Phenomenology and history

For most historians, I gather, phenomenology lies somewhat outside the bounds of the discipline. It is, in the tradition of English and American historiography, neither a ’speculative’ philosophy of history (usually exemplified by Hegel and deemed somewhat disreputable), nor an analytic one. Nor does it fall within the accepted practice of historians, for the moment. This may change – I’ve noticed quite a few new books on phenomenology available, usually aimed at introducing the reader to Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty etc, assuming that they are coming to these authors from a different tradition.

From time to time articles appear on a phenomenological approach to history – indicating that some anglophone historians are working within this tradition. But these have been appearing since not long after Husserl published his Crisis, with little broad take up by historians. The result is, such as in a review of a book by David Carr (the English translator of the Crisis) on time consciousness, narrative and history, a somewhat baffled one. They find it difficult to place – it does not fit into their categories.

However, I can’t help thinking that there would be much benefit for english-world historians to adapt their tradition to allow some take up of phenomenological themes. If you are to speak about the political affect of histories, of their connection with our social identity, our consciousness of people as members of particular communities, traditions, nations, each with their own histories, then a phenomenological approach has much to contribute. In particular, it reconnects historical inquiry with experiences of history, without reducing history to only the present-day creation of a narrative structure pasted over the top of a now irretrievable random structure of events . It is no longer simply a group of professionals speaking to themselves about obscure debates and the obscure past, but is connected with questions about what it might mean to remember, what it might mean to experience the past in a particular way. These questions are already asked – I’m not saying phenomenology has the only access pass to these thoughts, but it does possess a methodological rigour that is of value. Perhaps I am strawman-ing here, (in fact I’m almost certain of it), but sometimes the straw man is real.

For some thoughts about what it might mean to experience the past, have a look at Meredith’s posts on memory in Berlin – on the way that memory in Berlin is a public act, that you are invited to take a part in, to participate in.  There are three posts, here, here and here.

Filed under: Hegel, Historiography, Husserl, history, phenomenology, random thoughts , experiences of history, foundations of history, phenomenology of history, writing history

The Crisis

“To bring latent reason to the understanding of its own possibilities and thus to bring to insight the possibility of metaphysics as a true possibility–this is the only way to put metaphysics or universal philosophy on the strenuous road to realisation.  It is the only way to decide whether the telos which was inborn in European humanity at the birth of Greek philosophy–that of humanity which seeks to exist, and is only possible, through philosophical reason, moving endlessly from latent to manifest reason and forever seeking its own norms through this, its truth and genuine human nature–whether this telos, then, is merely a factual, historical delusion, the accidental acquisition of merely one among other civilisations and histories, or whether Greek humanity was not rather the first breakthrough to what is essential to humanity as such, its entelechy.”

Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Trans. David Carr, p. 15

Filed under: Husserl, Philosophy, history, phenomenology, quotations , Husserl, phenomenology, The Crisis of European Sciences

Playing the history game

From time to time this blog becomes an other blog – haha. In any case, it is time to recast it – or to shift its alignment, give it a lick of paint, or any of a number of metaphors that might do to express the thought that I am about to change its theme. 

As the newly appointed tag, and title of this post suggests, it is to do with history.  But in what sense do I mean?  History gives us so many, at times conflicting senses.  I mean in all of them.  And although I do not count myself strictly as historian, a particular focus is of interest to me: 

The discipline of history, it would seem, has something of a kinship with metaphysics.  Roughly contemporaneous debates have been occurring in each, in the first about the ‘end of history’, and in the other, about the death, or overcoming of metaphysics.  They trace something a similar lineage, back through German philosophy of the 19th and 20th Century.  Yet they have little to do with each other, and, certainly on the historians’ side, little informed debate occurring in the English speaking world. 

But taking this further, why is it that history affects metaphysics, and vice versa, in the first place?  What game is played by both that they invest in the same events?  What is fundamental about history, in all its senses?  What gives it its priority – if we take Husserl’s standpoint in the Crisis to indicate this.  What would a phenomenology of history look like?

At the same time as asking these questions, I am also engaged in a history game of my own – that of supervisors, theses, research, and progression through a PhD in a university, where I must submit to examinations, progress reports, and interviews. 

And so this blog is about playing the history game… which is nothing other than living life itself in anycase.  

Filed under: Blogging, Historiography, Husserl, history, phenomenology, research , history, metablogging, Phd research, phenomenology