argued that the historiography of science is "riddled with Whiggish history".[23] Like other Whig histories, Whig history of science tends to divide historical actors into "good guys," who are on the side of truth (as we now know it) and "bad guys," who opposed the emergence of these truths because of ignorance or bias.[24] From this Whiggish perspective, Ptolemy would be criticized because his astronomical system placed the Earth at the center of the universe while Aristarchus would be praised because he placed the Sun at the center of the solar system. This kind of evaluation ignores historical background and the evidence that was available at a particular time: did Aristarchus have evidence to support his idea that the Sun was at the center; were there good reasons to reject Ptolemy's system before the 16th century?

The writing of Whig history of science is especially found in the writings of scientists[25] and general historians,[26] while this whiggish tendency is commonly opposed by professional historians of science. Nicholas Jardine describes the changing attitude to whiggishness this way:[27]

By the mid-1970s, it had become commonplace among historians of science to employ

the terms ‘Whig’ and ‘Whiggish’, often accompanied by one or more of ‘hagiographic’,

‘internalist’, ‘triumphalist’, even ‘positivist’, to denigrate grand narratives of scientific

progress. At one level there is, indeed, an obvious parallel with the attacks on Whig

constitutional history in the opening decades of the century. For, as P. B. M. Blaas has

shown, those earlier attacks were part and parcel of a more general onslaught in the name

of an autonomous, professional and scientific history, on popular, partisan and

moralising historiography. Similarly,... For post-WWII champions of the newly

professionalized history of science the targets were quite different. Above all, they were

out to establish a critical distance between the history of science and the teaching and

promotion of the sciences. In particular, they were suspicious of the grand celebratory

and didactic narratives of scientific discovery and progress that had proliferated in the

inter-war years.

More recently, some scholars have argued that Whig history is essential to the history of science. At one level, "the very term 'the history of science' has itself profoundly Whiggish implications. One may be reasonably clear what 'science' means in the 19th century and most of the 18th century. In the 17th century 'science' has very different meaning. For example chemistry is inextricably mixed up with alchemy. Before the 17th century dissecting out such a thing as 'science' in anything like the modern sense of the term involves profound distortions."[28] The science historians' rejection of whiggishness has been criticized by some scientists for failing to appreciate the temporal depth of scientific research.[29]

[edit]As teleology

In The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (1986, see anthropic principle for details) John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler identify Whiggishness (Whiggery) with a teleological principle, of 'convergence' in history to liberal democracy.[30]

[edit]In popular culture

Despite their shortcomings as interpretations of the past, Whiggish histories continue to influence popular understandings of political and social development. This persistence reflects the power of dramatic narratives that detail epic struggles for enlightened ideals. Aspects of the Whig interpretation are apparent in films, television, political rhetoric, and even history textbooks.[31]

Popular understandings of human evolution and paleoanthropology may be imbued with a form of "whiggishness". See, for example, the celebrated scientific illustration, The March of Progress (1965). Most portrayals and fictionalized adaptations of the Scopes Trial, such as inInherit the Wind (1955), subscribe to a Whig view of the trial and its aftermath. This was challenged by historian Edward J. Larson in his bookSummer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion (1997), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1998.[32]