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The History of Ideas, Intellectual History, and the History of PhilosophyAuthor(s): Maurice MandelbaumReviewed work(s):Source: History and Theory, Vol. 5, Beiheft 5: The Historiography of the History ofPhilosophy (1965), pp. 33-66Published by: Blackwell Publishing for Wesleyan UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2504118 .
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THE HISTORY OF IDEAS, INTELLECTUAL HISTORY,
AND THE
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
MAURICE MANDELBAUM
I
Those
who are at
present
interested in the
methodological
problems of the
historian
of
philosophy cannot
fail to take
note of
the
existence of what
has
come to be called the history of ideas .
The
latter term
has been used
in a
variety
of
senses, sometimes being equated
with
intellectual
history gener-
ally.1 However,
it is
not
in
that wider sense that I wish to
consider it.
Instead,
I shall in the
first instance confine my attention to problems
which
arise out
of two important parallel movements, each of which may be regarded as an
attempt to promote the study
of the history of ideas
in a narrower and
more
technical
sense: the
movement in the United States of
which A.
0.
Lovejoy was the originator
and the dominant spokesman, and the movement
inspired in Germany by
Dilthey's work, and now represented
by Erich
Rothacker's Archiv fur Begriffsgeschichte.
Because Lovejoy
and his close
collaborators have written
at greater length concerning their methodological
presuppositions than have those
connected with the Archiv, and also because
these presuppositions seem to raise a greater variety of issues in a somewhat
more
acute form, it is with the former group, rather than
the latter, that
I
shall here be concerned.2
I
For example, in an article entitled Historiography
of Philosophy , Sterling P.
Lamprecht says: The history of philosophy is the history
of the philosopher
thinking;
the history of ideas is the history of man thinking ,
Journal
of
Philosophy,
XXXVI
(1939), 457. A similarly extended use of the term history
of ideas , making it synony-
mous with intellectual historiography , may seem to be sanctioned
by the usage
of
A. 0. Lovejoy in the prefatory article to Volume I
of The Journal of the History
of
Ideas (1940), 3-23. However, that article must be read
in the light of Lovejoy's other,
earlier, methodological statements, and it must also be
rememberedthat the
Joulrnal was
not founded merely to promote the history of ideas
in its narrowest sense; from the
first it took as its province a wide variety of interdisciplinarystudies in the general area
of
intellectual history. Cf. P.
P.
Wiener in Studies in
Intellectual
History,
see
below,
note 2, item 11, 169f.
2
For Rothacker's statement of his intention, cf.
Das
'Begriffsgeschichtliche
Wbrter-
buch der
Philosophie' in Zeitschrift
ffir
Philosophische
Forschung,
VI
(1951),
133-136,
as well as
in
Archiv
ffir Begriffsgeschichte,
I
(1955),
5-9. The chief methodological dis-
cussions of
the
Lovejoy group may be listed as follows:
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34
MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
It is probably fair
to say that there were two dominant and
quite
distinct
m7notifsn A. 0. Lovejoy's conception of the history of ideas, and that both
received emphasis in almost all of his methodological writings. One of
these
motifs concerned the need for inter-disciplinary studies. Connected with it
was the conviction that intellectual history should be free to cross national
and linguistic boundaries in spite of the conventional departmentalizations of
academic learning; also connected with it was a recognition of the need for
cooperative inquiries in the development of the history of ideas.3 These
aspects of Lovejoy's program have had an undoubted influence, but they raise
(1) A.
0. Lovejoy and G. Boas,
A
Documnentary
History of Primitivismand
Related
Ideas
(Baltimore, 1935), ix-xiii and 1-22.
(2) A. 0. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, Mass., 1936). 3-23.
(3) A.
0. Lovejoy, The
Historiographyof
Ideas ,
Proceedings of the
American Philo-
sophical Society, LXXVIII
(1938),
529-543.
Reprinted in A.
0.
Lovejoy,
Essays
in
the History of Ideas
(Baltimore,
1948),
1-13.
(4) Marjorie H.
Nicholson,
The History of Literature
and the
History
of
Thought ,
English Institute Annual,
1939 (New
York, 1940).
(5) A.
0. Lovejoy, Reflections
on the
History of Ideas , Journal of
the History
of
Ideas,
I
(1940),
3-23.
Reprinted in P. P. Wiener
and A. Noland eds., Ideas in
Cultural Perspective (New
York, 1962),
3-23.
(6) A. 0.
Lovejoy,
The
Meaning of Romanticism for the
Historian of
Ideas , Journal
of the History of Ideas, 11 (1941), 237-278.
(7) A.
0.
Lovejoy, Reply to
Professor
Spitzer ,Journal of the
History of Ideas,
V
(1944), 204-219.
(8) A. 0. Lovejoy,
Essays int the
History of Ideas (1948),
xiii-xvii.
(9)
George Boas, A.
0.
Lovejoy as Historian
of Philosophy ,
Journal
of
the
History
of
Ideas, IX (1948)
404-411,
(10) Marjorie H.
Nicholson, A. 0.
Lovejoy as
Teacher ,
Journal of
the History of
Ideas, IX (1948), 428-438.
(11) G. Boas, H.
Cherniss, et
al., Studies in Intellectual
History
(Baltimore, 1953). In
particular, the
essays
of
Boas, Stimson,
and
Wiener relate to
the methodological
questions under
present consideration.
(12) P. P. Wiener, Some Problems and Methods in the History of Ideas , Journal of
the History
of
Ideas,
XXII
(1961), 531-548.
Reprinted
in
Wiener
and
Noland,
24-41.
[In
what follows
I
shall
use
the above
italicized numbers in
designating
the
book
or
article
to
which reference
is
being
made.]
The
European
and American
movements which
have, by and large, been
distinct
may
perhaps
now
be
drawing together.
The
publisher's
announcementsof
the
newly
founded
Archives
internationalesd'histoire des idees
contains a definition of
what
is
meant
by
the
history
of
ideas which
closely
resembles
Lovejoy's
definition of
that
term.
At
the
same
time
it
defines its
province
as
the
intellectual conditions of
intellectual
life
(as
distinct
from the
material conditions) and
it
says
of these conditions that
they
give to
each
period
its own character and in a
large
measure mould
even
the
most
independent
geniuses.
The latter mode
of
speaking
would
surely
be
more
reminiscent of the
thought
of
Dilthey
than
of
that
of
Lovejoy.
To
be
sure, Ludwig
Edelstein and
Roy
H.
Pearce
have both
mentioned
to the
present writer that
relatively late
in his
life
A. 0.
Lovejoy
expressed
the view that
his
method
and that of
Dilthey
were not far
apart,
but
such
a
rapprochement
does not
seem
to be
concretely
evidenced in
any
of
Lovejoy's published
writings.
:
A similar
plea
for
cooperative
inquiries
is
to be
found
in
Lovejoy's
presidential
address
to the
American
Philosophical
Association,
On
Some Conditions of
Progress
in
Philosophical
Inquiry ,
Philosophical Reviewi,
XXVI
(1917),
123-163.
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36
MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
many a system is due solely
to the novelty of the application or
arrangement
of the old elements
which enter into it.
8
One might well subscribe to these statements without
drawing from
them
the conclusion that in intellectual history generally, or in the history of
philosophy specifically, the
proper way
to
grasp
the nature
of any -ism , or
any
individual
system
of
thought,
is
-
in
Lovejoy's phrase
-
to break it
up
into elemental components,
that is,
into
those unit-ideas which are discrimi-
nable within
it.
However,
if
one
examines
much
of
Lovejoy's
own
historio-
graphical practice, as well as some of
his most explicit methodological
state-
ments,
it seems that it was in
these elemental
components
that
he found the
real units, the effective
working ideas in major creeds and
movements, that
he took these unit-ideas to be the dynamic units of the history of thought .10
As a contrast to Lovejoy's
position in this matter
we
might cite Ernst
Cassirer's statement
concerning his own methodological convictions.
Speaking
of his
studies of the
Renaissance and the Enlightenment, Cassirer said that
the
aim of his approach was to elucidate the inner formative forces
in the
historical epochs with which
he was dealing, and he then proceeded
to say:
Such
a presentationof
philosophicaldoctrinesand systems endeavorsas it
were to
give a phenomenologyyof the
philosophic spirit ; t is an attempt to
show how
8
2,4.
In fact, those who recall that Lovejoy
was one of the
staunchest defenders of
the
doctrine of emergence
in his generation
may well be surprised that he regarded the
complex whole which is a philosophic
system as analyzable
into certain
elemental
component ideas. They
may in particular be
surprised that he would in this connection
use
the analogy
between the history of ideas and analytic
chemistry, since chemical
combinations had been used as a
paradigmatic case
in
defense
of
the doctrine
of
emergence from the
time of Mill to the
discussions of Lovejoy and Broad. For Love-
joy's
treatments
of the
problem of
emergence, cf.
The
Discontinuities
of
Evolution ,
University of California
Publications in Philosophy, V (1924), 173-220, and The Mean-
ings of 'Emergence' and its Modes ,
Journal of Philosophical Studies,
II (1927),
167-181. Substantially
the same article
appeared under the same title in the
Proceedings
of
the Sixth International Congress of
Philosophy (New
York,
1927),
20-33.
10
2, 6 and 7. Also, cf.
8, 253.
-
It was in this connection that
Lovejoy's colleague,
Leo
Spitzer, launched an
attack on Lovejoy's
method, and forced him to consider
the
relevance of the
doctrine of emergence. Cf. Spitzer:
Geistesgeschichte vs. History
of
Ideas as
Applied to Hitlerism ,
Journal of the History of Ideas,
V
(1944), 191-203, and
Lovejoy's Reply to
Professor Spitzer , bid., especially 204-211.
However, in his
reply,
Lovejoy was content to criticize a variety
of points in Spitzer's
argument, and he did
not
give a clear answer
with respect to that issue. He insisted,
rightly enough:
The
thought
of an individual
writer or of a
school, or
the
dominant
fashion of thought of a
period, may,
and
usually
does, contain a
number
of
...
distinct
conceptual
and
affective
components.
To understand such a
complex
as a
whole,
it is
necessary
to discriminate
these
components and
observe their relations and interplay
(ibid., 204).
Such
a state-
ment
is, of course,
compatible
with
holding that there
mey also be emergent properties
which result
from such combinations of
components. Lovejoy
explicitly recognized this
possibility,
and
also
recognized that it might have a
bearing upon
the
history of thought
(209). However, he did
not discuss that more general
methodological question, but
shifted
his attention to one of the other
aspects of Spitzer's
attack. Thus, in the end,
the general question of
whether unit-ideas
are indeed the dynamic units
of
the
history
of
thought was not
really discussed by Lovejoy in this unhappy
interchange.
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HISTORY OF IDEAS,
INTELLECTUAL
HISTORY, HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY 37
this
spirit,
struggling
with
purely objectiveproblems,
achieves
clarity
and
depth
in
its
understanding
of its own nature
and
destiny,
and of its
own
fundamental
character
and mission.
One need not, of course, accept Cassirer's conception of inner, formative
forces
as constituting
the
only
alternative to
Lovejoy's methodological
beliefs.
I have
cited it
only
because it illustrates how
another
eminent
intellectual
historian
has stressed a
point
which
Lovejoy's
program
of
inquiry into
specific
unit-ideas
left
out of account:
the
role which
is
often
played in the
thought
of a person
or
of a
period by
a
dominant
philosophic
issue which
serves to
incite
and
in
large
measure to control
that
thought.
The
possible
determi-
native influence
of problems and issues which are larger than single
unit-
ideas was not denied by Lovejoy. However, a consideration of them was not
included
in
his
program:
it
was
with
the
continuities of
the
elements, and not
with
the formative influences that helped
determine the patterns into which
these
elements
fitted, that he was primarily concerned.'2 Now, Lovejoy's own
work has
clearly shown that studies of these elements very frequently illumi-
nate important
segments of a philosopher's thought, and that an under-
standing
of
precisely
these
segments
of
his
thought may
on
occasion
be crucial
for an
understanding of that thought as a whole.
Nevertheless,
a
stress on
the continuity of the unit-ideas which enter into a particular philosophic
system usually
fails
to yield an interpretation of the basic aim and
motivating
power of
that
system. That this should be so may be said to follow
analytically
from Lovejoy's assumption that originality is
more often found in the
pattern
of
a
thinker's
thought than in the specific unit-ideas which are
discriminable
within it:
the
more original and creative a thinker may be, the more one who
follows
Lovejoy's program will be forced
to neglect the original aspects
of
his work
through concentrating on the
history of the unit-ideas which
he
tended to share with others.'3 From this it further follows that the method of
tracing
unit-ideas stands in danger of underestimating or of
misconstruing
the
influence of
a philosopher on subsequent thought, for that influence
may
11
The Philosophy of the
Enlightlenment
(Princeton, 1951), vi.
12
Cf.
2,
4.
To a certain extent,
although less noticeably, this
stress on the
continuity
of specific characteristicsof a doctrine,
rather than on what was novel in it as a whole,
was a characteristicof Lovejoy's earlier
essays on the history of philosophy, as well as
of
his later studies in the history of
ideas. For example, cf. On Kant's Reply to Hume ,
Archiv
fuir
Geschlichte
der
Philosophie,
XIX (1906), 380-407. However, such
was
definitely
not the
case
in
his
appreciative essay William James as Philosopher ,Inter-
national Journal of Ethics, XXI (1911),
125-153, reprinted in The Thirteen
Pragmatisms
and
Other Essays (Baltimore, 1963).
13
A similar
point may be made with
respect to literary works. Lovejoy
himself
noted
(e.g., 2, 19-20)
that
the history of ideas, as he conceived it, was especially concerned
with the appearance of the unit-ideas
in large groups of persons, and not merely
in
eminent writers. Thus, by its own
intent, it leaves to one side questions of comparative
literary value, and will thereby be forced to leave to one side questions concerning the
effective influences of some works. To
this extent it is of limited value
-
though
certainly
not without value
-
for the history of literature.
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38 MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
stem directly from the pattern of his thought,
no less than from the
specific
unit-ideas which were embedded within it.
There is a second problematic feature
of Lovejoy's program to which I
should now like to call attention. It consists in the fact that the unit-ideas
which are said to constitute the basic elements
in the thought of particular
writers at different times are assumed to
have continuous life-histories of
their own. As Lovejoy defines the subject-matter
of the history of ideas it is
the study of the (so far as possible) total
life-history of individual ideas, in
which the many parts that any one of them
plays upon the historic scene, the
different facets which it exhibits, its interplay, conflicts and alliances with
other ideas, and the diverse human reactions to it, are traced out with ade-
quate and critical documentation.
14
In referring to what strikes me as a
problematic feature of this program, I do
not suggest that Lovejoy believed,
or
ever wrote as if he believed, that these
unit-ideas had a life-history of
their own apart from the persons who entertained them, or apart from the
works in which they are to be found. What strikes me as problematic is,
rather,
the
assumption
that
when one analyzes
idea-complexes
into unit-
ideas, the way to understand the occurrence
of these unit-ideas
in
the thought
of
a particular person is always (or even usually)
by tracing them backwards
in time. I should not of course wish to deny that there are many cases in
which this can fruitfully be done: the concept
of the great chain of being
is a
concept
with
respect to which
it
has
been most
successfully
done.
Also,
it
may
well be
the case that
the
concept
of primitivism
stands
for
ideas
which have had a long unitary history, and that
the
occurrence
of
these
ideas
at
any particular
time
may
well have been
dependent upon
the formative
influence
of one or more of
their
prior occurrences.
Such unit-ideas
may
best
be
designated as continuing ideas .
On
the other
hand,
there
may
also be
unit-ideas which could best be designated as recurrent ideas . Such would
be
those unit-ideas
which
human beings
are apt
to entertain on
many
different
occasions, quite independently
of
whether
or
not
others
had
previously
enter-
tained
them. The
difference
between
these two types
of
ideas
would
be
analogous
to the difference between those
cases
in which an
anthropologist
accounts
for
two
similar
types
of artifact
in terms of diffusion
and those
in
which he holds that independent invention
has taken
place. Now,
in the case
of
unit-ideas,
no less than
in
the
case
of
material
artifacts,
it
is
sometimes
not readily discernible from examining isolated instances of similar ideas
whether
diffusion
or
independent
invention
is to
be
regarded
as the more
plausible hypothesis: only
a
comparative
study
of
distribution
over
time
and
space,
as well
as evidence concerning
the other elements
with which these
units
are
associated,
will
provide
the
basis
for a reasonable
hypothesis.
In
the case of
Lovejoy's
own
program,
the
possibility
that
many
unit-ideas
might be recurrent
ideas seems
to
me
to
have
been
either
overlooked
or
too
14
3,
532.
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HISTORY
OF
IDEAS,
INTELLECTUAL
HISTORY,
HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY 39
little
stressed.
For
example,
it would seem
plausible
to
hold that the
nor-
mative uses to
which the
concept
of nature has been
put
is
an
example of
a
recurrent
idea,
rather than
one which has a
single
continuous
history. That
this is plausible would seem to follow from the fact that in his investigation
of the
meaning
of the
concept
nature
in
antiquity,
Lovejoy discriminated
sixty-six
different senses
in which that
concept
was connected
with
norms.',
Given this
variety
within
a
short
span
of
time,
and
given
the
fact that these
sixty-six
meanings
were
not
all
directly
related
to one
another,
it
seems rash
to assume
that a
conception
of
this kind
should be
regarded
as having a
unitary
life-history
wherever and whenever it is
found.16
Yet,
in his
preface
to his Essays in the
History of Ideas,
when
Lovejoy wished
to illustrate the
presence and influence of the same presuppositions or other operative 'ideas'
in
very diverse
provinces of
thought and in different
periods ,
he said
the underlying dea-complex,
summed up in the word 'nature'
n
one of its senses
which is
exhibited
as shapingboth religious
heterodoxy
and
aesthetic
orthodoxy
n
the eighteenth
century, s also shown
...
as
at
work in
the mind of a third
century
Christianapologist
[Tertullian]....
The
fundamental
dentity
of
the
idea,
and
of
the logic of the
reasoningsto which it gave rise,
is not annulled
by
the
dissimi-
larities
of
the
concomitant deas
with
which it was
associated,
nor
by the differing
preoccupations
and
temperamental
biases
of
the
writers
into
whose
thinking
it
entered.... In this case we have one of the majorand persistent deas of Western
thought, which,
since
the fourth
century B.C.,
has
scarcely
ever
disappeared
altogether,though
in
some
periods
it has
been
dominant
and
in
others
highly
recessive.
7
If, in
this
passage, the
fundamental
identity
of the idea were
simply taken
to mean that one can
find
that
something
believed
by Tertullian was also
believed by
eighteenth century writers,
and if
one were
not
attempting to
trace
a
genetic connection between
these different occurrences
of
the
same
philosophic conception, then Lovejoy's statement would not be open to
challenge. However,
his
own
assumption
seems to have been
that what
the
historian of
ideas was concerned to do was to
show the
processes by which
influences pass
over from one province [of the intellectual
world] to an-
other.
18
Furthermore,
in
my opinion,
it
is
only
this
interpretation that
is
l;
Cf.
Appendix
to
l.
16
It is
startling
that Lovejoy should
not himself have been led
to
challenge
the
assump-
tion of
continuity,
since in P.-E. Dumont's
essay
on Primitivism
n
Indian
Literature ,
it
is pointed out that
in this
independentbody of
literature there is a
parallel
to
Western
primitivism (cf. 1, 446).
-
Furthermore,among the unit-ideas which Lovejoy mentions
are
dialectical
motives ,
such
as the nominalistic
motive,
which
he
describes
as
a
tendency,
almost instinctive with some
men,
to
reduce the
meaning
of all
general
notions to an
enumeration
of
the concrete and sensible
particulars
which
fall
under
those notions (2,
10).
This manner
of
phrasing
such
a dialectical motive
suggests
that
it is
what
I
have
termed
a
recurrent
idea,
rather than one which has
a
specific
life-
history.
17
7,
xiv.
18 2, 16.
Cf. the
following statement:
Ideas
are the most
migratory things in
the
world.
A
preconception,
category,
postulate,
dialectical
motive, pregnant
metaphor
or
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40
MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
consistent with his
general theory
of
historiography.'9
Thus,
it is an historical
connection, and not merely a logical connection, or a
similarity
in
the
use of
two concepts,
which the historian of ideas is
purportedly
interested in
dis-
covering. Yet, by what means can such a connection be established? In his
fullest explanation
of how to establish historical
connections, Lovejoy stressed
the importance
of
a preliminary logical analysis
of
unit-ideas, and a psycho-
logical analysis
of their
likely
affinities and
incompatibilities, before attempt-
ing
to trace their actual historical relations to one another.20
Such
a
prelim-
inary exploration
of
the
materials
he
compared
to the
construction of a
tentative hypothesis
in
the natural scientist's
mind:
the
historian
of
ideas
is
to carry out preliminary logical
and
psychological analyses before he goes
on to confront their results with the historical evidence to be found in the
sources .2' The formation
of
such tentative
hypotheses
as to what one
is likely
to find in
the sources is often immensely valuable, and
I
should suppose that
few intellectual historians
have been so successful as Lovejoy
in
later docu-
menting
their
hypotheses by a careful tracing of the genetic succession of
these transformations in literary and philosophical texts. However, the extent
of his
success in some cases simply points up the difficulty of the problem in
other
cases
-
and most notably in such a case as that in which he suggested
the continuity from Tertullian to the eighteenth century, or in the case in
which
he claimed that there probably was an historical influence of certain
ideas held by philosophers and literary men in the 1780's and 1790's upon the
formation of the state of mind which led to the appeal of totalitarian ideologies
in the 1920's. In neither of these cases did Lovejoy attempt to cite texts which
would have been sufficient to allow us to trace the genetic connections which
were
presupposed; and when one bears in mind the fact that at least some
unit-ideas may be recurrent, rather than continuing, a similarity between
two unit-ideas is insufficient to establish a direct historical connection be-
tween them.22
analogy,
'sacred word',
mood of thought, or
explicit
doctrine, which
makes
its
first
appearance
upon the scene in
one of the
conventionally distinguished
provinces
of
history (most
often, perhaps, in
philosophy)
may, and frequently
does, cross
over into
a
dozen
others (4, 4).
Also, cf. the
statement of purpose
of The
History
of
Ideas Club
at
The Johns Hopkins
University
(10, 178).
10
Cf. my
article Arthur
0. Lovejoy and
the Theory
of Historiography ,Joullrnial
of
the History of Ideas, IX
(1948),
412-423.
20
5, 261-270.
21
5, 264. It
was this
doctrine that Spitzer
attacked
quite unfairly
-
as the
apriori
approach
advocated by
Lovejoy (op. cit., 193
f.).
22
With respect to the
connection
between
Tertullian and
the
eighteenth
century, my
point
may best be
illustrated by
the fact that Lovejoy
himself says of the
conception
of
nature : Its
very
ambiguity was, and in
the
history of Christian
thought
was
destined to
be,
a
positive factor in
influencing the movement
of
ideas. Once
adopt
'nature' or 'the natural'
as the
norm in general, or in
certain of its
senses, and it was
easy to slip
over
unconsciously to other senses
(7, 336).
This, however, merely
suggests
that at
various times the
ambiguity in a
particular term may be
exploited in
similar
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HISTORY OF IDEAS,
INTELLECTUAL
HISTORY,
HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY 41
Yet, even in those cases
in which
Lovejoy's program
of
analysis may have
failed
in
its
attempt
to
establish historical
connections,
it
may
nonetheless
be immensely
valuable
in
indicating
historical
parallels. By calling attention
to possible parallels in the use to which concepts have been put by different
thinkers, and
in
showing
the
ambiguities
and
confusions which some of these
concepts may contain, Lovejoy
has
given
the intellectual
historian a powerful
set of analytic tools,
and has
provided
an example of their use from which
anyone can profit. Nonetheless,
as I have
attempted
to
indicate,
if
we con-
sider Lovejoy's methodological
convictions as
if
they embodied a self-suffi-
cient program
for the
intellectual historian
to
follow,
such a
program would
have grave disadvantages:
it
would frequently lead us away from those
features of an author's work which were most likely to be central to his
motivation,
and which
might
also
be
most
important
for
his
historical
in-
fluence; it might also
lead us
to
minimize
the
independence
of
an author's
thought, suggesting
lines of historical
connection where
such
connections
have not been established,
and
may
not
have
existed.
If one
were to ask
why
Lovejoy
himself
may
have
failed to note these
dangers,
or
having
noted
them
failed to discuss
them,
the answer
(I surmise)
is to be found in
one
funda-
mental characteristic
of his
philosophic temper:
his
passion
for
drawing
distinctions in order to gain analytic clarity. No one can have read much of
his work, whether philosophic
or historical,
without being aware of
how
important a role the
distaste for ambiguities and
the
demand for precision
played in his thought.
The
strength of this motivation may perhaps
be
most
strikingly illustrated
by the fact that when
he
singled
out
three recurrent
phenomena to which
his various essays in the history of ideas bore
witness,
one of
the
three referred to semantic
confusions and a second referred
to
the conflicting ideas
which may
be
present
in the thought of the same
in-
dividual.23An interest in ferreting out such intellectual lapses was what - in
some measure at least
-
led Lovejoy to his program for the history
of ideas.
What
was
of
primary
concern to
him was to
bring
into
sharp
focus
the
detailed intellectual content of literary and philosophic
works,
and to examine
ways, not that a particular
meaning
assigned to that term
in
the first instance was
causally
connected to a similar use
of it in a later instance.
-
With respect to the
con-
tinuity of the ideas of
the 1780's in
nineteenth and twentieth-century
German
philosophy,
and their efficacy as a
preparation
or the ideology of Nazism,
Lovejoy's
reply to
Spitzer
admittedlyfailed to bring forward the necessary textual evidence (6, 217-219); and the
original
article had itself assuredly
failed to supply
such
evidence (cf. 5,
272-278).
23 Cf.
7,
xiv-xvi. The three phenomena which
he singles out
for the
reader's attention
are: First, The presence
and influence
of the same presuppositions
or other
operative
'ideas'
in very diverse provinces of
thought and
in different epochs ;
Second,
The role
of semantic confusions,
of shifts and
ambiguities in the meanings
of terms,
in the
history
of
thought
and of taste ; Third,
The internal
tensions or waverings
in
the
mind of
almost
every individual
writer
-
sometimes discernible
even
in a single writing or on
a
single page
-
arising
from conflicting
ideas or incongruous
propensities
of feeling or
taste, to
which, so to
say.
he is susceptible.
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42
MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
their meanings and implications in a spirit of critical detachment, rather
than attempt to measure the scope
of these works, to assess their value, or
to trace the full range of their individual
influences.
if
If the foregoing sketch of Lovejoy's program for the history of ideas was an
accurate
one,
there is much that would seem to
belong to intellectual
and
cultural history
that
it
is
bound
to
leave out
of account. And if we are to
discuss
the tasks of historians
of
philosophy,
assessing
their
relations to his-
torians
of
ideas,
it
may
be
well to
raise these more general problems
of
intellectual
and cultural
history.
In this connection we must
first
note a rather strange fact: those who have
concerned themselves with the
general
problems of historiographical method
have rarely discussed the question of
how the methods of special histories ,
such as
histories
of philosophy,
or of
art,
or
of
technology,
or
of
law,
are
related to what
they regard
as
paradigmatic
cases of
historiographical prac-
tice.
For example,
in handbooks
such
as those of
Bernheim,
or
of
Langlois
and Seignobos, or of Bauer, the models for what are taken to be standard
practices
with
respect
to
internal
and external
criticism,
and
with
respect
to
historiographical synthesis,
are not drawn from
the
fields of what
I
shall
call
special histories .24To be sure, some
treatises on historiography pay
a
good
deal
of attention
to
what
the
general
historian
may
learn
by
means of
special
historical accounts;
25
furthermore,
neither methodologists
nor
present-day
historians minimize the importance
of investigations in intellectual, cultural,
and
social
history as
aids to
understanding
what
has
occurred
in
the
past.
What one misses, however, is any substantial body of writing which concerns
itself directly
with the
problem
of whether
particular
forms of
specialized
history
differ in
aim
and in
practice
among themselves,
or
which
attempts
to
24
In
fact,
among these three only Bernheim's
work takes
cognizance of special histories;
see Lehrbuchder historischen
Methode, 6th
ed. (Leipzig, 1908), 54-55
and 69-70.
While
he does recognize
a difference
between the concerns of
a general historian
and those
which are characteristic
of persons writing
special histories (cf. note
26, below),
Bern-
heim does
not seem to recognize
that a new sort of methodological
problem
may accom-
pany the attemptto write the
latter.
-
The
general neglect of problems concerning
special
histories
is
all the more
striking since one of the most characteristic
aspects
of nineteenth-
century
historiography
was
the
proliferation
of
separate
historical treatments of
the
various facets
of culture,
in other words the proliferation
of special
histories. As
Huizinga remarked:
Klio hatte eine
ganze
Schar
von Enkeln in ihrem
Haus aufwachsen
sehen. Ich
meine hier die speziellen
Studienfiicher,
deren Wesen historisch ist, ohne mit
Geschichte
als
solcher
zusammenzufallen ,
and
in this
connection
he
lists
the
history
of
art and of literature,etc.;
see
J.
Huizinga,
Iin
Bann
der Geschichte
(Zurich
and Bruxelles,
1942),
16.
2'I
This is especially
characteristic
of
Gustav Wolf,
EinfUhrung
in das Studiunm dee
neuteren
Geschichte
(Berlin, 1910).
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HISTORY OF IDEAS, INTELLECTUAL
HISTORY,
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 43
examine how these various special histories relate to what (for our present
purposes)
we
may designate as general history.2
One may of course
find
more of less explicit methodological statements
in
almost every specialized history, and among the more theoretically-minded
of the special historians one frequently finds illuminating discussions of what
is entailed by their own practice, and by the practice of those with whom
they disagree. In addition, in recent years there has been a growing body
of
literature concerned with the nature and aims of intellectual history ,27and
of
social history, as well as of the relations between them; there has also
been at least one lengthy essay of a systematic sort which has sought
to
distinguish and define the various
coordinates
by means of which we
can
operate in an historical analysis of ideas.28However, each of these discussions
has tended to involve the advocacy of a particular position, rather than
attempting to analyze the various alternative types of position
which
special
historians have taken, or might be expected to take. Until such an analysis
is
made it is likely that we shall be handicapped
in
seeking
to
discuss the
methodological problems
which can be raised
concerning
the
history
of
philosophy, or concerning other special histories. It
is for this reason that
I
shall now attempt to classify various types of approachwhich may be adopted,
and which have indeed been adopted, with respect to special histories, even
though I recognize that within the scope of the present paper
I
can
only
make
the most tentative of conjectures
in this difficult
and
neglected
area of
historiographical methodology.
2k The sole instance
of anythinglike such a discussion
which I have
found in the usual
treatises on historiographicalmethod
is a very brief
passage in Louis Gottschalk, Under-
standing History
(New York, 1958), 34-36. It amplifies
what is only
implicit in a remark
of Bernheim'swhich I shall cite
below, note 32.
- Among philosophers, the problem of
special histories has been somewhat more frequently mentioned, but has not been satis-
factorily discussed. Mention of
it may be found in
the introduction to Hegel's Lectures
on
the Philosophy
of
History,
transl.
J. Sibree (New
York, 1899),
7-8, where he classes
such special histories as the history
of art as the
fourth sub-class of reflective histories,
standing at the threshold of philosophical
history.
Heinrich Rickert also noted that
there might be
special problems with reference to
the writing of
specialized histories;
cf.
Die
Grenzen
der Naturivissenschaftlichen
Begriffsbildung(5th
ed.), 556-557, but
he
did not undertaketo discuss these
problems.
R.
G.
Collingwood also referred to various
specialized histories,
and
discussed
them at considerable length, Thle
Idea
of
History
(Oxford,
1946), 309-315,
but he did so
only
in
so far as
it
was
necessary to justify his
own characterization
of the
task
of the historian as a
re-enactment of
past thought.
27
An article by
John C. Greene entitled
Objectives
and Methods in Intellectual
History ,
Mississippi Valley
Historical
Review,
XLIV (1957-58),
58-74, is particularly
helpful for the bibliographical
references
to be extracted from it;
it
is also
one
of
the
most
careful
and thoughtfulessays
in
the
field.
8
Abraham Edel, Context
and
Content
in the
Theory
of Ideas
in
Philosophy
for
the Future, ed. R. W. Sellars,
V. J. McGill,
and Marvin Farber (New York, 1949),
419-
452. At
a
later
point I shall also mention a methodological
essay
which takes its point
of
departure
from
Lovejoy's program
for
the
history
of
ideas, viz.,
Roy Harvey Pearce.
A Note
on Method in the
History
of
Ideas ,
Journal
of
the
History
of Ideas, IX (1948).
372-379.
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44
MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
A first
problem immediately suggests
itself
because of the
way in which I
have stated
my
concern.
I
have
obviously
taken it for
granted that there is a
difference between what I have termed
general history (or, more briefly,
history ) and what 1 have termed special histories. Therefore, it will be
necessary
to characterize
the
subject-matter
of
general
history . As is well
known,
definitions
of
the
historian's
subject-matter have varied
widely, as
historiographical practice
has
changed.
At
present (and it is here that we
may
well
begin),
it is not unusual to find the
subject-matter
of the
discipline
of history
defined in such a
way
as to include all that has
been said
and
done
in
the human
past.
Were such
a
characterization
to be
adopted, it
would
seem
that
historians would have as the materials
for their
accounts
whatever
particularpast thoughts and actions they could manage to discover, or which-
ever of these
they
then selected
for
consideration. However, such a view
(taken
in the naked form
in
which it has been
expressed
by
James
Harvey
Robinson,
Carl
Becker,
and
Charles
A. Beard
29)
is
surely
not
tenable
if
we
wish
to
understand
the
procedure
which
historians
actually
employ.
In the
first
place,
historians focus attention on what
might be
regarded as con-
tinuous
strands
which
they
claim
to discover
in
the historical process: that
is, they regard themselves as
having
a
particular subject-matter which
has
some measure of both unity and continuity over time. This unity and con-
tinuity is
not,
I
submit, regarded
by
historians as
being
itself
a product of
their
inquiries:
they
select
subjects
which
they
take
to have
a
distinctive,
enduring
character,
and
their
inquiries
are
dedicated to
making explicit,
and
at the
same
time
accounting for,
the
unity,
the
continuity
and the
changes
within this
particular
strand of
the
human
past.
As I
have elsewhere tried
to
suggest, what makes a
particular person
or
particular
event a
matter
which
is
of concern to
the
general
historian
is
that
it is viewed
by
him
in
relation
to the nature of a specific society, or to changes which have taken place, or
are
taking place
within that
society; put
in
other
words,
the
historian
is
concerned with
human thoughts and actions
in their
societal context
and
with their
societal
implications.30
I
shall not here
attempt
to offer
a further
elucidation
or defense of this
characterization of the subject-matter
of
the
traditional
discipline of history, but I might point out
that it
is not
particu-
29
Robinson's essay, The New History (which served as the title essay
of his well-
known volume of 1912) seems to have suggested many of the themes most closely iden-
tified with the thought of Becker and of Beard. The title essay of Becker's Everyman
his
own Historian represents an influential statement of the view that the historian
is
con-
cerned with all that has been said and done by men in the past. A similar view
is
present
in Beard's address Written History as an Act of Faith ,
Amnerican
Historical
Review,
XXXIX (1933-34), 219-229, and becomes explicit
in his formal definition of his
use of
the term history-as-actuality in
Theory
and Practice in Historical Study: A Report
of
the
Coimnittee oil
Historiography,
Bulletin 54, Social Science
Research Council
(New
York, 1946), 5, n.
1.
30
Cf.
The
Problemn2 f Historical
Knowledge
(New York, 1938),
5-14
and
Concerning
Recent
Trends in the Theory of Historiography ,Journal of
the
History of
Ideas, XVI
(1955), 512-517.
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HISTORY
OF
IDEAS,
INTELLECTUAL
HISTORY,
HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY
45
larly
idiosyncratic,
being
similar
(in
part)
to the
characterization given by
Bauer:
Geschichte ist die Wissenschaft,
die die
Erscheinungen
des
Lebens
zu beschreiben
und nachfiihlendzu erkliren sucht,soweit es sich urnVerinderungenhandelt, die
das
Verhifitnis
des Menschen
zu
den verschiedenen
gesellschaftlichen
Gesamt-
heiten mit
sich
bringt,
indem
sie
diese
vom
Standpunkt
hrer
Wirkiung
auf die
Folgezeit,
oder mit
RUcksicht
auf
ihre
typischen Eigenschaften
auswihlt
und ihr
Hauptaugenmerk
uf solche Verinderungenrichtet,
die in der Zeit und
im Raum
unwiederholbar ind.31
Taking
such a
characterization
of the
historian's task as a basis
for discus-
sion,
it
goes
without
saying
that the materials with which the
various special
histories deal
-
for example,
the
history
of
art,
or of science
and technology,
or of law
-
do belong (in part
or in
whole)
to the
province
to which the
general historian
devotes
his
attention. One could
not,
for
example, under-
stand the societal life of
men at
different times and
places
without taking
into account
their
science
and
technology,
their
law,
their
religion,
their
philosophy, and
their
art. However, this
is
merely
to
say
that the particular
selection of materials
with which the
special
historian deals
is
also of
interest
to
the
general historian;
the
ways
in which these
materials are used
in
special
histories and in general histories may nonetheless be extremely different. If
our characterization
of
general
history
is
sound,
we
shall
expect
to find that
materials which enter into
special
histories
are used
by
the
general
historian
to
document, establish,
understand, or explain
the
social context which
governed the life of men
at a
particular time
and
place.
On the other hand,
special histories will
seek
to establish
how a
particular
form of human
activity,
such
as
art,
or
religion, or science,
has
developed
over
time,
rather than
attempting
to trace how it
has contributed
to this or to
that
particular
society.32 In this, there is a difference between special histories and general
31
W. Bauer,EinfUhrung n
das Studium der Geschichte, 2nd ed.
(Tfibingen,
1928),
17.
-
For other
characterizations
which also place emphasis on
the societal
context of
the
materials with which historians are
concerned, cf. Bernheim, op. cit., 9; G. J.
Garraghan,
A Guide to Historical Method
(New York,
1946),
8-10;
J. Huizinga, A
Definition
of
the Concept
of History , in R. Klibansky
and Paton, Philosophy
and History (Oxford,
1946); G. J. Renier, History,
Its
Purpose
and Method (Boston, 1950),
chs. 1 and
2;
J.
M. Vincent, Aids to Historical
Research
(New York, 1934), 10-11.
-In
Renier's
dis-
cussion there
is a strong statementto the same
effect, quoted
from unpublished lectures
by Henri Pirenne,
and Marc Bloch quotes
(apparently
with.
approval, but perhaps not
consistentlywith his own position)
from Lucien
Febvre's discussionof the subject-matter
of
history:
Not man, again,
never man. Human societies,
organized groups ;
see
Bloch,
The Historian's
Craft (New York, 1953),
26, n.
32
Bernheim comments on the difference
in approach between
the general historian and
the special
historian as
follows: Zudem ist ... der
Ausgangspunkt ein
anderer,
wenn ein
Historiker oder wenn
ein
Fachmann
die Geschichte
eines Spezialgebietes
behandelt; letzterer hat gewdhnlich
nur
die Ausbildung der betreffenden
Disziplin
mit ihrer Methoden und
Resultaten an sich
im Auge und betrachtet die
ganze
Ent-
wicklung derselben
mehr
retrospektiv vom
gegenwdrtigen
Standpunkt
der Disziplin
aus;
der
Historiker
betrachtet dieselbe mehr
als einen Zweig
sozialer Leistungen..
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46
MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
history
in
what
might
be called
the
direction
of
understanding (or of ex-
planation).33Such a difference may be of
significance even if some of
the
same
materials
are to be found in the different
accounts.
The difference between the two modes of considering historical materials,
which I have
called a difference
in
direction ,
is
obviously not a difference
in how detailed or how specialized
the raw
materials which enter into the
two types of
account
may
be: one can
write a
highly detailed, technical,
monographic study
on
a
topic
relevant
to
general history
no less than
on a
topic relevant to some special
history. Conversely, special histories may cover
at least
as extensive
a
span
of
time as do works
of
general history, as
can
be
seen from
the fact
that
one
can
write a
history
of
Western
science, or
of
Church doctrine. Yet, even though there is no necessary difference in tem-
poral scope,
nor
any necessary
difference in scale
4
between
special
his-
tories and general history, one may say that the focus of interest of special
histories is narrower. For example,
even though
a
history of art, or of
science,
or
of Church doctrine, may include
a wealth of sociological and political
material,
that
material is only introduced
in
order to
help
one understand
or
explain
what
has occurred within the
history
of
art,
of
science,
or of
doctrine.
On the other hand, when aspects of these special histories are in-
troduced into general histories, it is for the sake of understanding or explain-
ing the nature and changes in societal
life at that time
and
place. It is in this
sense that one might say that general
histories have a wider focus of interest
than do special histories.
In order
to obviate the possibility of
misunderstandings
in this
connection,
let
me repeat that the above
differentiation between special
histories and
general history
does not entail
that, say,
art and
religion
and
science
have
no
part to play in the social structure which exists at a given time
and
place;
nor does it entail that these activities fail to influence one another. All that I
wish
to insist
on is that each special
history
has
its own focus of
interest,
no
matter
how much
it may draw upon
knowledge
concerning
other strands of
history, and no matter how closely interwoven this strand may be with all
(op. cit., 69).
-This
characterizationparallels what I here wish to uphold,
although it
appears to me misleading in that it equates the historian with what I have
termed the
general historian and thus assumes that all who write special histories are not historians
proper, but must be practitioners of the special disciplines whose histories they
trace.
Nor would I subscribe to what appears to be Bernheim'sview that there is in all special
histories a tendency to view the past strand with which they deal in terms of the
present
state of their discipline: in this respect there seems to me to be no difference
between
special histories and general history, for whatever argumentscan be applied with
respect
to one can also be applied to the other.
3 I shall use both the term understand and the term explain , since I do not
here
wish
to discuss the problem of what constitutes historical understanding or
historical
explanation.
34
On
the
concept of scale, which I borrowed from
K.
Milanov, cf. my
Problem
of
Historical Knowledge, 256.
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HISTORY OF
IDEAS,
INTELLECTUAL
HISTORY,
HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY
47
else that was occurring
at that time and
place.
In
short,
a
special historian is
not dealing
with materials which have no connections with
other aspects of
societal life. Consequently,
he will
often have to draw upon a wide variety
of facts in order to account for the changes which occurred in that strand of
human activity
whose course
he seeks
to follow.
Nonetheless, his interest
remains
fixed on that
particular
strand,
not on
the
shifting patterns into
which, at any
one
time,
it
may enter.
Putting
the matter in this
way,
it should
become
immediately evident that
the legitimacy of any and every atttempt to write a special history would be
challenged by
those who subscribe to what
may
best be
designated as socio-
logical monism . This
doctrine
(which
is
also
sometimes
referred
to as
holism
35)
can assume a variety of forms, as will be clear to those who are
familiar
with the views
of
Comte, Hegel, Marx,
and
Spengler, or who are
acquainted
with
some of
the
forms
which the
doctrine of
Functionalism
has
taken in anthropological theory.36What is common to these variant forms of
monism is the contention that
any
element
in
a
society
is
related
to the other
elements
within that
society
in
such
a
way
that
it
can
only
be understood
through also understanding them,
and
through understanding
the
society
as
a
whole.
As
a consequence
of
such a view, the attempt to separate out some
strand of human activity, such as art or religion, or the political or juridical
system,
and
trace its history would
be
to sacrifice
a
genuine understanding
of
it.37
Put in terms of the problem of the diffusion of culture, sociological
What
is
here referred to as sociological
monism represents only one
aspect of what
has come to be
called holism by Karl Popper and
J. W. N. Watkins.
For example,
cf. K. R. Popper, The Poverty of
Historicism (Boston,
1957), 17-19 and 76-83; and
J.
W. N. Watkins,
Historical Explanation
in the Social Sciences , British
Journal for
the Philosophy
of
Science,
VIII (1957), 104-117. Unfortunately,
in their
use of the
term holism as well as in some
of the discussions of
F. A. Hayek and Isaiah Berlin
-
three different theses have come to be too closely identified with one another. These
three theses were
in fact all present in many theories
held at the end of
the eighteenth
century and during the nineteenth,
but they are logically distinct, and should (in
my
opinion) be treated as distinct. One
of them is the doctrine
of sociological monism.
A
second is the view
that institutions,
or other collective entities , are
not reducible to
the purposes
or behavior of individual
persons. The third is the view that
there are laws
of historical development. That there
is
no necessary
connection between
these three
doctrines can
readily be seen by noting the differences
among the contradictories
of
each. Those who deny sociological
monism would adopt
a theory of
social structure
which involves some degree of pluralism (i.e., of external
relatedness) among
the
various
facets of a society. Those who
reject the second thesis adopt the point
of view of
methodological individualism .Those who reject historical determinism may adopt a
variety of differing
beliefs regarding
either chance or freedom in
historical change.
Each of these
views may be held independently of the
others. Cf. my
articles entitled
Societal Facts ,
British Journal of
Sociology, VI
(1955),
305-317, and
Societal Laws ,
British Journal
for the Philosophy
of Science, VIII (1957), 211-224.
3
Of the
various
meanings of Functionalism , here
have in mind the general
position
of
Radcliffe-Brown,
and even more obviously the extreme
position adopted
by Ruth
Benedict in Patterns
of Culture.
37 Americo Castro,
in his Structure
of Spanish History, holds such a view.
In the follow-
ing passage he
also holds the view (which I should regard
as a form of
historicism ,as
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48
MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
inonism
would
hold
that
a characteristic
lement of a
culture
could not
travel from one society
to another without
undergoing a more or less radical
change. Put in terms of the problem of social inheritance, it would hold
that
heritages from the past (even within a continuing society) would necessarily
change
in
their
nature and modes of
functioning
as the
other elements within
a
society undergo change.
Sociologicalmonism,
as thus
characterized, aises a host of problems
both substantive
and
methodological.
t is not
my
intention to
deal
with
them here. I have chosen to
discuss this
extreme
and
undoubtedly amiliar
position not because
it is
often adoptedby those who today deal with prob-
lems of intellectual
and cultural
history,
but
because one can more readily
define and discussvarious alternativepositions by using it as a base from
which
comparisons
an be
made,
and
by noting
how
various
more frequently
held positions deviate
from it.
Among such deviations here are two which I should be inclined to term
partial
monisms .One
such
partial
monism would be
representedby many
who speak in terms of a Denkstil, or of a Zeitgeist,which pervades he art,
thought, aste, and modes of feeling at a particular ime and place. According
to some who hold a view of
this
sort, there is a unity in all of what might
be
called the expressive forms of man's spirit, and no one of these forms can
be adequately understood apart from the unity
which
pervades them
all.
Thus,
the
view is monistic. On the other
hand,
such a monism may
be
partial
only (in
contrast
o sociologicalmonism),
since the
unity attributed o
these
aspects of social life may not embraceother compresentaspects,such as
the
economic organization, r the juridical ystem,
or the
technologyof
the
age.
For this reason, a partialmonismof this particular ype might be designated
as
cultural
monism, taking
the
term culture
n that narrower
(non-
anthropological)ense in which its primary ield of reference s the aesthetic,
intellectual, eligious,and moral aspectsof the life of the times.Assuming
a
partial monism of this sort (with which Leo Spitzer'splea for Geistesge-
schichte may be tentatively dentified
8),
what would follow with respect
to
the problemsof writingspecializedhistory?To this the answerwould depend
upon which strandsof historywere taken to be bound together nto a unity,
would Popper) that one cannot understanda single period
of a society's history taken
by
itself. Even though Castro accepts both of these theses, and
links them in one passage,
their
distinctness rom each other should be clear: Before we can consider any single historical
feature
of a people, we must have a view of that people as a whole and of that
people's
values.... For many long years I have written now and again about specific aspects of
linguistic, literary, religious, and even pedagogical history
inside the Hispanic world.
Yet,
when some time ago I was asked to express in an essay my ideas concerning the Renais-
sance in Spain, I saw clearly, as never before, that such a
task was impossible if
it
was
not articulated, lluminated, in a general view of Hispanic
history. Otherwise one
would
fall
into anecdote and arbitrariness, nto denigration or
over-estimation op. cit., transl.
E. L.
King [Princeton, 1954], 11; cf. also 31-35).
l'
Cf. note 10, above.
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HISTORY
OF
IDEAS,
INTELLECTUAL
HISTORY,
HISTORY
OF
PHILOSOPHY
49
and which
were held to lie outside
this sheath. An historianwould be
ac-
knowledged
o be able to write a
satisfactoryhistory
of
those
strands
of
activity which- while influenced
by
other factors
could
be understood
as
havinga continuousexistenceof theirown. On the otherhand,he could not
write a
satisfactoryhistory
if he
attempted
o
separate
a
single
strand
of
culture
from
what is
regarded
as
constituting
a
unitaryorganic
whole: such
wholes,
taken as wholes,
are
regardedby
the culturalmonist
as
constituting
the
proper object
for
study.
Since
partial
monisms
of
the sort which
I
have
been
using as
illustrative
materialsare less
widely accepted
than
once
they
were,39
t
may perhaps
be
useful
to
alludeto a second
species
of the same
genus,
which
may
be
termed
institutionalmonism , n contrastto culturalmonism . Once again I am
using
these
terms n a narrower
ense than
that in which
they
are
legitimately
used
by anthropologists.)By
institutional
monism I
would
wish to
refer
to
that
form
of partialmonismwhich
mightregard
he economic
organization,
the
family and kinship
systems,
the
educational
system,
the
political
and
juridical
controls,
and the
like,
as
forming
an inter-connective
pattern
of
differingactivities,
no
one
of
these activitiesbeing
intelligiblewithout refer-
ence to
the
others; yet, at the
same time, allowing
that, say, the
art
or
the
philosophyor the literatureof a people could undergohistoricalchanges
which were
in part independentof the institutional
patternwhich
supported
them.
Such a view mightwell
be held by those who accept a modified
version
of
the
Marxian doctrine of the
superstructure, r
who
accept
a
moderate
form of
Functionalism n
anthropologicalheory.40These illustrations
may
help to
clarify the types of
theoryto which referencewas made by using the
term
partialmonism .
However, since my
primarypurpose is to discuss
problems
of the history of
ideas, intellectual history, and the history of
philosophy,and not social institutions, shouldlike to redirectattention o
that
form of partialmonismwhich I have termed
culturalmonism .
One could hold
to
a
partialculturalmonismwithout
nvoking
he
concept
of
a Denkstilor of a Zeitgeist,
and to some degree
this has been characteristic
of
many who have undertaken o create a discipline
of
intellectual
history.
Ernst
Cassirer's heory and practice might be
cited as evidence
for this
31
The
decline in partial monisms
among cultural historians in the United States
is,
I believe,
in no small measure due
to the influence of Lovejoy, and particularly to his
analyses of the concept of Romanticism . Cf. especially his essay entitled On the
Discrimination of Romanticisms ,
reprinted in 8, 228-253.
40
The
early form of Malinowski's
functionalism (as distinct from the psychological
approachwhich he later came to
define as functionalism )
might
-
with suitable modi-
fications
-
serve as an example of
this type of position. To be
sure, opinion on which
institutionsin
a society form a
connected pattern, and which may be regarded as having
an
independent history, will, at
present, vary from
anthropologist to anthropologist.
Furthermore, one might hold a variant of the position,
according to which different
groups of institutions would
fonn
parts of the interconnected
whole in different so-
cieties.
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50
MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
tendency,
and so too
might any
view of intellectual
history
which holds
that
an understanding
of the
various
intellectual
enterprises of an age depends
upon uncovering
a fundamental set of
presuppositions which
underlay those
enterprises and determined the basic patterns which they could assume.4'
Without
knowing
to what extent
one
should
characterize
the view of John C.
Greene as belonging
to
this type, we may note that at
least one of
his
characterizations of the function of
the
intellectual historian
is consonant
with it.
In an article which
I
have already cited,
he
said:
The primary unction of the intellectualhistorian s to delineate he
presuppositions
of
thought
in
given historicalepochs and to explain
the
changes
which those pre-
suppositionsundergo from epoch to epoch ... it is the peculiar
province of the
intellectual historian to search for and describe those most
general ideas, or
patterns
of
ideas,
which
inform
the
thought
of an
age,
define its intellectual
prob-
lems,
and indicate the direction in which solutions are to be
sought.42
With respect to this statement we may note that it does not necessarily go as
far
in
the
direction
of monism as those who support Geistesgeschichte
usually
go. For example, the intellectual historian
need not
assume
that all aspects
of culture will reflect the
intellectual presuppositions of the age. Just
as a
representative of Geistesgeschichte might exclude from the unity of the times
many of the institutional factors which exist at that time, so the intellectual
historian might exclude (although he need not do so) some
cultural phe-
nomena, such as the decorative
arts,
or music, or manners,
from the scope
of his
history. The grounds on which he might
do
so
would be his
opinion
that these cultural factors were either unaffected by, or were not directly
affected
by,
the
general
ideas
which
underlay
the
thought
of
the
age.
None-
theless, a position such as that stated by Greene would presumably
fall
within
the range of partial monisms, since
it
looks upon
a variety
of
human
activities as having been informed by a common set of general ideas, or a
pattern of thought, which must be understood if we are
to understand or
explain
the
forms which these activities assumed
at that time and
place
in
human history.
In
opposition to even this partial monism would
be a position
which
I
should be
inclined
to
term
cultural
pluralism . Applied
to the
realm of
intellectual
history, it would seek to understand the various
intellectual
activities
of
men
in terms of the traditions and unsolved
problems
of the
particular disciplines, and through tracing those specific influences which
might have affected different disciplines differently. Such
unity
as is then
found
in the various intellectual activities of the age
would be
explained by
means
of
specific influences passing from one discipline
to
another.
Thus,
4t
To some extent at least, Whitehead's Science and the Modern
World and
Burtt's
Metaphysical
Foundations of Modern Physical Science approach
this
position.
42
Objectives and Methods
in
Intellectual History , Mississippi Valley Historical
Review, XLIV
(1957-58),
59.
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HISTORY OF
IDEAS,
INTELLECTUAL
HISTORY,
HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY 51
in
the
field of intellectual
history,
a cultural
pluralism
would differ
from a
partial
monism
by
its unwillingness to assume that there
is one
particular
pattern
of
ideas,
or set
of presuppositions, which can serve as the basis for
explaining the specific strands of intellectual history; instead, it would seek
to explain widespread presuppositions as being the results
of,
not the
causes
of, the particular
cultural activities and
products
which make
up the intel-
lectual life of the times.
For fear that it may be thought that there is but little difference
between
these two positions, let us now generalize the pluralistic approach, and see
how it may be applied not only to intellectual
history ,
taken as a
special
form of
historiographical inquiry,
but to other and
more limited
special
histories, such as the history of art, or of science, or of literary criticism.
In these special inquiries, if the pluralistic approach were espoused, we
should not have to write the history of the discipline with which
we were
dealing in terms of the history of some larger social or cultural unit of
which
it
was a facet or part. On the contrary, our
task
would be that of tracing
influences between specific events, regardless of the field of
their
provenance.
To be sure, we would assume some degree of unity and continuity in the
strand of events which we were tracing, that is, we would assume that the
history of art or of science, or of literary criticism, actually had what Rene
Wellek has
termed an internal history .43However, the fact
that
the practice
of, say, one critic or group of critics influences that of succeeding
groups
(by way of emulation, or development, or reaction) does not entail
that the
works of the latter will not also be influenced by a variety of
political, or
metaphysical, or scientific influences, to mention but three.44Thus,
pluralism
does not deny cross-influences: it regards the fabric of historical
occurrences
as
containing many strands, each of which may from time to time
cross any
other, being affected by it, and affecting it as well. On the pluralist's view,
the task of the historian is to trace these relationships among the
various
events which have occurred; what pluralism rejects is the methodological
position which holds that at least a partial monism must be true. In other
words, pluralism denies the assumption that there always are internal
con-
nections between the various strands of intellectual and cultural
history,
such
that even in those cases in which no direct influence can be
established,
the
changes
in
one of these strands cannot be understood
independently
of
changes which also occurred within the other. To illustrate the pluralist point
of
view,
a passage from The Seventeenth Century by G. N. Clark
may
be
cited:
'3 Cf.. A
History of
Modern
Criticism:
1750-1950 (New Haven,
1955),
I. 7.
is Wellek
specifically recognizes such
influences and would share my
view that
their
existence is in no way incompatible
with viewing literary
history
as
having an internal
history
(op.
cit.,
8-11). In the same passage he suggests in what
ways he departs
from
tihe
program of Lovejoy.
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52
MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
Economic history, military history,
the
history
of
science, each of these branches
is often rendered almost unintelligibleby
specialistswho ignore their interaction.
On the other hand
there
is
an
equally
serious
danger
in
making too much of the
connection between
them.
If
they
are all
represented
as
mere phases of one com-
mon spiritof the age, their real distinctness s sacrificed to an empty and formal
unity.
To
say
that
the mercantile
system,
the rise
of
standing armies, and the
discovery
of
the differential
calculus were all connected is
true, but
it
tells
us
very
little....
The business
of
the
historian is
not
merely
to show
that
they were con-
nected
but
how,
and how
far.45
What
pluralism rejects is, then,
not the
existence
of
cross-influences: it
rejects
the
assumption
that one cannot write an
adequate special history except by
viewing
that strand of the
past
as a facet or a
part
of some
more inclusive
unit which had a history of its own. Although the position of those who deny
pluralism
has a
certain
plausibility,
I
should be
prepared
to
argue
against
them, were that my present task.46 But
as
I have
indicated, it seems more
important
to anatomize some alternative
positions
-
no matter how
crudely
this
must be done
-
rather
than
to
argue
for
one
of these
positions against
its multiform alternatives.
Turning, then,
from
a consideration of those methodological
positions
which range from sociological monism
to pluralism, let
us
more briefly
examine another type of problem which arises with respect to special his-
tories. Whereas the issue of monism
or pluralism focusses attention upon
relations which
may
be
assumed to obtain between one strand
of
history
and
other
contemporaneous historical
events,
the
type
of
problem
toward which I
should now
like to
direct
attention concerns
the
continuity
within
what we
take to be the
subject-matter of special histories.
In other
words,
the
problem
of
monism or pluralism might be
designated
as
horizontal
in
character,
relating
as
it
does
to
questions
of
the functional
unity
within a
society
during
a particular span of time: our present problems might then be designated
45
Cited in C. H. Williams, The Modern Historian (London, 1938), 129 f.; cf. G.
N.
Clark, The Seventeenth Century, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1947), ix-x.
I6
One of the basic difficulties in attempts to establish even
a
partial monism
seems
to me to arise when we recognize that within
any
society with which the special historian
is concerned, cultural life may not be homogeneous. For example, if one is writing
a
history of music, or if one is writing intellectual history, with what group of persons
should one deal? As Roy H. Pearce pointed out in the article already cited, historians
of
ideas presuppose
a
relatively homogeneous group
of
those
who wrote for one
another;
op. cit. (note 28, above), 373-374. Yet such a group is assuredly not representative of
the total life of the times. Nor need what may be called the intelligentsia in all cases
be the most
important group
with
which
the
intellectual historian
should be
concerned:
for example, in so far as specific political or economic forces have an impact
on
the
intellectual life of the times, this impact may reach the intelligentsia only through the
effects which it has
first
had on the feeling of other groups. Similarly, though
we
usually find that cultural influences run in the opposite direction, there are cases in
which
the
popular
arts
and popular taste are accountable for changes in fashion among
the intelligentsia.
-
Given these facts (among others), I am personally inclined to assume
that pluralism provides a methodological hypothesis more in keeping with the facts
with which special historians must deal than does any form of the monistic doctrine.
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HISTORY OF IDEAS, INTELLECTUAL
HISTORY,
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
53
as
longitudinal ,
elating
to
questions concerning
continuitiesand discon-
tinuities over time.
Every
historicalaccount
which deals with
a
series of
changes
n
time
does,
of course, have a particular ubject-matterwith which it deals, and in that
sense
it
may
be
regarded
as
possessing continuity .Nonetheless,
n the
field
of
special
histories
there would seem
to be a differencebetween those
cases
in
which the historian's ubject-matterwas
in
continuousexistence through-
out
the
span
of
time
with which
his
accountdeals,
and those
in
which it
was
not. For example, a historyof the Roman armyfrom Augustus o the death
of
Nero
would
treat of an institutionwhich existed continuously
hroughout
the period
in
question.On the other
hand,
in a historyof the ways in which
the ideal of Roman glory subsequentlyaffected the political aspirationsof
Italian life, there is no continuingentity with which
the
historian s dealing:
the
events
in
question are discontinuous nd may be sporadic.Nonetheless,
if
such appeals to past glories have a common source or if they influenced
one
another,
and
if
in
that way a traditionarose, the growthof this tradition
and
its effects on Italianhistorywould assuredly onstitutea propersubject-
matterfor historical nquiry.The existence of such time-bridgingnfluences
prevents
one
from regardinga history of these discontinuous vents as an
artifactof the historian'sprocedure.On the other hand, it is also impor-
tant to notice that what the historian s tracing does not constitute a con-
tinuously existing entity. Were we to fail to recognize the latter fact, we
should
have
to
follow those who postulate the equivalentof a subconscious
soul of
a people in order to locate where the traditionenduredwhen it was
not
overtlymanifested n speech or deed.
The fact
that special histories are often written concerningdiscontinuous
series
of
events may also be made clear with respect to literary or artistic
forms.One can, for example,write a history of the epistolarynovel without
assuming that at every time-intervalwithin that history, epistolary novels
were
either
being writtenor being widely read. Thus, the epistolarynovel as
a
literary orm
is
not to be regardedas having a continuous xistence.
None-
theless, in writingsuch a history the literaryhistorian s not simply stringing
together
a set
of facts whose relations o one anotherdependupon
his
having
taken
note
of qualitativeresemblancesbetween them. In so far
as
these
novels
did
in
fact influenceone another,and in so far as there therebygrew
up a traditionwhichindividualwriters ollowed or modified,the
genre
itself
may
be said
to
have had a
history,
and the
special
historian
of that
genre
will
attempt o account or the changeswhich he finds that it has undergone.
The
precedingdistinctionmay be regardedas a distinctionbetween
two
different ypes of continuity:one would be that characterizing n enduring
entity, or continuousprocess; the other that which is given to a series of
temporallydiscontinuousevents by the causal influences which knit them
into
a
unified series. The subject-matter f special histories may belong to
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54
MAURICE MANDELBAUM
either of these
types,
and I do not wish to
place any
great
stress
on the
distinction between them. Were one to say, for example, that the distinction
is not absolute, but that the differences between what I have regarded
as
different types of continuity are merely differences in degree, I should be
willing to cede the point
-
so far as our present purposes are concerned. All
that is here of importance is to have shown that a temporally discontinuous
series of
events
may legitimately
be viewed as
having
a
measure of unity
and
continuity,
such that it constitutes a proper subject-matter for historical
inquiry. This is important in the present context,
since it would be difficult
to maintain that either the historian of philosophy or
the historian of ideas
is dealing with entities which have a continuing existence.
There may presumably be various types of linkage between the elements
which make up a unified series of temporally discontinuous events; we shall
shortly have occasion to allude to some of these types, as they are to be
found in the history of philosophy.
First,
however, it is necessary to take
cognizance of one further problem concerning the longitudinal dimension
of
special histories, and that is the question of how the concept of develop-
ment is to be used in connection with them.
The
concept of development is to be differentiated from the general notion
of change, in that development always includes the implication of a direc-
tional pattern in which the change proceeds. Unlike random changes, and
unlike patterns
such
as
alternation,
the notion of development
involves
a
directional order, not merely with respect to time but also with respect
to
some quality possessed by the successive members of the series. Bearing this
in
mind,
it
should be obvious that
not
all series
of
events
are
to
be charac-
terized
as developmental: in a discontinuous series of events,
for
example,
the
events between which one can trace influences need
not
exhibit
an order-
ing of qualities which corresponds to the temporal order in which these
particular
events occurred.
To
be
sure,
one should
not
assume
that the con-
cept
of
development must be applied to any series
of events
in
what
might
be
called an all-or-none fashion. In the first place, any series
of
events may
show a developmental pattern in certain respects, while
it
displays
alternation
or
randomness in
others;
in the second
place,
even
when
there has been
no
pattern
of
development in a series of events
taken as a
whole,
there
may
be
such
a pattern within one particular segment of
that
series. (It
is also
ad-
visable to note that even if there has been a persistent pattern of develop-
ment in
a
series up to any given point, our expectation
that that
pattern
will
continue
may not turn out to have been warranted.)
Under
these circum-
stances it is of course important to specify with respect to
what
quality,
and
with
respect to what period of time, one is speaking
of
a development
when
dealing with a particular series of events.
If
the
foregoing characterization is accepted it should
be
obvious
that
among the materials with which historians deal there will
be
some
series
of
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HISTORY OF IDEAS,
INTELLECTUAL
HISTORY,
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 55
events (whether
continuous or
not)
in which one can readily find
striking
instances
of
developmental patterns,
and other instances in which
no such
patterns exist,
or in
which
(if
they
do
exist) they
concern characteristics of
negligible interest, or are of too short a duration to be regarded as significant.
The fact that
not all historical accounts are to
be
regarded
as
developmental,
is now more widely recognized
than it
was in the late eighteenth and in the
nineteenth centuries;
therefore
it
is
probably not necessary to dwell upon
this
point any
further. Instead, I shall come at long last
to a discussion of
ques-
tions which directly concern the
history of philosophy.
I am of course aware
that throughout
the preceding discussion
1
have barely scratched the surface
of some of the most important
methodological problems
which
arise
with
respect to special histories. In particular,I have not considered the differences
among the
various forms of these
histories, such as the history
of art as
compared
to the history of science47 or the history
of law as compared
with
economic history, etc. If, however,
I have suggested some
categorial
divisions
which could be
useful in discussing
these more concrete problems, my
aim
will
have been
fulfilled. By turning now to problems
relating
to
the
history
of
philosophy we can put the matter
to a preliminary
test, seeing whether
these
more general
distinctions are
of service in considering
the
problems
which arise in at least one field of special history.
m
The first
and
perhaps crucial question
which
any historian of
philosophy
must face is what
should be denominated as philosophy .
The problem
is
of
course no slight one, considering
the diversity of topics
discussed by those
commonly acknowledged
to be philosophers.
This diversity is so great
that
one
might
be
tempted
to hold that
all histories of philosophy constitute
more
or
less arbitrary
delimitations of
essentially heterogeneous subject-matter.
and
that there is no single tradition
which is the philosophic
tradition.48
4
In
Beilheft
2 (1963) of this
journal,
Joseph Agassi contributeda monograph entitled
Towards an
Historiography
of Science, which contains some materials which might
be
of use for such a study, but which has an entirely different scope and aim. - One of
the most systematic attempts to deal with some of these
problems in the field of
art
history is Arnold Hauser's book of essays,
The
Philosophy
of Art History
(New
York.
1957-58), which manages to raise many of the most significant problems, and should
be of use even to those who would most forcefully disagree with his position.
48
This view seems to be implicit in remarks made by George
Boas in his recent
review
of J.
H.
Randall, The Career of Philosophy from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment:
[I] suggest that such a subject as the history of philosophy
as a whole, or the
history
of science, or the history of art, is an impossibility. Names like philosophy ,
science ,
art , are the names given both to sheaves of problems and
to the answers which men
have offered to them. It is theoretically possible that someone would know enough to
sort out all the problems which have been called philosophical
and list all the solutions
which have been given them and then to write them up in an all-inclusive catalogue.
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56
MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
This, however,
appears
to me to be
too negative
a
position.
Instead,
I
suggest
that one could arriveat a
delineationof what
has
in fact
come
to
be
regarded
s the philosophic
radition
n something
ike the followingmanner.49
Let us supposethat a personshould select a very restrictedgroup of men
from
Plato to Mill (to
choose
an arbitraryerminus
n the nineteenth
entury),
and
suppose
that in the
writings
of these men there
seems to have
been
a
discussionof
some
commonproblems,
by
methodsnot wholly
dissimilar,
and
with aims
not wildly divergent.
Suppose
also
that the various
members
of
this restricted
group
of persons
however
arbitrarily
hosen are
generally
regarded
as having
been
philosophers,
and that
a majority
of the
problems
which
they
discussed
althoughperhaps
not all such
problems)
have generally
been calledphilosophicproblems.Underthese suppositionswe shouldhave
a
skeleton ist of
persons
and
problems
with
which
the
historian
of
philosophy
isito deal.
However,
t would
almost
nescapably
ome to
such
an
historian's
notice
that this particular
group of
persons
had been
influenced
by, and in
turn
also
influenced,other
persons
who discussed
he same types
of
problems,
and the conceptionof
the course
of philosophy
would thereby
become
en-
larged.
If, in addition,
other
individuals
were
found to have discussed
some
of the same problems,
n the same
general
spirit,
they too
might
be counted
as belonging o the history of philosophy,even if one discoveredno trace of
influences
eading
from the already
established
group
to
them,
or
from them
to any members
of
that group.
The boundary
ines as
to whom
one should
include
in following
such
a
procedure,
and
what problems
should
be included,
would
doubtless
remain
Mr. Randall
has too much
learning
in the field
of
intellectual history
to make
any
such attempt. .
(Journal
of the
History
of Ideas, XXIV
[1963],
287).
-
Two
points
in this passage
seem
to me especially
troublesome.
First,
Boas'
argumentseems
to
turn
upon his identifyinga history of philosophy with a gatheringtogetherof all the answers
proposed
to various
problems, in
which
the specifically historical
dimension
has been
left out
of account;second,
it seems to suggest
(in its allusion
to
Randall's learning)
that
no line of demarcation
is to be drawn
between the
history
of
philosophy
and
general
intellectual
history.
Furthermore,
Boas' own historical
studies in the
field
of philosophy
seem to
me not
to be in keeping
with the tenor
of
this passage.
-
For
a more lengthy
discussion of some
of the problems
with
which we shall
be
concerned,
the
introduction
to Brehier's
Histoire
de la philosophic
(Paris,
1948-51)
may
be
especially
highly
commended.
Particularly
suggestive
is Brehier's
analysis
of
the underlying
assumptions
of the successive
attempts
to write
histories
of philosophy,
from the
Renaissanceconcern
with
differing
sects,
to
a
concern
with systems,
and
then a primary
concern
with
the
creativity of individual thinkers. Unfortunately, with respect to our present problem
(the
definition
of what
constitutes
the philosophic
tradition), Brehier
merely emphasizes
the
diversity
of aims among
philosophers
of different
ages,
and
does not seek
to
elucidate why
each
should be called
a
philosopher.
Among recent
historians
of philo-
sophy,
only Bertrand
Russell
seems
to have
made such
an attempt;
cf. the
introductory
chapter
to
his
well-knownHistory
of Western
Philosophy.
49
The following
suggested
steps are
not,
of course, intended
to
represent
an
actual
procedure
which
has been carried
out
by any
one. Rather, they
are to
be
interpreted
as
if
they
were a schematic
diagram
of a
more complicated
process
which has taken
place
over
a
long period
of time.
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HISTORY
OF
IDEAS,
INTELLECTUAL
HISTORY,
HISTORY
OF
PHILOSOPHY
57
partially
ndeterminate nd could be
regarded
as
arbitrary
at least
along
the
fringes;but this would
be a
recognitionof the fact that the line between
the
historyof philosophy
and
what
might equally
well be
called general ntellec-
tual history also remains ndeterminate.So long as one acknowledges hat
the historyof philosophymay be deeply
influenced
by those whom historians
of
philosophymay
not
generally
abel as
philosophers,
he
questionof how
we are to classify figures such as Montaigne,or Rousseau, or Hamann, or
Kierkegaard,
would seem
to be
a
relativelyunimportantmatter. Admitting,
then, that there may
be
many
such
incidental
disagreementswhen one seeks
to define the philosophictradition, t is nonethelesspossible to expect his-
torians of philosophy o
be in
general agreementas to what constitutes he
main line of the historyof philosophy n the West; and such agreement, t
seems to me, is actually ound. The figures concerningwhom differencesof
opinionusually
ariseare
thosewho
are
regarded y
some
as
minor
philosophers,
but who are regardedby
others
as thinkerswho influencedphilosophywith-
out
being philosophers,
or who have been discussed
as figures typifying
philosophic nfluences
on the
intellectual
ife
of
the
times, or who are re-
garded
as
thinkers
representing eligious
or
other
points
of view which are
more
important
han the
philosophic
radition.
All
of
these variationsdoubt-
less occur. What seems to me
not
to occur are major variationsconcerning
the main lines of the philosophic radition
n
the West, in spite of the fact
that
different historians do assuredly assign very different weights to the
historicaland philosophic mportanceof many individualphilosopherswho
stand within that
tradition.50
The
foregoing uggestion eems
to me to
provide
a sketch
of one defensible
way of approaching characterization f
the
subject-matterwith which his-
torians
of
philosophymust deal.
Such
an approachhas,
I
believe,
the ad-
vantageof not overlooking he fact that there is a common core of subject-
matter
n
all
histories
of
philosophy,
and
yet
avoids
legislatingprecisely
what
such histories must
contain
or exclude.
It
also has
what
I take
to
be the
advantage
of
allowing
us to formulatemore
clearly
than
we
probably
other-
wise
could, wherein he factors of unity and
of
discontinuity re to
be
found
within
the historyof philosophy. t is to that problem hat we shall
now
turn.
It
will
be
recalled hat in the
preceding
ection I remarked
hat the
subject-
matter
of
the history of philosophy undoubtedlybelonged
to that
type
of
sequencein which a temporallydiscontinuous eries of events was chiefly
bound
togetherby the influencesof one upon the other. Such influencesmay
take
many forms. For example, n choosing merely a small stretchof philo-
sophic history say the sequence of Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche,
and
50
As
partial support for this general conclusion I might cite the fact
that the tradition
which
is covered in Father Copleston's history of philosophy, which is written from
an
explicitly scholastic point of view, is similar to the tradition covered by
almost
all
non-scholastic historians of philosophy.
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58
MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
Leibniz
-we can
trace a
great
number
of
connective
influences. One can
see such connections in the problems
posed, in the
concepts used in
posing
these
problems,
in negative reactions to
preceding
solutions, in attempts to
develop those solutions in a more consistent manner, and so on. All this is
familiar and is
ordinarily
stressed
in
histories of
philosophy which place
emphasis upon
the
unity
and
continuity
of
particular
philosophic traditions.
At the
same time, one must
also
stress the
discontinuities within such a
sequence of thinkers. The traditions drawn
upon by
each of these four great
philosophic figures were partially different traditions;
as a consequence, the
thought
of each of them
--
and indeed
certain
of the problems which were
central to
the
thought
of each - varied
greatly.
For this
reason
(and also, of
course, because of the chronology of their lives and of their works), it would
be a serious
mistake
to
regard
this
particular
stretch
of
philosophic history
as a
single
continuous
process;
certainly
it could not
be viewed in
terms of
the notion
of
a
developmental
series.
When one
turns
from
the
stretch of
philosophic history
which
has just been
mentioned to
that
represented by
the works of
Locke and
Berkeley
and
Hume,
one
sees a similar network of relations which
contains both
continuity
and
discontinuity. However,
one
can
scarcely escape noticing
the
very
decided
influences which the previously mentioned continental philosophers had upon
them; thus,
the
total
history
of Western
philosophy
in
the
seventeenth
and
eighteenth
centuries takes on
added
elements of
unity,
but
also
a
greater
measure
of
diversity.
Furthermore,
this extension
of the historian's interest
beyond
either continental or British philosophy taken
alone, entails an ex-
tension
of
the
connections
between
these centuries
and the
past,
since the
chief influences
of
earlier
thought
upon, say, Leibniz,
were different from
the
heritage which was
drawn
upon by
Hume.
Thus,
in the
end,
the
seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries become closely linked to almost the whole of
the
Greek
tradition from Plato to the end of
antiquity.
In
addition,
when
our
view of
the
seventeenth
and
eighteenth
centuries
includes both continental
and
British
philosophy,
the
variety
of
philosophic problems
to be
considered
will
be
seen
to enlarge: almost all of
the traditions
of
moral and
political phi-
losophy from
the
ancient to the modern schools become relevant
when we
consider
not only Spinoza but
also
Locke and Hume. Even sectarian
religious
issues and
particular
scientific
questions
become
part
of
the
materials with
which the historian of philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
must
deal.
Thus, to speak of the philosophic tradition does
not demand that
we
select
merely
a
narrow
range
of
particularly original
or
particularly
homogeneous figures as
constituting that tradition.
Up
to this
point we have viewed the
history
of
philosophy
as
if
it consisted
solely of
disembodied doctrines
which formed a network of relations;
how-
ever, to
view philosophic
doctrines apart from
the
specific aims of those
who
formulated
them can be
seriously misleading.
If
we are
not
to
falsify
the
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HISTORY OF
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HISTORY,
HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY
59
history of philosophy we must recognize that even when two
philosophers
do properly belong
within a
fairly
circumscribed
tradition,
and even
when
they
share
many
basic
presuppositions, their specific aims
may
differ
pro-
foundly, as is clear in the case of Berkeley and Hume. Nonetheless, a recog-
nition
of the
important
fact that the aims of
philosophers do differ should
not
lead
us to assume
that their
methods and
general
modes
of
argumentation
also differ
as well.
In so far as
they
can be
seen
as
belonging
to a
single
tradition, there
will be some common intellectual
impulses
which
they
share,
as
is evident from
the
fact that
they
would
not otherwise
have taken
it upon
themselves
to
analyze,
or to
speculate upon,
the
same sets of
problems. In
short,
while it
would be a
mistake
to
consider the
history
of
philosophy
as
if
it were a mere criss-crossing network of relations among doctrines, ancient
and
modem,
it
would also
be a
mistake
to write the
history
of
philosophy
merely in
terms
of
the
intellectual, religious, moral,
or social aims
of
in-
dividual philosophers. What
accounts
for
the existence
of that
network of
relations among philosophic
doctrines which
constitutes the
philosophic
tra-
dition
is
the
fact that
particular
men were
moved to
think
and
to write in a
way
that
they regarded
as
having a
bearing upon
what their
predecessors
wrote.
Thus, even though
there
may
be
no
one
impulse
which is
the source
of all philosophic thought, there assuredly are a limited number of ways in
which those whom
we
regard as
philosophers
have
reasoned. Were this not
the
case, we should be hard-pressed to
explain why they should have
sought
to elaborate, to reshape, or
to rebut
their
predecessors. Only thus, in
short,
would the
connective
networks of relations
among philosophic doctrines
have
been
established.51
It
is
precisely at
this
point
that
one
can see the difference between the
history of philosophy and the
history of ideas, taking the latter term
in that
special sense in which Lovejoy used it. A unit-idea, in Lovejoy's sense, can
have
a completely migratory
history: perhaps originally
coined in
a
philo-
sophic context, it may at one time
play
a part in a scientific
argument and
at
other
times provide a
pregnant metaphor in a sermon or a poem. Its history
can
sometimes be
traced, as
Lovejoy
has
shown,
as it
travels
from one context
to another, and as it
becomes transformed through adhering to other unit-
ideas, or being interpreted
now in one way and now in another. With
respect
to its migratory form of
existence, a unit-idea is similar to those
iconographical
symbols which historians of art have frequently traced with outstanding
The
point which I wish to
make seems to me to have general
applicability,
and is
not
confined to the history of
philosophy. It consists in the assumption that
any
dis-
continuous
series of
events which
builds a continuous tradition (e.g.,
in art or
in science
as
well
as
in
philosophy) depends upon the existence of two different sorts of
factors:
a set
of
psychological impulses or needs to think or act in certain ways, and conditions
which
permit influences to spread
to others from those who think or act
in these
ways.
In
short,
a
tradition could not
build up without the possibility of cross-influences,
but
it
would not
build up if the
activity itself were not an activity which it was natural for
men to
pursue
in
different times
and places.
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60
MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
success,
to the
great
benefit of
interpretative
riticism
However,just as an
iconographical ymbol
may reappear
n
the
most
trite and artisticallynegli-
gible
circumstances,53
so a
unit-ideawhich had
importantphilosophicorigins
may reappearn contexts n which its usersmay be wholly lacking in philo-
sophic impulse or
philosophiccomprehension.
Thus,
the
historianof philos-
ophy
need not
be
concerned o
trace the
total
history
of
specific unit-ideas,
as
Lovejoy
himself was
fully
aware.
However,since
in
any age a philosopher
(no less than
a
scientist,
or a
poet,
or an
essayist) may
be
profoundly n-
fluenced, sometimesunwittingly,by a characteristic
nit-idea, the historian
of
philosophy
will sometimes
draw
great profit
from
a
study
of
the
history
of
such ideas;
otherwisehe too may overlooktheir importance n the thought
of those philosopherswith whomhe is concerned.Furthermore,n so far as
such ideas enter
into the
thought
of
a
particularphilosopher,or group of
philosophers,
hey may
become
integral
to the
systems
of
thought of phi-
losophers in succeeding
generations,
as
Lovejoy
has shown in
The
Great
Chain
of Being.
Ai
this must
be
willingly
and
gratefullygranted.
Nonethe-
less, continuitiesof this sort are no
more
frequent,
and
may
be
considerably
less
frequent,and
they may
be
no
more
important,
han are the
explicit and
self-consciousattempts of a given philosopher o
rectify what
he
takes to
have been errorson the partof his predecessors, r to follow out the implica-
tions
of
their systems
n
new areas of
knowledge,
or
the
like.
To the extent
that influencesof
the
latter sort
determine
he
general pattern
of a
philos-
opher's hought,
and
to the extent to which unit-ideas
are to
be
regarded nly
as
single
elementswithin
such
largerpatterns,
he
contribution
f historians
of
ideas to
the
history
of
philosophy
must be
acknowledged
o
be
a limited
one.
To say
this is not to
denigrate nvestigations
n the
history
of
ideas,
for
in addition to the
undoubted(though limited) importance
of
the latter
for
the history of philosophy, the programof historiansof ideas has had im-
portant repercussions
upon
the
history
of
literature,
he
history
of
science,
and
general ntellectualhistory as
well.54
Turning
now to the relationsbetween
he
history
of
philosophy
and
general
intellectualhistory,
t
shouldbe noted that whereas
he
history
of
philosophy
involves a
discontinuous eries
of connected
events,
the
subject-matter
with
52
In referring to iconographical symbols, I have in mind those elements
which Erwin
Panofsky has referred to as the secondary or conventional subject matter of works
of
art, cf. Meaning in the Visual Arts (New York, 1955), 26-40. This material
is also
to
be found in the introductorychapter in his Studies in Iconology (1939). Panofsky's own
researches in iconographical symbols in this sense are, of course, classics.
53
Note how the symbol of Blind Cupid appears on contemporary valentines;
for the
early history of this symbol, cf. Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology, ch. IV.
54
Though
it
is not my task to do so, I think that one could probably
show that
the
role of the history of ideas for the historian of literature is limited in
much the same
way as I have suggested that it is limited for the historian of philosophy.
If I
am
not
mistaken, its role in the history of science may turn out to be a much more
considerable
one. For one testimony as to the importance of The Great Chain of Being for historians
of science, cf. Gillispie's remark in Forerunners of Darwin (Baltimore, 1959), 265.
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HISTORY OF IDEAS, INTELLECTUALHISTORY, HISTORY
OF
PHILOSOPHY
61
which
the intellectual
historiandeals
is
continuouslypresent throughout he
time-spanwith
which
he seeks to deal. This contrast which,as I have
noted,55
is
not
one
whichmust
be taken
as
absolute)
can
be
illustrated
n
the
following
way. In any givenperiodin
the life
of a particular ociety in the West
there
may be no productive
nterest
n
philosophicproblems,
and the philosophic
traditionwould be moribund
at that time and
place
-
although
t
might
sud-
denly revive within
a generation.On the other hand,
it is hard to see what
it would mean
to say that in any
given period of a Westernsociety there
was
nothing
which represented
he intellectual ife
of the
time.
If
philosophy
were
moribund,would literatureand religion
be
so as
well?
Would there not
be
basic presuppositions
oncerning
echnologyor the political arts, or the
like,
which one might (withoutan undue stretchingof the term) regardas per-
taining to the intellectual
history
of that time and place?
And
there is anotherdifference o
be noted betweenthe
subject-matter
f
the history of philosophy
and the subject-matter
f
intellectualhistory:
at
any one time, as we have noted,
there
may
be
a multiplicity
f strata
n
the
intellectual
ife of the times. This, in fact,
would
not be
an abnormal
ituation,
for we are
frequently
orced
to describe the intellectualhistory
of the in-
telligentsia n
one
way,
and the intellectualhistory
of other
strata
of
the
same
societyin otherways. Whileit is not unknown hat there should be similar
splits
within
those
aspects
of
the
philosophic
traditionwhich are
espoused
and
cultivated
by
different
segments
of
the
same society
at the
same time,
such a situation
s
surely
ess frequent,and represents
an
anomaly.56
Neitherof these
points
of
differencebetween
the
history
of
philosophy
and
general
ntellectual
history
can,
of
course,
be
substantiated
withoutspecifying
more
precisely
what one takes
the
subject-matter
f intellectual
history
o
be.
However, regardless
of how one
defines its
subject-matter
believe
that
it
shouldbe clear that the historyof philosophycan at most be consideredas
one
particular trand
within the
intellectual
history
of
any period
of time.
It
may,
to
be
sure,
be
regarded
as
that
which
generates
other
strands;
t
may,
likewise, be regarded
as an offshoot
of other more basic factors
within
a
society. However,
n whatever
way
one is
likely
to
define intellectual
history,
or
to
relatethe
history
of
philosophy
o
it,
it would seem that
one must
grant
that
philosophy,
ike art or music
or science, to some degree possesses
its
own
internal
history which is not
to be
submerged
n
general
intellectual
history.Thereare, as we have seen, networksof connectionsamong heworks
of
philosophers,
and it is through
these
connections that
there arose
the
tradition
with
which historiansof
philosophy
are concerned.
On
the
other
hand, as we have also had occasion
to notice, this
traditionexists only
in so
-5
Cf. p. 53f. above.
56
As
a
possible recent instance of such
a split, one might
take
cognizance
of
the
differ-
ence
which obtains
at present between
Marxist modes of philosophizing
and
non-Marxist
modes, even outside
the Communist
countries.
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62 MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
far as men have a desire or need
to deal with those sorts of
intellectual
problems
whichwe have
come to call
philosophical.Thus,
philosophydepends
both
upon
an
impetus
to
philosophize
and
a
tradition
of
philosophizing.Un-
der these conditionsit would be a mistake to attempt to understanda
philosopher
merely as
a reflectionof whatever
ntellectualor social factors
impingeddirectlyupon him because of the time and place at which
he lived.
It
is
only
when
we view
philosophic hought
both in
termsof
its own
tradition,
and
in terms of influences ocussed
upon
it because of
the
circumstances f
the
philosopher's
ife
and his
times,
that we
can
see
a
particular
hilosopher's
work
in
proper perspective:
as a
distinctive
philosophicachievementwhich
also
belongs
within the
general
ntellectual
history
of
the
period.
To speak of philosophyas having an internalhistorywhich is in some
measuredistinct
rom the other strandsof
contemporary
ntellectual
history,
necessarily
raises most of
those
methodological
ssues
to which
I
alluded
n
discussing
he
problem
of monism or
pluralism.
It is
to these
issues that I
shall now turn.
It
must be admitted that
if
one
were
to
accept
any
form
of
monism,
philosophywould
not
possess
what I would
regardas an internal
history of
its
own. As
we
have
seen,
monisms
may
have a
variety
of
different
orms,
from a complete sociological monism to that partial monism apparently
acceptedby some intellectualhistorians
n
which
the
thoughtof each age
is
regarded
as determined
by
a
set of
presuppositions
which
permeate
all
aspects
of
intellectual
ife. To be
sure,
no form of
monism of
any variety
would
deny that
there have
been
philosophers,
nd none would
need
to
deny
that the
history
of
philosophic
doctrines can be
traced without
tracing
the
history
of
all other characteristics f the
age.
Nonetheless,
monists would
claim that an
adequate
understanding
f
the
thought
of
any philosopher,
and
an understanding f what was significant n the relationsbetweenphiloso-
phers,
would not be
open
to those who looked
upon
philosophy
as
a
specific
form of human activitywhich had a distinctive
historyof
its
own. Instead,
t
would be
claimedthat the history
of
philosophy s to be
viewed as a part
of
some broader
history,
such as the
history
of
the developmentof the human
spirit, or the history of forms of
social organization, r the
history of those
hidden
presuppositionswhich are
determinative
of various Weltanschau-
ungen. Under
these conditions the history of
philosophy
takes
on
an un-
familiaraspect. The connectionsbetweenphilosophersare not regardedas
being
connections stablished hroughdirect nfluences, n which
philosophers
seek
to
improve,or to refute, or
to extend the work of their predecessors, r
to
deal with
problemswhich
had been overlooked.Instead of
regarding
he
relations
between philosophersas being intrinsically
philosophical, hey
are
takento be expressiveof more
generalhistorical orces;
philosophicdoctrines
are
seen
as falling nto an order
whose explanation ies
outside
of
philosophy
itself.
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HISTORY OF
IDEAS,
INTELLECTUAL
HISTORY,
HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY
63
There are many
ways
in whichvarious orms of
monismmay be
criticized,
but that
is not my present
purpose.
I
have
merely sought to illustrate
what I
had
alreadysuggested
n more
general
terms: that
acceptance
of
any of the
forms of monism would run counter to the usual proceduresof those who
write special
histories. To
point
this out with reference
to
the
history
of
philosophy
s not to refute
monism,
since it
might
be
argued hat these
usual
procedures
hould
be
abandoned,
and
conventional
histories of
philosophy
be
thoroughly
ecast.
However,
at this
point
1
should
ike to
make t
perfectly
clear
that
even
if
one
accepts
a
pluralistic
view of the
functionalrelations
among
the elements n human societies one need neither
overlook nor
mini-
mize
the
impact
which
non-philosophic
orces
may
have on the
history
of
philosophy.A recognitionof this fact may perhapsoffset some of the appeal
exerted by
various forms
of
monism,
and
a
discussion
of
it
should
help
to
throw
light on
some
of
the
more concrete
methodologicalproblems
which
any historian
of
philosophy
must face.
As a
startingpoint,
let
us
choose to considerthe
impact
of
science
upon
philosophic hought.
There
probablynever
has been a
protractedperiod of
time
during
whichwhat
we would call
science has
failed
to have
an
influence
upon what
we
would
regard
as
philosophicquestions.
There have of
course
been timeswhen sciencehas changedvery slowly, and other timesat which
its
changes
have
been
revolutionary;
when
its
changes
have
been
slow,
the
philosophic raditionhas
probably
been more
stable,
although,
even in
those
times,
philosophy has not remained dormant. On the
other hand, it is
probably
ncontestable
hat
revolutions
n
science
are
always
felt in
the
body
of
philosophy.
The close connectionsbetween science and
philosophy
have
indeed
been
recognizedby
historiansof
philosophy,
and
one
finds
that at
least
two straightforwardttempts
o
write historiesof
particularperiods of
philosophy - Mead's Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century and
Randall's
The Career
of Philosophy from
the
Middle Ages
to the
Enlighten-
ment have taken the relations between science and
philosophy as their
dominant
nterpretative
heme.
However,
neither
Mead nor
Randall
dentified
science and
philosophy:
n
fact,
it was
precisely
because
they
did not
do
so
that
each
could so
sharply
raise the
question
of how
specific
modes
of scien-
tific
thought,or specific scientific
advances,
affected
philosophy.
Were these
two
forms of human inquirythe
same,
the
problem
of
influencewould not
even arise.Thus, an insistencethat the historianof philosophyshould trace
the
continuities
and the changeswhich occur withinthe
philosophic
radition
in
no
sense precludeshim from
acknowledging
he influenceof
science
upon
philosophy.The same point
can be made in reverse. The fact that one can
follow the
history of scientific developments,and
can relate them to,
say,
technologicaland sociological
changes, by no
means entails that philosophy
plays
no
role
in
the history of the sciences. As
historians
of science have
demonstrated,philosophic
views, whether methodologicalor
metaphysical,
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64
MAURICE
MANDELBAUM
have
at least sometimes nfluenced he
investigative echniques
of
scientists,
and
they
have almost
inevitably
affected scientific
theory-formation.Thus,
the pluralistic
nsistence hat
the
traditions
of scientific
nquiryand of philo-
sophic thoughtare two traditions,being neitheridentical with one another
nor
merely aspects
of some one
tradition,
does
not
preclude he historianof
eitherphilosophyor
sciencefrom
attempting
o
establisha
series of influences
between
the
two fields.
What has
been
said of
the relations
between
philosophy
and
science might
be
thought
o be
exactly paralleledby
the
relationsbetween philosophyand
religion,
f we
take
religion
o refer
to
the
broadest
questions
of
theological
belief. However,
there is
a
difficulty
n
attempting
o
draw such
a parallel.
Unlikethe case in whichone contrasts cience andphilosophy, t is difficult
to distinguish learlybetween
the
philosophic raditionand the ways in which
men seek to settle
questions
of
theological
belief. Since
the border-line
be-
tween the two
fields
is
not
sharply drawn,
it
is not easy to speak of two
traditions
which
may influence
one
another,
but
which remain
distinct;
here-
fore,
the model
which
might
be
thought
o
be
furnished
by
the relationsbe-
tween
science
and
philosophy
will
not
adequately
erve
in this
case. On the
other hand,
if
religion
s not
to
be
identifiedwith the
raisingand answering
of questions concernedwith theologicalbelief, but is identifiedwith a par-
ticular form of human activity, or a particularattitude, or a dimensionof
experience, hen
it is
by no means easy to generalizeas
to how religionaffects
philosophy,or is affected by it. It may, I think, be
safely taken for granted
that in
a
particularperiod
of
history
such
influences
would
vary from
case
to case
-
some philosophersbeing more affectedby the
religious
attitudes
of
their
times than
were
others,
and
some philosophic
doctrines
having greater
repercussions pon
these attitudes
han would
others.
These mutualrelations
mightalso vary greatly rom age to age. Therefore,when BertrandRussell,
in
the introduction to his History of WesternPhilosophy, links religion and
science as the two factors which produce the
conceptionsof life
and
the
world
which we call 'philosophical ' p. xiii), he is
linking
two
factors
whose
modes
of
exerting
an influence
upon
human
thought
would
seem to
be
quite
different.Furthermore, s those acquainted
with
this particularpassage may
recall,
Russell
couples religiousconceptions
with
ethical
conceptions
n their
formative
influence
on
philosophy,
as
if
religion
and
ethics were
either
equivalentor functioned n the same ways. Withoutattempting o show that
both forms
of such an assumptionwould be
misleading,
cite this illustration
merely to prove how readilyhistoriansof philosophy ake
it
for
granted
hat
the mode of influence exerted on philosophic thought by one factor
in
a
culture
can provide an adequate clue to the ways in which other factors
exert
their influenceson it.
As
one
final illustration f this weakness,I shall
suggesta
few
of
the
ways
in
which a particular et of political or economic conditionsmay influence
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HISTORY
OF
IDEAS,
INTELLECTUAL
HISTORY,
1-HISTORY
OF
PHILOSOPHY
65
philosophy,
and shall
suggest
hat no one of these can be taken as an
adequate
indication
of the influences exerted
in
other
types
of case. Take first what
are sometimes
called
the
social
determinants f a
philosophic
doctrine,for
examplethe claim madeby C. E. Trinkaus hat the concept of the Great
Chain
of
Being
reflected he hierarchical tructure
f a class society.57 uch
determinants,f
they
could
be
established,
would
represent
direct
influences
of political or economicfactors upon
the content of
metaphysical
deas.
The
argument
s also sometimessuggested(for
example by Trinkaus
8)
that the
modifications
f these ideas
are not to be
regarded
as
being primarily
due
to
logical motives,
nor
to
the impact of
other ideas, but that they are to be
interpreted s effects
of
changes
which have occured
n
political
or economic
factors since the originalformulationof these ideas. Thus it is arguedthat
both the originsand
the changesof specific metaphysicaldeas
may be taken
as resultsof the direct action of social
conditionsupon men's thoughts.How-
ever tenuous such an hypothesismay
be when it is applied to
metaphysical
doctrines,59 ne should
be cautious
in denying the possible effects
of
such
direct influences
when dealingwith politicalphilosophies.
t
would
seem not
wholly unwarranted
o think thatthe specificcontentof a normative
political
theory might be directly nfluencedby
the political scene (although
t might
also be influencedby the traditionof that branch of philosophicthought);
and it is
almost certain that one can
in some cases trace
changes in the
content of
these theories
because
of
changes
in the political
and
economic
forces
which
were presentat the time.
Thus, we may
note that
the
influences
which are operative
n one branchof philosophy
may not be directlyoperative
in others.
Furthermore,
one should perhaps distinguish among various
forms
of
indirect nfluencewhich social conditions
may have upon philosophic
hought.
Among such indirect nfluencesmight be those in which politicalunrestor
economic
crises
have made men more
sensitive to political and economic
issues,
and have thus channelled he thoughtof philosophers
n these directions
ratherthan others. On the other hand,
there also are indirect
nfluences
of
a
quite
different sort. In all societies the political
and
economic conditions
tend
to determine he
classes of people
who have
the
time and
the
social
7
Four
Letters on Ernest Nagel's
Review
of
Lovejoy's
'The Great Chain of
Being ',
Science and
Society,
I
(1936-37), 410
ff. In addition
to the letter by Trinkaus,
there is
a reply by Nagel and comments by Lovejoy and V. J. McGill.
35
Ibid., 411.
59
The
quite different thesis that
such metaphysical
doctrines may be used to justify
political
and economic policies (either
directly,
or indirectly through their
influence
upon political
and economic theory)
is sometimes
confused with the above
hypothesis.
In
fact,
Trinkaus failed
to separate the problems
of social
determinantsfrom social
consequences,as Nagel's
rebuttal served
to point out. However,
the
consequences of a
philosophic
doctrine are surely not to
be interpreted
as part of the history of
philosophy,
unless
the Marxist wishes
to emulate the idealist
and
maintain,
as
F. H.
Bradley held,
that 'the
real Julius Caesar'
extends just as far as
his influence
extends.
7/21/2019 The History of Ideas, Intellectual History, And the History of Philosophy
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66
MAURICE MANDELBAUM
positions
which
make it
possible
to
engage
in
philosophic
thought
in full
awareness
of the traditions
of that
thought.
Furthermore,
at different times
the social
structure seems to determine
what groups
of
people,
in what oc-
cupations, form the groups in which one finds concerted efforts to deal with
philosophical
problems.
For example, in some generations
in some
societies
most
philosophers
have
been
professors
of
philosophy,
whereas
in
other
generations
(for example
in
England
in the nineteenth century) they have
not.
If this
fact
had no influence
upon
the
history
of
philosophy
it
would
be
as
surpnsniig
as
if the fact that mediaeval philosophers were
churchmen had
no
impact upon
how they thought
and wrote.
Thus,
in
these
two
quite different
ways, what might be
called social determinants may have
an
indirect
in-
fluence on the course of philosophy without necessarily determining the
specific content
of philosophic
doctrines.
No facts
of
the
above
sort need be denied
by
those
who hold that there
has been
-
and that
there is
-
a
specifically
philosophic tradition which
it is
the function
of the historian of philosophy
to understand, to analyze, and
to
depict.
An
insistence
that
any
persistent
form
of human
activity,
such
as
that
represented
by philosophic
thought,
takes
place
within the
framework
of a
growing
tradition does
not
entail
that this
activity,
and
the
tradition which
it
forms, is unaffected by other forms of human activity and the products
through which
these are expressed. Through
an acceptance
of a pluralistic
view of
the relations
among
human
institutions,
both
the
continuity
of
phi-
losophy and
its changing
features
can best be understood.
The Johns Hopkins
University