Leopold von Ranke and the
‘Science’ of History
Dr Claudia Stein
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011
/feb/19/author-author-antony-beevor
Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886)
Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840)
Romanticism; Romantic period): intellectual, artistic, and
literary movement in Europe towards end of 18th century ca.1850).It was partly a reaction to the changes related to the
Industrial Revolution (e.g. scientific rationalisation of nature)
but also a turning against the social and political norms of the
Enlightenment. The Romantic movement considered strong
emotion – particularly in confronting nature - as an authentic
source of aesthetic experience (e.g. Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774)
Philology: is the study of language in written historical
sources. It is a combination of literary criticism, history, and
linguistics. It is more commonly defined as the study of
literary texts and written records, the establishment of
their authenticity and their original form, and the
determination of their meaning; aims at ‘critical editions’
Barthold Georg Niebuhr( 1776-1831)
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)
The strict presentation of facts, no matter how
condition and unattractive they might be is
undoubtedly the supreme law of any historian.’
Humboldt University, Berlin (ca. 1810)
Bildung: engl. education/formation but different
meaning; German tradition of self-cultivation,
wherein philosophy and education are linked in
manner that refers to a process of both personal
and cultural maturation. This maturation is
understood as a harmonisation of the individuals
mind/spirit and heart and in a unification of
selfhood with broader society (e.g. Bildungsbürger)
Wilhelm von Humboldt (17671835)
… to such high office the present work does
not presume; it seeks to only show the past
‘how it essentially was’ (wie es eigentlich
gewesen)
(History of the Latin and Teutonic Peoples, 1824)
Error of translation: eigentlich – really
eigentlich -- essentially
Geisteswissenschaft(en) (human science(s) – Naturwissenschaft(en)
(natural sciences)
both are
Wissenschaft(en) (science(s): any scholarship that follows a systematic
methodology
Historismus (Historicism/Historism)
:
‘History is the way in which humanity becomes
and is conscious of itself. The epochs of history
are ... the stages of self-knowledge, its
knowledge of the world, its knowledge of God ...
History is humanity’s awareness of itself, its selfconsciousness.’
Johann Gustav Droysen (1808-1884)
Geist (spirit, sometimes also translated as
mind)
Georg Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
"World history... represents the development
of the spirit's consciousness of its own
freedom and of the consequent realization of
this freedom.”
This realization is seen by studying the various
cultures that have developed over the
millennia, and trying to understand the way
that freedom has worked itself out through
them.
Positivism:
philosophy that considers the only authentic knowledge is knowledge that is
based on actual sense experience; Such knowledge can only come from affirmation
Of theories through strict scientific method. Any metaphysical speculation is to be
avoided.
An event is only partially visible in the world
of the senses, the rest has to be added by
intuition, inferences and guesswork. The
manifestations of an advent are scattered,
disjointed, isolated. What it is that gives unity
to this patchwork, puts the isolated fragments
into a proper perspective, and gives shape to
the whole, remains removed from direct
observation. It is the historian who must
separate the necessary from the accidental,
uncover its inner structure and make visible
the truly activating forces.
(Humboldt, On the Historians Task)
The past is united through God- therefore no progress in history:
‘It is not necessary for us to prove at length
that the eternal dwells in the individual. This is
the religious foundation in which our efforts
rest. We believe that there is nothing without
God, and nothing lives except through God.’
‘Every epoch is immediate to God and its
worth is not at all based on what derives from
it but rests in its own existence, in its own self’
‘Every human being, something eternal, comes
from God, and this is a vital principle.’
Ranke’s obsession with ‘the state’:
‘A nation must feel independent in order to
develop freely… It is necessary for the state to
organise all its international resources for the
purpose of self-preservation.’
Historians do not judge the past BUT:
‘It would be impossible not to have one’s own opinion
in the midst of all the struggles of power and of ideas
which bear within them decisions of the greatest
magnitude. Even so, the essence of impartiality can be
preserved. For this consists merely in recognizing the
positions occupied by the acting forces and in
respecting the unique relationships, which
characterize each of them. One observes how these
forces appear in their distinctive identity, confront and
struggle with one another; the events and the fates,
which dominate the world, take place in this
opposition. Objectivity is also always impartiality.’
‘The
historians task, however, is at once
art and science (in the sense of
Wissenschaft not natural science!). It
has to fulfil all the demands of criticism
and scholarship to the same degree as a
philosophical work; but at the same
time it is supposed to give the same
pleasure to the educated mind as the
most perfect literary creation.’
‘Objective’ accounts are, according to the
philosopher of science, attempts to
capture the nature of the object studied in
a way that does not depend on any
features of the particular subject who
studies it. An objective account is, in this
sense, impartial, one, which could ideally
be accepted by any subject, because it
does not draw on any assumptions,
prejudices, or values of particular
subjects’.
Stephen Gaukroger, in: N. J. Smelse and P. B. Baltes, P. B.
(eds.) International Encyclopedia of the Social and
Behavioral Sciences (Oxford, 2001), pp. 10785.