Present-Centred History and the Problem of Historical Knowledge
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8958227 |
|---|---|
| Authors | T G Ashplant (0000-0002-1790-2153, Liverpool College, corresponding author), A D Wilson (0000-0002-0459-0728, Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine), Adrian Wilson |
| Year | 1988 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 253-274 |
| Publication date | 1988-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Historical Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0018246x00012875 |
| OpenAlex | W2163793823 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 28 |
| References cited | 15 |
In a previous article, we examined Herbert Butterfield's identification of a certain pattern of anachronism in historical writing, in his classic book The whig interpretation of history (1931). In the decades since that book was originally published, Butterfield's designation has been extended far beyond its original domain of political and religious history. The terms ‘whig history’ and ‘whiggish history’ have passed into the common parlance of historians. This very success, however, has masked a failure to define the nature of such anachronistic writing, its causes and remedies. Such definition is all the more necessary since Butterfield's own attempts were clearly inadequate. Building upon and amending certain tentative formulations of Butterfield's, we defined the root of the anachronistic error as present-centredness : that is, that the historian, in seeking to study, reconstruct and write about the past, is constrained by necessarily starting from the perceptual and conceptual categories of the present
Anachronism · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Political science · Politics · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy, History, and Historiography
Three epistemological desiderata for HPS practitioners
They Bleed from Long-Healed Scars’
The image of the universe as cultural choise between science and theology. Probabilism and realism from the Middle Ages to the Modern age
Claiming presentism
Fertility and faith
On Revisionism
The Asbestos Litigation Master Narrative
The natural history files
Elizabeth eisenstein and the impact of printing
Here, There & Everywhere
"Wiser than he himself at the time knew" - The Histories of Archaeology and the Whig Problem
Beyond the Whig history interpretation of history
Hermeneutical contributions to the history of science
Anachronism and retrospective explanation
Getting the game right
De-centring the 'big picture
Dis/unity of Knowledge
The Pursuit of Reality
Complexity, anachronism and time-parochialism
Empire and the Making of Native Title
Democratization, development, and inequality
Archaeology and contemporaneity
"Big Data" in Economic History
Cultural History of Science
Violence, Self-Discipline and Modernity
Science Is Dead; Long Live Science
Dismantling Boundaries in Science and Technology Studies
How not to explain the Great Divide
William Hunter and the eighteenth-century medical world
Meaning and understanding in the history of ideas
The population history of England, 1541-1871
Making of the English Working Class
The family, sex and marriage in England, 1500-1800
Centuries of childhood
Why does social history ignore politics
Essay Review
Whig History and Present-centred History
The Infancy of the History of Childhood
Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas
The Present and the Past in the English Industrial Revolution 1880-1980
| Unique citing works | 28 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,74 |
| Citation span | 1988 - 2026 (39) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 26 |