Historical Narrative
Towards a Coherent Structure
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4496533 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jerzy Topolski (0000-0002-0750-8195, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1987 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 75 |
| Publication date | 1987-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History and Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-2656 • E-ISSN: 1468-2303 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2505046 |
| OpenAlex | W2334032989 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Historical narratives as a means of transmitting by historians their knowledge of past, in sense both of description and interpretation, are arousing growing interest in those concerned with methodology of history and general philosophy of science. They raise problem, of fundamental importance for historical research, whether it is possible obtain a true picture of past through intermediary of an historical narrative; and if so, how far that is possible. In other words, question is possibility of correspondence between content of a narrative and past facts. Some answer that question in affirmative, while others mainLain that an historical narrative is by its very nature a deformation of past. Some claim, on general philosophical grounds, that we are not in a position acquire knowledge of facts, or for more practical reasons, that historians use, or must use, their own constructs, such as feudalism or the French Revolution of 1789, which have no literal analogues in past. The same applies concepts such as, for instance, social structure borrowed from disciplines other than history. Those who believe that it is possible arrive at a true or objective picture of past facts through intermediary of an historical narrative are convinced that they can obtain such a picture by using definite translation rules, as F. R. Ankersmit calls them.As examples of such translation rules he quotes Rickert's selection, which refer values, and Hayden White's rhetorical rules which however, as Ankersmit emphasizes, are largely a manifestation of a standpoint that comes close narrative idealism. Ankersmit himself, while stressing fact that past has no narrative structure, tries in his book to discover enabling historian give a narrative representation of past.2 He refers a mechanism which enables one arrive at a narrative representation of past, but at same time he denies since no narrative structure can be ascribed past possibility of linking past facts their representation by any translation rules. According Ankersmit it is not past that enforces ways of its representation, as has been claimed by adherents of narrative realism, nor are we able discover nature of historical reality by means of an a priori inquiry into narra
Epistemology · Feudalism · Idealism · Interpretation (philosophy) · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · Narrative criticism · Narrative history · Narrative network · Politics · Rhetorical question · Sociology · History · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy, History, and Historiography
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,14 |
| Citation span | 2004 - 2013 (10) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |