ankersmit and historical representation- john zammito
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Wesleyan University
Ankersmit and Historical RepresentationAuthor(s): John ZammitoSource: History and Theory, Vol. 44, No. 2 (May, 2005), pp. 155-181Published by: Blackwell Publishing for Wesleyan UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3590894 .
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HistoryndTheory4 (May2005),155-181 0 Wesleyan niversity005ISSN: 018-2656
ANKERSMIT AND HISTORICAL REPRESENTATIONI
JOHN ZAMMITO
Historicaldebateis a semanticquarrelnot about the exact
meaningof words,but aboutthepast. (HR:62)
ABSTRACT
In Historical RepresentationFrankAnkersmitseeks ajuste milieu between postmodern
theoryand historicalpractice.But he still insists that the meaning of a historicalrepre-sentation "is notfound, but madein andby [the] text."Thus"therewill be nothing,out-
side the text itself, thatcan governor check [theconceptualization]."Accordingly,"a(his-
torical)representationtself cannot be interpreted s one large(trueor false) description.I would nothesitate to say thatthis-and nothingelse-is the centralproblem n the phi-
losophy of history."On the other hand, he affirms that "a historicalrepresentation is
about'a certainpartof thepast," hat historicaldebate s a "semanticquarrelnot abouttheexact meaningof words,butabout the past."Everythinghingeson how to graspthis idea
of "aboutness."
I propose an alternativereadingof post-positivistphilosophyof science in hopes of
reachingthejuste milieu. The issue is whethercolligatoryconceptsin historyhavea more
radically constructedcharacterthan theoretical terms in natural-scientific heory, and
whether,as with the latter,they can make intersubjective laims to warrant.My view is
thatcolligatory concepts in historicalrepresentationsan be conceived to referin rough-
ly the same way thattheoretical erms do in natural-scientificheories.
All the problemsI find in Ankersmit'sapproachcome to the fore in his fruitful analo-
gy to portraitpainting.First,the personality heportrait vokes is notrestricted o the rep-
resentation,but is of the sitter.We are offered insightnot (merely)into paintingbut into
anactualcharacter.That s, there s a cognitive,not simplyanaesthetic,dimensionto rep-resentation. Historicalterms pick out something intersubjectivelyaffirmable n reality,and discriminations possible among rival versions.The questionis how to regard-to
explainandto evaluate-these underdetermined bjectsof consideration,not to precludethemby stipulation.
I. INTRODUCTION
"The time has come to find the juste milieu between the linguisticinnocence of
traditional historical theory and the hyperbole of some postmodern theorists,"
Frank Ankersmit announces in the opening pages of Historical Representation
1. Referencesto Ankersmit'stwo key works will be providedparentheticallyn the text as fol-
lows: F. R. Ankersmit,Historical Representation(Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 2001) as
"HR:p" nd F. R.Ankersmit,NarrativeLogic:A SemanticAnalysisof the Historian'sLanguage(The
Hague:MartinusNijhoff, 1983) as "NL:p."
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156 JOHNZAMMITO
(HR:21). Bravo By now we have had well enough of extremists from either
wing. It is altogether o be welcomed that Ankersmithas moved away from the
extremepostmodernismwith which he was earlieraffiliated,and with which he
is often still lumped (by both camps).2I proposeto considercarefullyhis pro-
posals for ajuste milieuthatpracticinghistorianscould reasonablyshare.
The crucial move Ankersmitmakes in Historical Representations to expose
a conflation,perilous for the understandingof history,between the "linguistic
turn"in analytic philosophy, from Frege to Quine/Rorty,and the "linguistic"
claims of literary theory,which trace forward from Ferdinandde Saussure via
structuralism o Derrida,Foucault, and their postmodernepigoni. While both
trains of thoughtassert the centralityof language,what they mean by thatand
how they would apply it to historical practice diverge radically.Ankersmit
strongly asserts this "asymmetrybetween the claims of the linguistic turn and
those of literary theory" (HR:29). He argues that historians should willingly
acceptthe implicationsof the philosophical inguistic turnfor theirpractice,but
they "should be wary of introducing literary theory into historical theory"
(HR:21). This is because (some) literary theory has in fact flirted with a "lin-
guistic idealism"for which "referenceandmeaningarerarelymore than a set of
patheticand ill-considered obiterdicta,"and such theoryinvites historiansdis-
astrously"to cut throughall the ties between historical narrativeand what it is
about" HR:21).Ankersmitupholds, againstthis hyperbolicpostmodernism, he
"rationalityf the historical
discipline"HR:28).
Bythisdecisive discrimination,
I believe, he has advancedus substantially owardthe desired uste milieu.
But what is the "rationalityof the historical discipline,"as Ankersmit con-
ceives it, and does it tally with the self-conceptionof practitionersof the disci-
pline?Of course,one mighttake theview thatthe disciplineis notone: that t has
fragmentedso thoroughlythat any characterization f it as a whole, and espe-
cially one thatupholds ts "rationality,"an appearmerewhistlingin thedark.Or
one mighttake the morelong-standingview that historiansareincapableof the-
oretical self-reflection: that this is a discipline of the inveterately "naive."
Ankersmit s awareof these anxieties.Philosophically,
hesteps beyond
them-
andwe should,with him. He undertakes o understandwhat is involved in "the
historian'sattempt o give an acceptableaccount of partof the past"(NL:207).
The questionswe mustexploreare: what makes somethingan "account?"What
makes it "acceptable?"How does it relate to (partof) the actual past?To make
furtherheadway toward the juste milieu, I suggest, finding possible "transla-
tions" betweenthe differentconceptualschemes embracedby Ankersmitandby
practicinghistorians s critical. Once "indeterminacy"ardens nto "incommen-
surability,"dialogueis foreclosed and we fall back into hyperbolic stipulations.
Incommensurabilitys the dead end of the
"linguisticturn"-where Kuhn inter-
2. For Ankersmit'searlier,more strident one, see "HistoriographyndPostmodernism,"Historyand Theory28 (1989), 137-154,and his "Replyto ProfessorZagorin,"Historyand Theory29 (1990),275-296. On that earlierAnkersmit,see my essay, "Ankersmit'sPostmodernHistoriography:The
Hyperboleof 'Opacity,"'Historyand Theory37 (1998), 330-346. I thank Frank or manylong and
fruitfulconversationssince thatpublication hat have broughtus bothfar closerto ajuste milieu.
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ANKERSMITAND HISTORICALREPRESENTATION 157
sects Foucault,and Rorty intersectsDerrida,in the hyperbolicpostmodernismthatAnkersmithas now foresworn.3
II.ANKERSMIT'STHEORYOF REPRESENTATION ND EPISTEMOLOGY
For Ankersmit,the issue essentially boils down to discriminating, n Richard
Rorty'swords,"whenwe areresponding o the compulsionof 'language'rather
thanthatof 'experience.'"'4WhileRortyfreightshis sentencewithironyvia scare
quotes around both language and experience,Ankersmit takes up these terms
without reservation,droppingthe scare quotes and employing the categories
throughouthis text.5He suggeststhat we thinkof the contrastas between"speak-
ing" and a (meta-)levelof "speakingaboutspeaking" HR:30).The firstdirects
attention oreality
andthe second, tolanguage-in Frege's
terms,to considera-
tions of referenceandconsiderationsof meaning,respectively.6Ankersmit detects a possibility largely neglected in this conventionalepiste-
mology. Conventionpresumesall problemsof semanticsand of epistemologycan be explored at the level of the sentence or statement(NL:58). Ankersmit
claims that sets of statements-texts or "narratios" r verbalrepresentations-have logical and epistemologicalpeculiaritiesthatdemandphilosophicalatten-
tion. For him, such sets takenas wholes expand ontology: they addnew things
("narrative ubstances")to the world. In a word, there are some things that
belongboth to
languageand to
reality,and historical
representationsre a
pri-maryinstance."Ahistoricalrepresentations a thing thatis made of language"
(HR:13). The pointAnkersmitwants to make,withoutfalling backinto the ana-
lytic/syntheticdichotomy,is that "languagecan be a truthmakerno less than
reality" HR:13). He is persuaded hat as one moves fromthe natural ciences to
thehumanities,"theindeterminacy f truthby this compulsionof experienceand
truthby the compulsion of language will increase to the extent that it will be
moredifficult to pin down with precisionwhich partof languagecorresponds o
what chunkof reality" HR:37).Inhistoricalrepresentations-includingnotonlyclassic
"colligatoryconcepts"ike
periodizationerms
(Renaissance,Enlighten-ment) but even theoreticalconcepts (for example, revolution,bourgeoisie, or
war) andterritorialerms(for example,Poland or Prussia)-"issues of meaningandissues of empiricalfact tend to become indistinguishable"HR:33-34). Still,
3. This is the conclusion of my investigation in A Nice Derangement of Epistemes: Post-
Positivism in theStudyof Science rom QuinetoLatour ChicagoandLondon:Universityof Chicago
Press,2004).4. RichardRorty,Philosophyand the Mirrorof Nature (Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,
1979), 169, cited by Ankersmit,HR:32. His crucialpointof departure,here (HR:31),is Willardvan
OrmanQuine's 1950 essay on the two dogmasof empiricism,with its seminalcritiqueof the analyt-
ic/syntheticdistinctionand its
proclamationof "semanticascent." See
Quine,"Two
Dogmasof
Empiricism," n Quine, From a Logical Point of View,2nd rev. ed. (Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1980), 20-46. See also my chapter on Quine and post-positivism in A Nice
Derangementof Epistemes,15-50.
5. It is always dangerous o miss Rorty'sironies,for he is, indeed,as hyperbolic(in Ankersmit's
sense) as any literarytheorist,thoughhis irony masks his hyperbole superbly.However,we must
leave Rortyto his insouciance andsimplyfollow Ankersmit'sconstructiveendeavor.
6. GottlobFrege, "OberSinn und Bedeutung,"Zeitschrift iir Philosophie undphilosophischeKritik 100 (1892), 25-50.
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158 JOHNZAMMITO
he draws a conservativeconclusion: "theonly legitimateinferencepermittedbythe linguisticturn s thatin historytruthmay have its originsin the compulsionsof languageno less thanin those of experience" HR:34).
Ankersmit'sstrategy s to focus on "thetrajectory rom evidence to the text,"
on historicalwriting(an areaof inquiryneglected by historical heory,whichhas
traditionallyconcentratedon historicalresearch)."Getting o know the facts is
only a preliminary .. [the]realproblem s how to integrate he facts into a con-
sistent historical narrative" NL:8). Ankersmithighlightsthe historian'sconsti-
tutive role in interpretation; e wants us to be drawnto reflexivityabout this
interpretive ndeavor.This concern,he insists, is "asupplementrather han... a
replacement"of traditional concern with evidence in philosophy of history."Deconstructionistsat least the more sensible amongthem)recognizethat both
the compulsionof experienceand the compulsionof languagehave theirroles to
play in historicalunderstanding"HR:49). Postmodernists,on his view, never
questionthe relationbetween individualdescriptivestatementsas evidence and
the historicalrealityto which they determinately efer,but ratheronly "the rela-
tionshipbetween historical anguage(orthe text toutcourt)on the one hand and
pastrealityon the other" HR:51).While I think this is unduly generousto other
postmodernists, acceptit as a characterization f Ankersmit'sown view. Onthe
other hand, it seems ungenerousfor him to allege that "empiricists" myself
included)believe "thatnothing of any interesthappenson the trajectory rom
evidence to the text"(HR:51).Assuredly,
muchdoes. I would even enlist insup-portof his dramaticclaim that"there s more betweenlanguageandrealitythan
[conventional]epistemologyhas ever dreamed" HR:225).Yet I hold out that he
has stipulatedsuch restrictivenotions of epistemology,evidence, and truththat
he seems to be preempting,rather hanrefuting,the questionof warrantat the
level of representations.Ankersmitdrawsa starkdistinctionbetweenwhathe terms"description" nd
whathe terms"representation." escriptionhas to do exclusively with individ-
ual statementsof fact. In such statementsthe subjectterm refers in a rigoroussemantic sense to
something determinatelyreal, and the
predicationdenotes
propertiesof that object that, accordingly,are subjectto falsification (HR:12).For Ankersmit,this level of sententialstatements of fact exhausts entirelythe
domain of epistemology andthe categoryof "truth."Truth,he urges, is simplythe affirmationof a correspondencebetween singularlinguistic statementsand
states of affairs n the world,in a Tarskianmanner canonically,"'snow is white'
if andonly if snow is white").7He proposesthat we "defineepistemologyas the
philosophicalsubdisciplinethat investigatesthe relationshipbetween cognitive
language and reality"in just this restrictive sense. That is, "epistemologyties
words to things,whereasrepresentationies thingsto things"(HR:82).In contrast o description, n representation"therepresentedand its represen-
tation have the same ontological status . . . both belong to the inventoryof the
world."Since they are boththings,and"thingsdo notrefer,""representationso
not refer to objects in reality.""Narrative anguage, language that is used for
7. On Tarski,see his most prominentrecent exponent,Donald Davidson, "InDefense of Con-
ventionT," n Davidson,Inquiriesinto TruthandInterpretationOxford:Clarendon,1984), 65-75.
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ANKERSMITAND HISTORICALREPRESENTATION 159
expressing a representation, s . . . opaque-as things are" (HR:13).8Accor-
dingly, "epistemologicalnotions such as reference, truth,and meaningwill not
enableus to understandhistoricalwriting"(HR:12). ForAnkersmit,representa-tion involves an entirelynew set of issues. He arguesthatrepresentationsmightbe compared o "propernames,"with all the perplexitiesphilosophershave rec-
ognized in fixing theirreference(HR:57-58). He takes this to signify that "the
exact meaningof such terms has always to be stipulated" HR:60). Statements
aboutpropernames(hencehistorical deas), forAnkersmit,merelyasserta "pro-attitude" owardthe definitionalcontentof the term,hence they offer an analyt-ic "speakingaboutspeaking" HR:47).Indeed,"representationslways bringus
to the level of 'speakingaboutspeaking' .. the level of metalanguage ixing the
relationshipbetween object-languageand the world ... in the same way as the
T-sentencesof Tarski"HR:291-292n).
Thus this isonly
a"compulsion
of lan-
guage," not one of experience. My impression,however, is that much philo-
sophical work on the "causal theory of reference" stresses precisely what
Ankersmitcalls "compulsionsof experience."9 ndeed, I will offer generallya
quitedifferentset of inferences frompost-positivism,with different mplicationsfor historicalpractice.
Ankersmitproposesa "doublegap"betweenrepresentation ndtherepresent-ed (HR:236-237).On the first level, a historicalrepresentations composedof a
set of statementsof fact (verfiabledescriptions).Each of these faces epistemo-
logical challengearisingfrom the occlusion of
"compulsionsof
experience"with
"compulsionsof language,"or,in morewidely usedlanguage,the "theory-laden-ness" of observations.10But, in addition,and of uniqueinterestand import,in
representationhere s an "ontological oraesthetic)gap,"a gapbetweentherep-
resentationas one thing, and the representedas another--or, rather, he gap is
precisely the question whether there is, ontologically speaking, a representedother than within or as the representation HR:237). At the sentential level,
"thingsexist independentlyof the statementswe can makeaboutthem" HR:83).
But "as soon as we give up the ontology of the single statement or the ontologyof
the set of statementswhose subjectterm no longerrefersto oneandthe same
entity in extralinguisticreality,coherenceis no longer guaranteedby the coher-
ence of thatobjectiveentity,butby whatevercoherenceandunitythe set of state-
mentsmay possess."That s, "its coherence s not ound,butmadein andby [the]
text"(HR:135). InNarrativeLogic,Ankersmitworksthrough ourphilosophical
conceptions of truthand concludes that none of them make any sense of the
notion of a "truthof the narratio" s a set of statements.He urges thatphiloso-
phy abandon he notionof truthat thatlevel (NL:77).Thereis no possible prin-
ciple of warrant or such representations:"thereare no translationrules which,
when carefully applied,can guarantee he objectivityof a narratio"NL:236).
8. My concern about"opacity"as a categoryinAnkersmit'soeuvrewas enunciated n my earlier
essay,"TheHyperboleof 'Opacity.'"9. On the causal theoryof reference,see the essays collected in Naming,Necessity,and Natural
Kinds,ed. StephenSchwartz(Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress, 1977).10. See MaryHesse, "IsThere anIndependentObservationLanguage?"n Hesse,Revolutionsand
Reconstructionsn thePhilosophy of Science (Bloomington: ndianaUniversityPress,1980),63-100.
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160 JOHN AMMITO
Ankersmit'scrucialstrategy s to work with a generic notion of representationto gleanfrom it philosophical everageon the specific problemof historicalrep-resentation:we should "see the historical text as a representationof the past in
much the same way that the work of art is a representation f what it depicts-
or, for thatmatter, n the way thatParliamentor Congressis a representation f
the electorate" HR:80).Ankersmitdevelops his theoryof representationbased
primarily upon artistic representations,particularlyvisual ones. He explicitly
acknowledges the influence of Arthur Danto in guiding his conceptualization
(HR:80).11Danto maintains hat a representationunctionsas a substitute or an
absentrepresented.Crucially, he characterof this substitution s left open;any-
thing might represent something else, and there is no requirementof resem-
blance, thatis, of sharedproperties.On the otherhand,"allrepresentation as to
satisfy certainrules, criteria,or standards or scale, coherence,and consistency
S. ." in orderto qualify as representation HR:144). Ankersmit'spoint is that
these are immanentfeaturesof representationand cannot be presumedto hold
isometricallyfor what is being represented.He proceeds to draw strong inferences from artistic representation or the
characterizationof historical writing. "Since the work of art belongs to the
domainof aesthetics,the same is true for all representations-and thus for his-
torical representation"HR:11). The criteriagoverningrepresentationsare pri-
mordially aesthetic-indeed, generally "aesthetics is prior to epistemology"
(HR:90).The aestheticrelationof therepresentation
o therepresented
onforms
to the linguistic trope of metaphor.Ankersmitwants us to recognize that we
never "see through"a metaphor as a transparentinguistic medium)but see in
termsof it (as anopaquething).That s, by "invitingus to see one thingfrom the
pointof view of another hing,metaphoreffects an organizationof knowledge"
(HR:138). A metaphor opens up the real by a juxtapositionwhich engenders
insight.12Ankersmit'sclaim for opacityhas a sense, here. Still, metaphor etains
a stubbornlyreferentialcomponent.Unless we canjuxtaposethe metaphor o its
target,and not simply to other metaphors, t is unclearhow insight into that of
whichit is ametaphor
anoccur,orhow itmight
now beappraised.
Of this I will
have more to say below.
III.HISTORICALEPRESENTATIONND"ABOUTNESS"
[T]hinkof notions ike "Gothicism,"theRenaissance,"the IndustrialRevolution."Thereareno "things"hat hesenamesrefer o and hataregivento us in thewaythattablesandchairsaregivento us. It is onlythanks o historical epresentationhat hese
"identities"ancome ntobeingatall;there s not,first,a thing hatwehappenocomeacross n thepastand hatwe havecalled"theRenaissance"nd hat,next,we followon
itscomplexpath hrough paceand ime.(HR:312n)Though istoricalepresentationsrebuiltupof truedescriptions,(historical)epresen-tation tselfcannot e interpretedsonelarge trueorfalse)description.wouldnothes-
11. Thekey workis ArthurDanto'sTheTransfigurationf theCommonplace:A PhilosophyofArt
(Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversityPress, 1981).12. In Kenneth Burke's formulation,a "perspectiveby incongruity"(Burke,Permanence and
Change[Indianapolis:Bobbs Merrill,1965], PartII:Perspective by Incongruity).
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ANKERSMITAND HISTORICALREPRESENTATION 161
itate o saythat his-and nothing lse-is the central roblemn thephilosophyf his-
tory. HR:281)
Ankersmit nsists that this is for him the "all decisive issue, which truly is the
sine quanon of all narrativist hilosophyof history. .. For the last fifteenyears,I have vainly triedagainandagainto get this message acrossin my writingson
historical (and political) theory" (HR:313n). Thus Historical Representation
serves as a plea to reconsiderNarrativeLogic, and that is what this essay will
attempt.Ankersmit'sdemand o be understood s certainlyunexceptionable;hefailure
of his argument o win convertsamongpracticinghistorians,however,suggeststhat there may be problemswith his position. Ankersmitadvances the strong
claim thatfor historicalrepresentation o determinateactualityexists independ-
ently of ourconceptualization.Fromthevantageof post-positivistepistemology,with its acknowledgmentof the "theory-ladenness" f observation,and of the
linguistic constructionof experience,his claim seems quite plausible.'13Still, it
cannot be madetotal, suchthatrealityhas no elementof constraintor resistance
with which to constitute a dialecticalpole in the constructionof experience.In
Ankersmit's own words that he uses to object to hyperbolicpostmodernism:
"Languagewouldthen no longer merelybe a potentialsourceof truth rreducible
to what reality shows to be the case, but would now startto interferewith the
compulsionof experience.It wouldbeginto dictatewhatexperiencemayormay
not discern in reality"(HR:71).To be sure,no one would wish to claim thatthe concept"Renaissance" efers
to a "thing"of the same orderas a table or a chair.But thathardlyexhauststhe
possibilities of theoreticaland historicalreference(except, perhaps,by stipula-
tion). In a strictly epistemological sense, we can conceive no object--eventables and chairs, in my view-independently of our language scheme (for
example, should a stool count as a chair?). Cognitively, we have no way of
determining withnecessity)whatany suchobjectmightbe apartfrom ourcon-
ceptualization,thoughthis by no means need imply skepticismaboutactuality
in general.14"Givenness"seems a misleadingformulation,even in the case oftables and chairs, since it suggests there is no constructive nterventionof per-
ceptionor languagein the constitutionof these objects.'5Whatappearsat issue
here is whatQuinehas termed"ontologicalrelativity," hatis, the ultimatearbi-
trarinessof languageschemesrelativeto actuality, he "loosenessof fit" of lan-
guages to the world.16Quinehas arguedthatwe can elect any scheme, but we
cannot do without one, and we are always already working from within a
"home"(default)language.To fall into some ultimateskepticismon thatcount
13. See Hesse, Revolutions and Reconstructions;John Greenwood, "Two Dogmas of Neo-Empiricism:The 'Theory Informity'of Observationand the Quine-DuhemThesis,"Philosophyof
Science 57 (1970), 553-559.
14.Willardvan OrmanQuine, "OntologicalRelativity,"in Quine, Ontological Relativityand
OtherEssays (New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, 1969),26-68; DonaldDavidson,"OntheVery
Ideaof a ConceptualScheme," n Davidson,Inquiriesinto Truth nd Interpretation,183-198.
15. WilfridSellars,Science and Metaphysics(New York:Humanities,1968).
16. Quine,"OntologicalRelativity."
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162 JOHNZAMMITO
seems to Quine silly.17But he finds it equally silly to thinkthere are many (if
any) "natural inds"out there.18Humancognitionhas alwaysbeen aboutorgan-
izing knowledge throughforms of language,and this is as true for naturalsci-
ence as for historical nquiry.Moreover,Quineholdsthatthe evolutionof human
knowledgehas led us increasinglyto privilegeour schemes over any such natu-
ral kinds.19
Ankersmitcharacterizeshis as the evacuationof significancefrom the subject
positionin propositionsandthe assignmentof semanticsignificanceincreasing-
ly to predications(NL:152). He argues for the "historicity"of what he calls
"intensional ypification," hatis, the impositionof typingschemesuponexperi-
ence, indicating hat this is both"always already" here when we explicitly nter-
pret (thatis, generatetheoryout of and within natural language) and also that
languageshave manifestlyaltered over times and cultures(NL:167-168). In line
with the post-positivisttheoryof language,Ankersmitobservesthat "the(types
of) individualthings we discernin realityare not simply given to us along with
reality itself: types form togetheran intricate,constructed,relationalnetwork"
(NL:162). We must always alreadyfind ourselves in such a typification:"types
of normal things can only be recognized in reality after historicization of the
world has takenplace and an intensionaltypification. . . has been successful"
(NL:167). The question "how and why certain (types of) individuals are dis-
cernedin preferenceto others"awakensus to the ultimatearbitrariness f lan-
guageschemes: "intensional
ypificationcan
alwaysbe
questioned"NL:165).20
Ankersmitpointsto the contingentlycontextualandchangingcharacterof these
emergents,that is, to their essential historicity.21 would urge that these argu-
ments have theirplace in a naturalizedepistemology robustenough to accom-
modate,not exclude, historicalconceptualization.Of course,it would still be churlishto recognizeno difference in the accessi-
bility of tables and chairs as contrastedwith that of a Renaissance-or of anti-
matter.These (relative) esoterica are, nevertheless, intersubjectivelydenotable
features of actuality-of the world and not just our representations.22The
entrenchment f terms inlanguage
works from the mosteveryday objects
to the
most esoteric, though certainly, as we theorize that movement, the relation
17. "Todisavow theverycoreof commonsense, to requireevidencefor thatwhich boththephysi-cist and the man in the streetacceptas platitudinous,s no laudableperfectionism;t is a pompousconfusion"(Quine, The Ways of Paradox and OtherEssays rev. ed. [Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard
UniversityPress, 1976, 229-230).18. Quine, "NaturalKinds,"in Ontological Relativityand OtherEssays, 114-138; see also Ian
Hacking,"NaturalKinds," n Perspectiveson Quine,ed. RobertBarrettandRoger Gibson(London:
Blackwell, 1990), 129-141.
19. Quine,Pursuitof Truth rev. ed. (Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversityPress, 1992); Quine,FromStimulus o Science (Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversityPress, 1995).
20. "The assertionthatrealityshould containtypes of things ... [is] contingentuponwhat reali-
ty happensto be like as well as uponthe pragmatical onsiderations hat induce us to recognize cer-
tain intensionaltypes . . . in preference o others" NL:133).21. "Foucault'sbook [Lesmots et les choses] demonstrateshat the way in which we order hings
or individualities s not at all as obvious as we like to think .... [it is] 'neitherdeterminedby an a
priori and necessaryconcatenation,nor imposed on us by immediately perceptiblecontents .
(NL:161n).22. JohnMcDowell,Mindand World Cambridge,Mass.:HarvardUniversityPress, 1998).
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ANKERSMITAND HISTORICALREPRESENTATION 163
between whatAnkersmitcalls the "compulsionsof language"andthe "compul-sions of experience"becomes morecomplexand the weightof conceptualizationmoreprominent.23 herealissue is not whatexists somehow apart romourcon-
ceptualization,but ratherwhether what we constitutedialectically out of lan-
guage andactualitycan make intersubjective laims to warrant.Thus,the ques-tion is not whetherthereis a contrastwith tables andchairs,but ratherwhether
the conceptualization f colligatoryconceptsin historyhasa moreradicallycon-
structedcharacter han theoretical terms in natural-scientific heory, and, still
morefundamentally,whether,as withthe latter, ome claimto theactualityof the
referent,specifically at the colligatorylevel, can be made andwarranted.24t is
the view of most historians hat it not only can, butmust,be.
Ankersmitwishes to show us that this is naive. "I know we feel a strongintu-
itive resistanceto the assertionthat[representations]
o not refer. . . However,
... no identifiableobjectscorrespond o most of the termswe use for discussingthe past"(NL:175). Of those who believe a historicalidea can refer to reality,"we should then ask exactly what past the text refers to,"Ankersmitproclaims
(HR:40). Differenthistories, he observes, invoke widely divergent"chunksof
reality."Hence he disputesfundamentally hatsuch colligatoryconceptsas "the
Renaissance" n historicalnarrativeshave the capacityfor "exclusivelypickingout some historicalobject or partof the past" (HR:40). It makes no sense to
speak of the warrantof such notions: "Wecannot misdescribethe Renaissance
(becausethere is no such
thing)"(NL:219).That is where the problemremainsfor achieving thejuste milieu. Must all
determinacyand coherencebe consigned to the representationand not also to
that which is represented?Ankersmitappearsquite uncompromising: t "must
not be conceived as being part of historicalreality"(HR:135). Hence it may
occasion less wonder that now twenty years of argumenthave not sufficed to
inducehistorians o acceptAnkersmit'sposition.But of course thatmay still be
a fault of our inertia or incomprehension.To reach a juste milieu, then, will
requirea much more rigorousreflection on what Ankersmitterms "thelogical
differencesbetweendescriptionanddepiction" HR:223).
Thetask hastwoparts.
First,we must see whatAnkersmitadvancesas the distinctivetraitsof historical
representationshat, n his view, makethemineligible for reference.Then,as he
argues,the burdenof proof falls to those of us who do wish to introduce ssues
of warrantat the level of representationo offer an alternative"epistemology"
adequate o the task. "Theempiricistshadbettermakeclearhow the manytheo-
retical and practical differences between history and the sciences can be
explainedwithout eopardizing heirempiricism" HR:49).As I will tryto elab-
oratebelow, post-positivistphilosophyof naturalscience offers more resources
of commonality for philosophy of history than the starkdifferenceAnkersmitposits. I will propose an alternativereadingof philosophysince the "linguistic
turn" n hopes of reachingthejuste milieu.
23. See NaturalizingEpistemology,ed. HilaryKornblith Cambridge,Mass.: MITPress, 1985);
PhilipKitcher,"TheNaturalistsReturn,"PhilosophicalReview 101 (1992), 53-114.
24. In NarrativeLogic,Ankersmitrejectsbothprospects;I affirmboth.
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164 JOHNZAMMITO
But let us begin with what we can immediatelyaffirmin Ankersmit'spropos-
als. We can agree that "historicalrepresentationof the past essentially is an
attempt o discerna unityin manifold historicalfacts . .. to reduce the manifold
past to a coherentunity"(HR:270).We canjoin in Ankersmit'srhetoricalques-
tion: "what are historical narratives other than organizationsof knowledge,
organizationsnto a coherentandmeaningfulwhole[?]"(HR:19).ForAnkersmit,
the most importantdevice for this organizationof knowledge in history is the
tropeof metaphor:"historicalrepresentations metaphorical"n that "theutter-
ance invites us to see one thing ... in terms of another hing"(HR:14).25Given
that,we can agreefurther hat "a rationaldiscussionaboutthe relative meritsof
differentmetaphors s possible"(HR:14). "Scope, explanatorypower, compre-
hensiveness,and so on are what we should consider f we wish to understand he
rationalityof historicaldebate" HR:55).We can agree,too, thathistoriansnever
approach he past withoutthe mediation of manypriorencounterswith histori-
cal reconstructions, nd that much of the endeavorof historicalpractice s to sit-
uate new work in the tradition of discourse that has gone before, which
Ankersmit erms"intertextuality."But for most historians, he notion that the "historical dea" is entirelyfictive,
ontologicallyrestricted o the representation nd withoutany claim to actuality
in the past, goes too far.Poland, however unstable its borders,however inter-
ruptedby partition, s not just our metaphor: t has actuallyexisted and we can
knowthat.Bourgeoisiemay
be harder,and Renaissanceharder till, but theprac-ticing historian's ntuitionneeds to be takenextremely seriously.One shouldbe
uneasyto assert both the "rationality" f a disciplineand thatit has been delud-
ed in its practicefor centuries.Ankersmit nvites us to consider whatit is histo-
rians make.Whatare their accounts?Aretheymirrors,maps,models,metaphors:
what sort of thingarethey?For Ankersmit his (onto)logicalconsideration akes
precedenceover two others,which are of far moreimmediate nterestto practic-
ing historians,namely: first, how does one do it (methodology), and, second,
how does one judge that it has been done well (epistemology)?Ankersmitcalls
these latterquestions
mattersof "narrativeragmatics"
s distinctfrom the "nar-
rative logic" he himself pursues (NL:145).26He believes that his projectwill
enable historiansto grasp theoreticallywhat they are already doing in practice,
althoughhe admits that "logical characteristics . . found in every intelligible
sample of narrativehistoriography . . cannot show us how to distinguishbetween good and bad historiography,"much less how to construct such
accounts (NL:145).27That will need to be considered,in due course, when we
appraiseexactly what Ankersmitmeansby the "rationality"f the historicaldis-
cipline.We can, however,agreethatrepresentations annot be reducedto refer-
ence. "Theyare governed by rules that are not mere reflections of regularities25. "Metaphoreffects an organizationof knowledge"(HR:138); "metaphorsorganizeknowl-
edge" (HR:18).26. He proposes strictlyto "reason rom a logical andnot from an epistemologicalpointof view"
(NL:155).27. "Thetranscendental arrativist ules do not pretend o guide the historian n solving the prob-
lem of how to 'translate' he pastinto a narratio,but . .. only determine he logical structureof nar-
rative accounts of the past"(NL:84).
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ANKERSMITAND HISTORICALREPRESENTATION 165
existing in the pastbutwhich have a standingof theirown"(NL:2).This is right;the issue is notreduction o referencebut its inclusionin the conceptof a histor-
ical representation.t is rightas well to seek to characterizethese intrinsic(for-
mal-aesthetic)"rules"-and not just "logically"but also, if possible, method-
ologically andepistemologically.Ankersmitoffers a very persuasiveaccountof the developmentof historical
writingto set the terms of his intervention.The decisive breakthrougho the sort
of disciplinaryhistory still preponderantlyn practice came with the passagefromEnlightenmenthistoriographyo historism(HR:123-131).Ankersmit den-
tifies this with a shift in the conceptualizationof the object of historicalinquiry
from a substance, something that persisted while its propertieschanged in
responseto externalcausal interventions the Enlightenmentmodel), to a "his-
toricizationof substance,"n which"'substantial'that
s, internalor self-caused]
changewas seen as the true domainof historicalresearch" HR:131). Historical
developmentbecame the key to conceptualunderstanding,and this "historical
idea" (a continuoussubstance-in-change)became the crowningconcept of his-
torism.28Thus, in place of a definition,historismargued"thenatureof a thing
lies in its history"(HR:123). This is a most lucid descriptionof what historism
undertookandwhat historicalpracticestill largely presumes:"noone can write
historyas it is doneby 90%of living historianswithoutbeing a historist" NL:3).
YetAnkersmitpronounces he historistaccountof historical deas "anunsatis-
factory solution, theoretically."He demands:"is the historicalidea
partof the
inventoryof the past itself, or is the historical dea, as the termsuggestsalready,
merelya constructionby the historian?"HR:135). Historismcommitted tself to
theformer,but"narrativists elieve thatthehistoriandoes not reflecta coherence
or Zusammenhang n the past itself, but only gives coherence to the past"
(HR:135). "We can no longer trust thatwhat the subject-termn the constative
statementrefersto will 'substantially' emain he sameobjectduringa processof
historical change" (HR:131). Indeed, "the more we emphasize the difference
between the individualphases of an entity's history,the less plausibleit will be
togo on consideringit one and the same thing"(HR:132). Bluntly,
"ifchangeinvolves substances,no answer can be given to the questionof what changes"
(HR:22).And "therewill be nothing,outside the text itself, thatcan govern or
check [theconceptualization]"HR:129).
Ankersmittakes pridein having "stripped historism]of all its metaphysical
accretions" HR:136).29He embraceswhat he aptly termsthe "epistemological
28. Ankersmitgives a very clearelaborationof the elementsof theircore conceptionof the "his-
torical Idea" at HR:134.
29. That is, he repudiates he "metaphysical"ndeavorof historistsof the nineteenthcenturyto
offer a notion of "entelechy" hat postulated"some mysteriouspropertyof things in the past that
causes these thingsto take on in due time the appearanceshey actuallyhad in the past"(NL:132).
They postulateda potential n the originof a "historical dea"foreach andevery mutationover the
course of its development.This "Leibnizian" lement made no sense, accordingto Ankersmit,as a
view of actuality,but it made eminentsense as a theoryof conceptualizationor "writing."Hence he
characterizeshis whole project as to "translate raditionalhistorism from a theory on historical
objects into a theoryof historicalwriting" NL:124).
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166 JOHNZAMMITO
asceticism" of instrumentalism, ominalism,or anti-realism.30 nkersmitspeci-fies his claim: "the contours of reality, though not reality itself, can only be
explained if they are representedby a representation"HR:45). Thus, "things
(that are represented) . . . have no contours in the absence of the representation
that has been proposedfor them"(HR:83).His most importantpointis: "there s
no coherence ying in thepast itself.. . but ... coherence atthe level of language
[must] decide how we conceive of the past" (HR:23). In Narrative Logic,Ankersmitwrote: "thepastis only constituted n the narratio.Thestructure f the
narratio s a structureent to orpressedon thepastand not the reflection of a kin-
dred structureobjectively present n the past itself'; thus,"objects n the past so
often mentionedby historians,objects such as intellectual, social or politicalmovements and even nationsor social groups,have no statusin the past itself
independentof the narratio:hey springfrom and arejustified solely by the nar-
ratio" (NL:86-87). In short, colligatory concepts are "mere instrumentsfor
organizingor giving form to our knowledge of the past"but "without(them-
selves) referring o the pastor describing t" (NL:97).Thatis why Ankersmit,at
least in NarrativeLogic, rejectedanyeffort to assimilatehistorical nquiry o that
of the "exact sciences."31 As he statedbluntly:"what is mere heuristics in the
exact sciences, is the whole of historiography"NL:91).Ankersmit nsists there
are no "translationules" that allow ostensible"patterns"f the past itself to be
"projected"nto a literaryrepresentation:mapsand models makepoor analogiesbecausethere is no determinateandverifiable
correspondenceat the level of the
whole (NL:80).Ankersmit s not simply makingan epistemologicalpoint about
the uncertaintyor imprecisionof ourconceptions;he is assertingan ontologicalone: "thepastis a meaningless myriadof facts, states andevents, an amorphouschaos of data thatsuccessfullyresist 'conscious apprehension'by the historian"
(NL:83).
On the otherhand,he affirms that"ahistoricalrepresentationis about'a cer-
tainpartof the past,"that historicaldebate,as the epigraphof this essay crucial-
ly states,is a "semanticquarrelnot aboutthe exact meaningof words,but about
thepast"(HR:13, 62). Everythinghinges
on how tograsp
this idea of "about-
ness." Ankersmit insists we must "avoid reducing 'aboutness' to reference"
(HR:13). So what is "aboutness"and how do we achieve it and appraiseit?
Ankersmitwrites:"'beingabout' s essentiallyunstableand unfixed because it is
30. Indeed,perhaps he whole disputethatforestalls thedesiredjustemilieumaybe anotherwran-
gle of realismversus anti-realism:f so, my view is that such ontological disputationsarecharming
philosophicalexercises but of virtuallyno significancefor empirical nquiry.I believe ArthurFine's
"naturalontological attitude"(Fine, A Shaky Game: Einstein, Realism and the QuantumTheory
[Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1986]) has as muchplace in empiricalhistory(quamethod-
ology andepistemology) as in naturalscience.
31. Ankersmit writes: "I am awarethat recent developmentsin the philosophyof the exact sci-ences seem to indicatethat the differencesbetweenhistoriography nd the exact sciences are small-
er than I have just suggested"(NL:89),yet "everyattempt o see similaritiesbetweenthe exact sci-
ences and historiographyshould be mistrusted" NL:174). "Narrativeknowledge must be distin-
guishedfromscientificknowledge"(NL:112). "There s a looseness in historical discussion thathas
no parallelin the exact sciences" (NL:90). Withoutwishing to erase all differences,I believe the
recentdevelopments n the philosophyof science need to be takenin a far more constructiveway in
reformulating he philosophyof history.
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ANKERSMITAND HISTORICALREPRESENTATION 167
differentlydefinedby the descriptionscontainedby the text of each representa-
tion"(HR:41).Thus,the decisive featurewould appear o be the degreeof open-
ness or contingency a representationentails over against the actuality it is
"about"-its "indeterminacy,"o use the termthatAnkersmitprefersfor its link-
age with powerfulthemes in philosophysince the linguisticturn.32
Yet again,he assertsrepeatedly hat the cruxof historicaldebate,of historical
rationality,revolves around "what chunk of language (that is, what historical
text) represents best or corresponds best to some chunk of past reality"
(HR:42).33This implies correspondence o something(a "chunk")n reality,but
Ankersmit nsists it is "aninsufficientconditionfor fixing reference"(HR:41).
He holds out that all evidentialquestionsremainat the level of the individual
statement even though he concedes grudginglythat there might be "a kind of
slidingscale between
descriptionand
representation"HR:42)."If all
speakerswill relate the same(set of) word(s)to the sameaspectof reality, henthe aspects
in question will coagulate into the 'thing' that we can 'refer' to. . ... So here
'being about'will shade into 'reference'"(HR:46). This does happen,he con-
cedes, andit has assumedsome authority n "the courseof historicaldebateas it
graduallyevolved in the historyof historicalwriting"(HR:61). That is, "those
narrativecomponentsthatcontinuallyrecurin narratioson or arounda certain
historicaltopic will eventuallygive way to intensionaltypifications" NL:239).
But, whereasAnkersmit sees this as merelystipulative,I take this entrench-
ment ofconceptual
terms to be constitutiveof the evolution oflanguage
and
knowledge, andspecificallyof the disciplinarydiscourseof history,preciselyin
the measure that it denotes intersubjectivelywhat in the actuality of the past
should be taken into consideration.If historical language invents, I hold-as
even HaydenWhiteconcedes-that it discloses just "asmuch."34 ut such com-
mon denotation nvolves only what is uninteresting,Ankersmitreplies.35"It is
not the overlap,but the difference n meaningthat does all of the work"in his-
torical debateand historicaltheory (HR:62). That is why it is senseless, in his
view, to assess the plausibilityof an isolatedinterpretation; themerits(or short-
comings) of what a representation xpresses on what it 'is about'will be code-
terminedby otherrepresentations f a partof the past"(HR:16).Thus,"the more
accountsof the past we have, . . . the closer we may come to historicaltruth"
(HR:15).It is not clear,however,whatthe category"historical ruth" an signi-
fy for him, since he generallyrestricts ruth o the sentential evel. He elaborates
as follows: "Theproliferationof accountsof the pastwill contribute o a perfec-
tion of the criteriawe may applyto each of themin order o establishtheirplau-
32. See Quine,"Three ndeterminacies,"n Perspectiveson Quine, 1-16.
33. And "whichchunkofreality
bestcorresponds
with which chunkoflanguage"
HR:54).
34. HaydenWhite's qualification-"historical narratives .. are verbalfictions, the contentsof
which areas much nventedas ound" (my emphasis)-is crucialforanyreconciliationbetween "nar-
rativist"philosophyof historyand one grounded n historicalpractice.(White,"TheHistoricalText
as LiteraryArtifact,"n White,Tropicsof Discourse:Essays in CulturalCriticism[Baltimore:Johns
HopkinsUniversityPress, 1978], 82).35. The discussions of "blackboxing"in science studiessuggest thatthereis muchmore to this
entrenchment that is philosophically interestingthan Ankersmitpostulated. See Bruno Latour,
Science in Action (Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversityPress, 1987).
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168 JOHNZAMMITO
sibilities.No theories or accountsof the past are eliminated n the process (and,
indeed, each containspartof the truth)butthe criteria areperfectedfor how to
understand he past"(HR:15).Accordingly,"thelogic of historical debatewill
stimulatean endlessproliferation f differentmetaphorical iewpoints" HR:24).
Moreover,since "theset of accounts that we do have is only a sampleof all pos-sible accounts,"closureis inconceivable (HR:16). Indeterminacy nd prolifera-tion seem distinctive features of historicalinterpretation,n contrastto the con-
vergence and cumulation that Ankersmitascribesto naturalscience. Historical
debateis "not a matterof continuous'narrowingdown' of previousoptions [asin natural cience] ... but,on the contrary,s an 'explosion'of possiblepointsof
view" (HR:16). Forhim, the perplexityfor historicaltheoryis simplythis:"how
is it possible thaton the one handwe know so much about the past [at the level
of statementsof fact], whereason the otherhistoricalwriting[as whole interpre-
tation] is 'a discussion without end' . . .?" (HR:50).
Strikingly,Ankersmittells us that"'beingabout'gives us the 'logical space'within which historical thinkingand historical discussion are possible; where
'reference' takes the place of 'being about,' historical understandingwithers
away and science takes over" (HR:41). "All these subtlebut necessarydistinc-
tions are wholly lost when one brutallyand bluntly brings together (with the
empiricists)description and'reference')andrepresentationand 'beingabout')"
(HR:47).This rhetoricseems as impassionedas it is drastic.It evokes a longingfor the
autonomyof
historyand invests that
autonomyin the aesthetic irre-
ducibility("indeterminacy")f historical nterpretationsndof historicaldebate.
I do not believe historyor natural cience arewell-servedby sucha formulation.
Recentphilosophyof science suggests that theremay well be more common to
both endeavorsthanthe drastic differencesuggestedby terms like "wither[ing]
away"and"brutal[ity]." hereis an overreaction o "science"here that is a kind
of "hangover" rom scientism. Ankermisthas relatedin an interview how his
movement fromnatural-scientificraining nto the studyof historyleft him with
anineradicable ense of the differenceandalleged inferiorityof historicalknowl-
edgefrom the
vantageof
positivism.36Like
JtirgenHabermas and others who
have undertaken o defend humanistic nquiry,Ankersmitseems to have carried
over too much of the now-debunkedpositivist image of naturalscience which
demeanedhumanistic nsight.37He writes of the philosopherswho workedout
the "receivedview" of science thattheypresumed hatthelogic thatheld (as they
36. Interview with Ankersmit in Eva Domanska, Encounters: Philosophy of History afterPostmodernism Charlottesville/London: niversityof VirginiaPress, 1998), 67-99.
37. CharlesTaylorhas given us an unforgettablemage of the ironythathas befallenthe defend-
ers ofinterpretation
with thecollapse
ofpositivism:"Old-guardDiltheyans,
theirshouldershunched
from years-longresistanceagainstthe encroachingpressureof positivistnaturalscience, suddenly
pitchforwardon theirfaces as all oppositionceases to the reign of universalhermeneutics."Taylor,
"Understandingn HumanScience,"Review of Metaphysics34 [1980], 26). Withoutsimply pre-
tendingthat all differencehas been annulled,as RichardRortywould have it, the real opportunitybefore us is to workthrougha "naturalizedpistemology"that would with rigorand discrimination
affirm what is commonto empirical nquiry n an erabeyondfoundationalismandpositivism.
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ANKERSMITAND HISTORICALREPRESENTATION 169
saw it) in the "exactsciences"representedhe only logic.38Even as he has strug-
gled againstthatarrogance, suspectthatAnkersmit's houghthas been contam-
inatedby its insinuations.
But maybeI have failedto understandAnkersmit'sdistinctionbetween histor-
ical "Bildung"and (natural-scientific)"knowledge."He writes:"Thediscipline
of historyaims ateducation,orBildung,rather hanatknowledge"(HR:15). But
it is not at all transparentwhat he meansby this.Ankersmitsuggests that"when
introducingor using [colligatoryconcepts]in an unexpectedandnovel way,his-
torians will ask themselves whether the new use may make us awareof some-
thing of the past that we had not noticed before"(HR:61). This openness (an
ideal not always honored n actualpractice)shouldindeedbe centralto our cre-
ative productionandour criticalappraisal. But does he reallymeanthat natural
scientists behavedifferently?)
He contends that historicaldebate aims at "the
productionof new and alternativerepresentations, ather hanat achievingtruth
by a carefulanalysisof what was rightandwrongin those previousrepresenta-
tions."Thatis, the discipline puts a clear "premiumon a proliferationof repre-
sentations" HR:16). My view, however,is that historiansregularlydo both,and
proliferation which is not quite so promiscuousas Ankersmitenvisions) is trig-
gered precisely by discontentswith "what was right and wrong"in previous
interpretations.Moreover,some interpretations,Ankersmitnotwithstanding,do
get discardedas inept.At stakehere,yet again, is a cognitiverelationto the dis-
puted ("chunk"of
the) past itself,not
simply disseminating"intertextuality."Perhapswe can make progresshere by a distinctionof modalityof knowledge.
In their empiricalaccounts, practicinghistoriansmake no claim to necessary
knowledge, but they do propose and demandcontingentand fallible "approxi-
mations" to what actually happened,and they are commonly prepared o find
thingswrongwith interpretations.39
Now, Ankersmit s adamant hat he is not questioningthe actualityof the past
"independentlyromthe historian'srepresentations f it" (HR:241).It makesno
sense to doubtthe existence of pastrealityas a whole (HR:313n).But anydeter-
minationof a partof thatpastcan be madeonly byvirtueof its historical
repre-sentation."Therepresented omes intobeingin a certainsense only thanks o the
representation"HR:237). It makes more sense to think of representations,he
urges, as proposals abouthow a "chunkof language"might correspondwith a
"chunkof reality"(HR:92, 41-42). Manysuchproposalscan be madeavailable.
38. "Philosophersike Popper, Hempel, Mandelbaum, M.] White, Danto and manyothersbor-
rowedthe model from formallogic ('modusponens')and the philosophyof the exact sciences, con-
vinced as theyarethatformallogic and the reasoning n the exact sciences arethe sole depositorsof
the rules for valid argument"NL:41).39.
RaymondMartinhas
suggestedthat
philosophyof
historymight fruitfullyset out from this
fact about historicalpracticethat somehow historiansdo feel entitledto judge some interpretations
simply wrong. (Martin,"Objectivityand Meaning in HistoricalStudies,"History and Theory32
[1993], 25-50). ImreLakatos foundthis a similarlycrucialissue for carrying orwardPopper'sphi-
losophy of science in the new contextof historicizedepistemology:"if we wantto reconcile fallibil-
ism with (non-justificationist) ationality,we mustfind a way to eliminatesome theories." Lakatos,
"Falsificationand the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes," n Criticism and the
Growthof Knowledge,ed. LakatosandA. Musgrave[Cambridge,Eng.:CambridgeUniversityPress,
1970], 108).
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170 JOHNZAMMITO
But "proposalscan be neither true nor false in the way statementscan be so"
(HR:92). "None of these proposalsfor how best to represent he pastcould ever
bejustifiedby anappealto some specific generalrule forhow languageand real-
ity are to be related" HR:89).That s, "thereare no independent tandards n the
basis of which the linkbetweentherepresentedandits representationan bejus-
tified, explainedor verified"(HR:88).Or,again,"there s no a priorischeme in
terms of which the representational uccess of individual narrativerepresenta-tions can be established" HR:96).This repeated (negative) stresson a general
rule, on independent tandards,on an a priori scheme, suggests thatAnkersmit
can conceive of epistemologicalcanons only as drivenby formal-universalog-ical laws, somethingakin to Hempel's notorious"covering aw."40n Narrative
Logic he called them "translation ules" (NL:80-81). To be sure, we require
somethingdifferent to characterize he inductive,a posteriori characterof his-
torical debate. I suggest, however, that what actually takes place in historical
controversy s consistent with the idea of evolving conceptualizationsand eval-
uations along the lines of "naturalized pistemology";hence, Ankersmit s too
restrictive n assigning epistemological rigor exclusively to the a priori.41With reference to disputes among representations,Ankersmitclearlybelieves
this a posteriori,contingent,andfallible character f our criteria"does not in the
least exclude the possibility of rationallydiscussing the merits of proposals"
(HR:92).The key, he urges,is thatproposalsmust be comparedwith one anoth-
er, andnot with the past itself (NL:68). The more such proposals,the richer the
comparison, he more elaborate aposteriori)criteria orappraisal,and hence the
more effective the historicaldebate. Much of this is perfectlyreasonable,yet I
suggestthat t does notprecludebutin factelicits renewedcomparisonwith actu-
ality."Back to the sources"was once and remainsthe constitutivecalling of our
discipline.Ankersmit'sargumentdoes not, in my view, eliminatequestionscon-
cerningrelationsbetween representedandrepresentation-for example, of pri-
orityor causality.A substitute s, by definition,not the original.Some difference,
some "gap,"mustbe bothregisteredandbridged.42Of course,the functionalsub-
stitutionmay
be sogood
that we are atpains
to discover this difference(thinkof
a forged masterpieceor a counterfeitbill). In the case of historythe absence of
the original may make the substituteeven harder o discriminate.Yet, logically,there must be a difference that makes a differencehere, and, to assess it there
must be some possibility for juxtapositionwith the original, not simply with
otherrepresentations.ForAnkersmit,however,such an originalcannot be found
except in the representations.He allows thatwe mightcompare ndividuallythe
members of sets of determinate tatementsof fact provided by rival interpreta-
tions againstthe evidence derived from the past itself. However,shouldwe pre-
fer one set overanother,
thispreference
would begrounded
in the(aesthetic)
40. CarlHempel,"The Functionof GeneralLaws in History,"Journalof Philosophy39 (1942),35-48.
41. On"bootstrap"ationalityandnaturalized pistemology,see, e.g., ThomasNickles, "Scientific
Discovery and the Futureof Philosophyof Science,"in Scientific Discovery, Logic, and Rationality,ed. Thomas Nickles (Dordrecht:Reidel, 1980), 1-59.
42. Ankersmitacknowledgesthis,but works it in a differentdirection(HR:237).
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ANKERSMITAND HISTORICALREPRESENTATION 171
coherence andcomprehensivenessof the representation, ot in thatof some actu-
al patternin the past itself. Yet a first representationmust have dialectically
engaged that actuality,constructing t within the constraints t imposed, and I
submit all subsequentrepresentations, n disputing that one, do and should
appraise t as well againstactuality.Ankersmitemphasizes the internal(aesthetic) articulationof representation,
itsform. It is through ormthat "a chaotic mass of dataaboutthe past is organ-ized into a recognizablewhole"(HR:72).Thus,"forms n reality ... do not log-
ically and temporallyantedaterepresentation.... [R]epresentationprojectsits
own formson reality"(HR:73).But this imputeschaos to reality,not our cogni-tive limitations. Ankersmit'selaboration makes this even more problematic:
"Representationmakesrealityunfold itself into [an] infinityof different ayers;and
realityitself
meekly adaptsitself
accordingly" HR:44).I find this infinite
malleabilityof actuality mplausiblefor historyas an empirical nquiry.As pure
possibility andimaginativefreedom,artistic representationmay well play such
beautifulgames, but historical representation eeks to assert actuality,and the
actual exertsconstraint.Some forms the worldwill notputon. This reasserts he
old distinction,which cannotbe relinquished,betweenhistoryand fiction.
In any case, I am very perplexed by what follows in Ankersmit'sexposition:
"representationoes not (or rather, houldnot) addanythingto reality,not even
to ourknowledgeof it ... [though] t addsall thatwe need for ourbeing able to
find ourway
around n the world"(HR:73). Literally,
this is inconsistentwith
Ankersmit'sclaim thata representations another hing,hence an addition o the
ontological inventory.But my concernlies elsewhere.I am baffledby this dras-
tic restriction of the significance of form, and still more by the denial that it
enhancesour knowledge. Ankersmit wants the "skin of the form"to be "infi-
nitely thin,"adding"nothing o what is withinit" (HR:72).The organizationof
knowledgedoes not seem to count, forAnkersmit,as a form of knowledgeof its
own.43I suspect this difference derives from Ankersmit'ssententialtheory of
truth, hence a restrictive sense of knowledge. "Historicalknowledge is not
knowledgein the
proper senseof the
word;it is better characterizedas an
arrangementof knowledge"(NL:250). Wereone to speakinsteadof insight,he
might find such "organization f knowledge"at the level of the representation
meaningful.But thatspeaksprecisely to the issues thatremainto be settled for
the sake of thejuste milieu.
At leastAnkersmitprovidesa morethoroughgoingaccountof what he means
by the phrase"beingable to find ourway around n the world."In his discussion
of JoirnRiisen'stheoryof historyhe writes:"Historicalknowledgeessentiallyis
practical knowledge, in the sense that it may, or rathershould, help us in our
effort to find our way aboutin sociohistoricalreality ..." (HR:279).Riisenhasalertedus to "theneed of both the human ndividualandhumansociety to situ-
ate themselvesin the flow of time in orderto be capableof meaningfulactionat
all"(HR:263).Such Orientierungsbediirfnisseignify a crucialrole forhistory n
human ife thatRiusendentifies with the political.This explains,in Ankersmit's
43. I offered this objectionin my "Hyperboleof 'Opacity"'essay, 336.
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172 JOHNZAMMITO
view, why "politicshas been the domain where modem historicalwritingand
historical consciousness originated"(HR:265). Things not turningout--unin-tended consequences-constitute the grippingconcernin such (political) need
for orientation,andhistory helps us to see how it may be negotiated."Onlyhis-
toricalrepresentationwill give us the kind of languagerequired or relating n a
meaningful way action and its unintended consequences" (HR:272). Thus
Ankersmitconcludes that such "specific interests"are constitutiveof historical
knowledge(HR:278).The stressis clearlyon "somethingon the side of the sub-
ject, somethingon the side of the historian-and not somethingon the side of the
object," yet "thesespecific interests are partand parcelof all historicalknowl-
edge" (HR:271, 278). Without his interest,I would say, historical nquiry s not
instituted;withoutthe discoveryof (unintended)actualities,historical nsight is
not constituted. This "practical"dea may well have a key place in the juste
milieu, but we requirefurther adumbrationof "aboutness,"of intersubjective
denotation, n this practical-historicalBildung.
IV.IDENTITYAND PORTRAITS
I believe we canget our clearest sense of thepossibilityof ajuste milieu between
Ankersmit's heoryof historicalrepresentation nd the conventionsof historical
practiceif we consider his discussions of identityand of portrait painting. The
power of Danto's theoryfor Ankersmitresides in the way in which it highlightsthe relation between representation nd identity(HR:230). "Theidentityof the
representedonly comes into being thanksto and at the same time as its repre-sentation"(HR:228). As with the notion of the "historicalidea," Ankersmit
insists that"being dependentuponrepresentation, dentityis not somethingthat
is somehowpresentforever andalways in the thingto be represented,n the waythat a thing may have a certaincolor or weight"(HR:228).
How can we construethis? It would appearthat, for Ankersmit, dentitycan
only be conceived retrospectively, hatis, upon a re-encounterwith a thing pro-
vokingthe questionof its sameness/difference.That would be the
experienceof
a literal representation.Still, consideration of identity would appearto me to
makeno senseunless, first,one has reasonto believe theentity pre-existed(onto-
logically), and, second, its characterwas determinate/determinablenough that
the questionof sameness/differencecould be raisedrationally.Ankersmitnotes
that Dantohimself assignedidentity"exclusivelyto thingsin (represented) eal-
ity-hence, not to representation,"ut he holds that this was a misunderstandingon Danto'spart(HR:230-231).ForAnkersmit, t equivocatesbetween the state-
ment level and the level of representation s a whole-the key error, n his judg-
ment,of all
theoryof
representationitherto.
To makehis case he offers a telling contrastbetween the idea of identityand
the ascription"being dentical,"as in Leibniz's famousidentityof indiscemrnibles.Thereappears o be a confusion of issues,Ankersmitsuggests,between what the
principleof the identityof indiscemrnibless after,namelya determinate ompar-
ison of two things in terms of the homology of each of theirproperties, hatis,
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ANKERSMITAND HISTORICALREPRESENTATION 173
"being dentical,"andwhat the issue of identityseems to concern,thatis, "iden-
tity throughchange."Thatis, "there s a use of the word 'identity'that is com-
patible with being different on different occasions" (HR:232). "Identity maysometimesallow space for a dramaticamount of change.Think of the different
phasesof an individual rombirth o death,or of the historyof Poland'sborders"
(HR:226).WhatAnkersmitargues s thatidentityin this second sense cannotbe
reduced o "being dentical" n the first."Beingidentical"postulatesnotonly the
identityof the thing, but the "identityof (sets of) statementsaboutthings (i.e.,sets of true descriptionsof things)" (HR:234). All philosophicalendeavorsto
resolve the issue of identitythroughchangeby seeking"alwaysto identifysome
set of criteria(continuitythroughspace andtime, for example),"fail (HR:234).The very enterprise,Ankersmitprotests, is "a typical philosopher'sdelusion"
(HR:235).Identity,
in a word, is not aproperty,
but ratherthatproblematic"thing,"a substance-in-change.
Ankersmitbelieves thathe is makinga pointnot about theactuality of an indi-
vidualentitybutratherabout the indeterminacyof the representationof identitythatallows fordifference n properties.The "indeterminacyn 'identity' hatdoes
nothave its counterpartn 'beingidentical"'constitutes he essentialcharacter f
representation andits specific merit,as well) (HR:230).Thatis, "the ndetermi-
nacy of therelationshipbetweenwords andthingsis not a defectbut the supremevirtueof all representational se of language"(HR:88).Whatis this "virtue?"
suggestthat it allows the
actualityof an indeterminate
objectin time
(a "sub-stance-in-change") o be made intersubjectivelydiscriminable.That is what I
thinkAnkersmitreallyshouldmean whenhe urges:"Above all one shouldavoid
confusing 'indeterminacy'with 'arbitrariness[,l"'as in hyperbolic postmod-
ernism(HR:48).ButAnkersmitconcludes thatthe locus of identitycannot be in
the represented tself. Just as with his "epistemologicallyascetic"judgmentof
the "historicaldea,"he deniesanyontological actuality o identityapart romits
representation.The issue of empiricalknowledge of actual individualswas a crucialphilo-
sophicalpointof contestationbetween Leibniz and his immediatesuccessors
inGermanphilosophy,most notably Kant.44Kant insisted upon space-time intu-
ition as an indispensablyreal featurein cognition, wherebya determinateunityas actuality became evident.45This revised away from the idealism of the
Leibnizianformulations,stressingboth that existence is not a propertyand that
individualexistentscould still be objects of a human mode of cognition which
worked with ineluctablygeneral concepts.46Even Ankersmitacknowledgesthat
with the case of an individual iving creaturewe routinelyassertintersubjective-
ly the identityof the creature rombirththroughmaturity o death,despitemas-
sive changes in its properties.Thatis, thereare groundsin both the philosophi-cal tradition hatAnkersmit s drawing upon and in the natureof his own con-
44. See AnselmModel,MetaphysikundreflektierendeUrteilskraftbei Kant(Frankfurt m Main:
Athendium, 987).45. ImmanuelKant, Critique of Pure Reason, transl. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St.
Martin's,1965),A51/B75.46. Kant,"Amphibolyof Conceptsof Reflection,"Critiqueof PureReason,A260-292/B316-349.
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174 JOHNZAMMITO
ceptual usage to believe that the concept of identitycan have a referential,not
merely an aesthetic, aspect.We can affirmintersubjectively,albeit fallibly, the
actualityof such substances-in-change."Thethings in our universemay change
drasticallywithoutceasing to be the things they are,"Ankersmitacknowledges
(NL:142).Butwhatabout"colligatory oncepts?""Themistakemadeby the his-
torists was thatthey located 'subjectsin change'in realityitself... [believing,for example]thatGermanyor Germancultureshouldexist in the ways thattrees,
animalsor even humanbeings exist"(NL:123). Is this simplycrudehypostasis?Ankersmiturges that a "way of seeing" is not a partof the reality it envisions
(NL:221). Historianshave confused the terminologyof theirways of seeing the
pastfor elements of the pastitself. "Mannerism"s simplya heuristic; he artists,
thepaintings,and the stylisticcharacteristicshat "Mannerism"dentifiedbelongto the actualhistoricalpast,but the ascriptionof the conceptionof "Mannerism"
makes not a bit of difference in that actuality,but only in its apprehension
(NL:175). But historiansbelieve the patterns hey identifywith colligatorycon-
cepts are intersubjectivelydenotable in the actuality,not simply in theirrepre-sentations: hatwe see actualitydifferently,not simply see differentrepresenta-tions of it. It is this philosophical possibility thatpracticinghistorians still tacit-
ly embrace in their colligatory concepts and that I am tryingto defend againstAnkersmit's oreclosure.
When Ankersmit waxes impatient with the reception of his argumenthe
resorts to an aggressive analogy:"a historicaltheoryinsensitive to this dimen-
sion of the writingof historyandintimatingthat all theoreticalproblemsabout
historicalwritingcan ultimatelybe rephrasedas problemsabouttruth s as help-less and defective as an aestheticsarguingthatphotographicaccuracy s all we
need" (HR:44). Since he chargesme personallywith such philistinism,I must
protestthat he is creatinga straw manhere. Ankersmit'sharshrhetoricalprotestthat "empiricists"are "like those philistines equating artistic merit to photo-
graphic precision" simply does not meet the thrust of my query whether
Ankersmit'sanalogybetweenpaintingandhistoricalwritingdoes not underesti-
mate somedisanalogies
(HR:82).47Thesedisanalogies might
have materialbear-
ing on questionsof the warrantof historicalrepresentation, espiteAnkersmit's
claim thathe has sufficientlyrebuttedmy concern on this score.48Let us takeuphis favorite-and quiteappropriate-analogy, portraitpainting.
Ankersmit'smain claim is quite straightforwardnd incontestable:"if a per-son is paintedby differentpainters,we will get as many differentpaintingsor
representationsof the sitter as there were painters" HR:43). Indeed,were the
same painter o undertakemore thanone painting,we wouldget still more. Who
would argue?Nor wouldI disagreethatthe objectof portraitpainting s to offer
apenetrating nsight
into the characterorpersonality
of thesitter,
which is
Ankersmit'scorollaryto the first claim. The issue is, what is (merely) "subjec-
47. See my "Hyperboleof 'Opacity,"'341.
48. See the claim at HR:292n.
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ANKERSMITAND HISTORICALREPRESENTATION 175
tive,"and what is potentiallyobjective,aboutsuchportraiture?49heheartof his
crucialanalogyof portraitureo historycomes with the next step:"personalitys
just as little an objective given as the natureof the Renaissance";personality s
"afeatureas elusive andasimpossible
toaccurately
define as those featuresof
historicalreality that the historian of the labor movement attemptsto narrate"
(NL:43, 84).
What wouldit mean, then,to sayone portraits betterthan another?One could
make this an entirelyaesthetic question,referring o painterliness,but here the
issue is representation,"aboutness."One might arguethat the insightofferedis
not specific but universal,along the lines Aristotle famously used to privilege
poetryover history.50Thus, a portraitcould be meaningful,even if we have no
otherknowledgeof the vanished historical ndividual,not simply as an exercise
in thetechnique
ofpainterlyportraiture,
butessentially
as aninsight
into an
aspectof being human(character r personality n general).Yetof suchinsights
into the conditionhumaine,Ankersmithimself rightlyobserves,"onemay well
doubt thatthese truths if truths heyare)have muchin commonwiththe kind of
truth n which thehistorian s interested" HR:282).So we are drivenback to the
issue of "aboutness."
Ankersmitalleges that "empiricists"would expect portraitpaintings to be
judged solely in terms of photographicaccuracy(HR:43). This is presumably
because "empiricists"cannot, in his view, get past "precisionand accuracy"
(HR:87, 89). Yetthere arestrongreasonsto rejectthe
appropriatenessf mechan-
ical reproductionas a construalof the "precisionand determinacy" ought in
eitherhistoryor science. Interpretationeeks insight,not replication.Ankersmit
himself makes thecase vividly in his critiqueof Ranke's dea of wie es eigentlich
gewesen andCollingwood's theoryof re-enactmentas ideals for historical nter-
pretation(HR:244). Not copying, but understanding,s the goal. Here he finds
the analogyto paintingvery powerful.Thatis, painting"will drawour attention
to the trajectory rom the worlditself to representation"HR:85).We areforced
to recognize the idiosyncratic "coding"of the painteron the way to his or her
insight(oreven as his orherinsight),in contrast o the invisible"coding"of
pho-tography-invisible becausemechanicallyuniform.
Surelythere s somethingrightabout hat:mediation s crucial.Butwhatabout
Ankersmit's claim that in painting "we are faced with a movement from an
(intersubjective) urface down into ever deeper layers of reality"(HR:43)?All
thathe claims to be availableto the artist or a portraitare"physical eatures"of
the sitterthatphotographywould pick out. Not only is such givenness of "sur-
face"physicalfeaturesa dubious dea(see WilfridSellars),buteven moreimpor-
tant is the questionwhether"deeper ayers"arereally beyondthe reach of inter-
subjectivity.Ankersmit'sdebts to the "surfacedazzle" of logical positivism
49. In NarrativeLogic, Ankersmitaddressesanalogousconsiderationsregardingcaricature. He
notes: "We admirea caricaturebecause it strikinglycharacterizes he original physiognomythatwe
arefamiliarwith."Yet "ifwe wereto know a face only fromcaricatureswe would be in no position
to judge which one is the best"(NL:14-15).50. Aristotle,Poetics, ?9: 1451b, in Basic Worksof Aristotle,ed. RichardMcKeon (New York:
RandomHouse, 1941), 1463-1464.
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176 JOHN ZAMMITO
prove too obtrusivehere.51His claim thatonly the surface evel is "intersubjec-
tively given" is not consonant at all with post-positivismafter the "linguisticturn"and with morerecentphilosophyof science. Even moreproblematic s his
denial of the possibilityof intersubjectivityn penetratingdeeper nto reality.He
writes:"as soon as we have thus entered nto the deeperlevels of reality,there s
no obvious (andintersubjectivelygiven) mark where we should stop"(HR:43);
"as soon as we want to look more deeply into reality, it becomes opaque"
(HR:44).At the same time, he himself suggests that thereis a maximumof pen-etrationorinsight, beyondwhichthings get more muddled-a pointof enormous
significance,were it allowed to have an objective component(HR:43). Swiftly,
however,he assimilates t to his widerview: "this s a constraint hat has its only
origin and scope of action at the level of representation: eality itself does not
provideus with criteriafor this kind of representative onsistency,nor for how
to apply them"(HR:43).Therefore,he denies "that he represented s intersub-
jectively given in exactly the same way to us all if only we care to look in the
rightdirection" HR:43-44).
If "given"signifies obviousor unelicited,perhaps hatmightbe plausible,but
in some sense we must jointly be able to "look in the right direction"-in the
sense of orientingourintersubjectivediscernment"to the rightdepth"-and see
essentiallythe same thing.Unless we can identify intersubjectivelywhat we are
tryingto see, comparisonandevaluation arewithoutany mooring. Very simply,Ankersmit akes the view that"ghostly depths" Hooker)cannotbe actual, or-
to be "precise and accurate"-cannot be intersubjectivelyconstrued.All the
problemsI find in Ankersmit'sapproacharereplicatedhere.First,the personal-
ity the portraitevokes is not restricted o the representation,but is of the sitter.
We areofferedinsightnot (merely)intopaintingbut into an actual character.(InFaulkner's irstnovel, Mosquitos,for example,the climax comes withtheinsightthat a portrait n sculptureprovides about an enigma in the main figure of the
novel.) The invitationto "see things" n a differentway would bepointless were
the insight not at least potentially intersubjective.The question is how to
regard-to explainandto evaluate-these underdetermined
bjectsof consider-
ation, not to precludethis by stipulation.In the sphereof historicalrepresenta-tion itself, I submit,only this allows for rationaldisputation.
V.CONCLUSION:POST-POSITIVISM ND THEJUSTEMILIEU
How do we get to ajuste milieu?MaybeAnkersmit'srigid notion of "truth"s
getting in our way here. We need to think of the sophisticateddiscourse about
"underdeterminationf theories" n the philosophyof science.52The premiseof
51. CliffordHooker,"SurfaceDazzle, GhostlyDepths:An Expositionand CriticalEvaluationofvanFraassen'sVindicationof EmpiricismagainstRealism," n Imagesof Science:Essayson Realism
and Empiricism,ed. P. M. Churchland ndCliffordHooker(Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press,
1985), 153-196.
52. On the underdetermination f theory,see Quine,"OnEmpiricallyEquivalentSystems of the
World,"Erkenntnis9 (1975), 313-328; Larry Laudan, "Demystifying Underdetermination,"n
Scientific Theories,ed. C. Savage (Minneapolis:Universityof Minnesota Press, 1990), 267-297;
Larry Laudan and JarrettLeplin, "EmpiricalEquivalence and Underdetermination,"ournal of
Philosophy 88 (1991), 449-492; and Carl Hoefer andArthurRosenberg, "EmpiricalEquivalence,UnderdeterminationndSystemsof the World,"Philosophy of Science 61 (1994), 592-607.
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ANKERSMITAND HISTORICALREPRESENTATION 177
such philosophical discussions is that any numberof theories might equally
incorporate ll the availableevidence,all the sentential-level"statements f fact"
or "truedescriptions" hatare so centralto Ankersmit'snotion of epistemology.In fact, thereis substantialconsensus among philosophersof science that there
can be no experimental epistemological)verificationat the sentential evel: this
is the importof the famous DuhemThesis.53 nstead, t is only for largerunitsof
theorythatwarrant s to be sought,as Quineargued n his seminalessay on the
underdeterminationof theory.54Yet scientists (and even philosophers) still
believe theycandiscriminatecognitivelyamongtheories.55 hey adducea whole
set of additional criteria for theory-choice beyond observation statements.56
Ankersmitdoes, as well, for historicalrepresentationsHR:55).The two criteria
he suggests deserve centralplace are: scope and boldness (HR:55, 96-97). He
notes closeparallels
withPopper's theory
of scientificdevelopment
(HR:97,
NL:245). ButAnkersmit nsists these are aesthetic and internalto the represen-
tation. The philosophersof science believe these are theoretical, that is, they
offer some intersubjectivelynegotiablecognitivegrasp of the "chunkof reality"
in question.My argument s thatthis extendedsense of epistemology,central to
post-positivistphilosophyof science, offers a betterframework or understand-
ing historicalrepresentationhan Ankersmit'scategorialrejectionof any cogni-tive aspectto whole representations.
Ankersmithimself suggestsa "historian'smetaphorhasa function n historical
writinganalogousto thatof theories n the sciences"
(HR:139).Inhis view, "sci-
entifictheoriescannotproperlybe saidto be 'true,'but 'plausible,'or 'better han
rivaltheories,'or,atmost,to 'approximatehetruth'.. ."(HR:97).This raisestwo
issues. First, n natural cience, as I havejust argued, heories as wholes claim to
be notonly representationalinAnkersmit's ense)butwarrantable,r at leastnot
yet falsified, thoughfalsifiable. Second, natural-scientificheorycontains theo-
reticaltermswith which no single observation entencecorrelates or testing,yet
these theoretical ermsaretakento refer to essentialelementsin the functioning
of the world-arguably as "real"as directlyobservableentities like tables and
chairs.Indeed,theoretically, ables and chairs
are takento bequite derivatively
"real,"notwithstandingheirprominence n oureverydayperceptualexperience.
My view is thatcolligatoryconcepts (in historicalrepresentations) an be con-
ceived to refer, n this epistemologicalsense, in roughlythe sameway thattheo-
retical termsdo in natural-scientific heories.57That is, thereis a cognitive, not
53. See my discussionof the Duhem Thesis inA Nice Derangementof Epistemes,17-25, andthe
literature here cited.
54. Quine, "OnEmpiricallyEquivalent Systems of the World."See also: A. Genova, "Quine's
Dilemma of Underdetermination," ialectica 42 (1988), 283-293; and Roger Gibson, "Moreon
Quine'sDilemma of Underdetermination,"ialectica 45 (1991), 59-68.
55. LaudanandLeplin,"EmpiricalEquivalenceandUnderdetermination."
56. For discussions of other constraintson theory preference,see Thomas Kuhn, "Objectivity,Value Judgmentand Theory Choice," in Kuhn, The Essential Tension(Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1977), 320-339; Laudan,"DemystifyingUnderdetermination";nd Helen Longino,
"CognitiveandNon-CognitiveValues n Science:Rethinking heDichotomy,"n Feminism,Science,
and the Philosophyof Science,ed. LynnNelson andJackNelson (Dordrecht:Kluwer, 1996), 39-58.
57. In Narrative Logic, Ankersmitstronglyrejected this analogy: "I am convinced that every
philosopherof historyor of science will dismissout of handan identificationof 'narrativeubstances'
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178 JOHNZAMMITO
simply an aesthetic,dimensionto representation.The termspick out something
intersubjectivelydiscriminablein reality, though not directly observable like
tablesand chairs. For example,an electron is no moreimmediatelyaccessibleto
perceptionthan the Spanish Inquisition.Each must be inferredfrom actualevi-
dence.Yet neither s utterly ndeterminable.Notably,the determinacyof the the-
oretical term"electron"has been no more stableover time than the determinacy
of the colligatoryconcept "SpanishInquisition."Yet in each instance,discrimi-
nation is possible amongrival versions,and some can be deemedinadequate n
light of the contingent, allible,butbest currentexplanations.This is not to deny that language complicatesreferenceof theoretical terms
andthe theories that containthem,or,concomitantly,of colligatoryconceptsand
the historicalrepresentationshat contain them. It is to arguethatepistemologi-
cally these relations aremore on a par thanAnkersmitconcedes. One can cer-
tainlyagreethat "there s, thus, something peculiarly'idealist' aboutrepresenta-
tion ... [H]ow we decide to conceptualizerealityon the level of representation
(of reality)determineswhat we will find on the level of the represented i.e., on
that of realityitself)" (HR:45).Ankersmitmaintains"realitywill remaina chaos
as long as no such decision has been made and no level of representationhas
been singledout"(HR:45).This is true notonly of historical nterpretation ut of
natural-scientificheory.Yet I would suggestthat this truthshould be takenepis-
temologically(ratiocognoscendi),notontologically(ratioessendi).The chaos is
cognitive;we are not entitledto take it as immanent n reality.On the contrary,
there is a constraintor resistance manifestedby reality:not any representation
will fit.58The order that a representation-or theoryor model-imposes is not
entirely arbitrary.Hence, there can be no creationout of whole cloth "as,admit-
tedly, some extremist deconstructivistsor narrativists rein the habitof saying"
(HR:45). Representationmust, at the very least, "be about,"and Ankersmit is
willing to defend this againstextremepostmodernism:"Nowit is not easy to see
with theoreticalconcepts"(NL:103). "All attempts o eliminate the notion of [narrative ubstances]
by equating t with the notion of theoreticalconceptshave to be rejected" NL:112). "Narrative ub-stances arealwaysrelatedto quite specific historicalsituations .. [whereas]theoreticalconcepts ..
[have] applicabilityto an indefinitenumber of historical situations" NL:109). Most extensively:"Theoretical onceptsdo indeedreferto, ordenote,certain'things,'oraspectsof 'things'which exist
in empiricallyobservablerealityeven when 'no overtprocedures or applyingthose terms to exper-
imentally dentifiable nstancesof the terms' arepresent; narrative ubstances]however,do not refer
to identifiable'things,'or aspectsof themin historicalreality.Theyhave a purely 'expository'func-
tion .... Theoreticalconceptscorrelatethings with words even thoughthose things owe theirvery'existence' to the words we use to refer to them; [narrative ubstances] unctiononly at the level of
words ... their sole function is to tie individual statementsof a narratioogether" NL:112).I do not
proposeto "eliminate"historicalrepresentations y "equating"hem withtheoreticalconcepts.I pro-
pose simplyto analogize the epistemological situationof these respectivenotions.I also recognize a
significantdifference(all analogiesentaildisanalogies)in the singularityof reference n a historical
representation, s contrastedwiththeindefinite extension of a theoreticalconcept.The issue thatsep-aratesAnkersmit'sview from mine remains the questionof whetherthereis any referentialelement
in a historicalrepresentation, ndthathas been the thrustof the entireessay.58. See the discussion on constraintor resistance in naturebetween Peter Galison and Andrew
Pickering, with commentariesby others, in Scientific Practice: Theories and Stories of Doing
Physics, ed. JedBuchwald(Chicago: Universityof ChicagoPress, 1995), andmy commentary n A
Nice Derangementof Epistemes,225-231.
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ANKERSMITAND HISTORICALREPRESENTATION 179
what the reasonsare for the common contemporarywisdom that all representa-tion mustfail. It seems to be an article of faithin circlesof, predominantly,iter-
arytheoristsrather hanthe result of a sustainedand carefulphilosophicalanaly-sis" (HR:273).
In NarrativeLogic, casting about for an alternative o the categoriesof truth
and falsity for narrative ubstances,Ankersmitconsideredthe categoriesobjec-
tivityand subjectivity(NL:77). While these may seem desperatelyproblematic
alternatives, would like to recur to them.Ankersmit nsists, for the sake of his
commitmentto the "rationality" f disciplinaryhistory,that his narrative ogic"doesnot in the least compel us to decide thathistoriography xpressesnothingbut thewhimorthemoralandaestheticvalues [that s, the "subjectivity"] f indi-
vidualhistorians" NL:93).We need to explore why that shouldbe the case. The
key featureof Ankersmit'snarrativeogic
is that when we ask, "what s the his-
toricalstateof affairsthatcorresponds o a narratio?"we discoverthat"wehave
no standardshere,"and that"there s a curious lack of fixity in the correspon-dence betweenthe narratioand the past representedn it" (NL:71). On the other
hand,this historicalrepresentation"allow[s one] to make sense of an otherwise
intractable artof thepast"by offeringa "pointof view."This distinctivevantagenot only serves as "theguidingprinciple n the constructionof the narratio" ut
is also proposedas its "cognitivecore"(NL:98).ForAnkersmit,"'pointsof view'
do not expresswhatrealityis like but which of its aspectsshouldbe considered
oremphasized
or anoptimalunderstanding
f thepast" NL:193).59
"Wedecide
to look at the historicalpastfrom a certainpointof view,"Ankersmitargues.He
cites in evidence the historianNorman Hampson'savowal: "one must finally
impose a personalpatternon the rich anarchyof evidence" (NL:193).60At the
sametime,Ankersmitrecognizes,"inits own particularway the narratio ttemptsto explainthe past"(NL:232). Thatis, no matterhow subjectivethe inspirationfor its construction,or originaland uniquethe viewpoint, the accountproposedaims at objectivity,at intersubjective cceptability.
We need to work out the relation of "narrativepragmatics"and "narrative
logic"more
determinatelyo take a stand on Ankersmit'snotion of the rational-
ity of historicalpractice.A robusthistoricism does not requirea priori guaran-tees. It can tolerateuncertaintyandindeterminacy;what it cannot tolerate s the
claim that "allnarratiosare incommensurable"-at least not as a matterof nar-
rativepragmatics (NL:208). That a measure of correspondencewith historical
reality is possible suffices to make it methodologically and epistemologically
necessary for the rationalityof historical debate. That, I would argue, is what
objectivity signifies: intersubjectiveacceptability, not certainty,not complete
determinacy.It is this that gives substance to Ankersmit'sclaim, on behalf of
"narrative ragmatics"andhistoricalrationality, hatfrom his view of narrativelogic "itdoes not follow thatarguments annotor should not be adducedto jus-
tify what identities or [narrative ubstances]one wishes to discern in historical
59. "Thenarrativemeaningof a narratio s a proposalas to whatpossible statementswe should
select for structuring urideas on certainhistoricaltopics"(NL:223).60. Ankersmitcites fromNormanHampson,TheEnlightenmentHarmondsworth, ng.: Penguin,
1968), in NL:194n.
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180 JOHNZAMMITO
reality"(NL:194). What sorts of argumentswould these be? How would they
justify?And whatwould this have to do with historicalreality?He writes that"an
investigationof what makes [a historian]say [one representations better than
another]orjustifies his saying it is beyondthe narrativeogician's competence"
(NL:225). Indeed,"whatthe exact natureof the narrative ubstanceproposed n
a particularnarratios, is a problemfor the historianbut not for the philosopher
of history"(NL:104). Even for historians"agreementas to what exactly is the
(narrative ubstance)proposedby a certainhistorian n his narratiomay be hard
to attain" NL:103). Certainly t is insufficientthat the statementscontained n it
be accurateor the sentences logically and grammaticallycogent. "Tellingthe
(scientific) truthand avoidingclashes with formallogic is not sufficientto pro-
vide the readerwith a consistent narrative" NL:199). Likewise, "being[gram-
matically] intelligible or understandables only a preliminary equirement. ."
(NL:203). Instead,he observes, "theremay very well be rules for assessing the
relative meritsof individualcompletenarratives"NL:207).And "itmay be that
the intuitionsby which historians are guided when constructinga narrativeare
not so different rom the criteria or decidinguponits relativemerits" NL:207).
Thatopens the way for naturalized pistemologyin the philosophyof history.
Learningfrom earlierpractice, extending tentativelythe motifs of earliersuc-
cesses by analogy,constitutes a "bootstrap" ationalitywithout the need of any
foundationalist,a priori principle.On that basis disciplines and theirempirical
knowledgehave generallyarisenandorganized hemselves.Thishistoricallyand
logically iterativeprocess is at least as viable a representationof the course of
historicaldebateas of the historyof scientific theories(andbehindboth, of nat-
ural languages and their categories).61There is a further,crucial component:
objectivity s alwaysthe achievementof a communityof inquiry,neverof an iso-
latedinterpreter.62t the sametime, it is the very individualityof perspectiveof
the inquirer-idiosyncrasy or "subjectivity"-that inspires and informs the
account thatis proposedto the community.Personalcreativityandrisk form the
indispensably"subjective" lement in the dialectic of subjectivityandobjectivi-
tythat constitutesthe narrative
pragmaticsof
history.To returnto our
startingpoint:what we mustunderstand s "the historian'sattempt o give an acceptableaccount of partof the past"(NL:207). Historicalpracticeis "a collective enter-
prise,"asAnkersmitrecognizes(NL:241).I wouldonly hold outagainsthim that
even physicsmustbe. This is a featureof all empirical nquiryaccording o a nat-
uralizedepistemology.Let us come to termswithAnkersmit's inal proposalfor ajuste milieu, then.
He writes:
The threecentralnotionsof philosophy f language-reference,meaning, nd truth-
have o be redefinedn ordero cometo anadequate nderstandingf the nature f rep-resentation. eferencehould ereplaced y"aboutness.".. Meaning astobereplacedby "intertextuality" . . [since] meaning only reveals itself in a comparisonwith other
texts. . . . And this necessity has its consequences for the notion of truth . . . [It must
become] elative lausibility.HR:284)
61. Nickles, "ScientificDiscoveryand the Futureof Philosophyof Science."
62. Helen Longino, Science as Social Knowledge:Valuesand Objectivity n Scientific Inquiry
(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1990).
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ANKERSMITAND HISTORICALREPRESENTATION 181
All this is acceptable; t is just not enough.As I have tried to show, "aboutness"
remainstoo opento do thephilosophicalwork Ankersmitseeks from it. We need
to achieve a moresophisticatednotion of intersubjectivedentificationof thecol-
ligatoryconceptshistoriansemploy-a looser,more inductive,naturalized pis-
temology.Identity,substance-in-change,hehistorical dea:all these lay claimto
an empiricallycompelling "aboutness" hat demandsmore philosophicalspeci-fication. Similarly,"intertextuality"s a vital partof meaning-constitution ut it
does not exhaustit; somejuxtapositionof the text or metaphor o the represent-ed target s ultimatelystill in play.And plausibility-along with manyothercri-
teria-should certainlysupplementa notion of truth-and a fortiori the restric-
tive (sentential)notion of truth that Ankersmit is both using and contesting.
"Fertilityandnot truth[in thatrestrictivesense] is our criterion or decidingon
the relativemerit of narratios"NL:223). But that haslong
since been theposi-tion of the philosophyof science with regardto "underdetermination"-and,
would add,of the "rationality"f historicalpractice,which stressescontingency,
fallibility,and arguments o the best explanation.Ironically,one must conclude
that the "epistemologicalasceticism" that Ankersmithas adoptedis too strin-
gent-a holdoverfrom positivism that does not do full justice to the post-posi-tivist naturalism hatsucceeded the linguisticturn.
Rice University
Houston,Texas