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sense_of_history's review against another edition
Within historiography, there are few themes that recur as often as the question of whether or not the study of history is a science. Even the Marquis de Condorcet devoted a short discussion to it as early as 1794, in his extensive essay [b:Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind: Library of Ideas|229344|Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind Library of Ideas (English and French Edition)|Nicolas de Condorcet|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1246563612l/229344._SX50_.jpg|222110], which I recently read. In the 19th century positivism and classical Rankeanism firmly established historiography as a real science, but that immediately provoked great opposition and nuances, followed by continuous back-and-forth debates throughout the 20th century.
Jacques Le Goff (1924-2014), just about the best-known French medievalist, ventured his own position in 1977, in a few articles for an Italian encyclopedia. And that position is particularly notable for its pragmatism: for Le Goff historiography is a science, but of a very special kind. Both in method and form, historiography by definition differs from the natural and social sciences, because the object of study (the past) is only indirectly accessible to the researcher, and the study result can almost exclusively be presented trough a narrative. In other words, Le Goff was averse to positivism, and also to the structuralism that was so popular in his time. Nevertheless, he swears by a rigorous application of the historical method, as an unambiguous scientific instrument. And he also sees a place for discovering trends or regularities in history, but not laws: “historical work is to be done with intelligence in the historical process and this intelligence leads to the reconnaissance of regularities in historical evolution.”
Also his position on the form of historiography testifies to his pragmatism: Le Goff distances himself from his colleague Paul Veyne, another luminary of French historiography, who believed that the study and the writing of history was a literary genre. Yes, historiography revolves in the narrative sphere, Le Goff admits, but it does not have the freedom that fiction has (as some extreme postmodernists claim): the past does exist, it is also accessible, but it has its rights, which means that a historian cannot simply do as he pleases. And that forces Le Goff to conclude: “I think that history definitively is the science of the past, but on the condition that this knowledge of the past becomes the object of permanent questioning.”
That a man of practice adopts such a pragmatic position is not surprising. And that same pragmatism is also evident in many other areas in this collection. In this way we also see Le Goff explicitly distancing himself from the craze for the historiography of remembrance (Pierre Nora) and of presentism (the explicit departure from the present to look at the past). There is therefore a great deal of interesting information to be found in this collection. Only, regularly the line of thought of Le Goff is drowned in lengthy explanations that mainly display erudition, and the references mentioned are almost all from the period 1960-1980, so slightly outdated. But reading Le Goff, including his actual historical works, remains very enjoyable and fascinating.
Jacques Le Goff (1924-2014), just about the best-known French medievalist, ventured his own position in 1977, in a few articles for an Italian encyclopedia. And that position is particularly notable for its pragmatism: for Le Goff historiography is a science, but of a very special kind. Both in method and form, historiography by definition differs from the natural and social sciences, because the object of study (the past) is only indirectly accessible to the researcher, and the study result can almost exclusively be presented trough a narrative. In other words, Le Goff was averse to positivism, and also to the structuralism that was so popular in his time. Nevertheless, he swears by a rigorous application of the historical method, as an unambiguous scientific instrument. And he also sees a place for discovering trends or regularities in history, but not laws: “historical work is to be done with intelligence in the historical process and this intelligence leads to the reconnaissance of regularities in historical evolution.”
Also his position on the form of historiography testifies to his pragmatism: Le Goff distances himself from his colleague Paul Veyne, another luminary of French historiography, who believed that the study and the writing of history was a literary genre. Yes, historiography revolves in the narrative sphere, Le Goff admits, but it does not have the freedom that fiction has (as some extreme postmodernists claim): the past does exist, it is also accessible, but it has its rights, which means that a historian cannot simply do as he pleases. And that forces Le Goff to conclude: “I think that history definitively is the science of the past, but on the condition that this knowledge of the past becomes the object of permanent questioning.”
That a man of practice adopts such a pragmatic position is not surprising. And that same pragmatism is also evident in many other areas in this collection. In this way we also see Le Goff explicitly distancing himself from the craze for the historiography of remembrance (Pierre Nora) and of presentism (the explicit departure from the present to look at the past). There is therefore a great deal of interesting information to be found in this collection. Only, regularly the line of thought of Le Goff is drowned in lengthy explanations that mainly display erudition, and the references mentioned are almost all from the period 1960-1980, so slightly outdated. But reading Le Goff, including his actual historical works, remains very enjoyable and fascinating.
marc129's review against another edition
3.0
Read in French. Four texts by Jacques Le Goff, one of the most famous French historians of the second half of the 20th century, texts that highlight essential characteristics of the historian's profession. It are articles that previously appeared in 1977 in an Italian historical encyclopedia. They are all mixed informative-essayist texts, with the advantages and disadvantages that come with that. The informative aspect mainly illustrates the enormous erudition of Le Goff, who presents, among other things, a history of historiography off the cuff. The essayistic aspect illustrates Le Goff's pragmatic attitude in the principled discussions that dominated historiography at that time (1970s-1980s). Because of this mixed approach, this book lacks a clear line of thought, but it remains pleasant and interesting reading. More in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6835308991.