Plurality Of Histories Research Articles

CHINESE HISTORICITY

This piece is an essay review of Wang Hui's book China from Empire to Nation-State (2014), which is a translation of the introduction to Wang's four-volume Rise of Modern Chinese Thought (2004). According to the reviewer, Wang studies less the modern history of China than its historicity and does so in the context of China's transition from being an empire, inhabiting a cosmos that is the product of its own self-reflection, to being one among a number of nation-states, inhabiting a number of histories of their own, all of which are now simultaneously present. But the Euro-American terms empire and nation-state, which increasingly pervade Chinese perceived realities, lack precise Chinese equivalents. Meanwhile, the terms that the Chinese use in referring to the same historical transition, tianli (“Heavenly Principle”) and gongli (“Universal Principle”), are obscure to the Euro-American mind. The reviewer asks whether the Chinese, now facing a plurality of histories, wonder if there may be a plurality of li (principles), as well, or at least if there can be a li that is “universal” in the sense that it is common to them all. The problem here, the reviewer argues, in part derives from Wang's binaries being Hegelian, while the breakdown of the nation-state in Europe projects a postpolitical order in which human communities are incapable of state-based action or of determining their own li (i.e., Geist). The review ends by questioning whether China is capable of following this path and, in any case, whether Wang's vocabulary is able to encompass it.

Isaiah Berlin and the plurality of histories: Two concepts of Karl Marx

This essay presents Isaiah Berlin's forceful, if somewhat neglected, case for what can be termed ‘pluralist historiography’—a perspective which seems to be of growing currency today. Drawing on Berlin's prolific critiques of scientific history, this essay shows how he presents history as a hybrid discipline—incorporating rational, interpretive and creative components—but also with a hard core of elements indispensable to effective historical writing, including grounding in the established historical facts, the exercise of empathetic imagination and their creative fusion into narrative form. Berlin thus embraces a bounded diversity of historical approaches which reveal both the diverse range of human forms of life, and a common ‘human horizon’ of basic needs, faculties and values that links them all together. This flexible approach both retains confidence in generally being able to attain a consensual judgment on the best available historical account, while also allowing for the possibility of irreducible disagreement. Drawing in particular on Berlin's ethical value pluralism, this essay argues that he regards irreducible disagreement as preferable, despite its potential inconveniences, to monist distortion. Finally, the essay illustrates the character and force of Berlin's historiography through a case study of two historical accounts of Karl Marx and the development of his thought, one offered by Berlin himself and the other by his erstwhile student and friend Gerald Cohen. It stresses in particular the two writers' distinctive approaches, divergent conclusions, and their mutual admiration and respect nonetheless. Finally, it suggests while readers may legitimately disagree with one another in their comparative judgments of the two accounts of Marx, and that this type of dispute may have an unfortunate polarizing effect on the historical discipline, that there are at least some consolations to be found in it. These consolations indeed help to explain the growing influence of pluralist historiography today.

A Berlin for Historians

On his death in 1997 Isaiah Berlin was widely hailed as a leading philosopher of political liberalism. This article takes the position that Berlin’s philosophical views, particularly those on freedom and cultural pluralism, can also be construed as a valuable guide for historians working in the present, “postmodernist” climate of debate. It further argues that Berlin’s character and career, the subjects already of considerable critical inquiry, lend added authority to these views. The focus is on three lengthy essays on history written by Berlin in the 1950s, one of which was first published in the first issue of this journal. The article concludes, following Berlin, that it is the responsibility of historians, as historians, to recognize the often incommensurate plurality of ultimate values to which their fellow human beings historically have subscribed and to judge, as judge they sometimes must, with that recognition fully in mind. If the result of these as well as the other choices that they make is a plurality of histories, of contending subjects, approaches, methods, and outcomes, that is only to be expected, indeed welcomed. It is freedom in practice, and infinitely preferable as such to any known alternative.

The Empire Hangs On

J. G. A. Pocock recently expressed skepticism about some aspects of the "new" British history. He noted that his original purpose in proposing such a history twenty-five years ago was to emphasize that Britain is constituted of a "plurality of histories"; the "pluralization of histories is intended to enhance their autonomy, not diminish it." Yet, Pocock notes, other scholars want to "bend" this approach "in other directions," away from multiplicity and complexity and toward a kind of homogenizing view of European history. As he puts it, pluralization "does not satisfy the Eurocratic mind. Any proposal to recount the British histories in their archipelagic settings is met with the response that this is not enough and the demand that they be situated in one more 'European.'" The "Eurocrats," Pocock suggests, underestimate the importance of national histories and national difference, and see in the "new" British history an opportunity to challenge the parochialism of English and American exceptionalisms, and even "to annihilate the histories of all particular nations." 1