Intellectual History and the History of Ideas

While discussing potential topic of my thesis today with my tutor, Darra Mulderry, an expert of American intellectual history in the post-war period, we briefly discussed the distinction between an intellectual history and the history of ideas. It seems like that a paper primarily concerned with the development of ideas in a certain individual or a school of thought should be considered history of ideas, whereas an intellectual history has a more sociological aspect to it as it focuses on the intellectuals and their works. Hence, an intellectual history would be one that attempts to examine different aspects of a thinker, whose thoughts--central as they are--serve as a key that guides to the character of the intellectual(s). Other factors, such as his biographical information, his self-perception of his role as an intellectual, are also important. Whereas the history of ideas is a genealogy of ideas, an intellectual idea would be a lineage of people who produce these ideas. Peter Gordon, in a article titled "What is Intellectual History", makes clear of this distinction:

Intellectual History and the History of Ideas
What is intellectual history? Broadly speaking, intellectual history is the study of
intellectuals, ideas, and intellectual patterns over time. Of course, that is a terrifically
large definition and it admits of a bewildering variety of approaches. One thing to note right off is the distinction between “intellectual history” and “the history of ideas.” This can be somewhat confusing, since the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably: “history of ideas” is a rather old-fashioned phrase, and not currently in vogue (though there is an excellent journal for intellectual historians published under the title, The Journal of the History of Ideas.) But if we are worried about precise definitions rather than popular usage, there is arguably a difference: The “history of ideas” is a discipline which looks at large-scale concepts as they appear and transform over the course of history. An historian of ideas will tend to organize the historical narrative around one major idea and will then follow the development or metamorphosis of that idea as it manifests itself in different contexts and times, rather as a musicologist might trace a theme and all of its variations throughout the length of a symphony. Perhaps the most classic example is the book by Arthur Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (originally given as the William James Lectures at Harvard University in 1933). This kind of exercise has many merits—for example, it permits us to recognize commonalities in thought despite vast dissimilarities in context, thereby calling attention to the way that humanity seems always preoccupied with certain seemingly “eternal” thoughts. But this advantage can also be a disadvantage. By insisting that the idea is recognizably the same thing despite all of its contextual variations, the history of ideas approach tends to encourage a kind of Platonist attitude about thoughts, as if they somehow preexisted their contexts and merely manifested themselves in various landscapes.

Intellectual history is different from the history of ideas. It resists the Platonist
expectation that an idea can be defined in the absence of the world, and it tends instead to regard ideas as historically conditioned features of the world which are best understood within some larger context, whether it be the context of social struggle and institutional change, intellectual biography (individual or collective), or some larger context of cultural or linguistic dispositions (now often called “discourses”). To be sure, sometimes the requisite context is simply the context of other, historically conditioned ideas— intellectual history does not necessarily require that concepts be studied within a larger, non-conceptual frame. Admittedly, this last point can be controversial: some intellectual historians do adopt a purely “internalist” approach, i.e., they set thoughts in relation to other thoughts, without reference to some setting outside them. This method is usually most revealing when the relations between ideas helps us to see a previously unacknowledged connection between different realms of intellectual inquiry, e.g., the relation between theological and scientific modes of explanation, or between metaphysical and political concepts of causality. But this method tends to reproduce the Platonism which beset the older-style history of ideas approach. Even today, many intellectual historians remain—stubbornly or covertly—internalist in their method. They may pay lip-service to contextualism, but they are chiefly interested in conceptual contexts only. But because internalist styles of argumentation have in recent decades fallen out of favor amongst historians and humanists more generally, those who write intellectual history in the internalist manner often look rather tweedy and traditionalist to their more “worldly” colleagues both within and beyond of the historical discipline. Indeed, intellectual historians who practice this sort of concept-contextualism will not infrequently meet with accusations of quietism, elitism, or political naiveté. Internalism is nonetheless defensible on methodological grounds, though it is important to acknowledge its risks and its limitations.

Metahistory: A Literary Approach to Historiography

The title Metahistory may seem deceptive: I approached the book imagining that its author, Hayden White, is attempting to create another speculative philosophy of history in the lines of Hegel, Spengler, and Toynbee. Instead, White treats patterns of history in a post-structuralist perspective: he analyzes historiographies of prominent historians and philosophers of history in the nineteenth century alike and analyze their work as result of specific tropes and particular aims of these historians and philosophers. Hence, the works of Hegel, Michelet, Ranke, Tocqueville, Burckhardt, Marx, Nietzsche, and Croce are categorized within the four tropes of metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony--with White himself writing in irony. In addition, explanations of historiographical works can be based on emplotment, argument, and ideological implication, roughly correlated to one another in this fashion:

Mode of Employment/ Mode of Argument/ Mode of Ideological Implication
Romantic/ Formist/ Anarchist
Tragic/ Mechanistic/ Radical
Comic/ Organicist/ Conservative
Satirical/ Contextualist/ Liberal

White's work, then, is meta-historical in the sense that he perceives language as the key, or meta-aspect, beyond all writings of historiography. A poetic and linguistic approach to history, then, is announced to introduce a post-structuralist reading of writers and interpreters of past events.

Hayden White's work, then, attempts to reject a perception of history that Collingwood sets out in his Idea of History; previous debates on the nature of history is replaced by an array of writers in history characterized by difference in style, while causality is abandoned in place of plurality. However, I am still at this point inclined to subscribe to Collingwood's view that history is the reenactment of thoughts of historians, who are but imaging the thoughts of his treated subjects. In the Collingwoodian sense, history is kept as a continuation of thought, an idea that man consciously "remembers" and attempts to reach through their own thoughts. In this sense, then, history can be kept true regardless of the format that it is kept; man can interpret the artifacts of the past regardless of its status as a historical account, a part of archive, a chronicle of events, or physical object of the past like a palace, a piece of art, or even a coin. On the other hand, the metahistorical analysis of history is itself limited by language--and especially in the form of written language. Its ability of explanation is limited by the form of historical accounts and therefore cannot be complete.

Postwar American Thought: Adorno's Authoritarian Personality and Riesman's Lonely Crowd

14 II 2008

The task of Adorno et al. in the Authoritarian Personality seems to be an attempt to explain an ideological reality, viz. fascism, as a social result of the formation of what the authors called an authoritarian personality. A fascist state is possible only because characters exhibit potentials of fascism in their character. As Adorno explains, “the major concern was with the potentially fascistic individual, one whose structure is such as to render him particularly susceptible to antidemocratic propaganda” (Adorno et al., 1). The methodology of the study, however, is rather questionable. Through surveys and interviews, Adorno et al. seeks to scientifically identify certain characters with fascist potentials similar to a psychological correlative study. The questions are indirect and never touch on the subject of fascism itself, as Adorno et al. believe that answers to some of these questions reveal certain traits of the character himself (Ibid. 5). Although Adorno et al.’s attempt initially may resemble Mill’s methodological individualism, their method is problematic because it assumes the existence of an authoritarian personality prior to the study; that is to say, from the concrete existence of a fascist society Adorno et al. attributes the problem to the transformation of character into a corresponding personality and that “it is up to the people to decide whether or not this country goes fascist” (Ibid. 10). A preconceived opposition between “democratic” and “anti-democratic” character is hence formed as a result of the authors’ belief (and personal experience). However, we must question the validity of this attempt: is the problem of fascism truly personal or psychological, or is it historical in the sense that both the material condition, in additional to psychological condition of the masses, along with the historical development of the era (urbanization and modernization), may have led to the creation of societies that ultimately are characterized as authoritarian. With this critical inquiry in mind, then, I find the reduction of fascism into a personality, and then into a person’s performance in an arbitrary test’s “fascism scale” questionable. Although it is true that liability to submit to authority, desire to strong leader, and other traits identified in the study are factors that contribute to the success of an authoritarian regime, I think that the source of totalitarianism, however, should be sought elsewhere (Ibid. 231).

However, the Authoritarian Personality, like Riesman’s Lonely Crowd, identifies an interesting historical phenomenon of post-war western thought: the attempt to find individual traits that correspond to social problems. Social conformity seems to hold an important role to both studies: individual’s submission to the general trend or an authoritarian leader’s will contributes to an authoritarian state, while an individual’s adjustment in the three types of societies that Riesman identifies create a social fact of conformity. Unlike the negative connotation in Adorno’s study, conformity in Riesman’s case is accepted as a social fact. Hence the ability to conform is noted as adjustment while the inability to do so is characterized as anomie (Riesman 239). However, such conformity is not the ideal character of human development: Riesman cherishes a more positive way of life characterized by autonomy instead. Riesman avoids the philosophical problem of identifying the exact character of the truly autonomous by characterizing it as a Weberian ideal type (Ibid. 243). It is a matter of choice: while the individual has the ability to conform, he has the choice to either follow or ignore the social norm from his individual will (Ibid. 242). Although the introduction of autonomy seems to give people in a conformist society hope of individuality—questions nonetheless should be raised against its sheer optimism: facing social norm and characterized by his social condition and historical context, how much difference can an individual truly make even if he conceives himself to be autonomous? How is an autonomous man’s will different from a simply selfish will? In this aspect, Riesman’s notion of autonomy seems to be much weaker than Kant’s definition of autonomy that cherishes each individual as the legislator of his own moral laws. Something that links Riesman’s notion to the overall development of society seems to be missing.

Anglobalization?

9 II 2008

Faithful to its function as a TV series, Niall Ferguson's Empire has a long and rather catchy but at the same time clumsy subtitle: "the Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power". Although the book does not serve as an apology for British Empire, and lack a real, cohesive argument as a result of its limitations (as a TV series), it nonetheless praises Britain's imperial past as a beneficial fact for the world--the creation of a global market and introduction of civilization ("Anglobalization") to a once fragmented world. The "lessons" part is meant for America, the current "global power", which cannot affirm its role as its British predecessors had a century ago. Ferguson states in conclusion:

And yet the empire that rules the world today is both more and less than its British begetter. It has a much bigger economy, many more people, a much larger arsenal. But it is an empire that lacks the drive to export its capital, its people and its culture to those backward regions which need them most urgently and which, if they are neglected, will breed the greatest threats to its security. It is an empire, in short, that dare not speak its name. It is an empire in denial (317).

Well, not much needs to be said about Ferguson's Anglo-American (or rather, just Anglo and its colonial subjects) ethnocentrism. I am not so sure that his solution to Imperium Americana's maintaining of power through a re-enactment of Anglobalization (which, of course, also serves as the title of a lecture he will give in Harvard's History 10b class) is all-together valid. Exporting capital? This sounds familiar: but has the extension of American business interest in other "backward" nations really worked? Exporting "people"? As tourists, may be--but I am afraid that the type of colonization that Ferguson envisions in 21st century is but a satirical anachronism. For this imperium to affirm its status, I am afraid that it has to fare better in its affairs in weak, chaotic countries in which it has made a presence against international and domestic protest. Certainly, its British (and Mongol, Turkish) predecessors had done a much more satisfactory job.

A Polemic Against Freedom: Reading Erich Fromm's Escape From Freedom

8 II 2008

When approaching Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom, questions must be raised concerning his critical analysis of freedom in its relation to modernity. In the very conception of this book, Fromm presents freedom as a polemic between the oppressor and the oppressed—and the battle for its acquisition is presented as a key theme of modern European and American history (1). However, as soon as freedom is seen as something in relation to another thing, as a force against oppression, it cannot be taken as a subject autonomous in itself. Such is the central problem to Fromm’s work: freedom, in its numerous (i.e. two) forms, attains value only as a negative rebellion against a given stage of pre-supposed oppression.

But Fromm does not attempt to resolve the problem of freedom in a philosophical sense; instead, he reduces to psychology, as a mere desire, that is on-par with submission—while man desire freedom to actualize his individuation, he also wishes for submission, so that he can find a form of psychological comfort in authorities internal and external (5). Psychology is supposed to unwind the mystery of these internal authorities; now irrational and unconscious forces, too, are brought to light with the work of Freud despite his historical limitations (7-9). Although Fromm attempts to venture beyond Freud by making man’s nature a product of his culture and historical context, his affinity to a notion of man as subjects that transcend history undermines this effort (11). In this effort, though, an internal contradiction seems to form: Fromm at once desires to analyze “how passions, desires, anxieties change and develop as a result of the social process” but at the same time study “how man’s energies … become productive forces, molding the social process” (12). This note at once masks his notion of freedom with both determinism and humanism; freedom is to remain a subject ever torn between different notions without a clear definition of its own.

Fromm analyzes freedom as a two aspect subject of modern man; at once, with freedom the modern man “becomes more independent, self-reliant, and critical, and he becomes more isolated, alone, and afraid” (104). The first aspect of freedom results from man’s freeing from different institutions that used to chain man together in bonds—but this act of freeing itself makes man more isolated from one another in fear; in the end he is to lose individuality through conformity or submission to authority. But although the result of freedom is stated, the notion of freedom i s unclear. Since it lacks meaning as a subject onto itself, but only as a force that opposes oppression, its nature should hence be analyzed through its effect contra oppression. But Fromm’s freedom is too ambiguous a subject to acquire a clear definition; its effect is at once freeing and enslaving, and hence its subject is left untouched.

Noticing the dual nature of freedom, Fromm offers an answer to “escape from freedom” in an ironic establishment of “positive freedom” (for to “escape” is without a doubt a negative act). It is some form of “realization of the self” that “implies the full affirmation of the uniqueness of the individual” (262). Indeed, it is supposed to be the “full realization of the individual’s potentials, together with his ability to live actively and spontaneously” (268). But, without a substantial definition of freedom itself, even positive freedom is at best an escape—an escape from freedom that we can easily characterize using Fromm’s favorite notion, freedom.

"How to Ace Your Interview"

6 II 2008

A professor of mine offered the following tips on "How to Ace Your Interview"--since so many of my friends are eager to engage in these activities that are supposed to secure their bright future, and, in their spare time, discuss every aspect of it to make conversations full of excitement.
1. No garlic
2. No beans
3. Only dry sherry
4. No fish to bone
5. Wear a tie

...
Now shut up.
:)

Tax Exempt

4 II 2008

As I was purchasing a book, i.e. Leibniz's Philosophical Essays, today in Harvard Bookstore, the cashier looked at the title--then, after looking at me for a second, asked with some doubt--

"Is this for a class or for yourself?"

I was rather dismayed at the remark. I thought it was meant as a doubt on my choice of books; but I have certainly bought more obscure books in the past--regardless of the fact that the book indeed is for a rather obscure class on Leibniz's political philosophy--in which, despite its good intentions of hosting its first meeting in an auditorium with the capacity of more than 200 people, comprises of a good company of one professor, two or three graduate students, and about two from the college--
and my presumptuous acts have never caused suspicion from cashier.

"So what difference does it make?" I answered with a question.

"Well, if it is for a class, the book is tax exempt, otherwise it will be the usual."

On that note, of course, I answered that the book was indeed for a class. I have been a frequent visitor to the Bookstore for more than two years now; and I was never told that our state exempts tax for textbooks--perhaps it was just negligence, but perhaps it is one of those laws not remembered by many. I find this business rather strange: the government taxes on used books--books whose original purchase must have already included the tax--but leaves those "for educational purpose" untaxed out of its sheer good will to "support education". Yet what difference does it really make? I could easily have purchased books ranging from Leibniz to Derrida on my own--as I have frequently done so in the past--and would that not be considered education? The decision to exempt tax is entirely arbitrary by the will of the cashier--how does he know which is for a class or for the buyer "himself"?

The question of tax-exemption reminded me of something, so I inquired--"So it's just like the Bible?" As a carry-over benefit from the puritan days, Massachusetts have exempted taxes on all Bibles--at least how it was. But may be not so quick--

"Yeah, that's true. In fact, you can buy Bibles, Korans, and other texts and they are all tax-free."

Indeed, in this liberal-ridden state, we must now extend the historic privilege of the Bible to the Koran, and I suppose, following that logic, Li Hongzhi's Zhuan Falun as well. These religious and quasi-religious texts, along with "designated textbooks", are indeed more needed, if not superior, than other great books. Well, I suppose we can help the rest out by making them "required by class as well"--and soon enough, we'll have make universities debase themselves to teach actual witchcraft rather than economics and government, you know, those higher forms of witchcraft.

For now, Leibniz, and his outdated teachings of iustitia est caritas sapientis sem benevolentia universalis--can enjoy a momentary break from taxation and negligence. The fate of his political philosophy (he'll be mentioned as one of the fathers of calculus probably in every introductory college level math course around the world), however, will probably be the same. Like the last time that such course was offered in wartime Oxford (that's 1939), the effort of Patrick Riley will fare no better than a much greater Ernst Cassirer, whose untimely insistence on German-language reading eventually reduced the course small enough to be held on a table in a nearby cafe. With that in mind, the five or six of us in this modern-day, and to a large extent anti-intellectual place, will make our adventure---perhaps with a heart benevolentia, but probably without the will universalis.