Wesleyan University

Making History, Talking about History

Author(s): Jose Carlos Bermejo Barrera
Source: History and Theory, Vol. 40, No. 2 (May, 2001), pp. 190-205
Published by: Blackwell Publishing for Wesleyan University
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? Wesleyan University 2001 ISSN: 0018-2656

Histoty and Theory40 (May 2001), 190-205

MAKING HISTORY, TALKING ABOUT HISTORY

JOSE CARLOS BERMEJOBARRERA

ABSTRACT

Makinghistory-in the sense of writingit-is often set againsttalking aboutit, with most
historiansconsideringwritinghistoryto be betterthantalkingaboutit. My aim in this article is to analyze the topic of makinghistoryversus talking abouthistoryin orderto understandmost historians'evident decision to ignore talking abouthistory.Ultimatelymy goal
is to determinewhetherit is possible to talk abouthistory with any sense.
To this end, I will establisha typology of the differentforms of talkingpracticedby historians,using a chronologicalapproach,from the GreekandRomanemphasison the visual witness to present-daynarrativismand textual analysis. Having recognized the peculiar
textualcharacterof the historiographicalwork, I will then discuss whetherone can speak
of a method for analyzing historiographicalworks. After considering two possible
approaches-the philosophy of science and literarycriticism-I offer my own proposal.
This involves breakingthe dichotomy between making and talking about history, adopting a fuzzy methodthatovercomes the isolation of self-namedscientificcommunities,and
that destroys the barriersamong disciplines that work with the same texts but often from
mutually excluding perspectives. Talking about history is only possible if one knows
about history and about its sources and methods, but also about the foundationsof the
other social sciences and about the continuing importanceof traditionalphilosophical
problemsof Westernthoughtin the fields of history and the humansciences.
In everyday life, we often set making things against talking about things, supposing that it is always better to make them than to talk about them, or, in other
words, that acting is better than talking. This idea, commonplace in our colloquial language but one that has also extended to literature and philosophy, can
also be observed in the domain of history, in which we must distinguish the double meaning of the word "history." Making history can mean to "star" (individually or collectively) in historical events-but this is not the meaning in which I
am now interested. However, making history is also a synonym for writing and
publishing works of historiography; given this meaning, talking about history
would therefore be to converse about such written works without making them
(either because of a lack of intention or capacity).
Consider the lack of interest in metahistorical reflections displayed by most
historians: among them it is considered better to write historiographical works
than to analyze them. "True" historians are those who produce great historiographical works, leaving reflection on history to marginal areas, such as books
on "thoughts about history" that some historians write as they reach maturity. In

MAKING HISTORY,TALKINGABOUT HISTORY

191

the Spanishcase, until recentlythe only contactthathistorianshave had with historiographicalreflectionhas been throughtheirreportsin competitionsfor a university chair, where they are supposed to develop the "concept, method, and
sources"of their subject.
My aim is to analyze the topic of making history versus talking abouthistory
in orderto understandmost historians'evident decision to ignore talking about
history.Ultimately my goal is to determinewhether it is possible to talk about
history with any sense.
I

Note firstthat every historian(not only those who write historiographicalworks

but also those who write aboutthem) is in fact talkingor writing.My firsttask is
to establish a typology of the differentforms of talking practicedby historians.
To this end it will be convenient to pose some questions:
Who is speakingin the historicaltext?
To whom is the historicaltext addressed?
In what capacity is the speakerspeaking?
What is the speakerspeaking about?
We must first answerthese questions and then we will be able to understandif it
still makes any sense to set makinghistory againsttalking abouthistory,and if it
is possible to practicethis second activity with a method. I wish to startwith the
earliestforms of historiographyin orderto establisha genealogy of currentways
of speaking.So, let's go back to the origin of the Westerntraditionin which our
most ancient linguistic and literaryarchetypesare established,that is to say, the
Greek world.
When we consider Greek historiography,our attentionis first attractedby the
fact thatthe historianis not an absentnarrativevoice (the sine qua non condition
for "historicaldiscourse"accordingto RolandBarthes'sfamous analysis). On the
contrary,the historiansays clearly who he is (it is always a man, of course), and
then who is speakingin his work. So Herodotusbegins his books: "Theseare the
researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus,which he publishes, in the hope of
therebypreservingfrom decay the remembranceof what we have done, and of
preventingthe greatand wonderfulactions of the Greeksand the barbariansfrom
losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were their
grounds of feuds" (I., 1, transl. George Rawlinson). And Thucydides states:
"Thucydides,an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians,beginning at the momentthatit brokeout, andbelieving that it would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any that had
precededit" (I. 1, transl.RichardCrawley).
The referenceto the authorwas a constantin most ancient firsthandhistoriographicalworks-that is, in those historiographicalworks that are not the result
of reviewing previous books of history.So the traditionbegun in the fifth century remainedvalid, for instance in the first centuryBC with Dionysus of Halicar-

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JOSE CARLOS BERMEJOBARRERA

nassus: "In some way against my own will, I'm obliged to introducethese preliminarypersonalobservationsthat are a too common featurein the prefaces of
historicalworks"(I., 1). This traditionwas transmittedfrom the Greek world to
the Jewish one in the first centuryAD, throughthe figure of Flavius Josephus,
who startsby saying: "My name is Flavius Josephus,son of Mathias.Because of
my origins, I am a Hebrew from Jerusalem;because of my profession, I am a
priest. I offered my services againstthe Romans in the firstpartof the war and I
was a forced spectatorof the late ones" (1., 1). Continuingto the end of ancient
times, we find Procopius of Caesarea, who lived in the sixth century AD:
"Procopiusof Caesareahas written the history of the different wars waged by
Justinian, emperor of the Romans against the non-Romans of Orient and
Occident.His object has been thatof avoiding the situationin which very important events are exposed, withoutbeing registered,to the victorious attacksof the
infinitetime thatthreatenedto throwthem into the abyss of oblivion, where their
memory would completely vanish"(1., 1).
In ancienthistoriography,historiansconsideredit necessaryto introducethemselves: that is the guaranteeof their work's veracity.This is because historians
shapedtheir work undera visual paradigm.The historianis, above all, someone
who sees and hears the events and who is able to offer a reliable narration
because he is a visual witness. In this sense, one could establish a clear parallel
between historicalresearchand legal inquiry.In both cases, one has to confirm
an event of the near or far past whose main charactersare totally or partially
absent-the murderercan be presentbut not the victim; or, if both are present,
one has to reconstructan event of some time ago: an offense or a fault relatedin
the protagonists'or witnesses' contradictoryversions.
In Greeklegal trialsthe witnesses' appearance,and the differentspeeches that
they or the plaintiff and the accused developed in front of the popularjury, were
fundamental;the idea of proof, on the contrary,was of relatively secondary
importance.' (A proof in a trial transmits information that clarifies people's
behaviorin the past. The informationis containedin the object, and this object
is valid by itself.) Since that object is independentof the discourses of the parties involved, we modernsusually value its informationmore than the information containedin the litigants' discourses. But in Hellenic juridical practice this
was not the case. That is probablyone of the reasons why documentsplayed a
secondaryrole in classical historiography.
The Greekhistorianthoughtof himself as a witness who describes what he is
seeing.2 Therefore,the main methodological debate in Hellenic historiography
was thatbetween the eye and the ear, between the value of direct visual testimony and the value of the text. In general, one's own or anotherhistorian'svisual
testimony was preferred;the text had a secondaryvalue, that of an inscriptionor
a literaryone. Besides, the Greeksconsideredthatin the inscriptionor in the text
1. On this subject, see Paulo Butti di Lima, L'Inchiestae la prova: Immaginestoriografica,pratica e giuridica e retorica nella Grecia classica (Torino:Einaudi, 1996).
2. See Andr6Sauge, De lepopee ai i'histoire: Fondementde la notion d'historie (Paris:PeterLang,
1992).

MAKING HISTORY,TALKINGABOUT HISTORY

193

there is always a subject that speaks, either the literary text's author or the
inscriptionitself,3 so we could say that for the Greeks the enunciatingfunction
has a privilegedimportance.
It seems clear, then, that in the Hellenic world the historianidentifiedhimself
with a concreteperson who makes referencesto his city, ancestry,or profession;
it is his own person and his quality as visual witness that operatesas a guarantee
of the veracityof his information.Thus, to our question, "who is speakingin the
historical text?" the ancients would answer that it was a witness to the events
described.And to our question, "in what capacity is the historianspeaking?"the
answeris, as a direct observer.
In response to our questions of to whom the historian speaks, the ancients
would answer that he talks to his fellow citizens with the aim of saving from
oblivion a set of facts thathe considersnot only worthmentioningbut also worth
remembering.In this way, historians,as do the epic poets, free the people and the
great facts of long ago from oblivion by making them the objects of remembrance. This makes clear the etymological connection between ale'theia(truth)
and a-Mthos(the negation of oblivion).
The historiantalks to his fellow citizens so they can recall the facts of the past
not out of simple curiosity but in orderto take from them a moral lesson. From
this comes the role of the Ciceronian historia magistra vitae and its lessons
always centeredin the field of politics. The knowledge of history and geography
is of great utility among the Greeks and Romans who, because of their birth or
because of the magistracythey hold, will be dedicatedto the governmentor to
military activities. So Strabo points out in the first book of his Geography.
Authorslike ValeriusMaximus select MemorableFacts and Proverbsthat offer
the public an easy-to-assimilatecollection of them, and others like Polienus will
gatherin theirStratagematatactics thatareprofitablefor a generalin a campaign.
Greek and Roman historiographiesare basically political-militaryones. In
both worlds, historyhas no sense apartfrom the polis or RomaAeterna. History
is a literary genre inseparable from the exercise and reflection over archer'
(power). Its addresseesare males, citizens and warriorswho live in the world of
the city and the world of politics-a world where oratoryplays a key role in the
judicial and political arenas; a world where the facts have sense only when
framedin a discourseaboutpolitical andpersonalidentity,discourseto which the
historiographicalgenre was destinedto contribute.4
In this configurationof historicalknowledge, it does not make much sense to
set makinghistory againsttalking aboutit. Many historians,such as Thucydides,
Xenophon, or Flavius Josephus, "made"history as military men or generals.
Moreover, in ancient times historiographywas nothing but a way of talking,
nothingbut a literarygenre. History,as shown by Aristotlein the Poetics, cannot
be a partof philosophy,and so stays out of the kingdom of thinking and reflec3. See Jesper Svenbro, Phrasikleia: Anthropologie de la lecture en Grece ancienne (Paris: La
D6couverte, 1988).
4. About the role of oratoryin the polis, see Nicole Loraux, L'inventiond'Athhnes:Histoire de
l'oraison funbre dans la cite classique (Paris:Mouton, 1981).

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JOSE CARLOS BERMEJOBARRERA

tion. Doing and telling are relatedto each other as praxis and legomena, as political action and discourse about it-which are, in the last analysis, part and parcel of the same process. The ancienthistoriancan be a travelerand a politician,
like Herodotus;a magistrateand a militaryman, like Thucydidesand Xenophon;
or a priest engaged as soldier and politician, like Flavius Josephus,who because
of defeat (Flavius Josephus and Polybius) or exile (Xenophon and probably
Thucydides5),simply decides to stop making history and startthinking about it
and, therefore,writing it.
Whereone can find a tension is between writinghistory andthinkingaboutthe
writing of history,because the latter is part of poetics and as such is one of the
partsof philosophy.Thus a contrastcan appearbetween some historians'active
life (political activity) and the philosophicaltype of life (the bios theoretik6s)or
the contemplativelife that is most characteristicof a philosopher.6
The world of ancient historiographyis, then, substantiallydifferentfrom the
world of contemporaryhistoriography.
II

The classical historiographicaltraditiondisappearedwith the end of the Roman

Empireandwith the diffusion of Christianity.In our genealogical travelsin quest
of understandingthe commonplacedistinction"making/talking,"Christiantradition is an intermediatelink between the ancientworld and contemporaryEurope.
The power configurationdeveloped in medieval and modem Europe will introduce some new elements that will enable us to understandthe presentsituation.
If we study the third-centuryChristianhistoriographicaltradition,we will see
thattwo basic innovationswere introduced.On the one hand,to the classical historiographicaltraditionwith its military-politicalorientationis added a new historiographicalgenre: the history of the Church,begun by Eusebius of Caesarea.
The beginning of the history of the Churchimplies a basic change in the conception of writinghistory,notjust because a new subjectis introduced(the ecclesiastic community), but because that community is associated with two new
notions: the historicalprocess and the sacredtext.
The Christiancommunitywas, first of all, a communitythat, even though its
origin was in a ratherconcrete place, spreadall throughthe Mediterraneanarea
and the Roman Empire. This community only became a coherent institutional
machine as the Councils developed and, above all, after the primacy of the
Bishop of Rome was established. Until then, the different churches developed
their local traditionsand rites, and graduallycreated their sacred text corpora;
these were not unified until a canon was fixed in the fourth centuryAD. Only
when this process was complete did the Churchdefine itself as catholic, and only
5. Thucydides'exile-a historiographicalcommonplaceestablishedsince ancienttimes-has been
questioned by Luciano Canfora, Le mystere Thucydide: Enque~teai partir dAristote (Paris:
Desjonqueres,1998).
6. About ancient philosophy, understoodas a type of life, see Pierre Hadot, g Que es la filosofta
antigua? [Paris, 1995] (Mexico City: FCE, 1998).

MAKING HISTORY,TALKINGABOUT HISTORY

195

then did it appearas an institutionalmachine based on a common history as to

its origins, its avatarsthroughthe prosecutions,and its triumphin a traditionthat
was supposedly shapedby the Gospels and Paul's Epistles.
This corpus of texts is added to the Old Testament, appropriatedfrom the
Jewish traditionby a Churchthat defines itself as the verus Israel, and that possesses its inspirednaturein common with more recentwritings.Both Testaments
have been revealed by God; their texts have a value by themselves; they are
beyond ordinarylanguage; and they are objects of conservation,constant reading, and exegesis. The sacredtexts are the receivers of the set of all truths;in this
way the paganliterarycanon is replacedby the Christianone. They give the only
valid vision of the world; their authoritycannotbe dissociated from the authority of the Church-the only authorizedinterpreterof them, either through its
Councils or throughits wise men.
The historyof the churchis to be found in a set of texts and objectsused as testimonies.The first Christiancommunitiescommunicatedwith each otherthrough
epistlesin which theirfounders,such as Paul,developedtheirdoctrinesandguided
theirevolution.In the age of the prosecutions,Churchhistorianscollectedthe testimoniesof the martyrs,eitherrecordingtheActs of theirtrialsor keepingtheirrelics.
The relic and the act are objects: a fragmentof a body, a piece of cloth, or a
writtentext that contains a truthin itself and possesses a value in itself. That is
why relics are kept, collected, and exchanged;and why the texts are transmitted
or produced,creatinga whole type of literature:the hagiography,in which martyrs and the (real or imaginary)saints play a key role as prestige instrumentsof
those institutions(monasteries,cathedrals)that either are the receivers of their
remainsor plot a story to set them in relationto themselves.
Relics and texts create the substratumfrom which not only historiographical
activity is developed but also from which that activity is related to social and
power relations.Fromthe object andthe text one can go to the real worldbecause
the real world is based in the possession of some objects and in the exegesis of
some texts. Those objects and texts also make referenceto the past, to the origins:
the Gospels, the time of the prosecutions,the Acts, and to the institutionaldevelopmentof the Church,the descriptionof heresies, Councils, and so on.
The history of the Churchis then shapedin a way substantiallydifferentfrom
classical historiography,because it is not generatedfrom direct testimony in the
same sense as in the Greek tradition.The Evangelists are supposed to be contemporariesof Christ,but in their texts their personal testimony is not so interesting because their frameworkmust contain not only historical elements but
also scripturalones: Jesus' life fulfills the ancient prophets'prophecies. Thus a
text-the Old Testament-prevailed over the describedfacts. Besides, the facts
that are describeddo not refer to just any person, nor can they ever be repeated,
as can those describedby classical historians;they took place only once in history and they have only one protagonist.That protagonist,those facts, and those
texts have a sacred value that is the origin of the sense of the historicalprocess
and that works as the basis for the existing social order.

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JOSE CARLOS BERMEJOBARRERA

The Christian authors, following the ancient philologists' labor and the
exegetic activity developed in Judaismby Philon of Alexandria,developed the
hermeneuticsof the sacredtexts. It begins with the existence of a text corpus that
hides differenttypes of truths about the world and humanity,among them, the
secret of the historical process: its sense, identified with the "historyof salvation."Those texts-recipients of historicalreality-also have to be interpretedin
accordancewith only one method, the corrector orthodoxmethod of reading, a
method embodied in the institutionof the Churchthat develops its interpretive
tradition.7The text cannotbe dissociatedfrom a readingmethod and, at the same
time, text and method are inseparablefrom an institution.
This configurationof knowledge is particularlyinterestingfor us, genealogists
of contemporaryknowledge, because here we find the root of the "historical
method"'or at least one of its roots. If we examine the configurationof historical knowledge about the Churchin Christianityin accordancewith our opening
four questions,we will see thatin relationto the first(who is speaking?),the classical historianwho announceshimself as located in a particularspace and time
is replaced by an absent narratorwho describes the creation of the world in
Genesis-in fact, who could have been there?-up through the foundationby
Jesus of his Churchto its triumphwith Constantinethe First. This is clearly the
case in the work of Eusebius of Caesarea.
Of course,Eusebiusis not talkingto his fellow citizens but to the communityof
believers who are partof what he considersthe orthodoxy,so that only by taking
partat the beginningcan we have access to the historicaltruth.He speaks in the
capacityof an orthodoxbishop, thatis to say, as a personwho knows the tradition
of the sacredtexts, who interpretsthem correctly,and also who is institutionally
situatedin the Churchand politicallyin the empirein the partyof the truth.
Christianhistorypurportsto be the "historyof salvation."This history is identified with universalhistory as it was understoodin the pagan tradition,that is to
say reaching its highest point in the expansion of the Roman Empire; but it
claims to surpassthe pagan traditionthe moment SaintAugustine in De Civitate
Dei establishedthe distinctionbetween the two cities: that of the world and that
of God. Both are intermingled,but the Augustiniantheology of history enabled
Christiansto follow the trail of the city of God from its origins until the Last
Judgment.In this way, SaintAugustine introducedanotherof the key notions of
futureWesternhistoriographicaltradition,namely,progress.
Historyis not only a progressthatcan be describedin a narrative,but a process
endowed with a profoundsense. If we deal with the propertext corpus-in this
case both Testaments-and we interpretit in accordance with the proper (or
orthodox)method, we can grasp this sense hidden in the root of events. History
is thereby transformedinto something more than a mere narrative.History can
7. For philosophicalanalysis of hermeneuticactivity, see Hans-GeorgGadamer,Verdady metodo,
I and II, (Salamanca:Sigueme, 1993) (Truthand Method [New York:Crossroad,1990]; Wahrheitund
Methode [Tibingen: Mohr, 1975]), and F. D. E. Schleiermacher,Hermeneutique(Paris: Du Cerf,
1987). (This is the edition of his courses of 1819, first publishedin 1838.)

MAKING HISTORY,TALKINGABOUT HISTORY

197

no more be a mere literarygenre thatgraspsprogress;it is the method that gives

us the key to true being. Augustiniantheology of history surpassesnot only historiographybut also ancientphilosophy,as Christianityhad surpassedpaganism.
Sacred history is knowledge of philosophicalprofundity,the remaininghistory
of events, as Orosius will describe it.
This configurationof historicalknowledgewill last in Europeuntilthe earlymodem ages, when its most eminent representativeis Bossuet. It will only lose its
strengthwiththe developmentof theEnlightenmentandthebirthof modemscience.
III

If we seek to understandthe presenthistoriographicalsphere,we must introduce

a new notion, that of historical process. This can no longer be understoodin
Augustinian,and thereforetranscendental,terms,but in strictlyhumantermsand
thus as possessing a purely immanentcharacter.
Withthe developmentof humanismtherewas a returnto the classical historiographicaltradition.It is well known that the thinkerswho begin the modem tradition of the analysis of power, such as Machiavelli in his Discourses about the
First Decade of TitusLiviusandThomasHobbes in his translationof Thucydides,
drankonce again of the Greek and Roman historiographicalspring.They did so
with the purpose of becoming emancipatedfrom the weight of the Augustinian
historiographicaltradition.This coming back to the classical traditionwas in part
an attemptto understandhistoricaldevelopmentas a merely humanprocess, and
thereforean exclusively worldly one, in which its sense was given by the very
events themselves and not by transcendentalcircumstancesalien to them.
This humanisthistoriographical
traditionwas fulfilledin the Enlightenmentwith
Voltaire's The Philosophy of History-an answer to Bossuet's Discourse on
UniversalHistory.The aim of ThePhilosophyof Historywas to uncovera hidden
sense in humanevents thatcould be formulatedas (one of) a set of laws of the historicalprocess itself. The new protagonistof this process,humankind,finds complete sense in the developmentof its own definingpowers.Voltaire,Condorcet,and
Turgotall saw this developmentas the structuringlaw of the historicalprocess.
But this formulationof historicalknowledge would have not been possible if
modern physics had not been developed in a parallel way, particularlyin its
canonical Newtonian formulation.The developmentof mathematicalphysicsachieved thanksto a conceptualizationof the world as a res extensa, and thanks
to the reductionof the bodies of the physical world to a set of attributesthat can
be mathematicallyformulated-underwrote the idea of scientific method. Since
the end of the seventeenthcentury,the "certainway of science,"to use an expression so much loved by Kant, allowed differenttypes of knowledge to develop in
accordancewith some absolutely certain rules, which, combined with the thorough observation of facts, are the steady guarantee of our success. Modern
physics thereforeunites observationor descriptionand analysis, and thanks to
both can also make some predictions, as in the case of Halley's comet, whose
returnwas consideredthe definitive confirmationof Newtonian physics.

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JOSE CARLOS BERMEJOBARRERA

In the field of the human sciences, authorssuch as Hume in his A Treatiseof

Human Nature tried to develop a science of the human being equivalent to
Newtonianphysics; this traditioncontinuedin the nineteenthcenturyby authors
who sought to create new sciences that would replace the old history and thus
become the summit of the pyramid of the sciences. This is most evident in
Comte's Cours de Philosophie Positive, publishedin 1830. However, this transfigurationof historyinto what would be definedas science did not follow Hume's
tracksbut ratherstartedfrom Germanhistoricism.
Germanhistoricists, headed by L. von Ranke,8conceived history as knowledge that designates itself as scientific thanks to a double process: an external
one, in which historians'partwould be limited, and an internalone, in which they
are protagonists.The externalprocess is inseparablefrom the State-Nationconfiguration,which took historyas the ontological foundationof its existence (having lost its theological foundation in the Enlightenment), and in which the
process of the institutionalizationof history was to be developed in the different
levels of educationand in researchof the state's monumentaland documentary
heritage. At an internal level-inseparable from the previous one-historical
knowledge was to acquirea new configurationthanksto the introductionof two
notions:that of document,or what we could define as the "documentaryrevolution";and that of the scientific method.
The notion of a document is not an invention of the nineteenthcentury;we
have alreadyseen that it existed in ancient times and that Christianauthorsalso
made use of it. New was the systematic use of documents. Documentarycriticism had been bornin the seventeenthcenturyin the field of Churchhistory,with
the aim of distinguishingin the hagiographieswhich documentswere authentic
among the greatnumberof fakes. By the nineteenthcenturythese methods, also
used by classical philologists such as Ranke, were now to be appliedto any type
of source, creatingin this way an unshakablebasis on which historical knowledge could be reconstructed.
A great continuityexists between the Christianconception of the text and the
conception of the text in contemporaryhistorical discourse. In both cases, the
notion of a textual corpus is used, and a correspondenceis believed to exist
between this corpus and reality.Reality is hidden in the body of the texts, which
are not only a necessary condition for knowledge of it but also a sufficientcondition;knowing them is enough.As the sacredtext hid all possible truths,the historical text keeps them in its bosom.
The text is the place of the truth,but to make this truthclear it is necessaryto
read and interpretit. There are methodsof readingand translationif the text is in
anotherlanguage. But there must also be hermeneuticmethods, or methods of
interpretation:those that constitute the "historian'sjob." What are these methods? In the Christiantradition,the hermeneuticoperationis understoodas a reading operation.Historians, as well as exegetes of the sacred text, also read, but
8. See LeonardKrieger,Ranke: The Meaning of History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1977).

MAKING HISTORY,TALKINGABOUT HISTORY

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they think they are doing more than readingbecause they startfrom readingthe
sources and transferringtheir informationto their own texts, thus evoking or
resuscitatingthe past.
It is interestingto note that until quite recently-until the last twenty years
with its developmentof narrativism-historians have denigratedthe importance
of reading documents and of writing historical texts. The Germanhistoricists,
particularlyRanke, follow the visual paradigmthat, as we saw, was characteristic of classical historiography.Historianssupposedlysaw the past throughdocuments and transferredthat vision directly to their texts, without any linguistic,
ideological, or psychological obstacle. In his metaphorsRanke even compared
historians'mission with a priest'smission andtheirpanopticalvision with God's.
In fact, only God could be the true historian,because he is the only one who can
contemplatethe whole historicalprocess and give an account of its sense.
We do not need to step in now in the complex elaborationprocess of historical knowledge that goes from the setting-upand reading of some sources up to
the interpretationof the sense of history.9But we should highlight its final phase
that consists in recognizing that in a text a mutualcorrespondencedoes not exist
between its statementsand their referents.
A historical statementdoes not refer only to a real fact, as when we say, "the
cat is on the carpet."We have to distinguishthree differentlevels of meaning in
it. A historical statement-that usually results from reading one or more documents or from analyzinga set of objects-has, first,a reference.So when we say,
"The Wehrmachtwas defeated in Stalingrad,"we are referringto the concrete
result of a particularbattle that took place in a concrete moment and a concrete
place. But if we include the battle of Stalingradin a frameworkthat gives it a
sense-say, the Second WorldWar-we can pass from the referenceof the statement to its second level of meaning,that of its sense. The only way for a historical event to reachthis level is to be includedin a narrative.10This does not mean
thatthe narrativecreatesevents from the void. Events and the narrativesin which
they figure standin a dialecticalrelation.But the narrativehas a certainpriority,
since it is in the narrativewhere the languageto describean event is established,
throughwhich the historianspeaks.A non-statedfact, a fact reducedto the kingdom of silence, can never become a historicalevent if it does not cross the language barrier.
But apartfrom these two levels of meaningwe have to distinguisha thirdone.
It is the symbolic connotationof the statementthat sets it in contact with the set
of value systems, symbols, and feelings typical in differentnational,ethnic, religious, cultural,or genre communities.For the Germans,Stalingradevokes a set
of feelings and ideas opposite to those evoked for the Soviets, or for people who
regardthe war from a pacifist perspective.
9. I have triedto analyze this process in my book, Fundainentacionkigica de la historia (Madrid:
Akal, 1991).
10. In this sense, see Miguel Morey, El orden de los acontecimientos:Sobre el saber narrativo
(Barcelona:Peninsula,1988); and the set of Paul Ricoeur'sworks compiled in Historiay narratividad
(Barcelona:Paid6s, 1999).

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These threelevels of meaningbreakthe stabilityof meaningof historicalstatementsandtransformthem into open or fuzzy statements,in which it is particularly
difficultto establishtheirmeaningsin a uniqueform.This meansthatthe idea that
a historicalmethodexists is hardlysustainablebecause the possibilityof interpretationalways remainsopen. Every text can be read in differentways; there is not
only one kindof hermeneuticsto its reading,andstartingfromthis readingit is possible to make differentrational(as well as irrational)reconstructionsof the past.
But why do historiansbelieve thatthereis only one methodthatallows them to
makehistory,andthatdistinguishesthemfromthosewho arelimitedto talkingabout
it? In the case of the historyof the Churchwe saw thatthe key for a correctreading
of the sacredtexts was given by a previouscompromise,one thatplaces the reader
in the orthodoxtradition.This readinghadto do with a certaintype of interpretation.
In the case of the historianthereis somethingsimilar.The historianis supposedly
capableof carryingout the rightreadingof a textbecauseit is placedin a hermeneutic traditionthat,as in the case of the Christianbeliever,is determinedby its belonging to a certaincommunity:in this case, the so-calledscientificcommunity.
The text is the place of the truth;in it is the possibilityof its being stated.But that
potentialonlybecomesactualif interpreters
producea discourseacceptableinsidethe
historians'community.Thismightmean,as in the realisttradition,thatthe truthis out
there-in the worldand in the text. But this would be somewhatmisleading,as the
worlddoes not producestatements;it is we, the speakersand ourlinguisticcommunities,who producethem,who expressthe truthon the basis of consent.
Also, the truthin a historicaltext is articulatedon differentlevels. A historical
statementis truebecause of its capacityto refer to an event in certainspatiotemporal coordinates.But this truth,stated in ancienttimes by the visual witness, is
only open to modem historians on the basis of their work on the sources.
Moreover,historicalstatementsare true in a secondarysense, namely, as revealing the sense of events. This second type of truthis only generatedin a discourse
belonging to a certain hermeneutictradition.And the third type of truth-one
that capturesthe connotationsof an event described in a certain way-is itself
only producedvia the symbolic association of particularcommunities.
Historians,however,seem to preferan ontological conceptionof truth,as conceived by Martin Heidegger.1IThey think they can state and savor the same
things. Nevertheless, given what we have seen, this is nothing but an illusion,
perhaps created by the capacity of historical narrationto produce the "reality
effect" as describedby Roland Barthes.It also fulfills an ideological mission, as
in this way the historicalnarrativesupposedlyproduces a certainsocial conception of realitythat will be supportedby differentpolitical powers throughits diffusion in educationand in differentdiscourses and means of propaganda,inseparablefrom the exercise of power.
Historianswho "makehistory"are, therefore,apparentlysure of theirjobs, for
three reasons. First, because they think that there is a reality that works as a ref11. See MartinHeidegger,La preguntapor la cosa [1963] (BuenosAires: EditorialAlfa Argentina,
1975).

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erent of their statements. Second, because they think they have access to that
reality throughthe historical sources whose transmissionseems to be ruled by a
sort of providentiallaw responsible for transmittingglobally enough sources to
make historicalknowledge possible. Those sources are the set of the text corpora.And third,because historycan be madebecause those corporacan be read and
interpretedthrougha method. Behind this attitudeis the thought that history is
basically a way of talking about the past that can be developed orally, in classical historiographyand in presentoral history,or throughthe use of documentary
sources, either archaeologicalor artistic.
However,the use of sourcescomplicatesthis way of talking,becausehistorians
cannotnarratewhatthey saw or whatthey remember,but only interprethow others
beheldit, creatingdifferentdiscoursesin orderto fashiontheirown discourseabout
a referentinvisibleby definition.In this way, ontologicalsecurityis snatchedfrom
professionalhistorians:their work is just one instance of rationalconversation
among individualsand groups.This insightmight force them to give up, perhaps,
thatdisdainwith whichthose who "makehistory"treatthose "metahistorians"
dedicatedonly to talkingabouthow historyis written.In any case, in orderto complete
the picturewe mustreflecton whatthe significanceof talkingabouthistoryis, and
whetherone can expect an academiccommunityto arisefrom it.
IV

Historiographicaltexts have typically been read in eitherof two ways. First,they

have been read as manifestationsof historicalmethod;in this case they are analyzed by using the sources and methodologyto readthe notes and to comprehend
the historiographicalreferences.Or second, they can be read as manifestationsof
historicalreality itself, which we learnaboutas we readthe text. In this case, not
only is the historicaltext disregardedbut also the operationof readingit, because
here the text ceases to be a text: it is a window on reality itself. Thus in both
approachesthe textual characterof history is downplayed.
In contrastto these positions, I want to emphasizethe peculiartextual character of the historiographicalwork. But once one has recognizedthis textuality,the
real problem arises: can one speak of a method for analyzing historiographical
works?And if so, what is this method?Two antitheticalanswersto this question
have been provided. The first takes history to be a science, in which case the
method that allows us to analyze historiographicalworks would be the philosophy of science. The second takes historyto be a humanistictext, in which case the
disciplines of rhetoricand literarycriticism would account for historiographical
works.In both these cases we would findthatin additionto historianstherewould
rise scientificcommunitiesof eitherphilosophersof science or theoreticiansof literaturewho would offer an accountof what in fact is a historiographicalwork.
I do not need to examine the validity of these two proposalsbefore offeringmy
own. But as an aside I do wish to note that, concerningthe first, nowadays philosophy of science is characterizedby not being able to establisha set of minimal

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conditions that allows one to distinguish a science from what is not a science.
Because of this, the sociology of science and ethnomethodology,which center
theirattentionon the analysisof scientificcommunities,theirvalues, theirbeliefs,
and their concrete working methods, are becoming more and more important.'2
Moreover,it also seems evident that the presentphilosophy of science scarcely
contributesto the modificationof scientists'praxis,but is limited to analyzingit.
History cannothave any hope for its renovationfrom the philosophy of science;
at most it can hope only to become conscious of its innerfunctioning.
Concerningthe theory of literatureit seems to be clear, in spite of the pretensions to hegemony of literarycritics-above all in the US-that the mere theory
of literaturecan give an accountneitherof all the dimensionsof historians'work
nor even of literarywork. The so-called "new historicism"has made it clear in
this field how for the comprehensionof literaryworks it is necessary to refer to
the historicalcontexts in which those texts make sense.13Economical and social
relations, the world of values, collective beliefs, and psychology are basic to
reachinga full comprehensionof the literarytext. We canjustifiablysay the same
about the historicaltext, in the productionof which the historianis conditioned
not only by the tropes of language and the types of plot (analyzed by Hayden
White14),but also by constantreferenceto the sources and by the use of consensual methods.
Thus we will have to agree with the practitionersof history: those who talk
aboutthe history of historiographydo not have a method, and maybe because of
thatthey are not a scientific community.In fact, theoreticiansof historyhave several differentorigins: eitherthey are historians(which today is not the main tendency), or philosophers,or literarycritics (quite usual among the narrativists).
Anyway, it is quite strangeto find a full-time professionalworkingin this branch
of historical knowledge, since each type of historiographyis mainly cultivated
by specialists in the correspondingage's history. Perhapsthe most that can be
said is that the "methods"of historiographyare at most fuzzy.
But what can we expect of fuzzy methods?The answerto this is complicated
by the fact thatmetahistoryhas includeda numberof differentdisciplines. Let us
see which ones.
At the lowest level is the historyof historiography.This has to work at a more
concrete level and go up a little above the simple bibliographicalstudy of the
works aboutan age or a certainproblem.This discipline analyzes historiographical productionhistorically-its social, ideological, or whateverdeterminingfactors, as well as the historicalimpact of historiographicalworks. To do this, however, it must have some type of theory aboutthe sort of processes and works that
12. For overviews, see Javier Echeverria,Filosofia de la ciencia (Madrid:Akal, 1995); Emilio
Lamo de Espinosa, Jos6 Maria Gonzalez Garcia, and Cristobal Torres Albero, La sociologia del
conocimiento y de la ciencia (Madrid:Alianza, 1994); and Jose A. Diez and C. Ulises Moulines,
Fundamentosdefilosoffa de la ciencia (Barcelona:Ariel, 1997).
13. On this movement see Paul Hamilton,Historicism (London:Routledge, 1989).
14. About these limitations,see my "L'architecturede l'imagination,"Storia de la storiografia25
(1994), 103-120.

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it is analyzing, and thereforehistoriographyis sometimes intermingledwith the

methodology of history.
The methodologyof history,besides having a normativedimensionor, what is
the same, besides being formed by a set of rules that explain how history can be
made, also has a historiographicaldimension and a theoreticalside. It has a historiographicaldimensionbecause to formulatethese recipes it has to startfrom a
corpus of existing historiographicalworks. And it has a theoretical dimension
because every normativeenterpriseneeds, as an example, a theoreticalmodel to
be developed.
But where would theory be situated?In some instances, the word "theory"is
used in an epistemologicalsense, so theory and epistemology of historycould be
consideredas the same thing, such that epistemology of history is close to general epistemology or to the philosophy of science. But in other cases-this used
to happenin the traditionof historical materialism-the word "theory"referred
not to the descriptiveaspect of historybut to its interpretiveaspect,to the science
defined as a specific discipline and so named "historicalmaterialism."This is a
science thatfollows the traditionof Hegelian philosophyof history,which claims
to provide clues for the comprehensionof the historicalprocess, and that sometimes can even be almost divorced from the historiographicaltradition,as E. P.
Thompsondenounced.15
We have then a field of study,common to the history of historiography,to the
methodology,and to the theory of history,in which startingfrom historiographical works one would have to understandtheir mechanismsof production,diffusion, and assimilation;their inner structure;and also the elaboraterules for their
production.In order to do all this one requires historical knowledge but also
anothersort of knowledge, basically a philosophicaland a literaryone.
Is this situationsatisfactory?Seemingly not, because historiansprivilege making historyover thinkingor talking aboutit, because they consider that this type
of reflectionis not carriedout with adequatemethod, and because its object does
not correspondto the task thatsuits the historian,thatis to say, thatof telling and
analyzingevents. Nowadays, when we pose our four questions to modernhistorians-in contrastwith ancient ones-they consider that it is not fitting to ask
who is talking,because eithernobody is talkingin a text of history or, metaphorically, it is the past itself that talks. It does not matterwho is talking because, as
we have a method, what the historianis saying could be said by any otherhistorian.Thatis precisely what is intended,to annulthe talkingsubjectandto replace
him or her with an absent narrator.
Historianstalk as professionalsfor their colleagues; or as patriots,in the case
of nationalhistory;or as committedmembersin a political fight for socialism, for
the equalitybetween sexes, and so on. But againstthe opinion of historians,the
changein themes,indeedthe ontology of the historiographicaldiscourse,does not
change its basic foundation,its profoundstructure.In this situation,how should
15. In Miseria de la teorfa (Barcelona:EditorialCritica, 1981) (The Poverty of Theoty [London:
Merlin Press, 1978]).

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those who talk abouthistorybe situated?First,we do not know who they are:historiansbored with theirjobs, philosophers,literarycritics, essayists.... It is difficultfor them to constitutea communityof dialogue, and consequentlymore difficult to constitutea scientific community,because, at the same time, all of them
belong to othercommunities:philosophers,literarycritics, historians....
Althoughthose who would talk abouthistoryhave an object in common-historiographicaltexts-they do not have a single clear method to approachthem.
They would have this if there were a perfectly formalizedtheory of history.But
lacking such a theory,metahistorianswill have to work with metaphorsand pretend thathistoryis a science and so employ the philosophyof science, or pretend
that history is a literarytext and so employ literarycriticism.The lack of definition and method only aggravatethe situation.
On the other hand, to whom are metahistoriansaddressing their works?
Perhapsto historians-but they do not pay much attentionto them. Or perhapsto
philosophersand literarycritics, if they considerthemselves similarto them. But
most typically to themselves, to a nonexisting communityformed by historians
separatedfrom the herd, skepticalor tired;by philosopherswith historicalinterests-which classifies them as "light"philosophers;by literarycritics with aims
of expandingtheir discipline; and by some studentsof history who either try to
get orientedor are not readyto accept being guided by well-worn ways. To constitutea scientific communityon these foundationsseems to be a bit hazardous.
But maybe the problemdoes not lie therebut in a very differentplace?
Scientific communities are historically constitutedwhen a certain species of
knowledgereaches an importantlevel of development.Think,for instance,of the
role played by the Royal Society, placed completely outsidethe universityframework, in the foundationof modernscience. What has priorityis not, then, to be
a scholarly community,but to limit a field of researchin such a way that a new
scientific communitycan be constitutedout of it in the future.
But is it possible to create a field in which one can talk about history with a
method?To answer this question affirmativelywe would first have to break the
dichotomybetween making and talking in the field of history.History builds its
objects startingfrom the constitutionof its documentarycorpora;it then develops different methods of reading and interpretingthe texts, methods that are
sometimes contradictoryand that are not reducibleto a common factor.History
is fuzzy knowledge-in the sense used to talk about fuzzy logic-precisely
accordingto the complexity of the phenomenait studies. Because of this, it cannot be closed knowledge; it cannotbe a science, but only knowledge at a particular phase of its constitution.The closed characterof historicalknowledge is an
optical illusion of historians,who confound the uses of their productswith laws
of universal value. Historians who think of history as based on a universal
methodare incapableof giving an accountnot only of historicaldevelopmentbut
also of the developmentof their own discipline, constantlyinfluencedas it is by
political, ideological, religious, genre, and all sorts of circumstances.One would
have to apply to the biggest partof historiansthatfamous phraseof Jesus on the

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cross: "Father,forgive them for they know not what they do." In this situation,
wantingto make history withouttalking aboutit is a suicidal proposalbecause it
would underminethe ideological functionsthat since the last centuryhave been
assigned to history,and because it would empty history of the historicalcircumstances that are a condition of its existence.
Talking about history ought to imply, on the contrary,overcoming academic
departments'self-namedscientific communitiesandbreakingthe barriersamong
a set of disciplines that sometimes work with the same texts but which readthem
from mutuallyexcluding perspectives.Talking about history is only possible if
one knows about history and about its sources and methods, but also about the
foundationsof other social sciences and aboutthe continuingimportanceof traditional philosophical problems of Westernthought in the fields of history and
the humansciences.
Fuzzy sets are characterizedby not having clearly defined limits. To this type
of set belong philosophy,history,and the social and humansciences. Theoretical
reflection or dialogue about these different types of knowledge start not from
their nuclei but from their outlines.16In fact, different intellectual movements,
such as Marxism,postmodernism,and so on, equally affect philosophy,literary
criticism, history,history of art, or anthropology.It will be then in these fuzzy
zones, common to all these differenttypes of knowledge, where one will have to
settle, if thatis not a contradiction.Probablywe will have to wanderamongthem
and, as we converse with the walkerswho wanderalong the same ways, establish
a dialogue that allows us, if not to know the end of the route, at least to understandthe otheras we walk along these HeideggerianHolzwege whose value consists precisely in their not going anywhere.It is there, where the philosopher,the
historian,andthe social scientist can meet one anotheras they leave theirhomes,
and wherethey will be able to breathethe air that allows them to live. Perhapsin
those walks one might finally meet new species thatcould keep alive our longing
for knowledge. In them we would be able to discover that the clue to many historiographicalquestionslies in posing old philosophicalproblems17and thatphilosophy itself and history share their basic problems with bigger sets of knowledge formedby the social and humansciences.
Universidadede Santiago de Compostela

16. About fuzzy logic, see Bart Kosko, Pensamiento borroso (Barcelona:EditorialCritica, 1995)
(Fuzzy Thinking:TheNew Science of FuzzyLogic [New York:Hyperion, 1993]).
17. I have explained this in some of my books. For historiographicalinterestin the philosophical
problem of evil or the ontological argument,see my Genealogia de la historia: Ensayos de historia
te6rica III (Madrid:Akal, 1999), 226-241 and 361-382.