Conversation and the logic of history

Abstract

The problem of the logic of understanding history is discussed. We propose a model of understanding history as a conversation, which the person thinking about history has with interlocutors (sources) of previous epochs. The epoch is interpreted as a special way of problematizing human's understanding of him (her) self and the world around. At the same time, three gifts — attention, recognition and name — underlie the connection of the historian in conversation with interlocutors (sources) from other eras. They are not given in advance but are results of a struggle for the recognition. In choosing his (her) interlocutor (source), the historian chooses him (her) self. By giving this interlocutor (the source) the opportunity to be heard, the historian, at the same time, receives a gift from the source — the opportunity to express what would otherwise remain unspoken in the historian's own mind. The logic of conversation, designated as transduction, is not the connection through the identification of the beginning and the end of the discourse, which is appropriate and necessary within the speech of each of the conversationalists, but the connection of the beginnings of these discordant discourses among themselves.