Idealization XIII: Modeling in History. (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences & the Humanities)

IDEALIZATION XIII: MODELING IN HISTORY POZNAŃ STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SCIENCES AND THE HUMANITIES VOLUME 97 ...

Author: Krzysztof Brzechczyn

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IDEALIZATION XIII: MODELING IN HISTORY

POZNAŃ STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SCIENCES AND THE HUMANITIES VOLUME 97

EDITORS Leszek Nowak (founding editor) Jerzy Brzeziński Andrzej Klawiter Krzysztof Łastowski Izabella Nowakowa

Katarzyna Paprzycka (editor-in-chief) Piotr Przybysz Michael J. Shaffer Piotr Ziemian (assistant editor)

ADVISORY COMMITTEE Joseph Agassi (Tel-Aviv) Étienne Balibar (Paris) Wolfgang Balzer (München) Mario Bunge (Montreal) Nancy Cartwright (London) Robert S. Cohen (Boston) Francesco Coniglione (Catania) Andrzej Falkiewicz (Wrocław) Dagfinn Føllesdal (Oslo, Stanford) Jaakko Hintikka (Boston) Jacek J. Jadacki (Warszawa)

Jerzy Kmita (Poznań) Theo A.F. Kuipers (Groningen) Witold Marciszewski (Warszawa) Ilkka Niiniluoto (Helsinki) Günter Patzig (Göttingen) Jerzy Perzanowski (Kraków) Marian Przełęcki (Warszawa) Jan Such (Poznań) Max Urchs (Konstanz) Jan Woleński (Kraków) Ryszard Wójcicki (Warszawa)

Address: dr hab. Katarzyna Paprzycka . Department of Philosophy . University of Warsaw Krakowskie Przedmieście 3 . 00-927 Warszawa . Poland . fax ++48(0)22-826-5734 E-mail: [email protected]

POZNAŃ STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SCIENCES AND THE HUMANITIES, VOLUME 97

IDEALIZATION XIII: MODELING IN HISTORY

Edited by Krzysztof Brzechczyn

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2009

The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of "ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence". ISSN 0303-8157 ISBN: 978-90-420-2831-9 E-Book ISBN: 978-90-420-2832-6 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2009 Printed in The Netherlands

CONTENTS Krzysztof Brzechczyn, Between Science and Literature: The Debate on the Status of History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7

I. ONTOLOGY OF THE HISTORICAL PROCESS

Marceli Handelsman, Possibilities and Necessities of the Historical Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Jerzy Topolski, The Activistic Concept of the Historical Process . . . . 43 Leszek Nowak, Class and Individual in the Historical Process . . . . . . 63 II. MODELING IN THE METHODOLOGY OF HISTORY

Jerzy Topolski, Idealizational Procedures in History . . . . . . . . . . . Tadeusz Pawłowski, Typological Concepts in Historical Sciences . . Jerzy Topolski, The Directive of Rationalizing Human Actions . . . . Krzysztof Brzechczyn, Methodological Peculiarities of History in light of Idealizational Theory of Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jerzy Topolski, The Model and Its Concretization in Economic History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. 87 . 109 . 121 . 137 . 159

III. MODELING IN THE RESEARCH PRACTICE

Henryk Łowmiański, Why did the Polanian Tribe Unite the Polish State? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jerzy Topolski, Comments on Łowmiański . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan Rutkowski, Theoretical Considerations on the Distribution of Incomes in a Feudal System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jerzy Topolski, Comments on Rutkowski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Krzysztof Brzechczyn, The Distinctiveness of Central Europe in light of the Cascadeness of the Historical Process. . . . . . . . . . Jerzy Topolski, The Economic Model of the Wielkopolska Region in the 18th Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bogusław Leśnodorski, There Was Not One Causa Efficiens of Poland’s Partitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. 175 . 181 . 185 . 225 . 231 . 269 . 287

6

Contents IV. ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. POLISH CONTRIBUTIONS

Andrzej Malewski, Jerzy Topolski, The Nomothetic versus the Idiographic Approach to History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stefan Nowak, General Laws and Historical Generalizations in the Social Sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stanisław Ossowski, Two Conceptions of Historical Generalizations .......................................... Jan Such, Scientific Law versus Historical Generalization. An Attempt at an Explication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrzej Malewski, Jerzy Topolski, On Causal Explanation in History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. 299 . 311 . 327 . 337 . 351

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

Krzysztof Brzechczyn BETWEEN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE: THE DEBATE ON THE STATUS OF HISTORY*

1. The Nature of the Debate Let us consider in detail two standpoints. According to the first one: general laws have quite analogous functions in history and in natural sciences, that they form an indispensable instrument of historical research, and that they even constitute the common basis of various procedures which are often considered as characteristic of the social in contradistinction to the natural sciences. . . . In history no less than in any other branch of empirical inquiry, scientific explanation can be achieved only by means of suitable general hypotheses, or by theories, which are bodies of systematically related hypotheses.1

Whereas the second standpoint maintains that the historical work is nothing else than: verbal fiction, the content of which are as much invented as found and the forms of which have more in common with their counterparts in literature than they have with those in the sciences. . . . History is no less a form of fiction than the novel is a form of historical representation. 2

The statements quoted above point to the variety of positions in the debate on the place of history in culture.3 According to the first, positivist approach, of which the most prominent representative is Carl G. Hempel, *

My work upon this article was possible thanks to the scholarship from The Kościuszko Foundation, which allowed me to spend the first half of 2000 at the University of Illinois in Chicago. 1 Hempel ([1942] 1965), pp. 231 and 239. 2 White (1978), pp. 82 and 122. In the whole volume emphases in italics, if they are not marked by a separate note put in brackets, come from the quoted authors [footnote by the editor]. 3 The opposition of positivism/narrativism certainly does not exhaust the plentitude of approaches which obtain in contemporary history of philosophy. I have chosen the two theoretical approaches as they represent extremes on the whole continuum of positions.

In: K. Brzechczyn (ed.), Idealization XIII: Modeling in History (Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, vol. 97), pp. 7-30. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi, 2009.

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Krzysztof Brzechczyn

history is identical with the other domains of science, including the natural sciences. Therefore, it is possible to apply in history the same principles of scientific laws’ formulation, rules of explanation and confirmation of the acclaimed laws as in the natural sciences. The latter approach is a narrativist one. Its most representative figure is Hayden White, and it has been strengthened in recent years by the postmodernism. Under that approach, history is supposed to have more in common with literature than with science. 4 In consequence, the historian uses similar ways of constructing the plot, artistic means and rhetorical devices to those used by the writer. The differences between the above positions are best illustrated by presenting the views of the classic proponents of the two approaches, i.e., Hempel and White. In this paper, my intention is to answer two questions: what does explanation rely upon, and what is the relation of the historian's work (formulated law, narration) to the reality of the past. 1.1. The Positivist Approach to History According to positivism, a universal model of explanation used in science is supposed to be a deductive-nomological one. It consists of two parts: the explanandum, that is a statement describing a given phenomenon, which is to be explained (a statement, not a phenomenon) and of the explanans containing an explanatory statement. The explanans is composed of two parts: C1 , C2 , . . . , Ck – statements containing antecedent conditions, L1 , L2 , . . . , Lr – statements containing general laws. The procedure of explanation can be depicted in the following schema:5 C1 , C2 , . . . , Ck – statements containing antecedent conditions, L1 , L2 , . . . , L r – general laws, E – the description of the empirical phenomenon to be explained (explanandum). If the expounded model is to be adequate, it must fulfill certain logical and empirical conditions. The explanandum must be logically

4

White declares himself a structuralist (Domańska 1998, p. 27) yet his views are also included in the realm of new idealism (Mc Lennan 1981, p. 67), postmodernism (Himmelfarb 1999) and of course narrativism (e.g., Lorenz 1998; Murphey 1994, pp. 288-299). 5 Hempel ([1948] 1965), p. 249.

Between Science and Literature

9

inferred from the explanans. The explanans must contain a general law and at least one sentence, which is not a law, i.e., a sentence which characterizes antecedent conditions. Moreover, sentences which are parts of the explanans must be provided with empirical content so that they could be submitted to the test of experiment or observation. There is one condition in the empirical criterion of adequacy, namely that sentences which are part of the explanans must be true. 6 A law of science should have a universal form: it should neither contain proper names nor temporal-spatial determinants. All the elements of the deductive-nomological model should be verifiable. Sentences containing antecedent conditions and a law of science, on which the explanation relies, should be formulated in such a way as to be empirically testable. Moreover, the logical derivation of the explanandum from statements describing antecedent conditions and a general law is also testable.7 In Hempel’s opinion, the deductive-nomological model of explanation is applied both in history and in the natural sciences. Since explanations in history, as Hempel remarks, are hidden in historical narration, many historians deny the fact of resorting to general laws in their research practice. However, in historical narration are used such expressions as ‘hence’, ‘thus’, ‘since’, etc., which implicitly refer to certain general laws. These phrases bind antecedent conditions with the events subject to explanation. Moreover, as Hempel argues, general laws which appear in history refer to individuals or derive from social psychology. Since they are commonly known from everyday experience, they are tacitly assumed by historians. As Hempel remarks, rather than recalling completely formulated scientific laws, historian recall explanation sketches, which: consists of a more or less vague indication of the laws and initial conditions considered as relevant, and it needs “filling out” in order to turn into a fullfledged explanation. This filling-out requires further empirical research, for which the sketch suggests the direction. 8

In historical science, other ways of explaining are used which are uncommon in the remaining natural sciences. One of them is the explanation of subjects’ behavior endowed with consciousness. According to Hempel, however, explanatory strategy, which relies upon the reconstruction of human motives, views and outlooks upon life, also 6

Ibid., pp. 247-248. Hempel ([1942] 1965), p. 234. 8 Ibid., p. 238. 7


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comes within the deductive-nomological pattern of giving explanations. In this case, the explanation proceeds in accordance with the following schema: 9 A was in a situation of type C, A was a rational agent, Every rational person in a situation of the type C, will invariably (with a high degree of probability) perform X, A performed X. The assumption of the agent’s rationale in this model functions as reference to the general law of science: “Thus, in so far as reference to the rationale of an agent does explain his action, the explanation conforms to one of our nomological models.” 10 Under the positivist model of explanation, to explain a phenomenon means to derive the description of the phenomenon from the commonly accepted law of science and its antecedent conditions. In the positivist approach of science, the law of science arises by means of generalization, it is provided with empirical content and may be verified, i.e., refuted or confirmed. 1.2. The Narrativist Approach to History According to White, before starting research of a selected fragment of the past, the historian first creates the object of study and the ways of its conceptualizing in an act of prefiguration: In order to figure “what really happened” in the past, therefore, the historian must prefigure as a possible object of knowledge the whole set of events reported in the documents. This prefigurative act is poetic inasmuch as it is precognitive and precritical in the economy of the historian’s own consciousness. It is also poetic insofar as it is constitutive of the structure that will subsequently be imaged in the verbal model offered by the historian as a representation and explanation of “what really happened” in the past. But it is constitutive not only of a domain which the historian can treat as a possible object of (mental) perception. It is also constitutive of the concept he will use to identify the objects that inhabit that domain and to characterize the kinds of relationships they can sustain with one another. In the poetic act which precedes the formal analysis of the field, the historian both creates his object of analysis and predetermines the modality of the conceptual strategies he will use to explain it. 11

9

Hempel (1963), p. 155. Hempel (1962), p. 27. 11 White (1973), pp. 30-31. 10


11

But the number of possible explanatory strategies is not infinite. There are, in fact, four principal types, which correspond to the four principal tropes of poetic language: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony. They provide a basis for identifying four basic structures of historical thinking. Furthermore, it is possible to distinguish five conceptualization levels of a historical work: chronicle (i), story (ii), the mode of emplotment (iii), the mode of argument (iv) and the level of ideological implication (v).12 The first two levels are the most primitive elements in the historian’s endeavor. In a chronicle, the process of selecting and arranging historical material is effected in the order of occurrence to make it comprehensible for the intended reader. In a story, facts from the chronicle are formed so that they have a clearly defined beginning, middle and end. Transforming the selected facts of the chronicle into a story leads to a number of questions that the historian must predict and be able to answer. These questions are of the kind: “What happened next?”, “How did that occur?”, “Why did things happen this way rather than that?”, “How did it all come out in the end?” and they determine the narrative strategy of the historian. They should be distinguished from questions of another kind: “What does it add up to?” or “What is the point of it all?”, which determine the structure of the entire set of events regarded as a completed story. They also decide the relationship between a given story and other story (stories) that might be “found,” “identified” or “uncovered” in the chronicle.13 Answers to these questions can be found through: the mode of emplotment (i), the mode of argument (ii) and the presentation of ideological implications. Following Northrop Frye, White identifies four different modes of emplotment: Romance, Tragedy, Comedy and Satire, which express archetypal attitudes of man in the face of the world. Romance, as White maintains, is a reflection of the triumph of good over evil, virtue over vice, light over darkness and of the final Liberation of man from the world in which he was imprisoned by the Fall. Satire proclaims a view on the human condition that is different from that presented by Romance. Satire as the mode of emplotment is the best at communicating the idea of man being a captive of the world rather than its master, and that as an ultimate result human consciousness and will are too weak to finally overcome the dark forces of death, for which man is an enemy. Comedy and Tragedy, in turn, admit the possibility of at least partial liberation

12 13

Ibid., p. 5. Ibid., p. 7.


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from the consequences of the Fall and overcoming the result of the division into natural and social worlds, in which man exists simultaneously. In Comedy the reconciliation of forces acting in the social and natural worlds are occasional; in culture, the reconciliation is symbolized by the festival. Tragedy, on the other hand, does not assume such possibilities: the reconciliation is the result of man’s resignation and coming to terms with his conditions of existence.14 Correspondingly to four modes of emplotment, White, drawing on Stephen C. Pepper’s work, distinguishes four modes of argumentation: Formist, Organicist, Mechanistic, and Contextualist.15 The Formist model of explanation relies on identifying of the unique properties of an investigated object. Such goal can be attained by the identifying special characteristics of the object under study and classifying them appropriately. In the Organicist model of explanation, particular objects are being attributed to greater entities, which are different from their parts. Similarly to the Organicist more, the Mechanistic mode of explanation adopts an integrative perspective. In contrast to the previous position it has inherent reductive tendencies, since the actors of the past are merely a manifestation of the governing regularities. The differences between the Organicist and Mechanistic models, White defines in greater detail using the example of the relation of both explanatory models to universal scientific laws. It is characteristic of the Organicist Strategy of explanation: “to eschew the search for the laws of historical process, when the term laws is construed in the sense of universal and invariant causal relationship, after the manner of Newtonian physics, Lavoisieran chemistry, or Darwinian biology.”16 By contrast, the Mechanistic mode of explanation: “turns upon the search for the causal law that determine the outcomes of the processes discovered in the historical field.”17 In the Contextualist mode of argumentation, the explanation depends upon placing the explained phenomenon in its social setting. White considers Walsh’s concept of colligation as being closest to that mode of argumentation. Correspondingly to the four types of argument, White follows Karl Mannheim in distinguishing four types of the ideological stance: Anarchism, Conservatism, Radicalism, and Liberalism.18 Each of these positions assumes a different attitude to the four modes of argumentation 14

Ibid., Ibid., 16 Ibid., 17 Ibid., 18 Ibid., 15

pp. 7-11. pp. 11-21. p. 16. p. 17. pp. 22-29.


13

listed above. Radicals share with Liberals a belief in the possibility of rational and scientific study of history. The contrast between them has to do with differing visions of science and rationality. Radicals are said to seek laws which operate in history, whereas Liberals look for general trends and main directions of development. Conservatives and Anarchists are convinced, in turn, that the sense of history can be discovered and verbalized. They differ, however, with respect to the methods of research in history. Anarchists are proponents of empathy, which is close to Romanticism, while Conservatives strive to integrate cognitive intuitions into one comprehensive Organicist whole. According to White, the historiographic style is a combination of poetic tropes, the mode of emplotment, argumentation and ideological implication, defined on different levels of conceptualization. As White remarks: the various modes of emplotment, argument, and ideological implication cannot be indiscriminately combined in a given work. For example, a Comic emplotment is not compatible with a Mechanistic argument, just as a Radical ideology is not compatible with a Satirical emplotment. There are, as it were, elective affinities among the various modes that might be used to gain an explanatory affect on the different levels of composition. And these affinities are based on the structural homologies which can be discerned among the possible modes of emplotment, argument and ideological implication. 19

Individual historiographic styles can be expounded in the form of the following table: Mode of Trope

Mode of Emplotment

Mode of Argument

Mode of Ideological Implication

Metaphor

Romantic

Formist

Anarchist

Metonymy

Tragic

Mechanistic

Radical

Synecdoche

Comic

Organicist

Conservative

Irony

Satirical

Contextualist

Liberal

No connection occurs between the explanatory strategy adopted and the past, since both the explanatory strategy used, and the fragment of the past at hand are constructed by the historian in the act of prefiguration. When characterizing the historians whose work, according to him, is a model representation of the four historiographic styles identified above, White claims that:

19

Ibid., p. 29.


14

Their status as possible models of historical representation or conceptualization does not depend upon the nature of the “data” they used to support their generalization or the theories they invoked to explain them; it depends rather upon the consistency, coherence, and the illuminative power of their respective visions of the historical field. This is why they cannot be “refuted,” or their generalizations “disconfirmed,” either by appeal to new data that might be turned up in subsequent research or by elaboration of a new theory for interpreting the sets of events that comprise their objects of representation and analysis. Their status as models of historical narration and conceptualization depends, ultimately, on the preconceptual and specifically poetic nature of their perspectives on history and its processes. 20

The two contrary positions reflect the continuum of views on the place of history in culture and its methodological status. Positivists maintain that adequate explanation of the phenomena can be achieved by appealing to a scientific law and its antecedent conditions. According to the positivist formulation, a scientific law, while arising by generalization, is provided with empirical content. Owing to that, it is verifiable; i.e., it may be refuted or confirmed. Narrativists, on the other hand, claim that explanation in history is similar to explanations found in everyday life and in literature. It relies on the transformation of the incomprehensible into the comprehensible. This assumption gives primacy to literary means which are used in historical narration. In narrativist understanding, a given explanatory strategy appears in the course of prefiguration that both constitutes an object of study and defines the literary tropes which are the basis of its investigation. A historiographic style arising in this way contains four elements: the trope, the mode of emplotment, argumentation and the reference to ideological implications. It is a construct that is superimposed by the historian and as such it does not have any link with the past reality. 2. A Paraphrase of the Controversy between Positivism and Narrativism Paraphrasing the basic claims of the positivistic and narrativistic approaches to history must rely on more than a reference to a certain suitably receptive theory of science. One needs to look for a more general concept, which could express a specific nature of the products of culture in its various realms: both in science and, for example, in literature. Such

20

Ibid., p. 9.


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basis may be supplied by Unitarian Metaphysics.21 Let us then paraphrase the controversy between narrativism and positivism in terms of that framework. First, let us recall the notions that will be used in the present paper. Unitarian Metaphysics identifies two types of deformation procedures, which are used in culture: hard and soft. The examples of hard deformation procedures are reduction and transcendentalization, while the examples of soft procedures are negative and positive potentialization. Let us assume that we have an initial object O provided with a certain set of properties, which are characterized by a certain intensity. As a consequence of a transcendentalization, object O' is provided with certain additional properties, which an initial object does not have. The contrary one is a reduction, which relies upon depriving object O'' of certain properties in comparison with the initial object. As a result of the use of positive potentialization, properties of object O' are characterized by greater intensity than the properties of the antecedent object O. The procedure of negative potentialization, instead, eventuates in an object the properties of which are characterized by smaller intensity than the intensities of the antecedent object’s properties. Constructs which are created in different realms of culture are a result of using complex deformation procedures. The idealizational method in science is a combination of reduction and negative potentialization. A black body is devoid of certain properties, and those, which it has, are present in the state of minimal intensity. The procedure of absolutization, which is used in theology, is a combination of the procedure of transcendentalization and that of positive potentialization. In theological thought, God is an ideal being that possesses more properties with maximal intensity than any empirical being.22 Whereas fictionalization, which is used in literature, is a combination of reduction and positive potentialization. On the one hand, Jurand of Spychów, a character from a novel Krzyżacy (Teutonic Knights) by Henryk Sienkiewicz, a winner of the Nobel literary prize, lived a more colorful life than an average “empirical” person in the Middle Ages. This is just an outcome of positive potentialization. On the other hand, a fictional figure is deprived of certain properties in comparison to “real,” actually existing personae. We know nothing, for example, about Jurand of Spychów’s grandfather. 21

An elaborate discussion of this concept can be found in Nowak (1998), and in English (1991). I based my presentation of its most important notions on its summary presented in: Nowak (1989). 22 For models in theology, see, e.g., Barbour (1974); and common structure of science and theology – Nowak (2000).

16


Is it possible, then, to provide the following paraphrase of the question of whether history is closer to science or literature: “What deformation procedures find primary application in history: idealization or fictionalization?”. Even if we agree that the use of the idealizational method in the historical science is of primary importance, then in the conflict mentioned above we are far from granting all rights to positivists and denying them to narrativists. The most outstanding critics of the scientistic approach to history do not realize that they criticize the image of science that they themselves presuppose.23 And they tacitly assume a positivist image of science. Meanwhile, one of the interpretations of the model method in scientific research, the idealizational theory of science (ITS) assumes an admittedly naturalistic, yet antipositivist image of science.24 Let us present, then, a rough outline of a model of research procedure located within this framework. 25 (Idealization). Constructing a scientific theory begins with deforming the essential structure of the investigated phenomenon. According to the first model of a theory, researchers neglect factors that they view as secondary and investigate the influence of the principal factors. Such formulation of the idealizational law is a conditional statement. Its antecedent contains idealizing assumptions, by force of which the influence of secondary factors is neglected. Its successor indicates the way in which the investigated phenomenon depends on its principal factor. Scientific law is not, then, the result of generalizing empirical data, but of deforming the investigated phenomenon, i.e., neglecting a factor that is perceived as secondary and recognizing the sole influence of the principal factor. Thus, idealization resembles White’s act of prefiguration. In order to neglect certain dimensions of the phenomenon, one needs courage and imagination in escaping the load of details, which weigh heavily on the theory’s construction. Nobody knows why White attributes this courage and imagination to poets, and denies them to scientists. (Concretization). Idealization is only similar to White’s act of prefiguration because ITS contains a procedure which has been ignored both by narrativists and positivists, namely the procedure of concretization. Once the idealizational law has been formulated the 23

See, e.g., the interview with White: Domańska (1998), p. 15. Cf. the comparison of the idealizational theory of science with the positivist approach to science in Nowak (1971) and (1973). 25 Basic presentation of this theory one can find in Nowak (1980) while survey of its extensions and application in (1992). 24


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researcher sets to concretize the model: a procedure that is not used in both the other approaches. This procedure relies upon a gradual waiving of idealizing assumptions made previously and presenting the dependencies between the investigated phenomenon and secondary factors. Concretization proceeds in a defined order. First one waives the idealizing assumptions that refer to those secondary factors which exert the greatest influence upon the phenomenon under study. Afterwards, one waives those assumptions that refer to factors exerting relatively smaller influence upon the investigated phenomenon. Concretization ends with canceling all idealizing assumptions and drawing up a factual statement. (Approximation). However, in the research practice, ultimate concretization, as a result of which all simplifying assumptions of the idealizational law are waived is never carried out. It is usual that after a number of concretizations the influence of the remaining, less important secondary factors, is established through approximation. It relies on attributing certain values to secondary factors. The values are different from minimal values that are allocated to them in idealizing assumptions and from the actual values adopted by secondary factors. An approximation statement is accepted when the level of acceptable discrepancies between empirical data and a result derived from a theoretical formula is not larger than what is generally accepted in a given domain of science. (Explanation). In the ITS explanation depends upon presenting the dependence between the investigated object and the principal factor. The next step is to concretize the idealizational law until a factual statement is drawn. What is explained is derived from the factual statement, which has been formulated on the basis of the procedure of concretization, and from its antecedent conditions.26 (Verification). According to Hempel’s deductive-nomological model, laws can be applied directly to reality. In ITS this direct application is only possible in the case of ultimate concretization of the idealizational law. In practice, however, after a number of concretizations, empirical data are juxtaposed with an approximation of the concretized idealizational law. Too great a discrepancy between empirical data and a result which has been deduced from a theoretical formula does not result in ruling out the idealizational law but in correcting it further through a continuing concretization process.

26

For differences between the positivist and idealizational model of explanation and formulation of laws, see Nowak (1971) and (1973).


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3. Three Paradoxes of the Narrative in the Light of the Idealizational Theory of Historical Narration The key issue in the historian’s research procedure is the construction of historical narration. Using a suitably expanded conceptual terminology of the idealizational theory of historical narration, let us paraphrase three paradoxes of narration. One has been observed by Hempel, and the other two by White. According to Izabella Nowakowa, who has developed the concept of narration in the realm of ITS, the structure of historical narration reflects the structure of the theory explaining the investigated phenomenon.27 Historical narration consists of two layers. Its phenomenal layer records the states of the phenomena examined. Its deep layer, on the other hand, refers to the determinants, which decide the particular states of the phenomenon. Since factors determining the state of the investigated phenomenon are ordered with respect to their significance, the deep structure of narration is composed of strips. The first narrative strip describes the phenomenon in terms of the first model of the assumed idealizational theory. It presents the course of the phenomenon depending upon the influence of the principal factor (factors). The second narrative strip contains more subtle interpretations, for it also takes into account the impact of the secondary factor upon the investigated phenomenon. Subsequent narrative strips contain ever richer interpretations of the consecutive states of the phenomenon, since they take into account newly arising secondary factors, which have been neglected in the preliminary strip of narration. Thus, in historical narration it is essential not so much to point to what it exhibits, but what it overlooks.28 A historian-materialist, for example, who describes the history of Poland, is supposed to concentrate upon methods of production, technological advancement, methods of dividing national revenues, etc. Only on a further plane will he take into consideration the influence of political institutions and spiritual culture. A historian-institutionalist, conversely, will concentrate on changes in the political system, i.e. the history of dynasties and monarchies. A historian-idealist, on the other hand, will focus in his vision of the history of Poland on such events as the adoption of Christianity, Reformation and the rise of Protestantism, Counter-Reformation, and the culture of Sarmatism, Enlightenment and the appearance of Romanticism. Only

27 28

Nowakowa (1990), pp. 31-40. Nowakowa (1991), p. 107.


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later, on a further plane, that historian will address the influence of economic or political factors on Polish history. A strip-like structure of historical narration can thus explain the first paradox of narration, which was noted by White: The historian has to interpret his materials in order to construct the moving pattern of images in which the form of the historical process is to be mirrored. And this because the historical record is both too full and too sparse. On the one hand, there are always more facts in the record than the historian can possibly include in his narrative representation of a given segment of the historical process. And so the historian must “interpret” his data by excluding certain facts from his account as irrelevant to his narrative purpose. 29

Every narrative, however seemingly “full,” is constructed on the basis of a set of events that might have been included but were left out; this is as true of imaginary narratives as it is of realistic ones. 30 In the first narrative strip a historian excludes these facts (factors) which s/he views as secondary (i.e. less important) for a given phenomenon. Disregarding certain factors which are considered secondary for a given phenomenon, is a common feature both for the narration which describes real phenomena and for fictional narration. However, substantial differences exist between the two types of narration. In the case of narration of historical phenomena, the criterion of selecting historical material is supplied by a scientific theory which provides a hierarchy of factors influencing a given phenomenon. In the case of literary narration the criterion which decides about what belongs to narration and what can be neglected is provided by the author's preferences, aesthetic tastes, the Zeitgeist, etc. Moreover, in contrast to narration of fictional phenomena, historical narration can be even more realistic, since its subsequent strips describe the development of a given phenomenon in terms of model II and its derivatives, within the idealizational theory adopted. The idea of historical narration which has been expounded above, is based on a series of idealizing assumptions. One of them is a conviction about the one-sidedness of influence. It assumes that if a factor A influences a factor B, then the factor B does not influence the factor A. Waiving of this presumption leads to the explication of a categorial system. The term refers to a set C of such properties that for every F of C – a set of essential factors for F is included in C. The categorial system should be differentiated from a categorial correlate. It is such a set of properties C, which includes a class of all principal factors for any 29 30

White (1978), p. 51. White (1987), p. 10.


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property F from C. Waiving this assumption results in canceling the division of narration into its phenomenal and deep layers. In the organicist narration, which constitutes a more realistic approximation of historical narration, the same sentences belong simultaneously to both layers of narration: phenomenal and deep. However, in the research practice of historians it is rare indeed that we can find an attempt at describing the whole categorial correlate. Examples include great syntheses similar to the styles of Arnold Toynbee or Feliks Koneczny, which cover the history of civilization or the whole of humanity, and may be interpreted as such attempts. More commonly, historians strive for much more modest goals: they do not aim to describe the whole categorial correlate but to grasp essential connections between factors. In particular, historians are interested in finding an answer to the question of what (which factors) resulted in a situation in which a factor under study adopted a certain value. In that reconstruction, historians recreate both direct influence of certain factors upon the magnitude under study and indirect influence, i.e., the impact of factors that do not influence the investigated magnitude directly, but which influence factors that in turn exert direct influence on it. In order to elucidate the special nature of the narration of essential connections between factors, I would like to use a slightly modified extension of ITS developed by Jan Pomorski.31 Pomorski replaces the assumption of one-sidedness of influence with the following one: A-1: every distinguished factor F generates ontically a set of factors essential for F and a set of factors for which F is an essential factor.32 Between a set of factors essential for F and a set of factors upon which F exerts its influence, relations of identity, subordination, superordination, intersection and exclusion may obtain. For a historian, it is the latter case that is the most interesting. In this case, sets of factors essential for F and for which F is essential, are mutually exclusive. This situation allows waiving another assumption upon which ITS relied and which states that: A-2: factor F is subordinate to the essential impact of solely directly essential factors.33 Waiving that assumption allows introducing a notion of an indirect factor. An indirectly essential factor for the F factor is a factor which 31

Pomorski (1981). Ibid., p. 63. 33 Ibid., p. 76. 32


21

influences F through a mediation of another factor. Depending upon the number of factors-mediators, which are present in this chain of influences, we can discuss the first, second, etc. levels of indirectness. A zero level of indirectness is the level of direct essential influence. 34 After imposing the relation of temporal ordering upon the relation of influence, let us examine the following chain of influences between factors B, H, F: 1

2

Bt → Ht → Ft

3

Factor H is a principal factor for the magnitude F, whereas factor B is a principal factor for H. Factor B is then a factor indirectly essential for F, and factor H – directly essential factor. Thus, narration assumes two theories: T1 , which examines the influence of factor H upon F and T 2 , which examines the influence of factor B upon H. In the first narrative strip, a simplified structure of narration is the following: Strips of narration

Phenomenal layer

Deep layer

I strip

F(a, t 3 ) = f ' H(a, t 2 ) = h

H(a, t 2 ) = h B (a, t 1 ) = b

It is clear that after waiving the assumption about one-sidedness of influence, the sentence which describes the state of the factor H in time t 2 appears both in the phenomenal and deep layers of narration. The sentence which describes the state of the factor F is present only in the phenomenal layer of narration and the sentence which describes the state of the factor B – in the deep layer. Strategies for further development of narration can be different depending on the strategies of developing the theory of idealizational factors F and H. The following can be differentiated, then: (i) reconstructing the complete essential structure F (for the sake of simplicity, I would like to add that the essential structure of each of the factors consists of the principal factor and solely two secondary factors): p1 ↓ B→H→F ↑ p2

34

Ibid., p. 76.


22

(ii) reconstructing the complete essential structure F and the principal factors s and r for the secondary factors p 1 and p2 , which influence F r → p1 ↓ B→H→F ↑ s → p2 (iii) reconstructing the essential structure F and H: t p1 ↓ ↓ B→H→F ↑ ↑ v p2 (iv) reconstructing the essential structure F and H and the principal factors which influence the secondary factors t, v for H and p1 , p2 for F: z→t ↓ B → H ↑ u→v

r → p1 ↓ → F ↑ s → p2

For the purposes of illustration I will expound only on the narrative structure of case (ii):


23

Strips of narration

Phenomenal layer

Deep layer

I strip

F(a, t 3 ) = f' 3 H(a, t 2 ) = h' 2

H(a, t 2 ) = h 2 B(a, t 1 ) = b 1

II strip

F(a, t 3 ) = f'' 3 p 1 (a, t 2 ) = m 1 '' 2

H(a, t 2 ) = h & p 1 (a, t 2 ) = m 1 2 r(a, t 1 ) = n 1 1

III strip

F(a, t 3 ) = f''' 3 p 2 (a, t 2 ) = m 2 ''' 2

H(a, t 2 ) = h 2 & p 1 (a, t 2 ) = m 1 2 & p 2 (a, t 2 ) = m 2 2 s(a, t 1 ) = n 2 1

The narration depicted above is of the intra-theoretical type. Its objects are: - a multimodel theory T1 examining the influence of factor H and the secondary factors p 1 and p 2 upon F; - a one-model theory T2 examining the influence of factor B upon H; - a one-model theory T3 examining the influence of factor r upon factor p 1 secondary to F; - a one-model theory T4 examining the influence of factor s upon the secondary factor p 2 .

the principal the principal the principal the principal

In this narration, the factors H, p 1 and p 2 are directly influencing F, and the factors B, r, s, – indirectly. The formulas: H(a, t 2 ), p 1 (a, t 2 ) and p 2 (a, t 2) are present both in the phenomenal and deep layers of narration. The formula F(a, t 3) is present only in the phenomenal layer, and the formulas: B(a, t 1 ), s(a, t 1), r(a, t 1 ) are present only in the deep layer. Thus, contrary to Nowakowa’s position, the division of narration into the phenomenal and deep layers is not canceled completely.35 Certain sentences belong both to the phenomenal and deep layer of narration, some belong only to the phenomenal, and some only to the deep layer on narration. In this type of narration, the most important position is explaining the state of the factor F. That is the reason why the narration not does expound on the whole sets of factors for which factors H, p1 and p2 are essential but only presents the influence that they exerted on the factor F under examination. Also, the narration does not reconstruct the whole essential structure of the factors: H, p 1 and p2 , but only reconstructs the principal factors for those magnitudes. This extension of the concept of narration lets us understand the second paradox of historical narration observed by Hempel. Hempel 35

Nowakowa (1990), p. 37.


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remarks that the description of the development of a certain phenomenon in the so-called genetic explanation, which is in fact nothing else than historical narration, does not rely on exposing all the facts which were there prior to the state of an phenomenon being studied, but only on such of them, i.e., those which are essential for its present state. Historical narration, as Hempel goes on to say, does not resemble a “yearbook of the year’s important events,” in which events are only expounded in their chronological order. Instead, “each stage must be shown to ‘lead to’ the next, and thus to be linked to its successor by virtue of some general principle which makes the occurrence of the latter at least reasonably probable, given the former.”36 This type of description is always a combination of: a certain measure of nomological interconnecting with more or less large amounts of straight description . . . A genetic explanation will begin with a pure description of an antecedent stage; thence, it will proceed to an account of a second stage, part of which is nomologically linked to, and explained by, the characteristic features of the antecedent stage; while the balance is simply described as relevant for a nomological account of some aspects of the third stage; and so forth. 37

The narration does not resemble “a yearbook of the year’s important events,” since the aim of an ideal historian is not to reconstruct the whole areas of the influence of factors B and H, but only to expose the way in which B influences H and H together with secondary factors influence F. Within the idealizational concept of narration a counterpart of “nomological interconnectings” is the deep layer of narration, and the counterpart of “straight description” is its phenomenal layer. Hempel ignores a strip structure of the deep layer of narration. This results from his methodological assumptions, i.e., ignoring the idealizational status of laws formulated in science, of which historical narration is a reflection. Moreover, Nowakowa’s concept of historical narration tacitly presumes that the historian disposes a perfect source basis – which allows one to register future states of the investigated phenomena being and its determinants. If, however, we waive that assumption and realistically assume that the source basis is incomplete, we must deal with the third paradox of narration, which has been observed by White: On the other hand, in his efforts to reconstruct “what happened” in any given period of history, the historian inevitably must include in his narrative an account of some events or complex of events for which the facts that would permit a plausible explanation of its occurrence are lacking. And this means that the 36 37

Hempel (1962), p. 23. Ibid., p. 24.


25

historian must “interpret” his materials by filling in the gaps in his information on inferential or speculative ground.38

Thus, a scientific theory decides not only which factors should be neglected in the first strip of narration, but also the way in which, in the case of a lack of full source-based evidence, future states of the investigated phenomenon will be reconstructed together with a set of factors which influence them. The scientific theory in historical research plays not just an explanatory but also a heuristic role, which allows new interpretations of the already known historical sources and show new directions of empirical researches broadening source-based evidence and opening a possibility of a more complete reconstruction of the states of the investigated phenomenon and its essential structure. 39 4. The Content of this Volume The papers collected in the first part of the present volume, Ontology of the Historical Process are devoted to an issue concerning the role of an individual in the historical process. In his paper “Possibilities and Necessities of the Historical Process”, Marceli Handelsman considers the influence of an individual upon the historical process. He is convinced that this influence is the greatest in the period of the so-called historical hiatuses, when opposing historical tendencies get balanced. Jerzy Topolski, in his paper “The Activistic Concept of the Historical Process,” reconstructs various theories of the historical process, which have been distinguished with respect to roles attributed to an individual. He contrasts fatalistic concepts of the historical process, in which an individual is subordinated either to unconscious internal factors or to independent external factors, with the concept of Marxist activism which he reconstructed. The same issue has been addressed by Leszek Nowak in his article “Class and Individual in the Historical Process.” The author distinguishes two dimensions of the issue. The first dimension is based on the question of whether global entities such as a class or a nation exist independently of individuals. The question is answered in the affirmative by existential holism, whereas existential individualism denies such a possibility. The second dimension refers to the question of what is more important in the historical process: global entities or individual entities? Essential holism assigns primary importance to the first, whereas 38 39

Ibid., p. 51. Compare, e.g., Murphey (1994), p. 302.

26


essential individualism prioritizes the second. Furthermore, Nowak uses this perspective to try to define a role of an individual in history on the basis of a certain fragment of non-Marxian historical materialism, which is a combination of existential individualism and essential holism. Part II, Modeling in the Methodology of History, deals with different methodological aspects of method of model-building. The first article in that section is “Idealization Procedures in History” by Jerzy Topolski. Topolski identifies four idealizational procedures in historians’ enterprise. These are: factualizing the source material, modeling the image of the past reality, narrative abstraction (summarizing) and explanative abstraction (omission). The idealizational procedure is tacitly assumed in constructing notions. The procedure is an act of distinguishing constitutive properties of an object and depreciating its consecutive properties. Thus, defining presumes a certain theory of the defined phenomena. In Tadeusz Pawłowski’s paper “Typological Concepts in Historical Sciences,” the author discusses the status of typological terms consisting of classificatory concepts which ascertain presence or absence of certain properties in a set of investigated objects and comparative concepts which measure their intensity. The procedure of idealization is present in the formulation of scientific laws, which are intended to explain particular facts and historic events. Various aspects of formulating idealizational scientific laws, their concretization and explanation have been undertaken in the three successive articles of that part of the volume. In “The Directive of Rationalizing Human Actions”, Jerzy Topolski ponders on the idealizational nature of the assumption of rationality and its role in explaining human behavior. In “Methodological Peculiarities of History in the Light of Idealizational Theory of Science” Krzysztof Brzechczyn suggests an extension of the concept mentioned in the title, so that it can encompass certain methodological historical peculiarities, such as the existence of alternatives in the historical process. In his paper “The Model and its Concretization in Economic History” Jerzy Topolski identifies four ways of its concretization: territorial, chronological, quantitative, and filling a model by source dates. The third part, Modeling in the Research Practice, is devoted to the applications of idealization in the historians’ scientific endeavors. It is clear that the model method is gradual in nature. A specific case of idealization, which is often not conceptualized and is carried out intuitively, is the very process of differentiating from the composite and complex historical reality factors responsible for certain historical


27

occurrences. This is what Bolesław Leśnodorski accomplished in his paper “There Was Not One Causa Efficencis of Poland’s Partitions,” in which he conducts an analysis of factors responsible for the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century. A greater degree of methodological self-reflection can be found in Jan Rutkowski’s paper “Theoretical Considerations on the Distribution of Incomes in Feudal Systems.” When analyzing the division of income in the feudal system, Rutkowski distinguishes between three pure types of work systems: rent, villeinage and hired labor. The picture thus obtained then gets more complex as Rutkowski considers the influence of mixed types and other factors influencing the distribution of incomes. In “Why Did the Polanian Tribe Unite the Polish State?” Henryk Łowmiański initially considers the problem of why it was the Polanian and not the Vistulan tribe that was a germ of the Polish statehood in the 9th and 10th centuries. He formulates a historical law on the origin of statehood and defines disturbing conditions, which caused that the Vistulan tribe could not be a centre of Polish statehood. The two articles have been appended with Jerzy Topolski’s “Comments.” The concept of cascadeness – the gradual accumulation of insignificant factors whose the joint impact at certain moment in time overbalances the influence of the basic factors, on which a given phenomenon relies has been adopted by Krzysztof Brzechczyn in his contribution “The Distinctiveness of Central Europe in the Light of the Cascadeness of the Historical Process.” The author of this paper explains the rise of the manorial-serf system in Central Europe and considers different regional variants of evolution of this system. In “The Economic Model of the Wielkopolska Region in the 18 th Century” Jerzy Topolski adopts Witold Kula’s theory of the feudal system as a point of departure for his analysis. Beyond that, he concretizes that theory in order to explain the economic development of Wielkopolska in the 18th century. The articles collected in the last, fourth part of the present volume, Analytical Philosophy of History. Polish Contributions, address various aspects of the Polish analytical philosophy of history. Issues covered in that section include the problem of differentiating between general laws and historical generalizations and different models of causal explanation. Two approaches to history, the nomothetic and the idiographic one, have been distinguished by Andrzej Malewski and Jerzy Topolski in their contribution “The Nomothetic versus the Idiographic Approach to History.” Moreover, the two authors identify a number of senses of the concepts “nomothetic” and “idiographic.”

28


In his article “General Laws and Historical Generalizations in the Social Sciences,” Stefan Nowak ponders on when a researcher formulates detailed statements, historical generalization and a universal law. He also identifies a number of supplementary variants of these statements. Nowak suggests space-time co-ordinates as a criterion of differentiating these statements. By contrast, Stanisław Ossowski in his paper “Two Conceptions of Historical Generalizations” claims that these co-ordinates are not essential to differentiating between historical generalizations and universal laws. In his theorem, historical generalizations (scientific laws) are predicated on universal dependencies, whereas historical general statements (historical generalizations) are predicated on dependencies, which act in the so-called relatively isolated systems. A summary of this discussion is offered by Jan Such in “The Scientific Law versus Historical Generalization. An Attempt at Explication,” in which the author examines the problem of differences between two types of theorems formulated in science, concluding that they are gradual rather than dichotomic in nature. The last paper in the section deals with problem of causal explanation in the historians' work. In their paper “On Causal Explanation in History,” Andrzej Malewski and Jerzy Topolski distinguish the explanation of a given historic event by means of cause understood as a sufficient condition (i), a necessary condition (ii), a condition necessary in a given specific situation (iii) and a favorable condition (iv). In a further part of their article, the authors recreate models of explanation construed on the basis of providing indirect and direct causes of a given historic event. * The work on the present volume has been begun by myself and Professor Jerzy Topolski. Unfortunately, Professor Topolski’s unexpected death put an abrupt stop to our collaboration. It also affected the contents of this volume, in which I decided to include a series of his articles, which were not previously translated into English. In the course of my subsequent individual editorial work on the present volume, I benefited from invaluable advice and suggestions offered Professor Leszek Nowak. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge gratefully his assistance in preparing the volume. translated by Małgorzata Klimek


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Adam Mickiewicz University Department of Philosophy ul. Szamarzewskiego 89 C 60-568 Poznań, Poland e-mail: [email protected] REFERENCES Barbour, I. (1974). Myths, Models, and Paradigms. A Comparative Study in Science and Religion. New York: Harper and Row. Domańska, E. (1998). Encounters. Philosophy of History after Postmodernism. Charlottesville/London: University Press of Virginia. Hempel, C.G. ([1942] 1965). The Function of General Laws in History. Reprinted in: Hempel (1965), pp. 231-243. Hempel, C.G. ([1948] 1965). Studies in the Logic of Explanation. In: Hempel (1965), pp. 245-295. Hempel, C.G. (1962). Explanation in Science and in History. In: R. G. Colodny (ed.), Frontiers of Science and Philosophy, pp. 8-33. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Hempel, C.G. (1963). Reasons and Covering Laws in Historical Explanation. In: S. Hook (ed.), Philosophy and History. A Symposium, pp. 143-163. New York: New York University Press. Hempel, C.G. (1965). Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: Free Press. Himmelfarb, G. (1999). Postmodernist History. In: E. Fox-Genovese and E. Lasch-Quinn (eds.), Reconstructing History. The Emergence of a New Historical Society, pp. 71-93. New York/London: Routledge. Mc Lennan, G. (1981). Marxism and the Methodologies of Histories. London: NLB. Lorenz, Ch. (1998). Can Histories Be True? Narrativism, Positivism, and the “Metaphorical Turn.” History and Theory 37, 309-329. Murphey, M.G. (1994). Philosophical Foundations of Historical Knowledge. Albany: State University of New York Press. Nowak, L. (1971). U podstaw marksowskiej metodologii nauk [Foundations of Marxian Methodology of Sciences]. Warszawa: PWN. Nowak, L. (1973). Pozytywistyczna koncepcja praw i wyjaśniania [Positivist Concept of Laws and Explanation]. In: J. Kmita (ed.), Elementy marksistowskiej metodologii humanistyki [Elements of the Marxist Methodology of the Humanities], pp. 277-302. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie. Nowak, L. (1980). The Structure of Idealization. Towards a Systematic Interpretation of the Marxian Idea of Science. Dordrecht: Reidel. Nowak, L. (1989). Byt i myśl. Przyczynek do metafizyki unitarnej [Being and Mind. Contribution to Unitarian Metaphysics]. Studia Filozoficzne 1, 1-18. Nowak, L. (1991). Thoughts Are Facts of Possible Worlds. Truths Are Facts of a Given World. Dialectica 45(4), 273-287. Nowak, L. (1992). The Idealizational Approach to Science: A Survey. In: J. Brzeziński and L. Nowak (eds.), Idealization III: Approximation and Truth (Poznań Studies in

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the Philosophy of the Science and the Humanities, vol. 25), pp. 9-63. Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. Nowak, L. (1998). Byt i myśl. U podstaw negatywistycznej metafizyki unitarnej. Vol. 1: Nicość i istnienie [Being and Mind. Foundations of the Negativist Unitarian Metaphysics. Vol. I: Nothingness and Existence]. Poznań: Zysk i S-ka. Nowak, L. (2000). On the Common Structure of Science and Religion. In: Garcia de la Sienra (ed.), The Rationality of Theism (Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of the Science and the Humanities, vol. 73), pp. 317-343. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi. Nowakowa, I. (1990). Historical Narration and Idealization. In: J. Topolski (ed.), Narration and Explanation. Contributions to the Methodology of the Historical Research (Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of the Science and the Humanities, vol. 19), pp. 31-40. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi. Nowakowa, I. (1991). Zmienność i stałość w rozwoju nauki. Przyczynek do metodologii związków diachronicznych [Stability and Change in the Development of Science. Contribution to Methodology of Diachronic Connections]. Poznań: Nakom. Pomorski, J. (1981). Próba idealizacyjnej teorii nauk historycznych [An Attempt at an Idealizational Theory of Historical Sciences]. Studia Metodologiczne 20, 61-93. White, H. (1973). Metahistory. The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth Century Europe. Baltimore/London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. White, H. (1978). Tropics of Discourse. Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore/London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. White, H. (1987). The Content of the Form. Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore/London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

I ONTOLOGY OF THE HISTORICAL PROCESS

Marceli Handelsman POSSIBILITIES AND NECESSITIES OF THE HISTORICAL PROCESS

When historians delve into investigated facts and endeavor to penetrate the intricacies of historical phenomena, they are driven, or rather they have to be driven, by a certain principal thought. This thought is born in their minds slowly and gradually in order to finally become a central idea, an ordering principle capable of explaining the chaos of historical phenomena, a point of departure in understanding the origins and transformations of those phenomena. As a result, the present and the past, in all their colorfulness, are arranged in a whole, and historians start to understand what happened in the past and they imagine that they understand what can still happen in the future. This idea is a mental connection between the past, which is the object of historical study, and the present, which is the object of personal experience. It is also the guiding idea of a historian’s worldview. Historians rarely set out to define such an idea: they never have enough experience. Therefore, they are always looking for new evidence, which is supposed to justify their thesis and which can repeatedly undermine its foundations. As a cautious and responsible researcher, historians must be discreet in formulating these main principles, in order not to reveal prematurely a truth that has not been precisely formulated or a truth that they would not be eager to reveal to everybody. At exceptional moments, they probe the depth of their thoughts and, with a certain apprehension, strive to express the foundations of their approach to historical phenomena. Any social activist or observer-theoretician notices the phenomena of life that surround him/her and which appear quite simple, but which she/he cannot understand. Changeability and fluidity, and hence movement, is the most essential property of human life. The most important place in this movement is occupied by the activity of individual


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Marceli Handelsman

or social collectivity. In every single moment of this movement, there occur components that humans desire, prepare and work out. However, there also occur components, which are independent of humans and imposed on them, which they defend themselves against and fend off, but which emerge against their will nonetheless. There also occur elements that are imposed on humans from the outside, as it were. These elements seem to be an inescapable consequence of an effect the cause of which lies beyond the humans. Nevertheless, these elements evoke in humans or through humans phenomena which are not accepted by their consciousness and will but which nevertheless emerge and exist. At every moment of that endless chain of changes, of which the historical process is composed, there appear elements that are purposely evoked by human beings, elements chosen by them from among a number of possibilities, and also elements which are imposed and cannot be staved off and removed. At every moment of our own individual and social life we notice the existence of the phenomena that were intentionally pursued by us, those that arose accidentally, and finally those that, having come into existence, seem to us the necessary effect of the causes that lie somewhere away from us. This diversity of elements brings about that the interpretation of the process of emerging of phenomena is dependent on the mentality of the observer. Thus, this historical process seems to be the result of the human will in operation, the effect of coincidences or the outcome of some deeper essential causes or hidden forces of the movement. It will be the process of free manifestation of the purposeful and rational human will, or meaningless confluence of accidental contingencies; it will be the process of coming into existence of the phenomena resulting from the human will or the expression of the necessity present in the human environment. This necessity will be the result of irreversible, blind forces, the so-called forces of nature. Thus, the following question arises: is the historical process a chain of changes, in which the freedom of human choice is expressed, or is a form of coercion, inherent at the basis of human life, or perhaps it is both, unless such connection assumedly has to be reputed as an inadmissible contradiction. It seems that the question has to be asked by each researcher of historical changes, regardless of whether she/he is an adherent of history as the science of the individual or a proponent of history as the science of the repeatability of movement in the realm of only outwardly individual phenomena. In order to answer it, we are obliged to resort to the components that determine the historical life, regardless of the nature of these components.

Possibilities and Necessities of the Historical Process

35

From the most general perspective, history is the science about a human being in the society and is anthropocentric to the core. Every human being, every human individual, is placed in the middle of the occurring changes. But each human being is a concrete individual of a given time and place. Therefore, a human being is unique in the wholeness of all times and all places. As the only and unrepeatable being in physical and mental respect, a human individual is an entanglement of unpredictability. From the position of its origin and genesis human being is the only and unrepeatable coincidence of its components. As the factor of the future life, human being becomes a source of outcomes which are perhaps unpredictable but which appear with a firm regularity of cause and effect. The firmness of this regularity has origins in human individuality. From the position of changes and effects, the individual, in spite of its utterly accidental descent, is a source of further necessity that is inevitable and inescapable. This is all the more necessary that the foundation of life, both individual and social, is movement understood as the need for changes. Clearly irrational in a child, this movement is in fact equally irrational in adults and in societies. It is just that it is then adapted to unconscious needs and the ways of willfully satisfying these needs, and that it becomes a rationalized movement, one that is justified, motivated or protected by the appearances of rational motives. Movement defined as the need for change is a physical need of humans. Also, from that point of view, it is connected with their physiological and biological development, as it is especially a mental need. As a mental phenomenon, it becomes the basis for any activity. From that, the anxiety about performing any kind of action arises, and this is nothing else than the expression of the conscious intensity of will, which at the same time expresses the need of change that is hidden in the human being. In action, through progress on the way to achieving their goals, humans find momentary fleeting satisfaction of this need. In that most unconstrained sphere, in the domain of the performance of individual will, we are confronted with an inescapable consequence of the hidden and basic mental force, understood as the need of change, which is alive in everybody. Every human activity objectifies itself, separates from acting individuality and gains independence in a double sense. As an activity, it forms its own logic, which imposes itself upon an acting subject, even against her conscious will: the activity compels an acting subject to further activity, even though the subject is ready to stop her activity when she is fed up with it or when she is overwhelmed by it. Every political

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Marceli Handelsman

activist knows that from her/his everyday experience. “In for a penny, in for a pound”: this commonplace adage is generally appreciated and it means: you are obliged to plod on, even if you are not willing to. To an even greater degree any work becomes independent of its author: regardless of whether it belongs to the material or moral domain. The moment a work comes into existence, be it a sculpture, a book or even only a word, it is separated from its creator, starts living a life of its own and gives rise to other facts of the social environment, which emanate from it and whose logic is independent of the work's author. The word which has been pronounced by the speaker and which has been heard by thousands of ears passes through thousands of souls and propagates thoughts in them, evokes actions, most often unpredicted by the speaker and perhaps undesired by him, and that happens unalterably since the moment of pronouncing that word. If history is anthropocentric, then such anthropocentrism has a special flavor: it is never individual, it is always collective, social. Both as a subject and object of activity, a human stands in the middle, yet always remains in close contact with other people, with whom he is united in a way that does not give him any real freedom even for a short moment. Robins Crusoe is an ideal construct of the past or some unreal utopia of the future.1 Whereas the reality is always the interweaving of individualities into more or less complicated wholes, where everybody acts alone but the all simultaneously affect others and act through others, and where the movement is always unceasing. The movement in question is the physiological-biological and mental movement of each human but also the unceasing movement of the whole, which is different from a simple sum of its elements. As a whole composed of unceasingly occurring influences of each human being upon the others and the whole upon the all humans, as the whole in motion consists of the movement of individuals and the whole’s own movement, the human society is, to a greater degree than any human individuality, a combination of forces that are rooted in individuals. These forces are the properties of individuals and they give rise to further consequences independent of the human will. Apart from the properties that may be viewed as exclusive values of one individual only, there are also those that return again and again, both presently and in turns or in a succession of generations. While returning, they evoke a sense of the very same needs and impose the same ways of

1

I owe this idea to Kostanecki (1930).


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satisfying them. These properties are supplied by external conditions of the existence of societies and an individual. Now the first component to be taken into account is geographical in nature. It is a set of conditions that connect a human being with the earth. The nature, structure and qualities of the earth: the earth understood as soil, as cultivation of plants, as property, as the base of settlement, as the maintenance of population, and as the state – they all shape human’s character, impose certain rules, and force the choice of certain solutions. In one generation after another, the same questions arise that are unalterably associated with the earth. These questions lead to these same solutions and they shape these same physical and mental qualities of the human being. Can there be anything more stable than the foreign policy of the state: state systems underwent transformations, dynasties were passed, tribes and nations ruling in Gaul or in France changed but the fundamental foreign aspirations of the state occupying this same territory throughout centuries remained invariable. It remained constant to such an extent that the state itself seemed as if an organism defined by the territory, in which only with the flow of time some cells receded from others. Or, let us look at another kind of stability: through centuries and millennia of the human masses marching from the east to the west and from the west to the east, since prehistoric times till just a while ago, the banks of the Rhine and the Vistula River had seen bitter strife. The reign of one group or another followed and then the group was again defeated on those fields of age-long struggle, in those border strips between dividing nations. Or consider the estuaries of big rivers: the Scalda, Rhine or the Dvina, the seats of great emporia, outlets of all hinterlands connected by a fan-shaped radius; the place of settlement for some transitory tribes, some tangled mixture of ethnic elements approaching in this hinterland, in narrowing streaks, a common communication artery, a big river. Or consider the sea and the tendencies of the coastal states: mare liberum for the small, mare clausum for the big, mare omnium for external states. Or the mountains with their special structure: scattered valley settlements, one-manorial villages on the mountain sides, with their tribe enclosed between the slopes; particularism in full-bloom in the Alps and in its splinter range, the Carpathians, or in the mountains of Finland or in Norway. Or those vast, flat steppes, routes of eternal wanderings, places of momentary rest for human masses in movement and a starting point for their raids into the neighboring territories (the Tartar horde, the Muscovites). The human component changes completely, and yet in certain geographical conditions these tendencies remain the same; the same

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solutions and the same necessities of making efforts are imposed on the humans. There is no better place to understand it than the Baltic Sea: since the times of the Swedish Vikings, since the times of the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Knight Order and Alexander Nevski till the present moment, the Baltic Sea has seen the same scenes time and time again, with identical wars and battles at identical places! Whereas the geographical element is the most stable one and one that is the most independent of the human will, it is not the only one in that entanglement of stable external conditions. The social structure develops from those geographical foundations. This socio-economic structure is a general societal structure which is adapted to the fight for satisfying the economic needs of the population of a given territory and a corresponding subjugation of parts of that population. That structure is one of humans’ works that are the most independent of their will. Both as a system of external ties, which is composed of human masses and a system of mental bonds which link these masses, it might seem to be a separate world, situated outside the individual and social human, beyond their human’s will. It seems to be something age-old, so far into the future does it reach with the consequences of its material and mental foundations coming from the most remote past. While retaining the essential permanence of the whole, it seems to be something most stable, in spite of its constant movement. It seems to be completely autonomous: it is directed by its own, superhuman logic of transformations. Whereas those transformations have originated in human activities, they operate irrespective of these activities, according to an independent, constant method which are inherent in them; they follow certain recurrent transformational rules. The social structure, a basic component of human culture, is governed by constant rules of its own kind in its own movement; in relation to the individual and the society it is also the beginning of an irreversible, blind subjection to itself. The geographical conditions and the social structure, which necessarily influence the development of the human psyche, are the main components of the mental race. I define the mental race as a sum of mental traits, a certain whole of dispositions, inclinations and aptitudes (drawbacks and advantages), which are transmitted with some variation from one generation to another within a population of the same territory. More than once, such population is of common physical descent: it originates from one and the same physical race. This occurs frequently but not always. On the contrary, the population composed of elements of various ethnic source is arranged into a whole of similar and constantly transmitted mental traits. The mental race is then the work of history, it is


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the outcome of common fates in the past, but it is above all the result of those inescapable, permanent influences of geography and social structure of one and the same territory. Shall I quote the latest theories which reduce the mental traits of the Spaniards to the heritage of ancient Iberians or shall I compare the characteristics of the Gauls in Julius Caesar’s times to the image of the today’s Parisians as observed through the prism of contemporary satire? Yet, is it not enough, at least for an external observer, to juxtapose the Baltic baron, the Polish lord from Livonia and the contemporary Latvian peasant in order to discover fundamental characteristics that they have in common: perseverance, doggedness, obstinacy, and a deep sense of personal dignity. The transmission of constant mental traits is tantamount to the rise of the same, or very similar relations of the human mass to external phenomena, which occur within a radius of the operation of that group of people. It is a source of certain necessary reactions to such phenomena, which are independent of the will of individuals, but spontaneously and rationally result from the external mental structure that has been given to the society and has remained constant throughout the ages. From the above considerations one conclusion might be derived: the human nature, the essence of human activity as well as the nature and conditions of social life not only determine human life but also affect it in a deterministic way. They are like an inevitable necessity pushing humans to the choice of solutions, which do not leave a place for the operation of human will and a conscious effort of individuals and masses. The historical process could be understood in this way if it were it possible to separate an individual from other people and cut off human societies from the impact of other societies. However, not only an individual Robins Crusoe, but also a social Robins has never existed. This is because the reality of historical life is composed exactly of the coexistence of human societies, and the coexistence should be defined as co-operation and counteraction, the mutual counterbalance of the efforts with the entirety of complicated conditions in which these efforts appeared. If it is possible to imagine deterministic formation of an individual or a society in isolation, in concrete reality, this formation is complicated by the counterbalance of developmental tendencies, which lead to unexpected results from the point of view of adopted assumptions. The societies live at diverse paces. The degree of their development as well as their tension, energy is different. Moments of their encounter appear at different levels of configuration of circumstances favorable to them. The encounter itself leads to neutralization, to the extinction of tendencies which arise on the basis of certain assumptions, to the

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intensification of others, to the obstruction of certain consequences and the acceleration of others, etc. As a result, open possibilities are born on that entangled surface of converging forces which come from many different sources. This is comparable to momentary pauses, hiatuses, gaps: a momentary cessation of movement. Yet the movement cannot be stopped: even if suspended, it will continue forward, it will flow as an incidental force. Not only the premises of forces, momentarily stopped in the action, are active in this movement, but also the conscious, purposeful will of humans, if such will during the pause stands in the sequence of factors of the developmental process. In this sequence of factors, the conscious, purposeful will of humans is sometimes an insignificant factor. Sometimes, when a pause is longer and level of mutual counterbalance of different tendencies is greater, conscious and purposeful will of humans becomes a main factor. When human will once enters the chain of forces, despite its most par excellence individualistic origin, it influences further progress of events in a way that could be described as deterministic, on an equal footing with other non-human forces In the course of the greatest internal and external complications in the lives of nations there appear great figures of leaders-creators. It could seem that in the circumstances of severed social bonds and crumbled international relations there is no place for an individual. Yet a situation that occurs could be compared to the moment of unleashing the forces of nature. Forces of nature act blindly. Thus, neither in the individual nor in the masses is there a place for purposeful consciousness. Irrational coincidence of human passions and an unswerving consequence of facts which occur behind the planned action fill the whole of human activities. They fill it from one edge to the other: the changes which social structure, social life and psychology of the masses and the individual undergo over time as a result of accumulated internal and external influences show some astonishing regularity. In all varieties of milieus and at different times social changes occur one after another in the same succession, with similar intensity and similar direction; also, they offer similar solutions. Suddenly, a leading individual appears on the scene. If the moment of a pause, which is brought about by mutual neutralization of internal and external influences, is sufficiently long and the individual has proper creative energy, he becomes a Cromwell, a Napoleon, something of a Bismarck, not to mention all living national leaders of yesterday and of today, leading the nations which were transformed in the fire of the revolution and the great war. But the time of pause is short: individuality becomes absorbed, which is a result of the restored advantage of deterministic non-human forces. Alternatively, the individuality may keep


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up appearances of its creative independence, but it becomes in fact merely a small part of the influences that it apparently opposes. Those influences affect this very individual as well as the whole remaining milieu. Consequently, the individuality loses its leadership qualities, and becomes the first among many, or just one of many, other parts of the whole, pushed somewhere forward by the operation of all the forces of the past, unceasingly intersecting and mutually pressing upon each other. It is no longer be the force, which represented the individual and creative human will. Since the times of Cromwell till Napoleon III after the coup d’etat, that line is uniformly constant. Let us now present some final conclusions of the present overview of factors that are fundamental to historical development, which leaves out considerations of the biological nature of humans shared with the world of other animal creatures. On the one hand, there is determinism. It eliminates the will of an individual and creative individuality from the past and reduces everything to the play of blind forces acting in the psycho-social world, in similarity to the activity of the forces of nature in the biological world. On the other hand, there exists the indeterministic doctrine of the pure free human will. It does not completely negate determining influences of non-human elements, yet it shifts them to the level of the base and substance. Also, it entirely denies them the independent nature that is ascribed to human will, to which it attributes an active role in the historical development. Between these two extreme poles there is a wide area of possibilism, which encompasses all the different ways of perceiving the historical process. While borrowing from the others the general name of the direction, of which I am a representative, I tried to provide my own formula for interpreting factors of the developmental process. In this formula, the foreground is obviously occupied to a large extent by nonhuman factors, under which I also subsume the nature of the human psyche itself and the nature of human activity. The domain of non-human phenomena is thoroughly and exclusively mental and is always permeated by mentalism. Even “geography” becomes a factor of the historical development only when its components are permeated with the elements of the human psyche, even the earth is a basis of historical life only inasmuch as the human enters into any relation with it, if he appropriates it mentally and, consequently, physically and materially. Thus, the domain of non-human phenomena is a sphere of interrelations that are connected logically by the consequences of causes and effects. It is a sphere of phenomena that develop deterministically. The world of the deterministically defined phenomena permeated by mentalism is

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connected with the world of randomness, the world of human individuality. Through the entanglement of influences, surrendering to instantaneous suspension of the necessities that govern it, the world opens up the possibilities of operation for individualities, with which it is at any rate strongly united. Such a fundamental interpretation of the structure of the historical process imposes upon us obligations of a dual nature. The theoreticians, researchers and observers, face the task of endless, detailed penetration of the examined phenomena, looking for the result of the operation of nonhuman forces, and putting aside all that is solely individual, creative, and free. The task imposes upon them a deeper and essential purpose: that of a constant eagerness to define ever more precisely the circumstances and conditions of the rise of these hiatuses, in the plenitude of which the human individuality may be realized in operation. The activists and politicians face an obligation of a different kind. Since there are pauses – spheres of unrestrained and creative human activity, since there are circumstances for the optional and individual guidance, the conditions for the rise of which have not been known so far, there appears only one duty ahead of them. It is to act as if our activities have always been free, as if always the development of mankind could proceed along the purposeful and planned line, along the path into the future which has been consciously chosen by human will. Ignorant of the conditions for the rise of these gaps, in which the human will is at the peak of its potential, in accord with theoretical assumptions, we always have the right to act in such a way as if these gaps could always appear. translated by Małgorzata Klimek REFERENCES Kostanecki, A. (1930). Problem ekonomii [The Problem of Economy]. Warszawa: Księgarnia F. Hoesicka.

Jerzy Topolski THE ACTIVISTIC CONCEPT OF THE HISTORICAL PROCESS

1. Introductory Remarks A claim can be made that without adequate reconstruction of the Marxist concept of the historical process or, in other words, without a concept of social development, one cannot reconstruct the Marxist methodology of social sciences in an equally adequate way. The latter is in a sense superimposed onto the concept of the historical process. The assumption of rationality, which was postulated and accepted by Karl Marx in the investigation of social reality and which is simultaneously the basis of the procedure of explaining human activities, has its realistic reference in Marx’s activistic concept of the historical process. In this way, the analysis of the Marxist theory of the historical process is simultaneously ontological and methodological in nature. It is obvious, after all, that the way in which we understand the historical process determines the nature of explanatory questions to be asked while explaining it. It seems that the most essential problem connected with the historical process is the problem of the status of such explanatory questions within the framework of such a process. In particular, we deal here with two more detailed questions: (i) the question of who exactly is the subject of human actions or, more precisely, what does the term ‘human’ mean in the context of the expression ‘human actions’; this touches upon principally two problems: (a) whether ‘human actions’ are actions of individuals, or actions of groups (or both individuals and groups), (b) whether the above aspects of ‘human actions’ are equally influential, or whether there exists a problem of the particular influence of actions of the so-called outstanding individuals


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onto the historical process. All in all, the answer to this question should provide us with the explication of the term ‘man’ in the statement that ‘man is the subject of history’, which frequently appears in Marxist literature, (ii) the question about the structure of human actions (actions of individuals, groups, outstanding individuals, etc.), i.e. about the determinants of these actions that are objective, subjective or subjective-objective. One can easily notice that this question is simultaneously a question about the method of explanation of human actions, and consequently a question that is strictly methodological in nature. In our opinion, Marxism provides an original answer to these questions, while any such comprehensive answer cannot be found in any other framework of historical development. 2. Actions of Individuals versus Actions of Groups of People With respect to the first question, to be examined here only in a very general sense, namely the question of the interpretation of the term ‘human’ in the expression ‘human actions’, it is generally known that the outstanding contributions made by Marx to the task of reconstructing the historical process also include the consistent introduction of classes and social groups into history, that is looking at history from their vantage point. As a result, history ceased to be interpreted as a result of actions of individuals such as reigning monarchs, military leaders, etc. (i.e., ceased to be understood in a heroic and individualistic way), which does not mean, however, that historians lost sight of the latter. While examining the relation between the individual and the group (i.e., the individual and the society), one can distinguish two opposing concepts: (i) personalist and existentialist philosophy of man, emphasizing the autonomy of the individual within the society. The view that the society exists through the actions of individuals which make it up is symptomatic of such an attitude. The fact that actions of individuals are simultaneously actions of social groups within this society is ignored here, (ii) the concept which appears to be proper for an adequate understanding of Marx’s methodological directives and his research practice, that is the concept of the close interconnection

The Activistic Concept of the Historical Process

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between the actions of individuals and the actions of groups, and thus of considering the actions of individuals simultaneously as elements of group actions. In Marx’s writings of both more theoretical (such as Capital) and more historical nature (e.g. Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte) actions of individuals and actions of social groups (classes and other groups) are regarded as closely interconnected. Actions of individuals are in evidence, but at the same time there exist group actions of various kinds (the more or less organized ones, i.e., those having a collective aim on the one hand and the more or less spontaneous ones on the other hand). The actions of individuals cannot be separated from the actions of groups without applying the procedure of abstracting them from the context. Even the most individualistic action is simultaneously a group action. In his writings, Marx gives numerous examples of actions of concrete individuals, classes and other social groups, which are always treated as interconnected. 3. The Opposition of Activism and Fatalism Below, we will attempt to answer the second of the questions asked in the introduction. It seems that various concepts of the historical process can be divided into two groups of concepts or models distinguished according to the criterion of the role which is attributed to human actions in the historical process within the framework of this concept and according to how these actions are understood. This division is simultaneously connected with the various answers given to the question about the driving forces behind the historical process, i.e. about its mechanism. Clearly, such division is to a large extent only a simplification. What is intended here, however, for the time being at least, is only a tentative approach which will be subsequently refined. The first extremely varied group of concepts of the historical process, or, if we focus on our chosen criterion, concepts of the role and character of human actions in this process constitutes what can be generally described as the fatalistic model of human actions. In contrast to the first group, the second group of concepts has an activistic character. To simplify things for the time being, this means that it links the changes in the historical process (social reality) with conscious and purposeful human actions. This group of concepts is adequate in terms of historical reality and, as we will see further on, consistent only within the framework of the (correctly interpreted) Marxism. Thus, in our initial

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approach we are contrasting the fatalistic model of the historical process with the model of history which we have called activistic. The criterion of the role which is attributed within the framework of the historical process to (variously understood) human actions, can be reduced to the problem of the determinants of these actions. The way in which this problem is solved implies to what extent human actions are considered to be “independent,” i.e., treated as a manifestation of the unfettered human will, and to what extent they are to be viewed as determined by particular external factors, which are either outside the individual in question, or which cannot be controlled by an individual’s will, even though they exist in that individual. The latter aspect both characterizes these actions and simultaneously links them either to the changes in the historical process or transfers them to the sphere which is “external” in terms of taking such actions. It is characteristic of concepts which we have described as fatalistic that there is only a one-way connection between the mechanism of making decisions by people and the specific factors on which these people have no influence. Such factors “determine” the human actions more or less directly (depending on the specific concept) but always in one direction only (i.e., asymmetrically). This situation can be presented in the following chart: the factors on whose operation people have no influence

→

human actions

If we consider jointly all the concepts which can be characterized in such a way, it is easy to see that we are dealing with a specific system of relations (which can be described as the system of the fatalistic determination of human actions) sharing the following features: ⋅ ⋅ ⋅

the set of factors which cannot be influenced by people (A), the set of human actions (B), the relation of one-directional and unambiguous determination of B by A.

Because A together with B form the universum (U) of the system, then (marking the relation in question as Rjw , and the system being examined as SF) we will obtain the following symbolic representation: SF = The system of relations described above is quite simple indeed. The above-mentioned concepts which are part of the fatalistic model of the historical process are connected only by the aforementioned relation of


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unambiguous conditioning (Rjw ). They differ significantly, though, in terms of understanding factors A1 , . . . , An , and human actions (i.e., the elements making up the set B). Taking these differences into consideration leads to refining the system. The factors determining human actions in various fatalistic concepts can be generally divided into three groups: (i) factors which are external with respect to people (such as god, geographical location, automatic progress, “objective” laws, etc.), (ii) factors which, though connected with people as biological and psychological entities, are nevertheless independent of the human will (for example Freudian complexes, Lévi-Strauss’s timeless structures of the human mind, Heidegger’s sense of dread, etc.), (iii) factors of the type (i) operating in combination with the factors of the type (ii) – e.g., E. Fromm’s concepts of reformed psychoanalysis. On the other hand, the differences in the perception of human actions (which result from particular ways of understanding the factors determining human actions) can be reduced to the following formula: human actions are either seen as conscious and purposeful or are results of subconscious processes (Freud), unconscious motives (Fromm), or formalized and automatic processes (Lévi-Strauss). If we mark the above mentioned factors (i-iii) as Az, Aw, Am respectively, the conscious and purposeful actions as Bc and all the unconscious ones as Bn (that is as a subset of set B), then we will be able to refine our system of relations that is characteristic of the fatalistic model of the historical process, by including all the determinant and determined factors: SF = One can say in the most general terms that the attitude taking into account the factors Az 1 , . . . , Az n is generally connected with considering human actions as actions of the type Bc 1 , . . . , Bc n , while the attitudes taking into account the factors Aw 1 , . . . , Awn , Am1 , . . . , Amn are connected with considering human actions as the actions of the type Bn 1 , . . . , Bn n . Some of the more widespread attitudes will be examined below.

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4. The Fatalism of External Factors The concept of the historical process which has the longest track record (going back to the antiquity and the Middle Ages and to some extent persisting even much later until the present times) can be described as the providential concept and is connected with various systems of religious beliefs (and variously understood). According to this concept, the course of history is directed by a specific “supernatural” factor (gods of the antiquity, the God of Christianity, etc.) which ultimately determine all human actions. Although human actions are usually interpreted as conscious and purposeful according to this view, the mechanism of human decision-making is connected with this dynamic “supernatural” factor in some obscure way (which is impossible to interpret without accepting specific metaphysical assumptions). It is because of the latter that the world and humankind move either through successive cycles (according to the cyclical concepts of the antiquity), or in a specific direction (according to the linear concept of Christianity) in a way which is independent of human will. In the light of the providential concepts, the freedom of human decisions has appropriate limits; it is controlled by the superior force (or wisdom) and directed towards the goals which only this superior force knows. As the efforts to cast off the shackles of religious thinking from the historical discourse were gathering momentum, the providential concept found its outspoken advocate in Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627), the author of the celebrated Discours sur L’histoire universelle (1681), in which he stated clearly that both the totality of causes of events and the fate of states “depend on the mysterious verdicts of providence.” 150 years later, another historian, Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886) refined the same concept in a similar vein. He wrote: “The most important question among those that we are dealing with is humankind such as it is, explainable or unexplainable: the lives of individuals, generations and nations, and God’s hand above them.”1 The method of making human free will (and consequently conscious and purposeful actions) consistent with God’s determination of human actions became the subject of analyses by Christian philosophers (Thomists, neo-Thomists, Roman-Catholic personalists and others). In their opinion, people are singularly mysterious beings. Whereas they are endowed with a free will and autonomy, they are dependent on God (cf., e.g., Gilson) and without His grace are unable to act freely and choose between good and evil (cf., e.g., Maritain). It is easy to see that according 1

Ranke (1885), p. VIII.


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to Jacques Maritain’s model the human being is free to choose evil or good and as such can influence the course of history, but the latter eventuality is possible only as long as she/he surrenders to the influence of God. Thus, God becomes the ultimate mover and shaker of history at any rate.2 The providential concept of the historical process became secularized within the framework based on the theory of progress in history. The origins of this theory can be traced back to the turn of the 16th and 17th century, but it was only in the Age of Reason that it was fully developed, to be subsequently modified in various ways in the 19th and 20th centuries. According to the theory of progress, which was born of fascination with the achievements of humankind in modern times, the human society advances towards ever higher levels of development, each of which is “better” than the preceding one and reflects the progress in the realm of the human spirit and human existence. A belief in constant progress was born. Riding the wave of optimism accompanying the advance towards “the truth and happiness,” Jeane Antoine Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-1794) claims in his work entitled The Outline of the Picture of Progress of the Human Spirit in History that the history of humankind shows a clear line of progress, a fact which is due to the “human nature.” Through his actions, man can ensure the continuation of this line of progress. He can even accelerate its advance using the knowledge “about what he was in the past and what he is today,” but he cannot undo the progress already made. Condorcet wrote about the goal of his work as follows: I intend to use facts and reasoning to prove that no limit to the development of human talents has been set, that the capacity of man for perfecting himself is unlimited, that his progress is independent of all powers that wish to obstruct it and that its only limit is the limit of the existence of the globe onto which nature placed us. Indisputably, this progress is effected at a faster or slower pace, never however will it be reversed, as long as the earth occupies its place in the system of the universe, and the laws of the higher order which govern this system do not cause a decisive upheaval or such changes as a result of which humankind would no longer maintain or develop the same talents or find the same means of survival. 3

In the 19 th century, the theories of progress were based on numerous schemes of history featuring the succession of ever “better” epochs. These theories appear in two basic versions:

2 3

Cf. Maritain (1957). Condorcet (1957), p. 5.

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(i) positivist-evolutionist, (ii)Hegelian. The scope of the present contribution does not allow a more detailed examination of these theories. For the sake of our analysis, however, it is important to focus on the type of determinism of human actions which they assume. Whereas human actions are again considered as conscious and purposeful within the framework of the theory of progress, they nevertheless constitute a fragment of a specific external mechanism upon which they ultimately depend. Those who epitomize the first of the mentioned theories include not only Condorcet, whom we quoted earlier but also Auguste Comte (1798-1857), in a later period. Comte believed that humankind progresses through three stages of development, i.e., the theological, metaphysical and positivist stage. George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) developed a concept which, while dialectical in nature, is nonetheless based on metaphysical dialectics, which considers history as a creation of the self-conscious spirit. Critical of Hegel’s non-activistic understanding of the historical process, Marx wrote that Hegel: “wants to write the history of the development of an abstract substance, idea . . . therefore human activity, etc., must appear to be a manifestation and effect of something else.”4 Marx consistently opposed the Hegelian interpretation of determinism of human actions, in which man appears to controled by the forces of history. As we will argue below, there is no room for fatalistic implications in Marx’s view. Generally speaking, the role of human activity in history is limited in all those framework which make human actions dependent on various external forces (viewed either in positivist terms or in the spirit of Hegelian hypostases). This role can be compared to oscillating around a line which is determined by factors that are beyond human control. The fatalistic category should also include some interpretations of the historical process to be encountered in Marxist literature which are influenced either by Hegel’s ideas, or by evolutionism and positivism. They are connected with the concept of “objective” laws in history. These laws can be “discovered” and this discovery makes it possible for people to better attune their actions to the way such laws operate. External conditions are thus seen as influencing human consciousness in a strictly naturalistic way. The relationship between the former and the latter is also one-directional and does not take into account the active role 4

Marx and Engels (1960), p. 319.


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of consciousness, which after all shapes these conditions as the driving force behind human activity. A comparison could be made in such a view with the way a thermometer operates: the responses of people to external conditions could be said to be analogous to the way a thermometer “reflects” the temperature of the surroundings. It follows from such a concept that all people responding to the same conditions should therefore be acting in the same way. We know, however, that this is not the case (irrespective of the variations caused by different psychological responses of particular human beings). As in other types of fatalistic concepts which account for human actions as conscious and purposeful but determined externally only in one direction, we are dealing here with the following system of relations: SFz = where ‘SFz’ denotes the external type of the fatalist system. 5. The Concepts of Unconscious Motivation The emphasis placed on the conscious and purposeful nature of human actions first attracted the criticism of the school of psychoanalysis in psychology which, needless to say, was founded by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Later, it continued to be questioned by subsequent schools of reformed psychoanalysis, in particular by the trend represented by Erich Fromm (b. 1900). The above-mentioned concepts were based on the claim that the essential motives of human actions are those which are not realized by people (and which may be unconscious or subconscious), whereby human consciousness can at best play the role of a regulatory factor. In this case, we are dealing with the following system of relations: SFw = and in the case of mixed concepts with SFm = According to Freud’s concept, which is clearly naturalistic, unconscious instincts and drives are, needless to say, regarded as exerting essential influence on human actions. These actions are connected with the processes of repression, suppression, relieving and sublimation of complexes. Freud ascribes essential importance to the complexes of sexual nature (libido), giving prominence to the so-called Oedipus complex (hostility towards the father, a sense of guilt and fear of

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punishment caused by the child’s sexual drive being directed towards the mother). The way in which these complexes are resolved predetermines the whole subsequent course of human life. Freud’s theory provoked some measure of interest among historians. Even today, attempts to explain history in psychoanalytic terms can still be encountered (e.g., in American literature). Only recently, Rudolph Binion, a well-known advocate of such an approach, published a paper concerning the conduct of Leopold III and Belgian neutrality during the Second World War.5 The publication demonstrates the extent to which even a historian that is endowed with a sharp and inquisitive mind can be led astray by a flawed theory. Having asserted that Leopold III was the driving force behind Belgian neutrality in the years 1935-1940, which ultimately led to Hitler’s appeasement, Binion proceeds to delve into the private life of the king. He claims that by proclaiming neutrality Leopold III followed the precepts of his father, Albert I, whom he “worshipped,” and who earlier did the same thing a quarter of a century. Leopold also did his best to imitate his father in everything, which Binion interprets as symptoms of Leopold’s Oedipus complex amplified after the tragic death of the father. These problems were compounded by Leopold’s own tragic experience in the Swiss village of Kuessnacht in 1935, when he caused a car accident which killed his wife, Queen Astrid. Since then, the king supposedly projected his personal tragedy onto the national and international scale, imagining himself to be the driver who steers the course of his country and who should avoid another disaster, i.e., the war. Professor Binion asserts in his conclusion that “it was the Kuessnacht accident which in fact determined royal policy in 1935-1940, which was critical for the history of Belgium, and was even an integral part of the Nazi pre-history of the war.” 6 In Binion’s opinion the future path of historical research is bound to “follow Freud” for whom adult thoughts and behavior are effects of childish motives transposed to the current situation. It supposedly happened in the case of Leopold, when the resurgent subconscious sense of guilt reawakened by the tragic death of Albert I brought about the conscious imitation of the father, which was compounded simultaneously by the subconscious “re-living” of the car crash in Kuessnacht. This kind of mimicry supposedly affected the policies of the king and consequently of Belgium, thus co-determining the international situation.

5 6

Binion (1969), pp. 213-259. Ibid., p. 256.


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Fromm epitomizes the mixed concept that was referred to above. Abandoning considerations of subconscious instincts or complexes studied in isolation from any social context, he stresses the importance of complexes or psychological mechanisms that are determined, as he puts it, “by the way of life of a given society.” 7 In fact, this constitutes only a modification of the concept of unconscious compulsive motivation. Just as all other advocates of psychoanalysis, Fromm upholds the validity of the essential premise that people are motivated by unconscious forces embedded deeply in the human psyche, and that it is these compulsive motivations which spur us into action and evoke emotions. He means that human motivation has a compulsive as opposed to responsive character or, in other words, that it does not constitute a response to the properties of the environment. Whereas Freud believed that taboos and conflicting drives inherited from prehistoric man in biological terms are the source of the mechanisms of compulsive motivation that are characteristic of the human psyche, Fromm holds the view that from about the 16 th century onwards such mechanisms have been consequences of monopolistic capitalism. At this juncture, Fromm points to a sado-masochistic mechanism which supposedly controls people living in capitalism. Thus, normal human behavior is deemed to have been neurotic ever since the emergence of capitalism, being determined by unconscious compulsive mechanisms. Fromm writes about “Marx’s tragic mistake,” in ignoring “the great truth” discovered by Freud, i.e., the conviction that people are by nature profoundly irrational beings motivated by the unconscious forces of their psyche. Using this new concept, Fromm made an attempt to explain the spread of Nazism in Germany. His views, presented in the celebrated book Escape from Freedom (first edition 1940), are interesting, inspiring and stimulating (like many of Freud’s ideas) but they are nonetheless based on a generally unsound idea and as such create only an illusion of explanation. Whereas people in Fromm’s view are affected by the circumstances, they do not put their knowledge about these circumstances into use when taking actions, their historical consciousness being an essential component of such knowledge. One is unlikely to explain the spread of Nazism without a profound investigation of the fabric of the great myth which has grown around the personalities of Frederick the Great and Bismarck (German “superiority,” obedience to the state, etc.) and which determined specific structures of thinking and consciousness as well as motivated the actions of the people who were under its spell. 7

Fromm (1970), p. 276.

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The structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss can also be considered as one of the concepts which focus on unconscious motives as the deepest layer of the determinants of human actions. Lévi-Strauss’s declared aim is achieving such a degree of precision in the humanities as is characteristic of many of the natural sciences. Therefore, he postulates that cultures (the subject-matter of the humanities) should be considered as systems that are analogous to language, whereby language is a system which can be spoken without the speaker necessarily being aware of its grammatical rules, or being able to deliberately shape the system as such. On analogy to the way in which the linguist discovers the hidden rules of a language, the student of human actions should reach for what LéviStrauss believes to be the deepest, opinion, timeless and all-embracing structures that are common to all people (“interrelations of psychological or logical nature,” “forms” of systems i.e., formal “structures”) because they are the ultimate determinants of human actions and the course of history. The modification of psychoanalysis which the author of The Savage Mind and Structural Anthropology proposes leads in a different direction than the one advocated by Fromm. While analyzing the application of Freud’s method in the investigation of shamanism, LéviStrauss writes: We mean thereby that the traumatizing potential pertinent to a situation cannot be due to the characteristics of this situation as such, but to the potential of some events happening in an appropriate psychological, historical and social context to trigger the crystallization of emotions, whose forms are provided by the already existing structure [emphasis by J.T.]. Such structures, or speaking more precisely: structural laws [i.e., internal functional determination of the whole; footnote by J.T.] are in fact timeless when compared with a time-span of an event or an anecdote . . . The Unconscious ceases to be thereby a peculiar refuge of oddity, a repository of the unique history which makes each one of us an irreplaceable entity. It is reduced to a term which we use to describe some function: a symbolic function which is no doubt specifically human, but performed by all people according to the same laws and in fact embodying all such laws. 8

In order to reach these timeless structures (or, to use Lévi-Strauss’s terms, “the unconscious structures” which are “essentially identical for all minds: ancient and modern, primitive and civilized”9), the “inventory of unconscious possibilities” 10 which form the “logical architecture of historical processes”11 must be abstracted from the social phenomena

8

Lévi-Strauss (1970), p. 281. Ibid., p. 77. 10 Ibid., p. 80. 11 Ibid,. p. 80. 9


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which are “results of events and reflections,”12 with the historical viewpoint being used only as a secondary consideration. Lévi-Strauss analyzes the celebrated assertion from Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: “It is people who create history, but they don’t create it at will,” claiming that the first clause points to the conscious actions, while the second supposedly to his “structuralist” approach (i.e. to unconscious structures). Such interpretation, however, is fundamentally unsound. As we will demonstrate below, it is not legitimate within the framework of Marxist activism to consider the negation of “creating history at will” as tantamount to creating history in an “unconscious” way. Such an interpretation would turn the activistic message of Marx’s formula upside down. One could not talk about history being created by people if these people were controlled by “structures.” 6. Activistic Concepts We have seen that all the concepts of the historical process sharing the fatalistic characteristics look for determinants of human actions which are independent of human consciousness; the changes in the historical process are thereby considered in isolation from the conscious human activity. Against the background of these fatalistic concepts, which are deliberately analyzed from this vantage point, the contrasts with the concept of Marxist activism become clearly visible. The most essential characteristic of Marxist activism and its fundamental novelty consists in such a combination of external (i.e., objective) determinants of human actions and their subjective structure of motivation which does not jeopardize the activistic message of Marx’s assertion about people creating history. Only such an activistic interpretation makes people real “architects” of history and eliminates the need for delving into the spurious depths of complexes, neuroses or timeless structures that are common to all people and determined by a specific morphology of the human brain. Marxist activism is opposed to fatalism, although quite frequently it has been accused of having such characteristics (both by opponents of Marxism and by Marxists who erroneously interpret Marx). Needless to say, such charges were opposed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as well as Vladimir Lenin, the latter being one of few Marxist theoreticians who both fully understood and creatively developed the activistic contents of Marx’s ideas. Lenin wrote: “Even the most basic 12

Ibid., p. 80.

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premises of Marx’s theory of history refute the trite charge of fatalism.”13 Poking fun at the theories of the “vicious circle of history” or “elemental forces” Lenin pointed out, as Marx and Engels had done before him, that these forces are always embodied in the actions of people (classes and individuals). The concepts of the historical process that were promulgated by Joseph Stalin, particularly in his Dialectical and Historical Materialism, constitute a fatalist distortion of Marxism. Stalin put historical materialism in a schematic straitjacket. His law of “necessary compatibility” was hailed as the law of “unavoidable succession of definite stages of development” and an unfailing mechanism which determines the course of history. It was a concept of a clearly finalist character, which in its essence did not differ from the historiosophic concepts of yore.14 To be sure, Marx, Engels or Lenin used expressions such as ‘necessary’ or ‘unavoidable’. There is, however, a fundamental difference between the fatalist interpretation of the term ‘necessity’ and the one which was accepted by Marx. Marx himself lashed out at those who attributed finalist implications to him (and, for example, compared his concept to Comte’s) by applying the determinist interpretation of the term ‘necessity’ (e.g., if A then B). The three following theses are characteristic of Marxist activism in particular: (i) the thesis about the dual nature of human actions and their effects, i.e., treating human actions on the one hand as results of conscious decisions made by individuals with the intention of achieving a specific aim and, on the other hand, as having specific objective results, which may not always (or even seldom – in terms of the resultants of actions of many individuals and groups) be the same as the aims subjectively intended by the individuals in question (who generally do not set such long-term aims), (ii) the thesis about the two-directional (that is symmetrical) relation between the conditions of human actions and these actions, (iii) the thesis about an active role of the consciousness of the acting individuals in determining the aims and methods of actions.

13

Lenin (1984, p. 198), a review of the book by K. Kautsky entitled Bernstein und das sozialdemokratische Programm. 14 Cf. the discerning analysis of this problem in: Pelletier and Goblot (1969), pp. 69ff.


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If we tried, on analogy to the previous concepts, to represent these theses in the framework of a system of relations, they would take the following form: ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅

the set of elements which form the conditions of human actions (E), the set of human actions, which are conscious and purposeful (Dc), human consciousness (C), the relation of two-directional conditioning between the conditions of actions and the conscious and purposeful actions (Rzw ), relation of multifarious conditioning between the conditions of actions and the consciousness (Rww ).

This system can be represented in the following symbolic form, assuming that SA denotes the activistic system: SA = If one recollects the Marxist analysis of labor, which is treated on the one hand as purposeful human activity, and on the other as a source of value, or takes into consideration the fact that products of human labor take on the form of commodities irrespectively of individual purposeful productive acts, one is bound to realize the existence of two aspects of human activity which form a mutually conditioning system (although diachronic in nature, i.e., that one generation through the results of its actions creates the conditions of actions for the generations which follow). The problems of objectifying or alienating human activity and its products, which are so extensively discussed in the Marxist literature, will not be taken up in our analysis. Already in their Holy Family (1845), Marx and Engels clearly emphasized the unity of the historical process and of purposeful human activity: History does not do anything on its own, “it does not abound in riches,” “it does not fight any wars.” It is not so much history as human beings – actual, real-life human beings – who do everything, who own everything, who fight all the wars; history does not use human beings as means to achieve its own goals, as if history was some sort of being in its own right; history is nothing else but the activity of human beings pursuing their goals. 15

Almost half a century later, F. Engels writes in a similar vein in his celebrated letter to Joseph Bloch:

15

Marx and Engels (1961), p. 114.

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History comes about in such a way that the final outcome results from the constant conflicts between the wills of many individuals, the will of each individual being in turn conditioned by a multitude of particular circumstances of their lives. In this way, out of the immeasurable multitude of crossing forces, out of the immeasurable number of parallelograms of forces, one resultant is born: a historical event. 16

While the problem of the dual nature of human activity is in general quite aptly understood within the Marxist framework, the problem of interpreting the role of consciousness in human actions (and thus in the historical process) turns out to be more complex: an incorrect interpretation of such a role was the main cause of the fatalistic deformations within the framework of Marxism which we analyzed earlier. But if we focus on the relation (so often emphasized by Marx) of the mutual (dialectical) conditioning between the conscious and purposeful human actions and the conditions of such actions (i.e., the effects of such actions performed while interacting with the specific natural environment) such procedure will allow us to approach this problem from the correct vantage point, that is without considering human actions (even conscious and purposeful ones) as conditioned in only one direction: conditions of actions

→ consciousness → actions

Such an approach constitutes, however, only a part of Marx’s activistic analysis of the human actions and the historical process. The case in point here is that man through his activity creates the conditions of his actions, and thus the historical process (he changes the world); simultaneously in the course of such actions he also changes himself. As early as in Theses on Feuerbach (1845), Marx wrote: The materialistic teaching which professes that people are products of circumstances and upbringing, and thus that people who have changed are products of changed circumstances and different upbringing, tends to forget that circumstances are changed by these very people and that the one who brings up others must first be brought up himself. 17

Antonio Gramsci, who understood the activistic quality of Marxism, expressed this relationship in the following way: Man does not interact with nature by only being part of nature . . . These relations are not mechanical. They are active and conscious, i.e., they depend on the individual’s better or worse understanding of them. Consequently, it can be said

16 17

Marx and Engels (1949), p. 467. Ibid., p. 383.


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that man changes and transforms himself only in so far as he changes and transforms the entirety of relations of which he is the hub. 18

Another question arises at this juncture, namely: what place does consciousness occupy in the relation of mutual conditioning of purposeful human actions on the one hand and external circumstances (effects) on the other? What does the thesis about the active role of consciousness in this relationship actually mean? Because it is not true, as is erroneously claimed by Louis Althusser for example, that such a thesis reduces the external circumstances to the factor of the human consciousness (i.e., the objective elements to the subjective one), but in fact it connects both sides dialectically. In the light of the Marxist activistic model of the historical process and human actions, the influence of external circumstances on these actions is exerted through the consciousness. The scope of this study does not allow, obviously, to analyze the wide-ranging issue of the concept of consciousness in the writings of the classics of Marxism. Needless to say, this notion – both in the sense of individual consciousness and social consciousness (as well as in the sense of its contents and function) – appears in Marx’s analyses remarkably often. For the sake of our analysis, it should suffice to point out – if we focus only on the consciousness considered from the point of view of its function – that consciousness makes it possible for human beings to act purposefully, in other words to consciously shape the reality. Naturally, two elements are indispensable for purposeful activity: the knowledge about the conditions of actions and some hierarchy of values (norms) determined by a given individual subjectively deciding about the priority among the goals to be pursued. Two strata can be distinguished within this knowledge about the conditions of acting: the current and the historical one. Current knowledge would be very limited and incomplete if it were not connected with historical knowledge, in other words with the awareness of the existence of some traditionally recognized goals and ways of pursuing them as well as with the awareness of a shared past which unites human groups. Human beings choose their goals and ways of achieving them in accordance with their hierarchy of values and their knowledge about the conditions of their actions (in order to satisfy their various and changing needs). The more comprehensive and adequate their knowledge of these conditions, the more rational the choice of goals, and the more effective the action. Because the limits of expansion and improvement of such 18

Gramsci (1961), p. 40.

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knowledge depend principally on the individual in question, she/he has the ability (if we assume that the individual is rational) to constantly search for and verify alternative choices for his/her actions. The process of accumulating this knowledge is never finished and the conditions themselves are only some of the objective factors to be taken into account by the acting subject. In order to act effectively, people must take these conditions into account (i.e., employing their knowledge about these conditions) but it does mean that the conditions determine the actions. Only in this way one can explain the long-term ineffectiveness (or even irrationality that is clearly visible ex post) of some of people’s actions (i.e., actions of groups, classes). It turns out in such cases that the actions in question were based on inadequate and often mythical knowledge about these conditions (i.e., were not based on the reliable knowledge of the past). Germans that were deceived by persistent Nazi propaganda could be a case in point, when they followed Hitler to the bitter end. As mentioned before, Fromm tried to explain it by transferring the rationale of their actions into the sphere of the unconscious. A superb illustration of the decision-making process outlined above can be found in Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1869). In the preface to the second edition of this book, which is essential for understanding Marx’s idea of activism, Marx clearly defines his own methodological model, remarking that this problem was also analyzed in (among “the more important books”) Victor Hugo’s Napoléon le Petit and Pierre Joseph Proudhon’s Coup d’état, which were published almost simultaneously. Marx writes: Victor Hugo does not go beyond the bitter and witty invective leveled against the perpetrator of the coup d’état. The event itself is presented as a bolt from the blue. For him it is only an act of violence perpetrated by an individual. Hugo does not see that, by attributing to this individual the power of initiative that is unheard-of in the history of the world. He does not diminish him in any way; on the contrary, he aggrandizes him. Proudhon, on the other hand, tries to present the coup as the result of an earlier historical development. Yet the historical structure of the coup imperceptibly changes into a historical eulogy of its perpetrator. Proudhon makes the same mistake as our so-called objective [Marx’s emphasis] historians. For my part, I am showing how the class struggle [Marx’s emphasis] in France created the circumstances and relations which allowed a very mediocre and grotesque individual to play the role of a hero. 19

One can easily see that Marx outlines three distinct models of explaining human actions: (i) the voluntarist model of Victor Hugo, 19

Marx (1949), pp. 5-6.


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(ii) the fatalistic model of Proudhon, (iii) the dialectical model pointing to the active role of consciousness in human actions. Although pure voluntarism, i.e., attributing historical changes to the will of individuals, only very rarely appears as a philosophical standpoint (Schopenhauer or Nietzsche could be the cases in point), nevertheless it can be fairly frequently encountered in historiography as a consequence of the lack of theoretical basis of research. The first of the listed models typifies such voluntarist activism. Proudhon, on the other hand, relates human actions directly to the historical conditions, which in practice also leads to voluntarist interpretations (obviously, Proudhon is not the only one to do so). In contrast to them, Marx analyzes the way in which specific systems of knowledge and valuation that are responsible for these actions are related to both the specific classes and social group and Louis Bonaparte himself. Marx showed that the state, represented in this case by Bonaparte, was supported by the most numerous class of the French society, that is by the smallholders. How can uniform decisions to support Bonaparte made by such a vast number of smallholders be accounted for? Marx first analyzes the living conditions of these peasants writing that “their mode of production isolates them from one another . . . In this way the essential mass of the French people is formed by a simple sum of equal entities, more or less in the same way as all the potatoes in a sack form the total of a sack of potatoes.” 20 The uniformity of their political decisions was thus connected with some common characteristics of their consciousness in terms of its historical value. “The historical tradition,” writes Marx “engendered a superstitious belief among the French peasants that a man named Napoleon will shower them with all sorts of benefits.” 21 They meant by this first and foremost the defense of their smallholdings. Such action was obviously based on mythical and distorted knowledge which could not provide a basis for effective and dynamic action. The minds of most smallholders, Marx remarks, “were still to such an extent clouded by illusions that even in the departments which were considered as mostly leaning towards the reds, the peasant populace openly voted for Bonaparte.”22 Bonaparte on his part, keen as he was to gain the support of various groups and classes, prevaricated in a way which made his actions seem 20

Ibid., p. 113. Ibid., p. 113. 22 Ibid., p. 115. 21

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inconsistent. “This man’s task was full of contradictions,” Marx adds, “and this explains the inconsistencies of his policies; his vague, hesitant, groping steps to win over and humiliate by turns this or that class as a result of which he repelled in equal measure all of them.” 23 As we have seen, the standpoint of activism applied in accordance with the empirical facts of history leaves enough room for the initiative and creative role of an individual, which underscores the relevance of the assertion that man is the creator of history. translated by Katarzyna Radke REFERENCES Binion, R. (1969). Repeat Performance: A Psychoanalytical Study of Leopold III and Belgian Neutrality. History and Theory 8, 213-259. Condorcet, A.N. (1957). Szkic obrazu postępu ducha ludzkiego poprzez dzieje [An Outline of the Picture of the Progress of the Human Spirit through History]. Warszawa: PWN. Fromm, E. (1970). Ucieczka od wolności [Escape from Freedom]. Warszawa: Czytelnik. Goblot, J.J., A. Pelletier (1969). Matérialisme historique et histoire des civilisations. Paris: Éditions Sociales. Gramsci, A. (1961). Pisma wybrane, t. I [Selected Works, vol. 1]. Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza. Lenin, W. I. (1984). Dzieła, t. IV [Works, vol. 4]. Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1970). Antropologia strukturalna [Structural Anthropology]. Warszawa: Czytelnik. Maritain, J. (1957). On the Philosophy of History. New York: Scribner. Marx, K. (1949). 18 Brumaire’a Ludwika Bonaparte [Eighteenth of Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte]. Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza. Marx, K., F. Engels (1949). Dzieła Wybrane, t. II [Selected Works, vol. 2]. Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza. Marx, K., F. Engels (1960). Dzieła, t. I [Works, vol. 1.]. Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza. Marx, K., F. Engels (1961). Święta Rodzina [The Holy Family]. In: Dzieła, t. II [Works, vol. II]. Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza. Ranke, L.v. (1885). Vorrede zur ersten Ausgabe “Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Voelker von 1494 bis 1414.” Leipzig: Dunker & Humblot.

23

Ibid., p. 120.

Leszek Nowak CLASS AND INDIVIDUAL IN THE HISTORICAL PROCESS

1. Methodological Assumptions 1.1. The Two Problems Concerning the Role of the Individual in History The question regarding the nature of the role played by an individual in history may be conceived either as a philosophical or as an outlook problem. In the former case we ask about the significance of an individual’s conduct in the actual historical process. In the latter, instead, we ask how the process should proceed, if such and such values concerning the human being are to be satisfied. In the first case we try to model the actual historical process in order to state which of its characteristic depend, and to which extent, on the possible individual decisions. In the second case we attempt to model a desired process having regard for definite values concerning the individual. Certainly, both deserve careful analysis. Yet, one should not mix them – despite the misleading suggestions arising from the language of the humanities admitting “descriptive/prescriptive” formulas like “the power originates out of the will of the people,” “alienation disappears in the classless society,” etc. The problem of the role of the individual in the historical process will be considered here as a philosophical, and not as an outlook, question. This seems to correspond to the methodological order of problems: on has to know first the actual state of affairs and only then the appropriate axiological question can be sensibly formulated. 1.2. The Two Dimensions of the Role of the Individual in History The problem under consideration presupposes more general assumptions dealing with the relationship between the “global entities” and “singular entities” in the social domain. It seems to be worthwhile I distinguish between the two dimensions in order for the relationship in question to be dwelt upon. First is the following: whether the global entities (the class, In: K. Brzechczyn (ed.), Idealization XIII: Modeling in History (Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, vol. 97), pp. 63-84. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi, 2009.

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the nation, etc.) exist independently from the singular entities (the individuals, their actions, etc.)? According to existential holism the global entities exist in the same way as the singular beings do. On the other hand, existential individualism claims that there exist only particular individuals, their deeds and the effects of human activity, and what are commonly called “global entities” are nothing but properties of, relations among, individuals. Let us refine this distinction a little. Let us call an attribute a property or a relation, and distinguish between attributes of the first order pertaining to individuals (people, their acts and results of the latter), attributes of the second order pertaining to those of the first order, etc. The “attributes of the first order” will abbreviated as the singular attribute, and the attribute of the second, third, etc. as the global attribute. One may say now that existential holism maintains there are two types of social beings, the individuals and the global entities, and correspondingly, it admits the two hierarchies of attributes pertaining to them. On the other hand, existential individualism claims there is only one type of social beings, the individuals, and one hierarchy of attributes pertaining to them; what is termed “global entities” is identified here with some global properties or relations, that is, with some “constructs” built over individuals. The second dimension of the relationship between the “singular” and the “global” entities is not existential in nature. The problem referred to is which are the most significant for social phenomena: their singular or global attributes? In other words, whether principal (the most influential for the largest class of phenomena) factors are the attributes of individuals or the attributes of global entities? Essential individualism claims that the principal factors for social phenomena are singular attributes of individuals or the attributes of the global entities of some kind.1 This opposition2 has a clear methodological importance as in the 1 The distinction in question refers to the idea underlying the distinction between ontological and methodological individualism (Goldstein 1958, pp. 1-11) but the way of explication of the idea which is adopted here is different. First of all, the two distinctions are being made on different planes. Not only existential individualism (resp. holism) but also essential individualism (resp. holism) can be grasped ontologically – when they are treated as the description of components or of the structure of reality. The same positions can be, however understood methodologically – when they are treated, for instance, as characteristics of the language of (the present or the only possible) science. The formulations given in the text are expressed ontologically. Here it is, for instance, the methodological formulation of first stand (that of both existential and essential individualism): in the present (resp. only possible) scientific theories, there occur only variables ranging over individuals and in the initial (the most idealized) models of theories there occur only names of the singular attributes of individuals. Therefore, taking

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first case the initial (most idealized) model of (an individualist) social theory contains only singular magnitudes and in the second case a (global) theory of the kind begins by introducing global variables (the global attributes of individuals or the attributes of global being) and eliminating the singular attributes by the force of abstraction. The problem of the role of the individual in history understood in its existential dimension is whether individuals are the only existing subjects in history. The problem, conceived essentially, is the question of what is more influential in history: the direct characteristics of individuals (their singular attributes) or the interpersonal structures the individuals are involved in, or perhaps even trans-individual beings they somehow fall under? Combining the two dimensions one obtains four types of conceptions of the historical process. The radical (both existential and essential), individualism claims there is only one type of subject in the historical process, viz. the individual, and that his singular attributes are principal into account not only the ontological but also the methodological plan of discourse we would have to formulate not four but eight positions. Moreover, the conceptual apparatus which is employed here presupposes, as I tried to argue elsewhere (Nowak 1971, pp. 311-338), a model of explanation which differs from that of Popper-Hempel in that it does not refer, in its basic form, to the notion of deductibility but to that of concretization (of idealization statement). The relation of deductive entailment is treated as secondary and introduced only in one of the derivative forms of the idealizational model of explanation (Nowak 1980). In consequence, e.g., the position of essential individualism (in its methodological paraphrase) says that all (confirmed) social theories can be reconstructed as follow: the initial, most idealized, model contains only laws ascribing singular attributes to individuals whereas at least some of the derivative models can contain their concretizations ascribing global attributes to individuals. As it appears, the standard formulation (all confirmed social theories are logically reducible to those ascribing singular attributes to individuals) is logically stronger than the proposed one. And this is to be (somehow) noted as one of the drawbacks of the standard formulation of the thesis of individualism; that it is too rigorous (cf. Mandelbaum 1957, p. 224) 2 It would be perhaps of some use to add that the term ‘essentialism’ is employed here in the meaning different than the following one: “methodological essentialism” claims that “scientific research must penetrate to the essence of things in order to explain them” (Popper 1967, p. 28). For the latter presupposes that the essence (1) is an absolute property of things, (2) is unchangeable, (3) is established by analysis of notions which (4) leads to the ultimate, irrefutable explanation (Popper 1965, pp. 18ff; 1982, pp. 20ff). Meanwhile, the stand adopted here presupposes that the “essence” (the system of principal factors for a given one) (1) is a relative property of factor (magnitude), (2) changes in time, (3) is discovered in a certain type of statement, namely idealizational one, but (4) never definitively as they are hypotheses only being better or worse confirmed (via concretization and approximation) by empirical tests (Nowak 1980; and 1977, pp. 341-363).

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parameters of it. According to the second stand, existential individualism and essential holism in the historical process only appear but principal parameters of it are their global attributes. The third position, existential holism and essential individualism, admits the two types of beings in the historical process: individual and global social entities but says at the same time that the main role in it is played by the singular attributes of the individuals. The radical (both existential and essential) holism admits the two types of social entities as well but claims that the principal parameters of the historical process are either the global attributes of individuals or the attributes of global entities.3 1.3. The Methodological Status of the Rules of Individualism (Holism) The methodological role one ascribes to the above positions, and their possible enlargements,4 depends on one's general methodological ideas5 concerning the theory of historical process. According to the view assumed here,6 the theory of historical process cannot be any kind of inductive generalization of histories of particular countries,7 nor the set of factual hypotheses reconstructing the mechanism of the actual history in its whole complexity, but a model of it allowing drastic deformation of what actually happens. More accurately, it is the first, the most idealized 3 It is not my intention here to discuss the famous stands in the individualism/holism debate as this would force us to make a detailed comparison of different conceptual apparatuses employed in it. This is, however, a separate talk (see above, footnote 1) and therefore I shall limit myself to several comments. And so, let us notice that Homan’s position (1967, pp. 35ff) can perhaps be reconstructed in our terms as the radical, both existential and essential, individualism. Instead, Popper’s formulations of individualism (1966, pp. 91, 226; 1967, p. 136) admit the double interpretation. They can be reconstructed either as the radical individualism (this seems to be Watkins’ line, 1959, p. 504) or as the existential individualism and essential holism (this in turn seems to agree with Gallie’s position, 1964, pp. 419ff). Similarly, Mandelbaum’s formulations can be identified either with the radical, both existential and essential, holism (1957, pp. 211ff; 1959, part 3) or with the existential holism and essential individualism (1957, p. 223). 4 Needless to say, the proposed typology is far too simple to be able to do justice to all the stands that appear in the individualism/holism debate. For a possible endeavor of this kind it would be necessary to enrich the typology in question with some additional, ‘subindividual’, dimensions (Lukes 1968, part 2; Jarvie 1972, p. 36), to reinterpret in the proposed terms the distinction between definitional and explanatory individualism (Brodbeck 1958, pp. 1-22), between the distributive and collective reduction to (singular attributes of) individuals (Wisdom 1970), etc. 5 Mine are based on the idealizational approach to science as exposed in the writings quoted in footnote 1. 6 This is discussed at length in chapter I of my (1987). 7 Let us notice that in the theory of historical process inductivism is a quite spread methodological stand.


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model(s) of historical process (processes) that admits numerous idealizing conditions neglecting parameters of the historical process considered to be secondary and in the further models of the theory those simplifications are step by step removed and appropriate corrections of the body of the initial hypotheses are being introduced. If the theory is correct, the sequence of the models of increasing concreteness (an of decreasing abstractness) gives more and more complete and precise explanations of the trends that actually occur. So conceived, the method of historiosophy is of the same type as that of theoretical natural sciences.8 In particular, actually this method was applied in Marxian historical materialism which is a rather complicated hierarchy of model of historical processes.9 For an idealizational theory one of the most important questions to decide is what is, and what is not, to be abstracted from. Decisions of the type are based on some rules of essential stratification telling a theoretician what types of factors are principal for the investigated variables – and must be then included into the body of “independent variables” from the very beginning, i.e., as early as in the initial model of the theory – and what types of factors are of the secondary character and can be initially abstracted from.10 Usually, the rules of essential stratification are grounded on some philosophical assumptions.11 This is what takes place in our case: the above mentioned four views of social philosophy justify the rules of essential stratification telling a social theoretician what kinds of factors are to be included, and what kinds are to be abstracted from when constructing the first, initial model of a theory of the historical process. A rule of essential stratification can be discussed by reference either to its philosophical presuppositions as such or to the theoretical conclusions it leads to. The problem of the role of the individual in history will be considered here in the second way. A certain (fragment of) theory of 8

For a larger explanation cf. Nowak (1983), pp. 3ff, 10ff, 226-227. Cf. the papers by Burbelka (1975); Klawiter (1975); Łastowski (1975) and Nowak (1975); and papers collected in Nowak (1982). Let us notice that the position of the creators of Marxism as to the question discussed here sometimes ambiguous. It seems to be beyond the (reasonable) doubt that they were accepting essential holism. But some of their formulations suggest existential individualism (Marx and Engels 1973, pp. 20-21; Marx 1971, p. 16), whereas some others can be easily interpreted in terms of existential holism (Marx and Engels 1973, p. 36; Marx 1971, p. 77). 10 Cf. a discussion of the status of the rules of essential stratification in Nowak (1980, pp. 12ff). 11 Needless to say, this is not any justification of the rules of essential stratification as this can be given only by an empirical success of the theories which are based on them (Nowak 1980, pp. 214ff). 9

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historical process will be outlined in order to reveal the rule of essential stratification it is based upon. What confirms historically that theory can be then said to confirm indirectly its philosophical assumptions, in particular those concerning the role of the individual in the historical process modeled in the theory in question. 2. Substantial Assumptions: A Fragment of a Theory of Historical Process 2.1. Non-Marxian Historical Materialism Needless to say, the theory, called non-Marxian historical materialism, can be presented here in a very sketchy and fragmentary manner; for a larger and more precise exposition I have to refer to other places.12 Its main idea is that there are three class divisions upon the disposers of some material means of domination – of production, of coercion and of indoctrination – and the rest of a society: owners/direct producers, rulers/citizens, priests/indoctrinated. Therefore, the class societies with the three classes of disposers separated from one another (like slave, feudal, and capitalist systems) are to be distinguished from supraclass societies with multiplied class divisions. And so, fascism is a supraclass society with the double class of rulers-priests and the singular class of owners and (“real”) socialism is a supraclass society with the triple class of rulers-owners-priests. It is one of the main theses of non-Marxian historical materialism that the last form of class society, the capitalist one, is transformed into socialism with the class of triple-lords. A triplelord is a ruler of a special kind, it is a ruler who thanks to force takes charge also of the disposal of the means of production and of indoctrination. The decisive point for a socialist society is, then, not that of ownership but that of political power. If so, the triple-lords can be – in the “first approximation” – modeled as the rulers. This requires an inspection into the materialist nature of power.

12

Nowak (1983; 1987); in the latter work (its Polish version appeared in the independent publisher, Aneks, Przyjaciel Nauk. Studia z teorii i krytyki społecznej, vols. 1-2, Wrocław, 1985) the ideas concerning the political power outlined here in a very sketchy manner are presented more precisely and systematically; the book contains also a comparative analysis of stands in the philosophy of politics.


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2.2. The Materialist Nature of Power A range of influence of a given ruler will be termed the set of actions of citizens being controlled by him or her. The sum of all the ranges of influence of particular rulers constitutes the range of regulation of the whole class of rulers. Since the competition between them forces each participant of power to enlarge his range of influence – for those who delay in doing this lose their positions and cease to be rulers at all – then the common interest of the class as a whole consists in enlarging the range of influence and is, naturally, at variance with the interest of the class of citizens. The more so, that an increase of the range of regulation necessitates the growth of the repressiveness of power. Let us call civic alienation the ratio of the number of acts controlled by some ruler (i.e., the cardinal number of the range of regulation) to the number of citizens’ acts that can be, under the attained level of means of repression and surveillance, controlled.13 It appears that the level of resistance of the class of citizens basically depends on civil alienation. Under low civic alienation the level of civic resistance is obviously low as well: someone with power who interferes in social life to a minimal degree meets minimal resistance on the part of the citizens. Contrary to appearances, the same holds under a very high level of civic alienation. A great level of regulation followed by high repressiveness by those with power leads to atomization of the citizens. And the latter excludes any type of co-ordinated, common action against power. The level of the class struggle is the highest (revolutionary), when the alienation is “middle high”: painful enough to evoke the resistance but not yet paralyzing civic society. In other words, the dependence of the level of civic struggle (defined as the percentage of citizens breaking the connections of subordination to power) on civic alienation is a bell-shaped curve with intervals of the state of class peace, of revolution and of declassing of citizens (see Fig. 1). 14 Another explanation. A sub-interval of the declassing interval is that of totalization. Let us call so, those values which civic alienation takes on, if the field of the potential control of power over citizens becomes identical with the actual range of regulation (see Fig. 2). It appears that the image of relationships between the rulers and the citizens changes in time. At the beginning terror does suppress resistance, 13

It is assumed here that the “weight” of all actions under consideration is the same, which is an obvious simplification. 14 Let us add that the curves presented here possess a mere illustrative nature as their exact meaning would require an operationalization of appropriate magnitudes.

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Level of class struggle

and inactivity of social life replaces relations of the type “citizen – citizen” with those of the “citizen – an organ of power – citizen” type, making for a long time any kind of resistance impossible.

P

R

D

T

Civil alienation

Fig. 1. The dependence of the level of class struggle on civic alienation. P – the interval of class peace; R – the revolutionary interval; D – the interval of declassing; T – the sub-interval of totalization. The field of potential control

A

The field of potential control

B The range of regulations

The range of regulations

Fig. 2. (A) The state of totalization: all citizens’ actions which can be controlled under a given level of means of coercion (repression and surveillance) are in fact controlled (B) The normal stale of the relationships “power – citizens”: only a part of actions that could be controlled under a given level of means of coercion is in fact regulated by the rulers..

Yet, after a time people learn gradually how to live in a repressive system. What they learn above all is that in such a system the only support for an individual may be given by another, that for both of them, being equally important, the most advantageous is mutual solidarity and support. Thanks to this, autonomous social relations of the “citizen – citizen” type revive again and civic society gradually comes back into existence. And the civic alienation gradually diminishes, since more and


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Level of class struggle

more actions are being undertaken by citizens outside any forms dictated by the rulers. As a result, the social ability to resist gradually increases and it reaches at last the revolutionary interval, as larger and larger categories of citizens disengage themselves from the declassing. The process of gradual revival of civic society can be presented as follows (see Fig. 3).

Civil alienation Fig. 3. The dependence on civic alienation and time of the level of class struggle of the citizens against the rulers.

2.3. Idealizing Assumptions The model of a purely political society is based on numerous simplifying assumptions. And so, it is claimed that the society under consideration is formed of two political classes only – that of disposers of means of coercion (rulers) and that of the citizens (assumption A). Thanks to this he remaining two class divisions, not to mention derivative social categories (e.g., social strata), are neglected within our model. The domain of politics is, then, treated in total isolation from the economic and the cultural processes. But the whole sphere of politics is not being accounted for within our model. The influence of the political institutions (assumption B) and of the political consciousness (assumption C) upon the political process, are neglected as well. The model is, then, built in a purely materialist manner: the only factors that are taken into account are those which are connected with the unequal disposal of means of coercion in society and with the class struggle to which the fact leads. Obviously, many other idealizing assumptions (e.g., that there is no technological progress in our abstract society, that it is the only society in the work, etc.) are silently adopted here. In general, the caeteris paribus clause is assumed: all the factors not referred to in the exposition of our models are in contradiction to the facts omitted.

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Is such idealization allowed? There is only one answer to this: to develop and to concretize the model. If it turns out that due to this some important historical processes are becoming easier to understand than before, then an argument confirming our model is found. And directly the materialist decision to omit everything which is not connected with interclass relations becomes more justified. 2.4. Class Struggle in a Purely Political Society (Model I) Let us consider how a purely political society develops through time. 2.4.1. The Increasing of Civic Alienation Let us assume that in the initial point of process a state of class peace reigns. It implies that a low range of regulation and an appropriately low level of civic resistance occurs. Yet, the competition within the class of rulers is at work which forces a typical ruler to enlarge the sphere of his own influence. Those partial activities of particular rulers lead jointly to the constant growth of the range of regulation and hence, caeteris paribus, to the incessant increase of the civic alienation which reaches, after a time, a revolutionary interval. 2.4.2. The Declassing of Citizens The revolution may be defeated, or it may be won by the citizens. In the first case, post-revolutionary terror takes place. Its social function, independent of what particular rulers want to achieve, is to crush autonomous social relations through elimination of the most socially active citizens, that is, those who are centres of especially numerous connections of a “citizen – citizen” type. Such a disarray of the autonomous social structure makes the inactivity of society possible and leads to the declassing of citizens. And actually in the state of declassing the interest of power are best satisfied: the only factor able to stop the pressure of the rulers to enlarge the range of regulation, civic resistance, is practically eliminated. That is why, the stronger those in power, the more terroristic methods they apply. Hence the post-revolutionary terror takes place when there no longer exists any danger for those in power. For it is not a military but a purely political phenomenon. 2.4.3. The Possibility of a Civic Halter In the second case, when the civic masses win, nothing significant changes at all. At least if we try to think of revolutions consistently in


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materialist terms, that is, questioning the interests of revolutionary elites; this implies also a total insensitiveness to what revolutionaries say about themselves (e.g., that their aim is liberty or social justice, etc.). The revolution seen from materialist point of view does not give any opportunities for any illusions. The revolutionaries are a political elite as they dispose of some new means of coercion; for the civic or national or red guard, and even revolting crowds, are nothing but a means of coercion. The revolutionary elite constitute then an embryo of the new class of rulers. The civic revolution is, from the materialist standpoint, simply a confrontation of the settled class of rulers and of such a class which is new, growing. This appears after the victorious revolution. In this case the revolutionary elite of power becomes a new class of rulers having a monopoly of the means of coercion. And it begins to undergo the same regularities the previous, hated regime underwent. There always appears among revolutionaries some people who love power for power’s sake and they will group in their hands more and more decisions of increasing importance, so that the “passionate revolutionaries” lose their positions among the new leaders. After a time, the latter become entirely eliminated (usually as the “enemies of the people”) and nothing disturbs the apparatchik in his paly for more and more power. This brings about an incessant increase in the range of regulation and, in effect, a new wave of class struggle directed against the new class of rulers hidden under revolutionary banners. The civic halter is completed. And again appear the same two possibilities. If the masses lose the new revolution, declassing comes into being. If they win, the second generation of revolutionaries does the same – and, after a time, the second civic halter is completed. The conclusion is that after some, at most, civic halters the citizens lose their struggle definitively and some repertory of the class of rulers carries through their declassing. Must it be so? Yes, under our assumptions it must be so. It is even obvious (theoretically, not ideologically) if we once agree that the influence of human interests (e.g., that of enlarging power) upon the behavior of great human populations is stronger than what particular individuals think of themselves and what they aim at. The conception of the civic halter is then obvious for an historical materialist. 2.4.4. Total Subjugation The liquidation of mass resistance enables the class of rulers to accelerate the process of enlarging the range of regulation. And, soon, all that which

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can be controlled becomes controlled: the system reaches the state of totalization (see Fig. 2). In such a state there are no more areas of social life to conquer. But a typical ruler must, as always, enlarge his sphere of influence. Under our assumptions (excluding the possibility of enlarging the sphere of potential control thanks to technological progress or of conquering some extraordinary range of regulation through aggression) there is only one way to keep the whole system at work: a purge. Purges eliminate some rulers and leave room for the competitive activity of the remaining ones. Purges must be periodical as after a time the competition for power leads anew to the state of totalization. Such is, and not the “madness of the despot,” the explanation of the fact that the forces of coercion are sometimes directed against the rulers themselves. Quite to the contrary, if a despot is mad, he rules because this is advantageous for the interest of the class of rulers as a whole; otherwise the whole system of power would disintegrate in the fruitless struggle every ruler was leading against others in the state of totalization. 2.4.5. The Cyclic Revolutions The salvation comes thanks to the increasing ability of the citizen masses to resist (on the strength of the dependency shown in Fig. 3). The gradual reconstruction of civic society leads to the first, still limited, revolution. Its influence on the whole class of citizens is not too great but it gives the class of rulers an opportunity to extricate itself from the state of self – subjugation resulting in incessant, periodical purges. The chance for a victory – and hence for a civic halter-is rather low, but as a result of its suppression a new, more liberal (i.e., based on a lesser range of regulation) system of power comes into existence. No political class can be, however, switched to any direction. The only direction it switches to spontaneously is the increase of its power which is an affect of the working of the same competitive mechanism within the class of rulers. On the strength of the dependency of Figure 3, however, a new revolution comes inevitably, being even less local and more significant than the first one: new categories of citizens extricate themselves from the state of declassing. Such a trend of the increasing (as to their social basis and hence also social significance) revolutions is a characteristic feature of the new phase of the development of a purely political society. Because of its growing social basis, the trend is marked also with the increasing chance of victory, that is, of a civic halter. And a civic halter means that the society repeats its historical road from the very beginning, the state of declassing and then totalization included.


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Fortunately, the chances for the victory of citizens are not too high and the normal image of the movement of the society under consideration is the following: revolution – declassing revolution on a larger social basis, etc. The leading trend is, however, the decreasing civic alienation which implies that a growing number of citizens is able to crush the chains of subordination (see Fig. 3). At some point a large majority of citizens turns out to be ready to oppose the system which influences the forces of coercion as well making a successive declassing impossible. If the civic halter is to be avoided, the only possibility for the rulers is to make concessions: the range of regulation diminishes rapidly and the sphere of the social autonomy increases correspondingly. And again the competitive mechanism forces the class of rulers to regain the lost social territories which results in the next revolution, etc. A new pattern of development comes into being: revolution – concessions – revolution on a larger social basis – increasing concessions, etc. The pattern is repeated until the state of social peace is attained, that is, until the new system of power satisfying for the citizens is gradually formed due to evolutionary corrections. If some among those revolutions wins, then begins a civic halter. The only means of effective improvement of the situation of the citizens are lost revolutions: the rulers must initiate evolutionary changes of the system (concessions) in order to avoid the next one; but if concessions are too small, they will not avoid it; and the new revolution forces them to make further concessions – but only if it is lost. Progress realizes itself through evolutionary corrections. But they are brought about through revolutions only, i.e., through those which are lost. 2.5. The Empirical Interpretation of the Model Our model may be graphically illustrated (see Fig. 4). It is extremely idealized because of not accounting for technological progress, of the institutional organization of power, i.e., the state, of international relations, etc. Some of them are accounted for in the models contained elsewhere.15 In spite of this, even this simplified model allows us to explain some empirically existing societies in the main points of their history: socialist societies. For only in those societies is the political process not disturbed by the interests of private property nor independent religion (including “mass culture”); this is the reason why the above model does not present the development of the relationships between the

15

Cf. Nowak (1981, 1986, 1987), and others.

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rulers and the citizens in feudal or slave society. Only in socialism does the political process occur almost in its pure, idealized form. That is why the history of the Soviet Union conforms roughly to model I. The starting point is a system rather close to totalitarianism. The February Revolution opens a civic halter and the masses led by the Bolsheviks resist the new power. And the Bolsheviks in October initiate the second civic halter subordinating the soviets to the cells of the communist party. Peasant upheavals and the Kronstadt revolt testify that the civic halter initiated by the Bolsheviks is completed. The phase of declassing, and next totalization, inevitably begins as a result of crushing any possibility of social protest; purges are necessary for a system to survive in a state close to totalization. The state lasts till the beginning of the nineteen-fifties when series of strikes and upheavals in the Soviet concentration camps allow the rulers to extricate themselves from the self-imposed terror. And the phase of cyclic revolutions marked with the revolts of in the early 1960s begins.

Fig. 4. The scheme of the development of the purely political society in model I. The dashed line signifies the possibility of a civic halter.

Roughly, the same pattern (see Fig. 4) may be found in the development of other socialist countries, e.g., Poland, thanks to some social peculiarities, seems to be more advanced than the Soviet Union, that is, a greater amount of lost revolutions explains that the Polish system is today much more “liberal” than the Russian one. 3. The Role of the Individual in History: Existential Individualism If the above remarks are true, the model just outlined can be treated as a highly idealized scheme of the development of the typical socialist society. The historical paths of particular societies of the type differ from that ideal pattern because of the working of very many factors that are not accounted for in it, including those of the historical nature peculiar to a given society, but there are some reasons to conjecture that they may be


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explained when the model in question is adopted as an initial one for making further, more specific corrections.16 This is what can be said in order to defend the decision to regard the model as theoretical material facilitating an understanding of the place occupied by the individual within the historical process. Needles to say, if the model turned out to be a bad idealization of the development of socialist societies, then the following arguments would be lacking that empirical support it brings. The question of the role of the individual in history understood existentially makes no special troubles provided that model I is acceptable. For model I does not presuppose any entities that would not be reducible to the individuals. Or, more precisely, to set-theoretical entities built over the individual level. Model I is concerned with the isolated pure political society that can be identified with the following system: (L, Mc, d, R, C, Ac) where L is a set of people, Mc – a set of means of coercion, d – the relation of disposal, R – a set of people disposing some means of coercion of Mc. (the class of rulers), C – the set of remaining individuals of L (the class of citizens), Ac – the civic alienation. The notions under consideration can be rather easily identified as belonging to the set of attributes built over the individuals. And so, L and Mc are simply sets of them. The relation of disposal is defined on the set L and its counterdomain is set Mc; the relation in question is anyway a relation among individual beings. This allows for introducing the following relation: person x is materialistically similar to person y if and only if both x and y are disposers of some means of set Mc or both x and y are not. It is an equivalence relation and therefore generates the dichotomous division of set L into the two classes (both in the set-theoretical and social meaning) R and C. The classes are sets of individuals and then they belong to the hierarchy of over-individual attributes. At last the notion of the civic alienation is to be discussed. The civil alienation can be identified with the ratio of the set of regulation to the set of all acts undertaken in a given time by citizens. Since an act of a citizen can be understood as a state of affairs involving him or her (and, possibly, also some other persons or things), then the civil alienation as a relation between sets of acts of citizens also may be placed within the hierarchy of over-individual attributes. The conclusion of these considerations is that none of the notions involved presupposes the existence of any extra-individual entities, and 16

Nowak (1987).

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hence assumes the thesis of existential individualism. And since there is no difference under the considered respect between the outlined fragment of non-Marxian historical materialism and the other parts of that conception, then it might be said that on the whole the conception presupposes existential individualism. As far as it can be assumed to be true, it suggests a grasp of the historical process as being composed of acts of individuals, of their results and of nothing more. In the historical process exist only individuals acting in definite conditions, and moreover the conditions are nothing (if the natural conditions composed after all of some individual entities as well are omitted) but the cumulated activities of other people and the results of acts of generations of their predecessors. The subjects of the historical process, and the only ones, are individuals. 4. The Role of the Individual in History: Essential Holism It does not follow from this by any means that “the Laws of the phenomena of society are, and can be, nothing but the laws of the actions and passions of human beings.”17 In other words, existential individualism does not imply essential individualism. For it might be that it is not the direct attributes of the individuals but the global ones that are playing the principal role in the historic process. It might be that what holds in the historical reality is existential individualism and essential holism. That is why we have to consider, on the basis of the above presented theoretical material, the nature of the influence of the individual upon the historical process. 4.1. Typical Individual and the Historical Process The answer is evident as far as a typical individual is concerned: nothing. It is beyond any doubt that an average participant of the historical process is able to decide whether he or she undertakes an arbitrary action, or not. But the influence of such a decision made by a standard participant of the process does not go beyond his direct milieu. None of the parameters of the process-and here is the list of those involved in model I: the length of particular phases (e.g., the length of that of subjugation), the number of civic halters, the number of the cycles of declassation, the number of the revolutionary cycles-depends upon any singular act of any particular, typical individual. Such parameters depend 17

Mill (1919), book VI, chap. X, p. 1.


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certainly on the mass activities: when many millions of people are striking, it might happen that some of the parameters of the historical process are being changed; but whether person A joins the strike or not, does not influence the shape of the historical process at all. Or, more strictly, it influences it in so small a degree that it is entirely negligible. And, let us add in order to avoid misunderstandings, the mass activities are not singular but global attributes of the individuals for they refer to their class membership; mass activity is then placed within global attributes of the individuals. 4.2. An Outstanding Individual and the Historical Process. An Outline of Model II of the Purely Political Society The above formulations can be, I conjecture, rather easily accepted. For what is usually meant when discussing the role of the individual in history is not that of a typical individual but of an outstanding one. Let us try to pose the question of the influence exerted by an outstanding individual in the framework of the conception summarized above. What is seen immediately is that model I is too poor to allow us to formulate the question at all. Individuals that belong to the two classes of our abstract society of model I cannot be after all differentiated as to their social role within that society. That is, both the classes are homogeneous. In particular this concerns the class of rulers: each of them is treated as being independent of each other. This is connected with the role of assumption (C) omitting the influence of the political institutions. Let us remove condition (C) accepting instead realistically that the class of rulers forms a hierarchical structure. Here are the elements of it: the ruler of the highest order, the elite of power, the political apparatus. One may distinguish different types of political systems accounting for the following criteria: whether a given system allows for the institutional channels of the control (a) of the class of rulers by the class of citizens?, (b) of the elite of power by the apparatus? (c) of the highest ruler by the rest of the elite? According to the criteria the following types of political systems can be distinguished: the type of political system democracy autocracy dictatorship despotism

(a)

(b)

(c)

yes no no no

yes yes no no

yes yes yes no

Table 1. Typology of political systems in non-Marxian historical materialism (explanations in text).

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The type of the adopted political system depends on the relation of class forces which is expressed in the notion of the civil alienation. To the state of class peace democracy is adopted best. Every other political system would increase the resistance of the citizens. Under the strong of class of the citizens the power can be democratic alone as this system actually admits the positive selection among rulers forcing them to leave the power or to become more efficient. That is why democracy allows for minimization of losses in the range of regulation. Under the further growth of the civic alienation the democratic channels of the control are to be closed. Otherwise, not only the layer of leaders but also the core of the class of rulers, viz. the apparatus, would be eliminated. That is why autocracy turns out to be the optimal form of rule then. It ceases to be so in the revolutionary interval, however. An open social struggle necessitates a uniformity of action and that is why the apparatus must submit itself to a policy of the elite. The latter must in turn reserve a control over the dictator for itself, otherwise the dictator's faults would be unrectifiable. In the postrevolutionary stage this uniformity of action is to be, preserved as the class of rulers faces the possibility of declassation of the masses. Therefore dictatorship still turns out to be the optimal form of rule. It ceases to be the most efficient means to secure the attained level of regulation as late as the threshold of totalization is reached. In such a state the greatest danger for the class of rulers proves to be the internal competition. And since every member of the elite of power is a representative of a faction including all layers of the hierarchy of power, from the top to the bottom, then preserving dictatorship in the state of totalization would contribute to the internal competition among factions for the dignity of the highest ruler. It is the interest of the class as a whole, then, to shake off all the additional factors strengthening the struggles factions lead against each other. That is why it is better for it to yield itself to the despot. A type of the political system adopts itself to the attained level of the civic alienation. The latter changes in time in a way shown in model I. Therefore, one may state that there is a natural sequence of political systems of the isolated, purely political society which is composed of the optimal forms of political institutions for the class of rulers: It is a the following:democracy/autocracy/dictatorship/despotism/dictatorship/autocracy/democracy. This holds for the no-halter variant. Appropriate modifications for one-, two-, etc., halter variants can be easily read of (see Fig. 4). This optimal line is also, in a more or less approximate manner, realized. Appropriate changes in the institutional composition of the stale can be carried out through reforms- in case they are executed by


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the elite of power, or through a political upheaval. In the latter case this can take a form of either a coup d’etat, if the highest posts become occupied by a certain new faction of the same hierarchy of power, or a political breakthrough, if a new governing team comes down from outside it.18 In both cases, however, the citizen masses remain unengaged in the developments; this is what differentiates the political upheaval from the political revolution. The mechanism of the institutional change is the following. There appears as a result of processes describes in model I – a change in the state of class forces. Hitherto existing system of power does not consolidate the strength of the power in the optimal way yet and keeping it working would contribute to the weakening of the power, that is, to additional losses in the range of regulation. The interest of the class of rulers demands then a new, more effective type of the organization of the state. If such a demand will not be satisfied by a reform, then the conditions for a coup d’etat appear. If they remain unavailed, the threat of a political breakthrough emerges. Obviously, in order to effect changes in the political system it is necessary to group a sufficiently strong faction within the hierarchy of power, or in other politically active milieu, around a definite program of political transformations. Such a program must be invented by somebody and somebody must convince others to follow it. In this way a demand for an outstanding individual comes into existence. An outstanding political leader is one who does see earlier than others, symptoms of a change in the state of social forces and recognizes the necessity of changes in the institutions constituting the existing political system. And one who, moreover, manages to gain support of a political force indispensable to carrying those objectively necessary transformations into effect. An outstanding political leader may in advance adjust the system of rule to the new state of class forces. An inept leader, in turn, may detain those objectively necessary changes, contributing in that way to a political upheaval that will adjust the formal shape of the state to the new system of social forces. And this is all that a leader can do. All he is able to influence is placed between an anticipation and a retardation of objectively indispensable changes. Those possibilities are, of course, more serious than those an average citizen has at his or her disposal as far as their possible results are concerned. Nonetheless the basic parameters of the social process of 18

I am referring here to the terminological stipulations made in: Baszkiewicz (1981), pp. 18ff.

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model I cannot be significantly changed by the activity of an outstanding political leader. The acceleration or retardation of transformations of the political system dues influence the historical process, but does not allow, for instance the avoiding of a particular phase of its development. At least such possibilities do not exist within model II. Perhaps in cooccurrence with some additional factors of a greater significance (e.g., the international relations, the economic decease, etc.), the influence of an outstanding leader could be much greater. But this would take place duo to the working of two factors with the personal influence as one of them. The personal influence as itself is accounted for in its purest form in the present model II. And, if I am not wrong, it turns out that an outstanding leader may only correct the line of development determined by more significant factors of material nature. What has been said is not a full answer for the question of the role of an outstanding individual in history. For only one problem has been accounted for in the above, viz. the role of an outstanding individual in bringing new institutions into practice. Nonetheless, it seems to be a paradigmatic case. One may namely conjecture that in general an outstanding leader can only become, ahead of what is coming into being, necessary for the interests of a social class he or she represents. It is obvious that such a stand originates within the Marxist tradition. But it seems to be an enlargement of it as Marxists operate the economic notion of a class alone attempting, in the addition to that, to interpret the political leaders as leaders of the classes in their, economistic sense. This is, however, an entire falsity as the political leaders are those of political classes first of all. 4.3. Conclusion: Existential Individualism and Essential Holism If all this is true, then one may conclude that no individual is able to influence significantly – as individual, that is, without any interaction with some additional factors-parameters of the historical process. A typical individual is unable to make in the process any changes; an outstanding one may at most bring about some agitation towards its realization. The historical role of individuals is rather secondary. This is what essential holism maintains. From the other side, the historical process does not contain any other entities than those of the individualist nature. In particular, acts of human beings constitute its, so to speak, basic substance. If all that is acceptable, then the theoretical material considered above suggests following view: the only subjects of the historical process are individuals, but not their singular but actually global attributes – in particular attributes of social


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classes – are principal factors of it. This is the view of existential individualism and of essential holism together. REFERENCES Baszkiewicz, J. (1981). Wolność, równość, własność [Liberty, Equality, Property]. Warszawa: Czytelnik. Brodbeck, M. (1958). Methodological Individualism: Definition and Reduction. Philosophy of Science 25, 1-22. Burbelka, J. (1975). On Family Development Theory in Engels: Towards a Reinterpretation. Revolutionary World 14, 116-129. Gallie, W.B. (1964). Popper and the Critical Philosophy of History. In: M. Bunge (ed.), The Critical Approach to Science and Philosophy, pp. 410-422. London: The Free Press. Gardiner, P., ed. (1959). Theories of History. Glencoe: The Free Press. Goldstein, L. (1958). The Two Theses of Methodological Individualism. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 9, 1-11. Homans, G.C. (1967). The Nature of Social Science. New York: Harcourt. Jarvie, C. (1972). Concepts and Society. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Klawiter, A. (1975). On the Status of Historical Materialism. Revolutionary World 14, 13-30. Lukes, S. (1968). Methodological Individualism Reconsidered. British Journal of Sociology 19, 119-129. Łastowski, K. (1975). On the Problem of the Analogy Between Historical Materialism and the Theory of Evolution. Revolutionary World 14, 103-115. Mandelbaum, M. (1957). “Societal Laws.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 8, 211-224. Mandelbaum, M. (1959). Societal Facts. In: Gardiner (1959), pp. 476-488. Marx, K. and F. Engels (1973). Die Deutsche Ideologie, Werke, B. 3, Berlin: Dietz Verlag. Marx, K. (1971). Grundrisse (ed. by D. McLellan). London: Macmillan. Mill, J.S. (1919). A System of Logic. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Nowak, L. (1971). The Problem of Explanation in Marx’s “Capital.” Quality and Quantity 5, 311-338. Nowak, L. (1975). Theory of Socio-Economic Formation as an Adaptive Theory. Revolutionary World 14, 85-102. Nowak, L. (1977). On the Structure of Marxist Dialectics. An Attempt at the Categorial Interpretation. Erkenntnis 11, 341-363. Nowak, L. (1980). The Structure of Idealization. Toward a Systematic Interpretation of the Marxian Idea of Science. Dordrecht: Reidel. Nowak, L. (1981). Zagadnienie narodowe w nie-Marksowskim materializmie historycznym [The Problem of Nation in Non-Marxian Historical Materialism]. Poznań: WiW. Nowak, L. (1983). Property and Power. Towards a Non-Marxian Historical Materialism. Dordrecht: Reidel. Nowak, L. (1986). Ideology and Utopia. In: P. Buczkowski and A. Klawiter (eds.), Theories of Ideology and Ideology of Theories (Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, vol. 9), pp. 24-52. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

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Nowak, L. (1987). A Model of Socialist Society. Studies in Soviet Thought 34, 1-55. Nowak, L., ed. (1982). Social Classes Action and Historical Materialism (Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, vol. 6), Amsterdam: Rodopi. Popper, K.R. (1965). Conjectures and Refutations. New York: Harper & Row. Popper, K.R. (1966). The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. 2. London: Routlegde & Kegan Paul. Popper, K.R. (1967). The Poverty of Historicism. London: Routlegde & Kegan Paul. Popper, K.R. (1982). Unended Quest. An Intellectual Autobiography. Glasgow: Fontana & Collins. Watkins J.W.N. (1959). Historical Explanation in the Social Sciences. In: Gardiner (1959), pp. 503-514. Wisdom, J.O. (1970). Situational Individualism and the Emergent Group Properties. In: R. Borger and F. Cioffi (eds.), Explanation in the Behavioral Sciences, pp. 271-295. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

II MODELING IN THE METHODOLOGY OF HISTORY

Jerzy Topolski IDEALIZATIONAL PROCEDURES IN HISTORY

I Science is bound to idealize: if for no other reason, then due to the simple fact that it is practically impossible to describe the world in all its factual detail and in all its possible relations. The only way out of this troublesome situation is to limit the content taken into account both in description as well as in explanation. In the case of description, this will mean a simplification of possible or current knowledge. With regard to explanation, it will amount to taking into account only some relationships (relations). Consequently, description becomes clearer and explanation more profound as long as the simplifications and omissions are justified, i.e., that a correct approach is adopted aimed at revealing the content that is most essential from the point of view of the general account of the subject of study that the researchers use in their thinking. An approach that on principle presents a simplified interpretation of the (natural or social) reality can be supplemented by procedures of a reverse nature, that is by adding details to description and factors (or reasons) to explanation. This is referred to as concretization.1 Idealization and concretization show smaller or greater peculiarities in research practice of different sciences. In general, it seems that the more a given discipline of science is interested in theory, the clearer are different forms of idealization and (possibly) concretization used in it, albeit this same method is used in science. As Leszek Nowak noted, idealizational procedures are what natural sciences and the humanities have in common.2 One could get the impression, though, that history is a discipline (or a set of disciplines) that develops as though on the sidelines of that general 1 2

Nowak (1980). Nowak (1980), pp. 61-62.


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idealizational procedure. This is because the task of history is, as is often stressed, to provide a detailed account of what has happened. Moreover, as is also often stressed, the progress of historical studies allegedly consists in condensing the description in question by means of accumulating new sources and new pieces of information. It is added at the same time that the historian is not interested in formulating laws (that are always of idealizational in nature), which is so important in sciences, their task being, e.g., to predict (for instance the way in which the market will evolve, what the results of specified actions will be, etc.). Some natural sciences have developed categories such as ideal gas, point or vacuum, which is incidentally similar to the way political economy analyzes states of affair while suspending specific factors. In such natural sciences, idealization is more “visible” than in more descriptive disciplines. Upon closer scrutiny, however, it turns out that even history, which is so closely related to concrete reality and is so attached to time and space, does not depart from more “exact sciences” in terms of idealization. For a long time, historians have generally been aware of the fact that they use various idealizational procedures, although they never called them so. An eminent French historian, Georges Sorel (1842-1906), wrote: “We should put forward probable and partial hypotheses and be content with provisional approximations so that we could in this way leave the door open for subsequent corrections.”3 This could be read as a procedure of formulating more general statements and gradually concretizing them based on approximating a picture of the reality that is richer in detail. Johan Huzinga (1872-1945), one of leading European historians of the late 19th century and the early of the 20th century, wrote: “To begin (in history) an analysis, one has to have a synthesis in one’s mind.” 4 Many historians, especially in the field of economic history, have been construing models of economies to which they apply more or less consistent concretizations. In his innovatory book on the distribution of income in Poland, Jan Rutkowski wrote the following: We will conduct our discussion starting with the simplest situations, and then we will be gradually coming to more and more complicated ones. We will first of all consider the functioning of the distribution of income in the closed feudal system, that is to say, in a system in which there are no economic relations between estates belonging to different lords. 5

3

Quoted in Carr (1987), p. 41. Quoted in Shaw (1998), p. 248. 5 Rutkowski (1982), p. 111. 4

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Models of the feudal economy were also put forward by such scholars as Witold Kula6 or Trout Rader,7 as well as by authors construing other models. Numerous models were construed by historians from the socalled New Economic History.8 Herman Van der Wee has suggested an interesting model of the development of Dutch economy in modern times in which he has analyzed the role of various factors that are to explain economic cycles in this country. Van der Wee concludes his text as follows: The explanative hypothesis suggested here is located on a high level of abstraction. Although it has been construed on the basis of factographic induction, it is too synthetic to be subject to verification without additional procedures. 9

In this study, I intend to present a concretization of the suggested general hypothesis that takes into account the most important “factors” (prices, population) by means of formulating hypotheses that are closer to “reality” and thereby to present its concretization. II Existing analyses of idealizational procedures in history focus primarily on construing models and their concretizations performed by historians. It must be stressed that this concerns only a small fragment of historiography. What I am referring to is obviously a conscious formulation of model constructions by historians, constructions in which one makes use of factors of different significance for the event studied.10 The idealization approach pervades the whole of the historians’ research and their narrative procedure, going far beyond conscious model approach. In my view, it can be concluded from the observation of historiographic practice that there are at least four idealization (simplification) procedures with respect to the material that is at the historians’ disposal and with respect to their image of the past reality. These are the following procedures: 6

Kula (1976). Rader (1968). 8 Different historical models are discussed by Brzechczyn (1998). Models developed by the school of “New Economic History” are analyzed in Polish literature by Pomorski (1995). 9 Wee (1974), pp. 105-121. For the model method in history see also Topolski (1972), pp. 713-726, reprinted in (1994a), Ch. XVIII. 10 Topolski (1976), pp. 401-417. 7

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factualization of the source material, modeling of the image of the past reality, narrative abstraction (summarizing), explanative abstraction (omission).

Let us discuss the above procedures in more detail. The first, in most general terms, consists in “removing” interpretation and rhetoric as much as possible from the source information. The point is to obtain as a result information about the simplest (the most unique, the most individual) historical facts. Information of this sort can be called (relatively) “pure” (“ideal”), and the same applies to the facts that they describe. I call these “purified” source pieces of information about single facts base pieces of information that refer to base facts. Obviously, we have to bear in mind all the time that both base pieces of information and facts that they describe are narrative constructs that merely pretend to be linked to the reality. Moreover, base pieces of information (and facts, at the same time) are of twofold nature. The first kind can be called hard, and the second kind can be termed soft. Hard pieces of information, which I also call base ones in a strict sense of the term, are those which inform the historians directly about the facts that they are interested in. To give an example, if a historian is interested in the date of birth of a given person and finds an appropriate inscription in a registry book (which does not raise doubts about its authenticity), then the piece of information found can be called a hard base piece of information. In such a case, the historian’s task is simple (leaving aside possible difficulties in reading a source inscription): she simply “excavates” an almost ready piece of information out of the source. ‘Excavation’ refers to a critical approach, the essence of which is to recognize the source as authentic and the informant as reliable. However, in numerous cases such a way of getting direct pieces of information is complicated, for they are implicated in the author’s interpretation of the source as well as in his rhetoric. Soft base pieces of information pertain to indirectly established facts. This is the course taken by the historian if she/he does not find direct pieces of information in her sources about facts that are of interest to her/his. So she/he establishes the date of birth that is important to her/his on the basis of indirect pieces of information, such as e.g., the date at which a given person began her/his education, dates pertaining to other persons or still different data. The piece of information obtained, which is often not very specific and is sometimes burdened some degree of uncertainty, becomes a base piece of information if it informs about simple facts. For the historian, it


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represents, together with other (hard and soft) base pieces of information, a material on the basis of which she/he construes her/his narrative making use of the non-source knowledge. These base pieces of information can be compared with ideal points, for the facts they speak of have been abstracted from some complicated context. One has to realize that historians do not have access to the past reality. What still remains at their disposal are other observations and interpretations made by other people, authors of sources that are of a very fragmentary nature. When construing their narrative, historians refer to other narratives, and as far as material sources are concerned (such as, for instance, objects excavated by the archeologist, or objects that are around us, such as, e.g., old buildings), they have to use their own observation and narrativize them, i.e., describe for themselves, not necessarily in the form of a separate text (the object X is this and this). In such cases, one can easily recognize as base pieces of information only those descriptions of objects that do not raise specialists’ doubts. What is required is not an absolute consensus but at least such a consensus that admits a given description of a direct source (which does not have its author) to further stages of scientific examination. Source pieces of information not only inform about facts in an indirect or direct way but also, as we have noted, are immersed in interpretation and rhetoric (persuasion). It is the historians’ task to reach the description of a given historical fact in its ideal, perhaps unique, form. The issue is certainly controversial but it is worthwhile to quote in this context Richard T. Vann’s view. Vann says the following: “I know no example where more than one account has been offered of exactly the same set of events, no matter how events are concerned.” 11 I agree with this view but the opposite one does not change the essence of my argument: one has to “remove” interpretation and rhetoric in order to reach as “pure” facts as possible. Such an idealizational procedure I term the factualization of the source material, for its aim is to reach relatively “pure” (perhaps unique) descriptions of facts. Here is a passage from the chronicle of Master Wincenty (known as Kadłubek) in which he describes the battle of Mozgawa in 1195. The battle was waged for the throne of Cracow and was fought between “older” and “younger” representatives of the Piast dynasty: What a sacrilegious, godless, pathetic spectacle of this fight. Neither sons respect their fathers, nor fathers are mindful of their sons; brothers do not recognize their brothers, nor do relatives recognize their relatives, nor do kinsmen recognize their kinsmen; there are no common relations and the sacred bond of spiritual kinship 11

Vann (1998), p. 155.

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Jerzy Topolski kills itself in the fury of a massacre. Here Mieszkowic Bolesław dies of a spear. Here eminent knights fall. Here a plane knight wounds Mieszko and when he wants to kill him, the latter takes off his helmet and cries that he is a prince! The former recognizes him and asks for forgiveness for his imprudence and defending him against others, leads him out the battlefield. 12

It is easy to see that in the above passage base pieces of information reporting base facts are the following: 1. Bolesław, Mieszko’s son, died of a spear in the battle. 2. Mieszko (the Older) was wounded and led out of the battlefield by a plain knight. The fratricidal battle is not listed as it is reported in an earlier passage of the chronicle. What dominates in the passage quoted above is interpretation and rhetoric. The author interprets the battle as out of accord with the sense of morality (disregard of family bonds) and at the same time he wants, by means of rhetoric (e.g., exclamations and the vocabulary used), to make the reader of his text share the same mood. Here is an excerpt from a Turkish work entitled The Quintessence of Events about the Years 1681-1684 by Deferdar Sary Mehmed Pasza about the march-out for the campaign of Vienna: The defender of true faith and clear law, the Padishah of the world, the inheritor of the kingdom of Sulejman, the glory of Osman’s house, Padishah – the ornament of the world, the ruler, the conqueror of countries, the sultan Gazi Mechmed chan, taking his hope from Allah, had gone with all his Islamic armies to a sacred war and had made this decision: on Thursday morning, April 15, 1683 [the date given according to the Christian calendar, footnote by J.T.], he set out from the exquisite region located in the vicinity of his threshold and capital Adrianopol . . . that could be envied even by green meadows of paradise. Carrying high the banner of victory and triumph, with the noise similar to that of the sea waves and the noise of travel kettle-drums going up to the sky accompanying the march-out, all set out on a journey and moved in the direction indicated by the ruler’s will like spring wind that adds charm to the world. 13

In this passage, the presence of rhetoric is still greater. The base piece of information about the date, place and manner in which the Tartar Kara Musi chan Gazi Mechmed is immersed in a text packed with metaphors, which at the same time is an ideological message of the author. It is obvious that both in the case of the passage from the chronicle of Master Kadłubek as well as from that of Sara Mechmed Pasza, rhetoric and interpretation present in these texts is also a base fact that requires

12 13

Master Wincenty Kadłubek (1991), p. 252. Abramowicz (1973), p. 275.


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appropriate formulation for a historian interested in chronicle writing itself and in the personages of chroniclers. It is often the case that the task of formulating base information is taken on by various publications such as historical dictionaries, registers, etc., and in publishing documents it is a general rule that the main elements are provided in an introduction to a subsequent document. As an example, let me present a passage from a Historical and Geographic Dictionary of the Poznań Region in the Middle Ages which contains all the known source information on particular villages, subject to “purification” with respect to interpretation and rhetoric: Inhabitants: 1546, laborious [laboriosus - a term given to peasants; footnote by J.T.] Bartazar Clarer, an inn-keeper from the village of Leszno is to give the title of 3 perches [virga – a measure of field; footnote by J.T.] of soil and gardens near Wschowa and in the village of Przczyna Dolna to Maciej Górski from Miłosław, a starost of Wschowa; 1549, Dominik Froszberg from Leszno, originally from Głogów; 1553, king Zygmunt August provides Jan and Jerzy Glanik, townsmen from Leszno who had been outlawed earlier, with a safe conduct; serf Michał Marszel, the meadows of Nikla Kniwa.14

This is, as can be seen, a handful of simple (“straightened”) pieces of information taken from sources of information about inhabitants of Leszno which the historian can treat as her base material to construe her narrative, i.e., to create narrative totalities linked to one another with common logic, grammar, rhetoric and some general content. Below, I would like to discuss the common (linking) content in question. III As has been noted above, the historian constructs an inherently linked, more or less coherent narrative from single and at the same time scattered base pieces of information. It also has to be stressed that a given narrative (a book, an article, etc.) is not a totality but a complicated structure that links many narrative totalities of different levels of generality. It can be presented by taking the structure of a book as an example. The smallest elements of it are historical sentences that inform about a historical fact, for instance the following sentence: The proceedings of the senate were still in progress when the king sent an order to commanders of fortresses and administrators of arsenals to provide Mitawa with 14 Słownik historyczno-geograficzny województwa poznańskiego w średniowieczu [Historical and Geographic Dictionary of the Poznań Region in the Middle Ages], edited by Gąsiorowski (1992), p. 589.

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all cannons, especially those capable of carrying cannon-balls of a great caliber as well as with gun-powder and ammunition [with reference to August’s attempt to take Riga in 1700; footnote by J.T.]. 15

The sentence together with other sentences forms a paragraph. A number of paragraphs in a historical (and not only historical) narrative form sections; sections form chapters, and chapters finally form a book. But a book is not a simple sequence of narrative totalities, or even a sequence of parallel narrative bands (historical sentences, paragraphs, subchapters etc.); it is something much more complex that fulfills the principle of multiple linkage. Consequently, a historical sentence is a part of a paragraph; together with a paragraph it is a part of a section. Then, together with a section, it is a part of chapter, etc. Thus, in a perfectly coherent narrative that should not contain any “loose” sentences, a sentence as a part of a paragraph, section, etc., is repeatedly linked. The linkage in question is not grammatical in nature and is only partially logical in nature (mainly due to the fact that it is subject to the principle of contradiction); it is a linkage of content that is shared via general concepts (not necessarily articulated but enthymematically assumed). For instance, the sentence quoted above, concerning the order to provide Mitawa with cannons, considered in isolation, speaks merely of this particular fact. Since it is a part of narrative totalities (a sequence of paragraphs) that speak of an attempt to take Riga by August I in 1700, it “absorbs” a part of these more general contents (in a manner that cannot be articulated in sentences). Thus, it is indirectly also a sentence about preparations to take Riga, as well as about the failure of the attempt. One cannot pull single sentences out of a narrative without consequences for sentences themselves, and for the whole narrative (obviously in the case of an ideal narrative) as well. An analogy can be drawn with a chemical compound from which one is not able to isolate a component (for instance oxygen from H2 O) without destroying the chemical compound as such. It is clear at the same time that the isolated component is not the same element that functions in a compound. Let us consider the sentence “Prices of grain in Paris in 1780s were going up,” which is a part of a paragraph about the population’s growing dissatisfaction and then, with several other paragraphs, a part of a section about taking the Bastille and, beyond that, of subchapters and chapters about the origin of the French revolution. Within these narrative totalities, this sentence is not merely about the rise in prices. It is linked with general concepts, such as the growing dissatisfaction of Paris 15

Rutkowski (1946), pp. 125-127.


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residents, taking the Bastille, the outbreak of the French revolution, the origin of the French revolution, etc. The above arguments confirm what Huizinga has noted. It is impossible to construct a historical narrative without reference to ever more general terms, and – in the end – to the most general set of them (the “synthesis in one’s mind”). The synthesis in question is a general vision (hypothetical, idealization totality) of what the historian examines and describes. It can be called a model. It belongs to the domain of the non-source knowledge. In the course of examination, the general model in question, which is an introductory image of an object on the part of the historian, undergoes two processes: modification and concretization. Modification is a process of possibly changing these or other fundamental elements of a model that results from new deliberation inspired by the source and other material. Concretization in the historian’s research practice means saturating an initial model, accepted as an intellectual guiding pattern and subject to simultaneous modifications with increasingly detailed content, i.e., with base pieces of information and their interpretations. Two kinds of concretization can be distinguished in this context. The type that is most commonly used in historians’ research and writing practice is factographic concretization. It consists in fleshing out the structure of a model with concrete content, i.e., with the above mentioned base pieces of information and with what can be deduced from them. Let us say that a historian intends to research the work of the Polish Senate under the reign of Stanisław August (1764-1795). In order to begin the study, she/he has to apply some general knowledge (possibly gained earlier) of institutions existing in Poland at that time so that she/he could have an idea about the position of the senate among them, i.e., so that she/he could construct in her/his imagination (in her/his “mind,” in Huizinga’s words) a totalizing image of the Polish state (and perhaps even more broadly of the society, economy, or culture). It is only after constructing such a model (which often goes hand in hand with research itself) that the historian fleshes it out with factographic pieces of information. It must be emphasized again that those pieces of information can sometimes lead to a fundamental modification of the initial model with respect to its main assumptions. So she/he is writing in more detail about the Senate knowing beforehand (more or less generally) what the Senate at the time was. The other kind of concretizing the model applies both to the image of an object of research that is generally not articulated, and to a consciously constructed model, such as the models developed by Kula,

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Rutkowski or historians representing the school of New Economic History that were already mentioned above. This type is referred to as explanative concretization. It occurs in its classic form in Rutkowski who studied, e.g., causes of the origin and development of manorial economy (“the causes of the growth of manorial farms”) in modern Poland. Obviously, we do not know an initial model that guided Rutkowski’s research. We can only put forward some hypotheses in this respect, based on the history of his studies of manorial economy in Europe, or at least presume that in the beginning the model in question must have been less clear. It can be assumed that only at some moment the author decided that it was sufficiently confronted with factographic pieces of information, i.e., precise enough to be described. I will discuss the issue of idealization and explanative concretization in history separately (see section V). IV Narrative abstraction (summarizing) is undoubtedly the most common idealizational procedure used by historians. The necessity of abstracting, i.e., omitting a greater or smaller amount of information about facts is independent of whether the historian has a richer source material at her disposal. Instead, it results from a simple statement formulated already at the beginning of my argument, which stressed that it is impossible to describe “everything” (neither events themselves nor their causes). The historian is bound to select and at the same time she/he works under the stress, as it is expected of her/his that the narrative should be coherent, should present narrative sequences that are obvious to the reader, that are linked with one another and structured (see section III). Gone are the times when annals noting single events (such as the tabulae pontificum in ancient Rome), and even chronicles in which the main linkage, apart from the time sequence, was provided by some guiding idea (such as, for example, a glory of the dynasty or of the Church). Chronicles, even if still written, are no longer regarded as a proper narrative but as an inscription aiming to preserve the memory of something, and as a source for a proper narrative. It is supposed that while constructing her narrative the historian acts in accordance not only with her/his general vision of the subject matter (of e.g., the system of the Polish state in the second half of the 18th century) but also with her/his own, even more general vision of the world


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and of humans.16 Thereby, she/he treats a narrative as a concretization of this vision (or these two intermingled visions). The more detailed the narrative (as, for instance, in a text that constructs some tiny fragment of a picture of the past reality), the more advanced the concretization, i.e., the more detailed is the text constructed by a historian. To give an example, we do not find many detailed discussions in syntheses. Thus, they are closer to an initial model. But this is not supposed to mean that the historian does not perform concretization while constructing a synthesis. As a matter of fact, her/his conduct is different. The historian confronts the above-mentioned two visions with a detailed material, modifying them at the same time, as noted above. Thus, we first deal with the concretization and modification of an initial model, and then with the suspension of more or less detailed knowledge in question, i.e., mental subjection of a concretized model to the procedure of idealization. But a procedure of idealization is also necessary in the case of narratives not treated as synthetic. It intermingles with concretization, i.e., the saturation of an initial model with base pieces of information and with interpretations. This procedure, which is applied regardless of the degree of specificity of a narrative, consists in the above mentioned narrative abstraction, i.e., in retaining in a narrative what the historian recognizes as the most important according to her (modified) initial model, and omitting other information. Thereby, in the case of diachronic narratives,17 the historian constructs a certain simplified sequence of facts and relations between them that can be termed a narrative line. Such narratives provide a sequence of facts in a chronological order and are typical of, say, political history. It is obviously a sequence deprived of an infinite number of facts and relations, both known and unknown from sources. It is undoubtedly an idealization, simplification, essentialization in relation to the historian’s knowledge of the past, although not a deformation with respect to this knowledge. We are not capable of deforming the past reality as we do not know it. We can only deform it with respect to such an image of the past that we have in our minds, supplemented by information that is included in the sources that we know of (in this case, mainly historical narratives other than our own). Constructing a narrative that complies with the accepted narrative line represents an idealization of a general model that guides the historian’s work, but it is a type of idealization that does not destroy the fundamental structure of the model (for instance the belief that the main factor of historical changes is the state of the economy). A deformation 16 17

Topolski (1983), pp. 128-137. For diachronic and synchronic narratives, see Topolski (1994b), pp. 18-30.

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of this model would be at stake if the author of a narrative withdrew to a smaller or greater degree from this model in its essential aspects in her narrative sequence (in her narrative line). The above remarks also pertain to the second fundamental kind of a historical narrative: a synchronic narrative typical of, for instance, the history of material culture. This narrative is also embedded in the timeline (pertaining to some concrete point on it), but its structure is not linear and does not concur with the passage of time. It is circular and focused around some general concept denoting some “ordinary” object (such as a table or a necklace found by an archeologist) or an abstract one (such as an apartment or culture). In such cases, the historian, with a definition of the object being described in a narrative “in her/his mind” (“an apartment is . . .”), simultaneously concretizes and idealizes this object. For instance, she/he constructs an image of a bourgeois apartment in the Holland of the 17th century on the basis of a painting of that time. Then, she/he is able to contain in his/her description a piece of information that she/he recognizes as the most characteristic of or the most essential to the idea of the apartment that she/he describes. So first she/he mentally concretizes the general idea in question that guides her choice of content for a description and then she/he idealizes what is already saturated with knowledge of details, i.e., her/his image of an apartment. For instance, providing a piece of information about a table, she/he omits a piece of information about its artistic ornaments in the form of table legs carved in this or that way. But in doing so, she/he attempts not to deform (by simplifying) a general idea of an apartment that she/he accepted (i.e., a bourgeois apartment of the Holland of the 17 th century). If, for instance, she initially assumed that its artistic image (and the effort invested in its upkeep) was one of its basic characteristics, then the omission of such characteristics in her/his description could be seen as a deformation. It is easy to notice that in the case of a synchronic narrative there is no sticking to a narrative line on the part of the historian, for the passage of time does not play an essential role in this description. Therefore, the procedure of idealization is in this case manifested as a narrative circle whose central circle is formed by a definition which in the course of constructing a narrative is enriched radially with specific elements and, as has been noted, idealized at the same time. Let us have a closer look at the practice of narrative idealization, i.e., at the realization of a narrative line or a narrative circle. Let us use the example of the historical fact (i.e., a piece of information that is sufficiently confirmed in sources) of August II’s attempt to seize Riga in


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1700, the result of which was a defeat that opened the way for Charles XII to further victories in the Great Northern War (1700-1721). I will confine the discussion to more synthetic works. From among the latter works, the most extensive description of this event can be found (as far as the Polish literature is concerned) in a book authored by Jacek Staszewski entitled August II Mocny.18 He writes about the previously mentioned fact of sending cannons to Mitawa and then to Riga, then about the king going there on July 7, 1700 (adding at the same time what luggage the king took with him: a substantial library about the fate of which he informs in detail in his digressions), about the king’s political thoughts, about the fact of foreign ministers accompanying the king in his camp, about camp life which was “full of alcohol,” about ideas about signing a peace treaty with Sweden in accordance with recommendations of the Senate, moving regiments further, as well as about the French deputy’s account of these preparations, the king’s activities, Brandenburg deputy Hoverbeck’s negative observations that were different from the impressions of the French deputy (e.g., about the demoralization of the army), calculations about Peter I’s help (as well as about the tsar’s envoy being robbed, which had essential influence on the further course of events), about other analyses of the political situation (e.g., about waiting for the mediation of Austria and France after the withdrawal from the war of Denmark defeated by Charles XII), and about the end of the siege of Riga. Let us add that in previous paragraphs the author described an earlier attempt to take Riga “by surprise” (by resorting to a ruse) rather than by means of laying siege to it. All this takes several densely written pages. In a more synthetic narrative, the same author reports only on “failed war plans in the Inflanty campaign in the first six months of 1700,” about the Swedish king’s “announcement” of a “crushing revenge for a treacherous attack on Riga and breaking the peace treaty of Oliwa,” as well as Russia’s joining the war “when August II was raising the siege of Riga and preparing for a retreat to Kurland.”19 As can be seen, the question of Riga does not belong here to the main narrative line but rather to its offshoots (for such a distinction should be drawn). The main narrative line pertains, as can be easily noticed, to the very question of the war (its beginning, stages and conditions). In Jerzy Topolski’s synthesis entitled Historia Polski [The History of Poland] there occurs a similar narrative line but without ever mentioning the question of Riga (an attempt to take it using a ruse, then in a regular 18 19

Staszewski (1998), pp. 114-115. Tazbir (1995), pp. 293-295.

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siege, and finally raising the siege). The passage in question is as follows: But Charles XII, attacked jointly by the Danes and by August II in 1700, was not defeated. He quickly smashed the Danes and then, at Narva, he beat Peter I who was heading towards Estonia. He defeated the Saxon army in 1701 in the battle of Dvina. 20

Riga is not mentioned in a collective synthesis entitled Polska. Losy państwa i narodu [Poland. A History of the State and the Nation] authored by Henryk Samsonowicz, Janusz Tazbir, Tadeusz Łepkowski, and Tomasz Nałęcz either: The battle forces of the Swedish army as well as the king Charles XII’s commanding talent thwarted these plans [of recapturing by the so-called Northern League of lands taken away from the member countries, i.e., from Russia, Denmark and Poland, by Sweden; footnote by J. T.]. Swedes managed to defeat Denmark and forced it to leave the coalition first, then defeated Peter I’s army at Narva, and then entered Polish land through Kurland. 21

And in a synthesis authored by Józef A. Gierowski, an eminent expert on the Saxon times, the relevant passage is as follows: Early in 1700 the Danes, attacked Holstein and August II tried to seize Riga by surprise. Contrary to expectations, the Swedish army was well prepared for the war this time, and the youthful Charles XII turned out to be a splendid commander. With the help of the Netherlands and England, he soon forced Denmark to sign a peace treaty and then he beat Peter I’s army that had in the meantime joined the war at Narva. At the same time, August II failed in his attempt to conquer Riga by surprise, and he was not able to force it to surrender with the help of a long-lasting siege. Under the circumstances, Wettin attempted to withdraw from further war.22

Riga is not mentioned in an extensive synthesis The European World, written by Jerome Blum, Rondo Cameron, and Thomas G. Barnes either. Its narrative line in this particular fragment was not “developed” with the help of more detailed “offshoots”: Peter allied Russia with Poland and Denmark to partition the Swedish possessions and in 1700 hostilities began. The Great Northern War, 1700-1721, was contemporaneous with the War of the Spanish Succession; it was the northern theater of the general war that raged through Europe in the first decades of the eighteenth century. The allies’ expectation of an easy victory reckoned without the military genius of the youthful Swedish king, Charles XII. A few months after the war began, with just 8000 troops Charles smashed a Russian army of 40000 at Narva, a Swedish fortress on the Gulf of Finland. Peter fled in terror from the 20

Topolski (1995), p. 166. Tazbir (1992), p. 227. 22 Gierowski (1985), pp. 262-263. 21


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battlefield and for a time was ready to sue for peace, but fortune reprieved him when Charles turned his attention to Poland for the next few years.23

It is easy to see that a general narrative line is close to those detected in previous narratives but its concretizations are different to a smaller or greater degree. In the latter narrative it was Russia’s actions that were put to the fore and this provided a specific framework to its narrative line. In the former narratives, the actions of Russia, Denmark and August II (that is to say, of Saxony and Poland) were discussed on the same plane. What provided me with an example of the functioning of a narrative circle in a historical narrative was The History of Private Life (vol. 1, >From the Roman Empire to the Year 1000) edited by Paul Veyne, 24 in which the authors discuss, e.g., the house in Roman Africa and its living space (domus). Constructing a general model of the living space in question, they at the same time fill it with a more detailed content. Hence, we can read the following there: The first division of the space of the household was made depending on the time of the day. In the morning, clients were paying visits, and in the evening the master of the house was serving dinner. During the day, both the central space and the peristile could be reserved mainly for household activities and for the entertainment of its occupants. . . . Penetrating research into ruins demonstrates that, indeed, an inner space of the house is divided by a considerable number of doors, quite similar to contemporary buildings in which almost all rooms are isolated from adjoining rooms by a system of closures. Where remains of a building were preserved in quite a good condition, the result of such research was surprising, for it allowed to prove a systematic use of leaves, attached either directly to brick walls and threshold panel or suspended form door-frames; in the latter case, though, there are hardly perceptible traces of their fastening. There are few rooms the entrance to which would be deprived of leaves. Even wide door openings of vast reception halls could be closed. The triclinum could be open on the occasion of evening banquets but during the rest of the day this vast chamber was most often closed and isolated from the rest of a household. Furthermore, the stairs that linked different levels of the house were divided by doors that regulated access to them and even separated particular parts of them. Sometimes traces of leaves that regulated walking between porticos and the hall of the peristile in places where the wall that separated the two elements was not built, to enable passing through. This systematic use of divisions increased the effectiveness of a general plan of the household, as it ensured independence of its various rooms. 25

The above description provides both a general plan of the household (the peristile and the central part, as well as the consistent isolation between them provided by the doors), and a concretization by supplying 23

Blum, Cameron, and Barnes (1970), p. 322. Veyne (1988). 25 Ibid., pp. 372-378. 24

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the details on the structure of the doors and to different functions of the household at various times of the day. In subsequent passages, the author writes about curtains, columns, the social hierarchy reflected by them (the richer the house, the more curtains), elements of decoration (such as an architectural elaboration of the peristile). He gives concrete examples and adds his different interpretations. The central point of the narrative is a model of a household and the circle of this model is formed by more or less detailed descriptions of elements of this model (rooms, their decoration, their function, etc.). V The procedure of idealization in the form of explanative abstraction, i.e., omission the “factors” or motives that the historian considers less important (as far as human actions are concerned) is also closely related to the historian’s practice. No information is available in the sources about factors or motives that could be termed base ones (they only contain narratives indicating such or other causal relations which cannot serve as sources, though they may perhaps play some heuristic role). Hence, in the case of such abstraction we do not omit such or other details derived from the sources but we are engaged in a sort of game with our knowledge and imagination. The game in question is a combination of idealization and concretization. In his general model of reality (his vision of the world and of humans), the historian locates convictions pertaining to relations between elements of the reality and human motives and actions in determined places. These can be very general images that are sometimes quite incoherent and sometimes quite specific. I call them spaces of the influence of the researcher’s consciousness. They are a part of more extensive spaces that I term ontological spaces.26 In the course of studies, these spaces (in other words: a general model of the reality) are subject to modification and enrichment. The historian, guided by different convictions, including political, ideological or religious ones, makes a decision as to which “factors” or “motives” (as far the explanation of human action is concerned) are important for what she/he examines and what she/he wants to explain. He often takes into account what has been already written on the subject in historiography. Thereby she/he reconstructs, as Jan Pomorski would put it: “a space of objective, essential conditions of the appearance of a given historical 26

Topolski (1978).


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fact.” 27 What is at stake is surely not reconstruction but construction of the space in question, for we do knot know what it is really like. 28 Within this space, fundamental (main) factors (or motives) and less important (accidental) factors are usually distinguished. But the determination of main and accidental factors (or motives) has a relative meaning. On the level of explanative description of a more general nature, some factors can have an accidental status, while on the level of individual explanations they can become main ones. To give an example, while explaining the introduction of copyholding reforms in Poland in the 18 th century some historians often note that landowners wanted thereby to increase their income. Thus, they recognize this motivation as one of main factors of the decision on copyholding (the exchange of liabilities in work and in kind for liabilities in money) and recognize as accidental such motives as willingness to be seen as a progressive person or to follow others. But when we are explaining an action of a particular landowner, the main factor in question in fact does not necessarily have to turn out to be the main one. If the landowner in question is guided first of all by the motive of gaining the opinion of a progressive person, then it is this motive that becomes central to him, and the willingness to increase his income becomes an accidental factor (motive) for him. As Pomorski is correct to note, in historical practice we often (and I would rather say: most often) deal with “the impulsive construction of idealization sentences.” 29 Pomorski quotes the following sentence written by Władysław Rusiński (which was, incidentally, taken from Rutkowski) about the development of the manorial farms: Without underestimating, by any means, the influence of other factors on the development of the manorial farm, it must be said that two of them affected it in the most decisive manner. The first is the favorable economic situation for food products in the West, and the other is gaining the decisive influence on state matters and giving full liberty to the peasantry on the part of the nobility. 30

We are struck in this passage by a practice that is commonly used by historians and which is understandable due to the complexity of the subject matter. The practice is that of the arbitrary “weighing” of factors, i.e., stating which factors are “decisive” or “main” or “merely direct” on the basis of a general conviction rather than quantitative examination (which, at any rate, is usually impossible). For instance, when presenting

27

Pomorski (1981), p. 81. Today, the author would surely put it in this way. 29 Pomorski (1981), p. 82. 30 Ibid., p. 84. The example taken from Rusiński (1956), p. 645. 28

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an explanation of the partitions of Poland (1772-1795) Michał Bobrzyński wrote that: What ended our political existence was not borders and neighbors but internal chaos (and the chaos and powerlessness in question was caused by the weakness of our government). So if we could not face the outside danger at the end of the 18 th century, the only direct cause for this was the lack of government). 31

“Decisive moments,” causa efficiens, etc., were discussed and quite often “numerous causes” were given, without ever making gradation among them.32 A systematic usage of idealization and concretization is rather rare in history. Such cases, usually inconsistent, are analyzed by Krzysztof Brzechczyn in his book Odrębność historyczna Europy Środkowej [The Historical Distinctiveness of Central Europe].33 What Rutkowski wrote about the development of the manorial economy can be classified as this sort of operation. Aiming to explain the origin and the development of the manorial economy in Poland in the 14th century, Rutkowski conducted a comparative study of an economic situation in Europe of that time, as a result of which he came to the following conclusion (i.e., formulated the following general relation): There were two main factors (in the development of the manorial economy): a ready market for products from a village household, mainly grain, and properly tightened serfdom of peasantry. Selling products is the main objective of any production. A ready market for agricultural products is a necessary condition for the origin of a great agricultural workshop. Only cities can ensure a ready market that farms need. But a ready market itself is not enough for a manorial economy to appear. . . . For the appearance of the manorial farm it was necessary for the other of the above mentioned factors, i.e., properly tightened serfdom of peasantry, to exist. . . . The coexistence of a ready market and serfdom was a necessary and at the same time sufficient condition for the appearance of the manorial system. Other factors were of accidental significance. 34

Rutkowski mentions such accidental factors as the fertility of land, closeness to waterways (transport costs), changes in organization of the army (the disappearance of the medieval knighthood, providing the nobility with jobs to take), wars that ruin a country, factors of a mental nature (such as traditionalism, the influence of religion and the Church, national feelings, different ethnic origin of lords and subjects (favoring 31

Bobrzyński (1888), pp. 305-309. Such an analysis is presented in Malewski, Topolski (1960), pp. 114-157. 33 Brzechczyn (1998), pp. 49-94, the chapter Metoda idealizacji w naukach historycznych [The Method of Idealization in Historical Sciences]. 34 Rutkowski (1946), pp. 125-127. 32


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ruthlessness of the former towards the latter). But Rutkowski excluded factors such as the peasantry’s inability to withstand the trade competition in relation to the farm, stating that peasants’ farms represented more advanced technology. 35 According to Rutkowski, factors regarded as accidental explain territorial diversification in the appearance of farms. For instance, the above mentioned factor of a different ethnic origin of lords and peasants was significant in this process in the lands of Eastern Germany as well as on “Polish Eastern borderland.” In books or articles specifically devoted to explaining the above, the authors demonstrate the interplay of factors and motives from a much more complex perspective. For example, Rutkowski in his book Poddaństwo włościan w XVIII wieku w Polsce i niektórych innych krajach [The Serfdom of the Peasantry in the 18 th Century in Poland and in Some Other Countries] wanted to verify the thesis of an essential influence of an economic situation in the country (i.e., of the existing manorial system) on the partition of Poland. Taking into account comparative material, he came to the conclusion that the system did not have any direct influence on the collapse of the Polish state. The system had existed outside of Poland as well, and in other countries it had not led to the destruction of the state by foreign forces. As far as the motivation of human actions is concerned, more elaborate analyses can be found in biographical books. In more synthetic works, the relations between human motivations (and behavior), as viewed by historians, and their actions are presented in a summarized manner, retaining in description what the author recognized as the most essential (as “main”). As an example, let us the motivation that guided Aleksander Wielkopolski who took the youth of the Polish Kingdom (under Russian rule) to the Russian army as he wanted to provoke them to organize an uprising that could be easily crushed. His motivation was summarized in the following way: (Aleksander Wielopolski), a resolute follower of an agreement with Russia and of permanent support from Russia, was a ruthless enemy of any resistance movement and any uprisings, which he regarded as pure madness. He wanted to colonize Poland in an evolutionary manner, with permanent hegemony of gentry. . . . Being unable to suppress the revolutionary and patriotic mood among the youth, Wielopolski decided to provoke a premature, armed uprising in winter. 36

35 36

Ibid., see also Rutkowski (1986), pp. 221-222. Tazbir (1992), pp. 359-360.

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In such explanations, one necessarily indicates merely some elements of a narrative structure from the whole web of motivations of different force influencing decisions. Idealizations of motivations in a historical narrative are included in narrative lines or circles. It is often the case that the historian develops his explanations, i.e., presents their concretizations, judging that a given issue requires it (or that the recipient expects it). At the end there arises a question of whether and to what degree idealizational procedures pertain to new forms of historiography that have appeared in recent decades and that are being associated, correctly or incorrectly, with postmodernism. My discussion results from an analysis of historiographic practice that dominates among those historians who do not avoid metanarratives (in Lyotard’s sense of the term) and arranging narratives in a chronological manner. But an insight into a structure of narratives that we call “new,” especially an analysis of the so-called microhistories, shows that the difference between dominating historiography and the new historiographic practice from the point of view of idealization is that of degree. What occurs in microhistories is also the factualization of source material, i.e., reaching base (more or less deprived of rhetoric and interpretation, more or less “purified”) pieces of information. Similarly, the historian who is inclined to construct a microhistorical narrative makes use of a general image of the past reality that functions in her research. In constructing a narrative that is aimed at “details,” the process of abstraction (summarizing) is obviously less radical and the use of general concepts is more limited. But in a microhistory, it is impossible to write “everything” about the past either. What is required is also selection and adhering to some narrative line or narrative circle. Less emphasis on explanation in microhistories or in narratives that are not concerned with coherence (in the sense of a traditional narrative) automatically diminishes the procedure of explanative abstraction within them. But this narrative is not deprived of explanation, and thereby of indicating “more important” and “accidental” (be they even enthymematic) relations. Idealization (and concretization) is simply an element of our practice, not only in science but also in artistic activities, as it pertains to them as well.


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Topolski, J. (1972). The Model Method in Economic History. Journal of European Economic History 1, 713-726. Topolski, J. (1976). Methodology of History. Dordrecht: Reidel. Topolski, J. (1978). Rozumienie historii [Understanding History]. Warszawa: PIW. Topolski, J. (1983). Teoria wiedzy historycznej [A Theory of Historical Knowledge]. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie. Topolski, J. (1994a). The Manorial Economy in Early-Modern East Central Europe. Aldershot Hampshire: Variorum. Topolski, J. (1994b). A Non-Postmodernist Analysis of Historical Narratives. In: J. Topolski (ed.), Historiography between Modernism and Postmodernism. Contributions to the Methodology of Historical Research (Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, vol. 41), pp. 8-86. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi. Topolski, J. (1995). Historia Polski [A History of Poland]. Warszawa: Kopia. Vann, R.T. (1998). The Reception of Hayden White. History and Theory 37, 143-161. Veyne, P., ed. (1988). Historia życia prywatnego; vol. 1: Od Cesarstwa Rzymskiego do roku tysięcznego (the Polish translation of: Histoire de la vie privée, vol. 1: De l’Empire romain ŕ l’an mil, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1985). Wrocław: Ossolineum. Wee, H. van der (1974). Un modèle institutionnel de croissance pour l’économie des PaysBas sous l’Ancien Régime. In: R. Czepulis-Rastenis (ed.), Między feudalizmem a kapitalizmem. Studia z dziejów społecznych i gospodarczych [Between Feudalism and Capitalism. Studies in Social and Economic History], pp. 105-121. Wrocław: Ossolineum.

Tadeusz Pawłowski TYPOLOGICAL CONCEPTS IN HISTORICAL SCIENCES * Our discussion will be dedicated to the historical sciences viewed in a broad context, taken to include the history of politics, the history of economy, the history of culture, the history of morality, history of art, etc. Do these sciences use typological concepts? Many representatives of particular historical disciplines argue that they do. Moreover, they stress that the typological concepts are indispensable tools of these sciences, which would not be able to perform their tasks without them. The following are examples of concepts which are usually considered as typological: the feudal system, the capitalist system, the manorial-serf economy, the rent the economy, burgher morality, family based on an institutional pattern, friendship-based family, Baroque architecture, the naturalistic novel. Those who favor of the idea of an indispensable character of typological concepts point to the following circumstances: (i) The ordinary concepts are “rigid”: objects either fall into their range or they do not. However, the reality is of a different nature, properties of objects are gradual, and the transitions between the state of having and not having a certain property are continuous, which prohibits any sharp delimitation, save for the cases in which we decide to introduce artificial borders. By contrast, typological concepts, owing to their “elasticity,” can be predicated on objects which possess definitional properties to a greater or lesser degree, on the condition that they satisfactorily resemble the type. (ii) Due to the above-described properties, the typological concepts allow comparisons among the objects with respect to the intensity of the possessed by them properties. They allow introducing order into the chaos of manifold phenomena which the * The lecture was delivered in the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences on 20 January, 1966. The present paper is a chapter excerpted from Pawłowski (1969).


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researcher encounters, and to systematize it. In particular, typological concepts allow researchers to present evolutionary series of the investigated phenomena. The historian F. List, for example, identifies the evolutionary sequence of the economic structure of the country, assuming as the criterion changes in the professional structure of the population. In this case, development proceeds from the hunting-shepherding stage (one extreme) through agricultural and agricultural-industrial stages to the agricultural-industrial-commercial stage (the other extreme).1 (iii) While comparing specific phenomena with the type we can notice differences that occur between them, and develop explanatory hypotheses. By this token, we may gain fuller understanding of the phenomena under study. Let us ask ourselves whether the characterization of the typological concepts and their functions in science that is sketched above is relevant. In order to answer this, must inevitably introduce certain auxiliary notions from the fields of logic and the methodology of science. We will also use insights from the general theory of measurement. First of all, we shall draw a distinction between classificatory concepts and comparative concepts. 2 Here are a few examples of concepts of the first kind: the historian, man, the serf, the musical work, intelligent, red, sour. The logical structure of classificatory concepts can be depicted with the use of the propositional function Px. Predicate P denotes a property which is attributed to an object x. The range of the concept P is a set of all objects which satisfy the function Px. If, for example, the function Px is interpreted in the following way: x is a realistic novel, then the range of the concept P will be a set of realistic novels. A classificatory concept divides the set of the examined phenomena into two subsets: those which have property P and those which do not. The logical structure and function of comparative concepts is of a different nature. More intelligent, more medieval in style, more rational, more explicitly naturalistic, more feudal: these are just a few examples of such notions. In effect, the comparative concept is an entity which is composed of two parts, one of which states the precedence criteria while the other supplies equality criteria in a specified respect. However, only the first component of that entity is mentioned in colloquial speech.

1 2

The example was taken from the book by Kula (1963), p. 181. Hempel and Oppenheim (1936).

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The logical structure of the comparative concept can be described with the use of propositional functions of the form: xWy (x precedes y in a relevant respect) and xRy (x is equal to y in this respect). In order to make the functions xWy, xRy constitute the comparative concept, the relations W and R must have certain formal properties, which can be defined with the use of the following axioms: 3 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

If xRy and yRz, then xRz, If xRy, then yRx, xRx. If xWy and yWz, then xWz, If xRy, then not xWy, If not xRy, then xWy or yWx.

Axioms 1-3 ascertain that a relation R is transitive, symmetrical and reflexive, thus it is the relation of the equivalent type. Axiom 4 ascertains the transitivity of relation W; axioms 5 and 6 ascertain counter-reflexivity and coherence of relation W with respect to relation R. Unlike classificatory concepts, comparative concepts do not allow the division of the set of objects being investigated into two subsets, but they allow ordering it with respect to the degree of intensity of the property being defined. The comparative concept of intelligence, for example, allows ordering the set of people or its certain subset, formed by the people who took a specified test, according to the level of intelligence in the following way:

.

. .

. . . .

. . . . .

. . . .

. .

. .

.

.

→ The arrow points in the direction of rise in intelligence. The people who are in one column are at the same level of intelligence. This is an example of a one-dimensional ordering. In the historical sciences, multi-dimensional ordering is applied just as often. If, for example, N is the number of graduated properties, then the N-dimensional ordering will be a system of N pairs of the relation of the type: (xW1 y, xR1 y) (xW2 y, xR2 y), . . . , (xWN y, xRN y), each of which orders the objects in one of N dimensions. One example is the ordering with respect to the 3

Hempel (1960), pp. 59f.

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system of graduated properties which form the burgher ethical ideal analyzed by M. Ossowska in the book Moralność mieszczańska [The Burgher Morality].4 We are not going to quote all the properties, as they are too numerous. Instead, we will choose four of them, bearing in mind that the exercise is a simplification and that the chosen group of properties has not yet constituted a system which would characterize burgher morality in any specific way. These include diligence, frugality, chariness and financial reliability. The four-dimensional ordering with respect to these properties would be the following:

.

Diligence

. .

Frugality

.

Chariness

.

. .

. .

. . . .

. .

. . . .

. . . .

. . .

.

.

. .

. . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . .

. .

. .

. . . .

. . . .

. .

. .

.

Financial reliability

. . . .

. . .

.

Characterizing a given person P in this multi-dimensional ordering would rely on data on the position that she or he occupies in each of the dimensions, i.e., by indicating two other people A and B, such that person P is a direct successor of A, and B is a direct successor of P. Naturally, 4

Ossowska (1956).

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this works as longs as the operation of indicating the direct successor is manageable in the set under consideration. When numbers are assigned to particular places, such characterization would rely on stating four numbers. It is worth stressing that multi-dimensional ordering with respect to the four characteristics listed above has not so far formed the ordering with respect to the burgher ethical ideal. The latter is a onedimensional ordering, which in certain cases can be obtained from multidimensional ordering as one of its functions. There are, however, no mechanical ways to determine this function; there are even cases when such function does not exist. To present the issue (and other related issues) in greater detail, we will need to cite some basic notions of the general theory of measurement.5 Measurement is popularly associated with the idea of a measurement unit, such as, for example, kilogram and meter, as well as with the operation of putting weights on the scales or notching up a meter along a straight line on the object being measured. Such a notion of measurement usually involves disbelief in the possibility of applying it outside the realm of the physical-natural sciences. Yet measurement does not have to depend on the use of quantity units and the operation of linking them. According to the general contemporary concept of measurement, it depends on the assigning numbers to objects, so that the relations between the numbers isomorphically represent the relations holding between the objects to which those numbers have been assigned. Thus, measurement assumes three essential components: (i) the distinction of the empirical realm R which is composed of the set of measured objects Z and of a certain number of relations, S 1 , S2 , . . . , S n , which occurs between these objects: R = , (ii) the distinction of the mathematical realm M which is composed of the subset of real numbers R and the relations which hold between these numbers, T1 , T2 , . . . , Tn – M = , (iii) the definition of a one-to-one function f which establishes isomorphism of both those realms. The set of real numbers is characterized by possessing a whole series of properties: all kinds of relationships hold between numbers, such as equality, majority, minority. Corresponding relationships are also obtained between differences and quotients of numbers; numbers can be 5 A more extensive analysis of the notion of measurement is contained in the work by Stevens (1946), Suppes (1959). I discussed the notion of measurement as used by the social sciences has been discussed in Pawłowski (1963; 1964; 1966).

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subjected to all sorts of operations, such as addition, multiplication, division, involution. That isomorphic assignment of numbers to objects which has been established by the function f can be achieved with respect to various properties of numbers. According to the kind of properties of numbers, which were taken into account while establishing function f, we will acquire all kinds of scales, from the weakest nominal scale, to the strongest absolute scale. In the social sciences the most often used one is the ordinal scale, which we shall discuss in greater detail below. It is also possible, though not easy, for those sciences to build stronger scales, e.g. interval scales, in which quantities of differences between objects in measured respect find their isomorphic reflection. In the ordinal scale, the function f reflects only relationships of equality and precedence that obtain between the measured objects. Thus, it has to fulfill only the following two conditions: (i) xRy if and only if f (x) = f (y), (ii) xWy if and only if f (x) < f (y). Let us assume that we have a certain set of people that are ordered with respect to relation x > y (x is less intelligent than y). A

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