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Can Histories be True? Narrativism, Positivism, and the "Metaphorical Turn"Author(s): Chris LorenzSource: History and Theory, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Oct., 1998), pp. 309-329Published by: Wiley for Wesleyan University

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CAN HISTORIESBE TRUE?NARRATIVISM,POSITIVISM,AND THE "METAPHORICALURN"'

CHRIS LORENZ

ABSTRACT

Narrativism,as representedby HaydenWhite and FrankAnkersmit,can fruitfullybe ana-

lyzed as an inversion of two brandsof positivism. First, narrativist pistemology can be

regardedas an inversion of empiricism. Its thesis that narratives unction as metaphors

which do not possess a cognitive content is built on an empiricist, "picture view" of

knowledge. Moreover, all the non-cognitive aspects attributed o narrativeas such are

dependent on this picture theory of knowledge and a picture theory of representation.

Most of the epistemologicalcharacteristicshat White and Ankersmitattribute o histori-

cal narratives hereforeshare the problemsof this picture theory.

The article'ssecond thesis is that the theories of narrativeexplanationcan also fruit-fully be analyzed as inversions of positivist covering-law theory.Ankersmit's brand of

narrativism s the most radical n this respectbecause it posits an opposition betweennar-

rative and causal modes of comprehension while simultaneously eliminating causality

from narrativist istoricalunderstanding.White's brandof narrativisms moreof a hybrid

than is Ankersmit's as far as its theoryof explanation s concerned;nevertheless, it can

also be fruitfully interpretedas an inversion of covering-lawtheory, replacing it by an

indefinite multitudeof explanatory trategies.

Most of the strikingcharacteristicsof both White's andAnkersmit'snarrativismpre-

suppose positivism in these two senses, especially their claim that historicalnarratives

have a metaphorical tructureandthereforeno truth-value.These claims are hard to rec-

oncile with the factualcharacteristics f debatesby historians; hisproblemcan be tracked

down to the absence in "metaphorical" arrativismof a conceptualconnection between

historicalnarrativesandhistorical research.

I. INTRODUCTION

My aim in this essay is to unearth and to criticize certain deep presuppositions of

what I shall call "metaphorical narrativism." To this end, I shall lump togetherunder this label the two quite distinct philosophies of history of Hayden White

and Frank Ankersmit.2 Because of their intellectual efforts-preceded by a few

1. I am indebted to the Von HumboldtFoundationfor financial support in the form of a Von

Humboldt Research Award and to Larry Griffin (VanderbiltUniversity), JTrn Rusen (Bielefeld

University), Axel van den Berg (McGill University), the participantsof the "Social History"collo-

quium at the "Arbeitstelle ur VergleichendeGesellschaftsgeschichte" n Berlin in Spring 1997.

2. Their major books are: Hayden White, Metahistoty: The Historical Imagination in

Nineteenth-CentutyEurope (Baltimore, 1973); Tropics of Discourse: Essays in CultutralCriticism

(Baltimore, 1978); The Contentof the Form:Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation.(Baltimore, 1987). F. R. Ankersmit, Narrative Logic: A Semantic Analysis of the Historian s

Language (Groningen, 1981 and The Hague, 1983); Denken over geschiedenis: Een overzichtvan








310 CHRISLORENZ

others', such as WilliamWalshand LouisMink-philosophy of historyhas in the

recent past driftedaway from philosophy of science and social science in the

directionof philosophy of art, literature, hetoric,and aesthetics.This move was

a conscious reactionto the dominantview of the previous decades, that is, to the

positivist conception of (social) science. In this article I shall argue that

metaphoricalnarrativism an be understoodboth as a frontal attackagainst pos-

itivism and, more importantly,n specificrespects as its reversal(therebycontin-

uing to share its presuppositions).

I will not tryto analyze White's and Ankersmit'smetaphoricalnarrativismsn

toto, but concentrateon two conceptual ssues that have aroused as much atten-

tion as confusion.3The first issue is their thesis that the narrative orm of historyimplies that the notion of truthas correspondence annot be appliedto historical

stories in contrastwith the individualstatements hatcollectively makeup these

stories. Historicalnarratives herefore are characterizedby them as "fictional"

and/or"metaphorical." he second issue is their thesis that narrativesare self-

explanatoryand explanationby narrative xcludes causalexplanation.Both the-

ses contradictthe intuitions of some working historians and therefore deserve

closer examination.

It makesgood sense to analyzemetaphoricalnarrativism s a counter-positionto positivism in both its guises. First, metaphoricalnarrativism developed in

opposition to positivism with a small p, that is the positivism of facts, alias

empiricism. Second,it developed n oppositionto Positivism with a capitalP,that

is the covering-law view of explanation. Metaphorical philosophy of history

deliberatelyattacked the main tenets of positivism and analytical philosophy.

inodernegeschiedfilosofischeopvattingen(Groningen, 1984); De navel van de geschiedenis: Over

interpretatie,representatieen historische realiteit (Groningen,1990); History and Tropologv:TheRise and Fall of Metaphor (Berkeley, 1994); De spiegel van het verleden. Exploraties I:

Geschiedtheorie(Kampen, 1996); De inacht van representative. xploraties II: Cnltinajilosofie&

esthetica (Kampen, 1996); Macht door representatie.Exploraties III: Politiekefilosofie (Kampen,

1997);AestheticPolitics: Political PhilosophybeyondFact and Value Stanford,1998). My references

to NarrativeLogic are to the 1981 edition. As my main goal is to analyze the conceptualstructureof

metaphoricalnarrativism will neglect the historicaldevelopmentof both White's and Ankersmit's

positions and, where necessary,deal with it in the notes.

3. For the discussions on White cf. L. Kramer, "Literature,Criticism and Imagination:The

LiteraryChallengeof HaydenWhite and DominickLaCapra,"n The New CulturalHistory,ed. Lynn

Hunt(Berkeley, 1989), 97-128; Noel Carroll,"Interpretation, istoryandNarrative,"The Monist 73(1990), 134-167; Paul Roth, "HaydenWhite and the Aesthetics of History,"Historyof the Human

Sciences 5 (1992), 17-35; Wulf Kansteiner,"HaydenWhite's Critiqueof the Writingof History,"

History and Theory 32 (1993), 273-296; John Zammito,"AreWe Being TheoreticalYet?The New

Historicism, he New Philosophy of History and 'Practicing'Historians," ournal of ModernHistory

65 (1993), 783-814; two issues of Storia della Storiografia Geschichteder Geschichtsschreibung)4

(1993) and 25 (1994) concerningWhite's Metahistory;PaulRicoeur, "Geschichteund Rhetorik,"n

Der Sinn des Historischen: GeschichtsphilosophischeDebatten,ed. H. Nagl-Docekal (Frankfurt m

Main, 1996), 107-126; RichardT. Vann et al., "Forum:Hayden White: Twenty-FiveYears On,"

History and Theory 37 (1998), 143-194. For Ankersmitcf. Hans Kellner,"Narrativityn History:

Post-structuralismand Since," History and Theory, Beiheft 26 (1987) (The Relpesentation ofHistorical Events), 18-22; Perez Zagorin, "Historiography nd Postmodernism:Reconsiderations,"

History and Theory 29 (1990), 263-296; and my "Het maskerzonder gezicht. F. R. Ankersmit's

filosofie van de geschiedschrijving,"Tijdschrift'oorGeschiedenis97 (1984), 169-194.







CAN HISTORIESBE TRUJE? 311

First,White and Ankersmit ejectthe presupposition hat the narratios just a col-

lection of individual,descriptive tatementsand that its explanatory ogic can be

analyzed n these terms.Withregard o narratives his tenetof analyticalphiloso-phy is thus thrown n the philosophicalgarbagecan and replacedby the notion of

the autonomousnarrative.The narratios now introducedas an autonomous in-

guisticentity with formalproperties hattranscend he level of thedescriptive sin-

gularexistential)statement,although he narratio s built out of suchstatements.

White andAnkersmitarguefor the autonomyof the narrativebecause in their

view the narrativepossesses featuresthatcannot be reducedto those of its state-

ments. According to White the plot-structure of narratives is such a non-

reducible quality. Therefore White characterizesthe historicalnarrativeas an

"extendedmetaphor."4ccordingtoAnkersmit, he sameset of statementscan be

connected from differentpointsof view-with different nterpretations r narra-

tive substances (laterlabeled as historical representations5) as a result. The cru-

cial narrativisticmessage in this context is that neitherthe mode of emplotment

nor the viewpointcan be locatedin realitybutonly in the linguistic universeof

narrative. t is the historianwho imposes a linguistic, literarystructureon the

past in the past nothing real corresponds o it.6Whoeverforgets this will fallvictim to the "fictionsof factualrepresentation,"n White's famousphrase.'

4. White, "The HistoricalText as LiteraryArtifact," n Tropicsof Discourse, 91.

5. To prevent confusion it is essential to note from the outset that Ankersmit'sconcept of repre-

sentationis fundamentallydifferentfrom Rorty's. Rorty identifies representation n epistemology

with nirvro-ing objects in the mind of a knowing subject-and from therehe develops his own anti-

representationalistposition. Ankersmit, however, taking a lead from Gombrich, Goodman, and

Danto, identifies representationnot with mirroring,but with an unmodifiedway of substituting an

objectfor its

symbolic representation.As

soonas the

processof

representation s codified, it stopsbeing interestingas representation nd is relegatedto the domain of epistemology.

Rorty's concept of representation,however, is problematical,because all representation s repre-

sentationfor knowingsubjects.Fundamental or representations not mirroring,butmaintenanceof

structurewith a reductionand induction of complexity at the same time. See T. Mormann,"Ist der

BegriffderReprdsentation bsolet?,"Zeitschriftfiirphilosophische Forschung51 (1997), 349-366.

6. White's argument s based on the presumeddifferencesof lives and stories. 'Lives are lived and

stories aretold," accordingto White (and Mink), who thereforeconcludethat(hi)storiesabout lives

must be structurally ifferent rom the lives themselvesand can't be realistically"copied" n the story

form. For a fundamental ritiqueof this remarkable rgument ee Carroll,"Interpretation, istoryand

Narrative,"144-145. In contrastto Ankersmit,White sometimes plays with the notion of "narrativetruth."t is evident, however, hat forWhite narrative ruthcannot be interpreted ccording o the cor-

respondence heoryof truthgiven his emphasison the impositionof literarystructuresby the histo-

rian.What"narrativeruth"means thereforeremainsobscure.In "Narrativen ContemporaryLiterary

Theory,"n Contentof the Formn,8, he merely statesthat his literaryanalysisof historywriting rais-

es "the more general question of the truth of literature tself."Furtherhe claims that ignoring the

"specifically iteraryaspectof historicalnarrative"eads to ignoring"whatever ruth t may convey in

figurative erms."Butbefore,on 46, he has stated:"Butthe 'truth'of narrative orm can display itself

only indirectly, hat is to say by means of allegoresis. What else could be involved in the representa-

tion of a set of real events as, for example, a tragedy,a comedy,or farce?"In "'Figuring he Nature

of the Times Deceased': LiteraryTheoryand HistoricalWriting," n The Futureof LiteraryTheory,ed. R. Cohen (New YorkandLondon, 1989), the same ambiguitypertains:"Storiesare told or writ-

ten, not found.And as for the notion of a 'true'story, this is virtuallya contradiction n termninis. ll

storiesarefictions. Whichmeans,of course,thattheycan be trueonly in a metaphorical ense andin

the sense in which a figureof speech can be true.Is this trueenough?"Cf. Carroll,"Interpretation,

HistoryandNarrative,"135-136.

7. White, "The Fictionsof FactualRepresentation,"n Tropicsof Discourse, 121-134.



312 CHRIS LORENZ

Both White and Ankersmit present the metaphorical quality of narratios as

the-emergent-property of the narratio. White's claims in this respect are

stronger: according to him narratioshave a metaphorical structure and are(extended) metaphors; according to Ankersmit narratios function merely as

metaphors.Both authorsclaim that what historiansdo when they write narratives

is essentially create points of view in the way metaphorsdo: in this way they cre-

ate an order n a chaos of phenomenaandexplainit (in a sense to be analyzed).8

Therefore, according to this argument,metaphoricaldescriptions at the same

time constituteexplanationsof the phenomena so described and thus narratives

are self-explanatory.9Both authors keep emphasizing that this order is an

imposed constructionby the historianon real phenomena and is not found in

themor arrivedat by factual researchand inductivereasoning.This move in the

discussion-this identification of stories of historians and "imposed"meta-

phors-is the crucial one in modern narrativistic hilosophy of history.

II. NARRATIVISMAS INVERTEDPOSITIVISM 1):

NARRATIVISMAS AN INVERSIONOF THE "POSITIVISMOF FACTS"

The metaphorical turnfor narrativephilosophy of history constitutes a frontal

attackon the tenetsof positivism (witha p and a P).10nthis sectionI shallexam-

ine its attackon the positivism of facts, or empiricism.White andAnkersmitboth

identify this type of positivism with the convictions of the "traditional" istori-

ans.Inthe "traditional" iew narrative omposition (Darstellung) s conceived as

the by-productof historical research(Forschung).So the relationshipbetween

the historianandthe past is similar to the one between the recordplayer andthe

record."Therefore-still accordingto White andAnkersmit-"traditional"his-torianshold the opinionthat the truthof theirnarrativess just the byproductof

the truthof their research:narrativesare seen essentially as entities withoutan

organizationalprincipleof theirown. 2

8. The presupposition hat the past is just a chaos of phenomena s an important ne in metaphor-

ical narrativism. n this way the radically constructiveelement of the "narrativization"f the past is

made plausible. For criticismof this presuppositionand a more realistic approach ee my "Historical

Knowledge and HistoricalReality:A Plea for InternalRealism,"Histon, and Theory33 (1994), 297-

327.9. For White, in contrastwith Ankersmit,metaphorical xplanationor explanationby emplotment

is just one mode of historical explanationby narrative,next to explanationby formalargumentand

explanationby ideological implication.I will not examineWhite's claims in this respectfor simplic-

ity's sake andjust focus on his explanationby emplotment.Cf. his Metahistory,Introduction.

10. Ankersmit's philosophy is more systematic with respect to metaphor than is White's. Cf.

Ankersmit,Nacrrative ogic, chapter7 ("Narrative ubstancesandMetaphor").ForWhite's position

cf. his "The HistoricalText as a LiteraryArtifact," 1: "The 'overall coherence' of a given 'series'of

historicalfacts is the coherence of story,but this coherence is achievedonly by a tailoringof the

'facts' to the requirement f the story form.""It is this mediative unction that permitsus to speakof

a historical narrative s an extendedmetaphor."11. For Ankersmit'sstatementof the problem and the comparisonof the historianwith a pickup-

needle cf. his De navel van de geschiedenis, 20-21. ForWhite's statementsee note 16.

12. Cf. White, "The Question of Narrative n ContemporaryHistoricalTheory,"27: "Forthe nar-

rativehistorian,the historicalmethodconsists in investigatingthe documentsin orderto determine

what is the true or most plausible story that canbe told about the events of which they are evidence.

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CAN HISTORIESBE TRUE'? 313

Whenwe look at the metaphorical urn n narrative hilosophy of history in its

oppositionto this brandof positivism we can observean interesting eature:the

type of narrativismdefended by White and Ankersmit represents the simple

negation or reversal of the traditionalpositivistic view. Thereforeit shares its

fundamental onceptual structure.By this I refer to two characteristic onceptu-

al oppositions.First,both positions sharea specific argumentative ogic, which

RichardBernsteinaptly labeled the "either-or ogic,"alias the Cartesian Anxiety.

According to this (originally theological) argumentative cheme, arbitrariness

and chaos constitute heonly alternativesor a firmfoundation: itherknowledge

claims can be firmlyfoundedin empiricaldata,or claims to knowledgearearbi-

traryand a sheer figmentof imagination.Fantasy is thus presupposed o be theonly alternative or and only opposition to foundation.3 As we shall see, this

arguments usedby WhiteandAnkersmit o claim a non-cognitivestatusforhis-

toricalnarratives.Second, I referto the oppositionof literal to figurativeuses of

language.After all, positivismhadbannedall figurative,metaphoricaluse of lan-

guagefromscience-including history-because it presupposed hat,in contrast

to the literal,descriptive,or referentialuse of language(thatgives us information

aboutreality),metaphorical anguageconsisted of "merewords"(thatprovideno

informationaboutrealityat all). Thereforeonly the literal use of languagewas

regarded as cognitive and capable of being true or untrue. This opposition

between literal and metaphorical language-presupposed in positivism-is

retained n "metaphorical"arrativismn an inverted orm: now descriptivestate-

ments are treated as mere information, hardly worth a serious philosopher's

attention, and metaphorical language is upgraded to the real thing.14

A truenarrativeaccount, according to this view, is less a productof the historian'spoetic talents,as

the narrative ccountof imaginaryevents is conceivedto be, than t is the necessary resultof theprop-

er applicationof historical 'method.'The formof discourse, the narrative, dds nothing to thecontent

of the representation; ather t is a simulacrumof the structure nd processes of real events. And inso-

far as this representation esembles the events that it represents, t canbe taken as a true account."For

White's view on the relationshipbetween a chronicle and narrative ee 43: "In historical discourse,

the narrative erves to transform nto a storya list of historicalevents that would otherwise be only a

chronicle."It is most significant,however, to observethatthe first historianwho wrote a systematic

treatiseon "doing history,"Johann-GustavDroysen in his Historik,does not fit in this "traditional"

pictureat all.13. Cf. B. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism. nd Relativism (Oxford, 1983), 16-25, esp. 18: "Either

there is some support or our being, a fixed foundationfor our knowledge, or we cannot escape the

forces of darknessthatenvelop us with madness, with intellectual and moralchaos."An "anything

goes" skepticism, therefore, s the only alternative or foundationalism.

14. Cf. White, "TheQuestionof Narrativen ContemporaryHistoricalTheory," 8-49, on the rela-

tionshipbetweenliteral andfigurativeuse of languageand on the impossibilityof reducingthe latter

to the former. In the discussion with his critics in his more recent"LiteraryTheory and Historical

Writing,"22-33, White relativizesall the conceptual oppositions that are central to his tropological

theory between the literal andthe figurative,betweenreferentialandnon-referentialdimensionsof

language,and betweenfact and fiction and reinterpretshem in terms of a continituui. I shall argue,however,that the maintheses of metaphoricalnarrativism re dependenton the oppositionof the lit-

eralandthe figurativeandthe oppositionof thefacticityof literaland the "fictionality"of figurative

uses of language, because these oppositions are presupposed in White's either-or argumenta-

tion. A continuumjust won't do thejob. Cf. Kansteiner,"White'sCritique ofWriting of History,"






314 CHRIS LORENZ

Consequently,epistemologyand aesthetics tradeplaces in philosophyof history

as well: epistemology-up till thenregardedas the breadandbutterof analytical

philosophy of history-is thrownout and aestheticstakes its place.I5I shall argue

below that this is a consequenceof the fact that narrativism lso preservesa deepconceptual dichotomy, inherent in positivism, between "objective" empirical

observationand "subjective" nterpretation.Lingeringbehindthese opposites is

the classical contrastof foundationalismbetween epistemeand doxa, as I hope

to show.

The either-or logic just referred o can be seen at work in the way narrative s

analyzed in metaphoricalnarrativism: ither the narrativeof the historianis a

simple by-productof research,as the "traditional," ositivisticview would have

it, or it has nothing to do with researchat all. Either the narrativesof historians

are empiricallyfounded-as the "traditional," ositivistic view would have it-

or historical narrativeshave no empiricalfoundationsat all and are the product

of literary imagination.Either language is transparent nd referentialvis-a-vis

reality-as the "traditional," ositivisticview would have it-or language s self-

referentialand opaque.

The same logic of reversal can be seen at work in White's and Ankersmit's

positionswith regard o the truth-claimof narratives.Rejectingthe view thatthetruthof narrative s the by-productof historicalresearch, hey simply negatethe

truth-claimof narrativealtogether.This move should be resisted and criticized

since the presuppositionof the truthof historical narratives s crucial as long as

we presuppose hathistoryis a discipline andnot a form of art.

By invertingempiricism,however,both White andAnkersmithave atthe same

time retained t instead of rejectingit. This invertedempiricismfulfills a crucial

functionin metaphoricalnarrativism ecause the plausibilityof the fundamental

theses on the fictionalityof narrativitys completely dependenton its implicitcontrastwith empiricism.As Noel Carrollhas argued,White's identificationof

all interpretationwith imposition, imaginaryconstruction,andliterary nvention

presupposes the possibility of knowledge without interpretation-and that is

286, who also signals this problem in the later writings of White: "White's decision to introducea

more dialectical element into his structuralistmethodology implies a renegotiationof the status of the

fact with regard o the plot structuresof the historical text. Once the strict separationof the two lev-els is canceled,his earlierradicalepistemologicalrelativism s undermined.The proposedcontinuum

can be interpreted ll the way towardsthe pole of factual accuracy.Thus the possibility of represen-

tational transparency, hown out the frontdoor, returns hrough he back."

15. Ankersmitdraws this conclusion explicitly with his introductionof the vocabularyof repre-

sentationin the late 1980s. See Ankersmit,"HistoricalRepresentation,"n Historyand Tropology,102:"Thesuggestion [of the vocabularyof representation]s rather hat the historiancould meaning-

fully be comparedto the painter representinga landscape,a person, and so on. The implication is,

obviously, a plea for a rapprochement etween philosophyof history and aesthetics."See also 105-

106, where he identifies science with "codified representation" nd restricts epistemology to this

realm. Historical and artistic representation, owever,are"indifferento epistemology' accordingtoAnkersmit.By retaining epistemology for the domain of science he is distancinghis position from

Rorty's. See his "Van heorienaarverhaal.RichardRortyover taal en werkelijkheid,"n De machtvan

rep-esentatie, 183-218.








empiricismpure and simple.In the same spirithis argument hat narrativesqual-

itate qua are fictional-because they do not mirror the past in the way pho-

tographsand replicas do-presupposes an empiricist picture theory of knowl-

edge and an empiricist theory of truthas directcorrespondence.'6 Carroll here-

fore is completely right to label White as a "closet empiricist,"n thrallto a bad

picture theory of language, but he does not fully recognize the crucial functions

of empiricism in White's philosophicalbuilding: without empiricism there sim-

ply areno plausible arguments or the basic tenets of metaphoricalnarrativism.

A similar criticism is applicable to Ankersmit'sbrandof metaphoricalnarra-

tivism. Ankersmit oo introduces he same remarkable, utdated,empiricist pic-

ture theory of knowledge as a contrastto his own position and in orderto lend

his metaphor heory plausibility and a philosophicalprofile."8 he same contrast

is offered between narrativesand replicas or mirrors n orderto deny the former

a cognitive status andto bridge the gap between history and literature."9n his

philosophytoo a remarkable implisticrealism is introducedn orderto discred-

it realistic interpretations f narrativesaltogether.20

16. See for instanceWhite, "HistoricalText as LiteraryArtifact," 8: "it is wrong to think of a his-tory as a model similar to a scale model of an airplaneor ship, a map, or a photograph.For we can

check the adequacyof this latterkind of model by going and looking at the original and, by applying

the necessary rules of translation, eeing in what respect the model has actually succeededin repro-

ducing aspects of the original."See furtherhis "Interpretationn History," n Topics of Discour-se,

51, where he refers to "traditional" istoriansand their idea that they have to interpret heir materials

"in order to construct he moving patternof images in which the form of the historicalprocess is to

be mitr-ved."See also his "The Question of Narrative n ContemporaryHistorical Theory,"27, on

"traditional" istorians:"The form of the discourse, the narrative, dds nothing to the content of the

representation; ather t is a siinulacr-unmf the content and processes of real events. And insofar as

this representationesembles the events it represents, t is a minmesisf the storylived in some regionof historical reality,and insofaras it is an accurate imitation,t is to be regardeda truthfulaccount

thereof' [my italics]. See also Carroll, "Interpretation,History and Narrative," 138-140, and

Bernstein's fundamentalcritiqueof metaphysicalrealism alias objectivism. Bernstein's observation

that this type of realism is "no live option" anymorehits the nail on the head.Thereforewe should

ask what functions this "dead"option fulfills in metaphoricalnarrativism.Cf. Bernstein, Beyond

Objectivismand Relativism,12.

17. Carroll, "Interpretation,History and Narrative,"147-148. I think Carroll's reference to the

'empiricist residue" 147) in White is therefore ncorrect.

18.Also in his laterwritingsAnkersmitkeeps identifying "scientific" anguage with "transparen-

cy" (alias "codified representation') in order to create a contrast with the nontransparency nd"opaqueness" f historical anguage(aliasunmodifieddepresentation").ee for instance"Historyand

Postmodernism" nd "HistoricalRepresentation"n his Histonyand TRopology.19. Ankersmit,NarrativeLogic, 91-92: "We cannot glimpse at history.We can only compareone

book with another ... We do not 'see' the past as it is, as we see a tree,a machineor a landscapeas

it is. We see the past only througha masqueradeof narrative tructures while behind this masquer-

ade there is nothingthathas a narrative tructure)." nd 19: "Nearest o the narratio s the novel and

amongstall kinds of novels it is, of course, the historicalnovel that comes closest to the narratio."

20. Ankersmit,NarrativeLogic, 83: "[The narrative ealist] regards he narratioas a kind of pic-

tureof the past: thereis a controllablecorrespondencebetweenphotographsandpictures taken as

a whole as well as in detail and thatpartof visible reality depicted by them. And it is believedthatthere is similarcorrespondencewith the past. I shall call the adherentsof this 'picturetheory'narra-

tive realists. Narrative dealism,on the otherhand, rejectsthe picture theory.'No wonder,following

Ankersmit,even Popperends up being labeled as a "scientific dealist."See Narrnativeogic, 97.







316 CHRISLORENZ

Empiricismalso shows up in White's and Ankersmit'srepresentationof his-

toricalresearch.Since they contrastnarrative o researchand defend an inverted

empiricism for the level of narrative his was to be expected. In White's case

empiricism can even be traced in his terminology when he refers to historical

events as "elements"and to stories as "compositions"of these elements in his

introduction o Metahistory.21 is wording in this context is important.He refers

to events and not to facts; in this way he eschews the problem of interpretation

at the level of research,because contrary o events facts have to be stated in fac-

tual statements.Since he identifiesinterpretationwith narrativizingand fiction-

alizingthis is theonly way he canescapethetantalizingconclusion that facts are

fictional.22The "omission" of the problem of interpretationat the level ofresearch n White's narrativism herefore s far from accidental.23

21. White, Metahistoty, 5: "First he elements of the historical field are organized nto a chronicle

by the arrangement f the events to be dealt with in the temporalorderof their occurrence; hen the

chronicle is organized nto a story by the furtherarrangement f the events into thecomponentsof a

'spectacle' or process of happening,which is thought o possess a discerniblebeginning, middle, and

end."In the same spirit he refers in a recent text to (archival)"information" oncerning past events

thathas to be processed n "historicaldiscourse" n order o become "historical."Cf. White, "Literary

Theory and Historical Writing,"20, and Kansteiner,"White's Critique of the Writing of History,"

284: "Onthe level of the single event/factWhite retainsanelement of positivist stabilitywhich stands

in contrast o the epistemological arbitrarinesshat he posits on the second level, the level of the con-

ceptual frameworkof the historical writing."

White, however,keeps waveringon this issue, because later he sometimes resortsto an anti-posi-

tivistic, Nietzscheanposition. Cf. his "Fictionsof FactualRepresentation," 27-128:"there s no such

thing as a single correctdescriptionof anything,on the basis of which an interpretation f thatthing

can subsequentlybe broughtto bear. . . . All original descriptions of any field of phenomena are

already nterpretations f its structure...."

22. White sometimescomes close to admitting his paradoxicalconsequenceof his position. SeeH. White, "A Rejoinder: A Response to Professor Chartier's Four Questions," Storia della

Storiografia (Geschichteder Geschichtsschreibung) 7 (1995), 65: "Onecannot transforma 'real'

event, person, process, relationship,or what have you into a 'function'of a discourse without 'fic-

tionalizing' it, by which I mean 'figurating' t. The translationof the stuff of reality into the stuff of

discourse is a fictionalizing." n "LiteraryTheoryand HistoricalWriting"White,however, explicitly

denies that he obliteratesthe distinction between fact and fiction, althoughit is not clear on what

grounds(35). Now he defends tropological analysisto the point of almost equating t with an episte-

mological positionone could derive fromE. H. Carr's What s History?In the same move, however,

the emphasis s now shiftedfrom thefictionalityof figuration o its factuality, hus addingto the exist-

ing ambiguity n this matter:"Ifthere is no such thing as 'raw facts,' but only events under differentdescriptions,then factualitybecomes a matterdescriptive protocols used to transformevents into

facts. Figurativedescriptionsof real events are not less 'factual'-or, as I would put it, 'factologi-

cal'-in a differentway. Tropological heory implies that we mustnot confuse 'facts' with 'events."'

"Who would confuse them in 1990?"seems to me a legitimate question.

For criticism of this type of use of the term "fiction"cf. Ann Rigney, "SemanticSlides: History

and the Concept of Fiction," in History Making: The Intellectual and Social Formation of a

Discipline, ed. R. Thorstendahl ndI. Veit-Brause Stockholm, 1996), 31-47.

23. In "LiteraryTheoryandHistoricalWriting"White stateson 20: "Historicaldiscoursedoes not,

then, producenew informationabout the past, since the possession of bothold and new information

about the past is a preconditionof the compositionof such a discourse.Nor can it be said to providenew knowledge about the past insofar as knowledge is conceived to be a productof a distinctive

method of inquiry.What historical discourse producesare interpretationsof whateverinformation

aboutandknowledge of the pastthe historiancommands."On 21 he explicitly characterizes"histor-

ical discourse as interpretation nd historicalinterpretation s narrativization."n "Interpretationn





CAN HISTORIESBE TRUE? 317

In Ankersmit'scase too empiricism lurks in his representationof historical

research.Afterelaboratingon the similar statusof scientifictheories and histor-

ical narratives,he halts the trainat the same station as Whitedoes and probably

for the same reasons: he simply asserts thatthe "theory-ladenness f empirical

facts" does not apply to historicalfacts ... because "historiansalways use a-the-

oretical, ordinaryanguage."24n empiricistrepresentation f historicalresearch

thus turns out to represent he epistemological flipsideof a metaphorical epre-

sentationof the historicalnarrative. n its zeal to redressthe "traditional"denti-

fication of professionalhistorywith the applicationof researchmethods and in

its neglect of history writing,metaphoricalnarrativism nds up omitting histori-

cal researchaltogether rom the discipline'sidentifyingcharacteristics.25

III.NARRATIVISMAS INVERTEDPOSITIVISM 2):

NARRATIVISMAS AN INVERSIONOF THE COVERING-LAWVIEWOF EXPLANATION

The firstconsequence of the "metaphoricalurn" rom an explanatorypoint of

view is the most importantone, namely,the narratios bornas a linguisticentity

independentof the individual statements t contains.26The claim that these nar-

ratiosat the same time constitutethe explanationsof what is described by theirstatements s a break with-and reversalof-the covering-lawview of explana-

tion. Ankersmit'sargumentson this issue are more explicit than White's and

thereforeI will firstanalyzehis line of reasoning.

Ankersmit'sclaim that narrativesare self-explanatory, ust as metaphorsare,

is founded on his characterization f historicalinterpretations-labeled by him

as narrative substancesor "Nss"-as self-referential.This somewhatparadoxi-

cal characteristic ollows from the conceptualstrategyI signaledbefore, thatis,

the separationof history writing from historical research. Historicalresearch,

ideally, producestrue singular,descriptivestatementswhich refer to pastreality,

and historical narrativesconsist of collections of those statements. Far more

important o Ankersmit s the point-of-view function of narratives,which is the

productof the way the historianorganizes the descriptivetruestatements nto a

narrativewhole or Ns. Every Ns is defined by the sum total of these singular

History,"58-59, White shunsthe problemof interpretation t the level of research n the ambiguous

statement hat "thereare at least [my italics] two levels of interpretationn everyhistoricalwork:one

in which the historian constitutesa story out of the chronicle of events and another n which, by a

morefundamentalnarrative echnique,he progressively dentifies he kindof storyhe is telling-com-

edy, tragedy,romance, epic, or satire, as the case might be." Cf. Alex Callinicos, Theories and

Narratives:Reflectionson the Philosophy of History(Cambridge,Eng., 1995), 76-78.

24. Ankersmit,NarrativeLogic, 230-231.

25. It shouldbe notedthatAnkersmitacknowledges hecomplementarity f the philosophyof his-

toricalnarrativeand the philosophy of historicalresearch,but he remains silent abouttheir relation-

ship.Cf. Ankersmit,NarrativeLogic, 6-9, andhis History and Tropology,2-6.

26. See, however, Gorman'scritiqueof Ankersmit's extual holism in J. Gorman,"Philosophical

Fascinationwith Whole HistoricalTexts,"review of Ankersmit'sHistory at-d Tropology, n History

and Theory36 (1997), 406-415.

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318 CHRISLORENZ

statements:altering one statementwould yield a different Ns. Therefore every

singularstatementcontainedby a Ns is a logical propertyof the Ns because it is

necessary for its identity.Therefore he narrativistuniverse is basically identicalto the universe of Leibniz's monads, in which a logical-and thus necessary-

harmonyreigns supreme:narratives n their point-of-view capacity cannot con-

tradictone another,according o Ankersmit,but can only be different.The unique

identity that the proponentsof classical Historismusmistakenlyattributed o his-

torical reality itself therefore should be attributed o historical narratives,so

Ankersmitargues.

Ankersmit'snext and crucial move is the deduction of an explanatoryneces-

sity fromthe logical necessity in the narrativistic-linguistic-universe: "Thus,when the past (i.e. not Nss) is described n terms (of the narrative tatements)of

Nss, we can say that the past has been explained, because the Nss embodying

such an explanationcould not have been different.The explanandum i.e. what

falls withinthe scope of a Ns) is explained by what defines the narratio's cope

(i.e. thestatementscontained n a narratio)."27"Nowwe knowwhatwas the cause

of theechec of theCoveringLaw Model: a set of singularstatementsmaybe suf-

ficient to give a historicalexplanation."28

Along withempirical awsAnkersmit'snarrativism liminates the principleof

causality from its explanatory ogic: "Historicalunderstandings achieved by

describing the past with the help of a strong and vigorousNs and not by the dis-

coveryof causal relationships."29 hile Positivismheld "Nocauses,no explana-

tion,"Ankersmit'snarrativism laims the exact opposite:whateverthe explana-

tory links of historians are, they are not causal (But as with Positivism,

Ankersmitpresupposes hat n historythere s just one explanatorymodel.)After

living for more than two centuries underHume's spell, narrativehistorianscanfinallybreathe reely.

InWhite's narrativismwe encountera quitedifferentandmore illicit inversion

of Positivism thanin Ankersmit's.White's conceptof explanation s not monis-

tic, butmultilayered;and it definitelylacks the formalrigorof Positivismand of

Ankersmit's logical analysis. Next to the three types of explanationrelated to

narrativesas wholes that form the core of his philosophy-the explanation by

formalargument,by ideological implication,andby emplotment-he mentions

explanationsin narrativeswithout identifying them any further. He acknowl-edges that "certainnarrativediscoursesmay have argumentsembedded within

them, in the form of explanationsof why things happenedas they did."30But

27. Ankersmit,NarriativeLogic, 245.

28. Ibid., 246. White's position with regard o lawlike explanation s different from Ankersmit's

because he acknowledges that some ("mechanicist")historiansdo explain by referring o presumed

laws. He, however, also rejects the positivist claim that subsumingan event undera law is a neces-

sary condition for historicalexplanation.Cf. his Metahistoty, 11-22.

29. Ankersmit,NarrativeLogic, 163.30. White, "The Question of Narrativein ContemporaryHistorical Theory,"43. Cf. White,

Metahistoy, 7, wherehe makesthe distinctionbetween "synoptic udgments"concerningnarratives

as structuresof complete sets of events, and judgments at a lower level concerning the relations

between singularevents.








accordingto White these explanationsdo not belong to the narrativeproperbut

only to the chronicle, that is, the type of orderthat events possess before they are

properly"narrativized" y the historian."To all appearancesWhite incorporatesthis level of explanation n the phase of researchand this could explain why any

furtheranalysis is missing.

The same holds for the striking act thatinWhite's philosophy there's no con-

nection whatsoeverbetween these explanationsbelongingto the level of chroni-

cle and White's three types of narrative xplanation.Elucidating what types of

relationships we encounter in history he consequently restricts his analysis to

narrativerelationships localized-in a surprisingly Collingwoodian spirit in

the historian'smind:"Histories, hen,are not only aboutevents but also aboutthepossible sets of relationships that those events can be demonstrated o figure.

These sets of relationshipsare not,however, mmanent n the eventsthemselves;

they exist only in the mind of the historian reflecting on them."32Just like

Ankersmit's,White's narrativism oo is susceptible to a strongpull of idealism.33

As is well known, White's threefoldschematizationof quadripartite xplana-

tory strategiesresultsin twelve explanatorycombinations.But because he does

not claim that his scheme is exhaustiveof explanatorypracticesin historythere

might be many more.34So Paul Ricoeur hits the nail on the head in remarking

thatWhite'snarrativismn the end leads to a "tropologicalnflation" hatmay be

interpretedas anotherway of invertingthe covering-law model of explanation,

Insteadof instructinghistorianshow to follow The Pathof Real Science, White

instructs hem that all strivingfor scientific explanationand foundation s futile,

because all they will achieve in the end is self-createdlinguistic constructions

imposedon a chaos of (archival)"information."35

31. White, "The Question of Narrative n ContemporaryHistoricalTheory," 5: "But such assess-

ments [explanations] ouch only that aspect of the historicaldiscourseconventionallycalled its chron-

icle. It does not provide us with any way of assessing the contentof narrative tself." As Callinicos

has stressed,White wavers between the idea that events present hemselvesto the historian n a com-

pletely unstructured, haotic form before they are "narrativized"nd the idea that they presentthem-

selves in their temporalorder,as a chronicle. Cf. Callinicos, Theoriesand Narrativhes,4-75.

32. White, "HistoricalText as LiteraryArtifact,"94. Cf. Ankersmit,NatrrativeLogic, 117 on nar-

rative substances:"Nss function only at the level of words"andthereforeare non-referential.

33. In History aind TRopology,107, Ankersmit claims that the vocabulary of representation s

"beyond"he problemof realism versusidealismand that this problem s only createdby andin epis-temology. Implicitlyhe thusrejects "narrativedealism"as developed originallyin Narr-ativeLogic:

"The inestimablepositive achievementof epistemology has been to create in the transcendental go

the indispensableplatform hat is a prerequisite or all science. Its limitation,however, has been that

in attributing ll cognitive primacy o the transcendental go it has effected the melting away of both

reality itself and the representationn art and history. Epistemologyhas thus created the unpleasant

dilemma of having to choose between a realisticand an idealistic interpretation f scientificknowl-

edge. Moreover, he representation f reality by the individualcognitive subjectthat is not reducible

to a transcendental go has since been seen as a doubtfulenterprise roma cognitive point of view."

The "price"Ankersmit is paying for placing metaphoricalnarrativism"beyond" he dichotomy of

realism versusidealism, therefore, s placingit "beyond" pistemology.34. Cf. Carroll,"Interpretation, istoryandNarrative," 41-143.

35. Ricoeur, "Geschichteund Rhetorik,"121. Another remnantof Positivism may be located in

White's monistic presupposition hat every historical narrative s "explained"by just one plot struc-

ture. McCullagh's objections in this case seem legitimate. See C. Behan McCullagh, The Truthof

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thesis of a "hidden mpiricism" nWhite's andAnkersmit'srepresentation f his-

torical researchis correct, and if I am also correct that their conceptions of

metaphorical explanation are developed in direct contrast with this "hidden

empiricism'-and thereforearedependenton it-then we can easily understandwhy metaphoricalexplanation s conceived as purely linguistic and why narra-

tivism provides no connection between metaphoricalexplanation and factual

research.

Whiterepresents he most seriouscase in this respectbecause he explicitly and

frequentlycontrastsknowledge o interpretationwhenhe identifies nterpretation

with narrativizingand "fictionalizing."This contrastharks back to the classical

opposition of epistemology to hermeneutics,which is again derivedfrom the

classical oppositionbetweenepisteine and doxa. As Tom Rockmorepointedoutin relation to Gadamer'shermeneutics, his classical opposition denies interpre-

tationthe statusof a scientific cognitive operationand restricts it to subjective

conviction. And as he points out, this oppositionpresupposes n its turnthe clas-

sical identification of knowledge with founded, "absolute"knowledge.40 This

basic conceptual opposition in White's metaphoricalnarrativism eads to his

abandonmentof epistemology and rationality.Because White presupposes that

narrative, nterpretive trategiesare non-cognitive,the choice between different

narrativeexplanations cannot be relatedto factual argumentsand be rational.

Explanationaccording o White, therefore,must be a purely linguisticoperation,

guided by aesthetic or moral criteria:otherwise the epistemological problemof

representational dequacywould return o hauntWhite's agenda. Thus, it is not

accidental hathis narrativism oes not containanyepistemologicalcriteriaother

thantruth n its correspondence ense. For if a relationshipbetween the narrative

and factual levels were established,White's narrativism at least in its original

form would face major nconsistencies.In the end the fundamentalproblemwith White's narrativism onsists of its

continuing implicit alliance to foundationalismand its inseparablecompanion,

skepticism(skepticismbecause arbitrariness resents tself as theonly alternative

40. T. Rockmore,"Epistemologyas Hermeneutics,"The Monist 73 (1990), 116.

41. White, Metahistoty, xii, 4, 20, 26. For White's problems n this case, see the conclusion of the

present article and Kansteiner in note 14. For the absence of epistemological criteria other than

"truth," ee Carroll,"Interpretation,History and Narrative,"160-161: "To be an adequatenarrative,indeed to be an adequatehistoricalaccountof any sort, a candidateneeds to do more than merely state

the truth(indeed, an historicalaccount could containonly true statementsand be judged unaccept-

able). It must also meet variousstandards f objectivity.""Likeany othercognitive enterprise,histor-

ical narrationwill be assessed in terms of rationalstandardswhich, though theyareendorsedbecause

they appear o be reliableguides to the truth,are not reducibleto the standardof truth."Whiteover-

looks the possibility of objective standards-like comprehensiveness-that are "truthtracking":

"Thus, n evaluating he selections and deletions the narrativehistorianmakes, we need not feel that

we must embracesome specialstandard f truth, ike metaphoricalruth.Rather,ourconcernwith his-

torical narratives s thatthey be true in the ordinarysense of truthand that our assessments of their

adequacy in terms of standards like comprehensiveness are keyed to determining truth." Cf.McCullaghon elucidationof truthand fairness as criteria or historicalknowledgein his The Truthof

Histoi-, 13-62.








322 CHRIS LORENZ

to knowledge based on a firm foundation).42 een in that light it is not so strange

that White's concept of interpretationmanifests a striking similarityto the "tra-

ditional"concept of interpretation e set out to combat: n both concepts, empir-ically founded knowledge and interpretation ppear as opposites.43This is the

inevitableconsequence of linking both knowledge and rationalityexclusively to

nonexisting infallible foundations of knowledge (such as truth in the picture-

theory sense). (As I will show shortly,as soon as we enter the world of real nar-

ratives,however, we only encounterfallible and competingknowledge claims-

andthis holds for individualstatementsas well as for narrativesas wholes.)

Ankersmit ravels a similartrajectoryas White and ends up with similarprob-

lems. He too constructs an opposition between knowledge and interpretationwhile absorbing nterpretationn aesthetics.44Therefore t is not accidental that

Ankersmit'snarrativism xhibitsa similarproblemas White's, thoughwith con-

siderabledifferences.Also in his case theexplanatorypower of narrativess con-

ceptualized on the linguistic level since Nss are purely linguistic instruments.

This means that narrative explanation is conceptualized as an interrelationship

between statements and not as a relationshipbetween statementsand reality.45

And because statements can be interrelated n many different ways, there is

always a pluralityof narrative xplanationsof the same set of factual statements.

Of course,thecovering-lawmodelof explanation s also formal,becauseit states

the formal criteriathat must be satisfied for an argument o count as a scientific

explanation.However, the empirical adequacyof this formalmodel of explana-

tion is guaranteedbecause its explanans contains an empirical law,from which

theexplanandurms logically deduced(in combinationwith the statementsof ini-

tial conditions). By means of a causal mechanismthe formalmodel is anchored

in empiricalreality,so to speak (at least in covering-lawtheory).46n the case of

42. White's critiqueof "empiricism" ecently has been elevated to the agendaof a new journal,

RethinkingHistory (first issue, Spring 1997). Refuting "empiricism" n history is becoming a boom-

ing industry.See the "Editorial"n the first issue by Alan Munslow; KeithJenkins,"Introduction:On

Being Open about Our Closures," n The PostmodernHistoryReader,ed. Keith Jenkins(London and

New York, 1997), 1-36; and K. Jenkins, On "What s Historv?":FriomCarr and Elton to Rortyand

White London and New York, 1995).

43. Cf. White, "Interpretationn History," 5, where he describeshis competitors n philosophyof

history as theoristswho grant hat "interpretationmay enter nto the historian'saccount of the past at

some point and recommend hat historians ryto distinguishbetween those aspects of theiraccountsthat are empiricallyfounded and those based on interpretative trategies."

44. See note 5. Withregard o the relationshipof hermeneutics-and thus interpretation- to aes-

thetics,Ankersmitdistanceshis position clearlyfromGadamer's.See his "HistoricalRepresentation,"

102: "Meaninghas two components: he world, and the insight that it can be representedn a certain

way, that it can be seen from a certainpoint of view. We mustthereforedisagreewith the hierarchi-

cal order of representationand hermeneuticswhen he [Gadamer]writes that 'aesthetics has to be

absorbed nto hermeneutics.'The reverse is in fact true: aesthetics,as the philosophyof representa-

tion, precedesthat of interpretation ndis the basis for explaininginterpretation."

45. Ankersmit'scomparisonof historywith a natural cience thatonly disposes of (formal)math-

ematics and not of (empirical)experimentalmeansto test theadequacyof its theories bringsthe same

point home. Cf. his "De activiteitvan de historicus," n Hermeneutiek n culture Interpretatie n cle

kunst-en cultuurwvetenschappen,d. F. R. Ankersmitet al. (MeppelandAmsterdam,1995), 94-95.

46. There is no need here to questionthe statusof the covering-lawmodel itself nor its relation-

ship to the disciplineof history,because my only point is its relationship o the metaphoricalmodel

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Ankersmit's formal model of narrativeexplanation such a guaranteeof the

empiricaladequacyof narrative xplanation s missing, because according o this

modelany set of (true)descriptive,singularexistential statements s explanatory

at the same time. He fails, however,to spell out why he believes this is so. After

all, it is not difficultto imagine a collection of truedescriptivestatements hat do

not explain at all; as a matterof fact, this often is the case. His jump from a log-

ical necessity in the universe of Nss to an explanatorynecessity in the universe

of narratives hus turnsout to be a salto mortal. Therefore t comes as no sur-

prise that the historiographical universe does not display the harmony of

Ankersmit'snarrativistic niverse:notonly do historicalnarrativesacktheirpre-sumed necessary self-explanatoryproperty,but they also regularlycontradict

each other instead of just being different.This featureexplains why historians

normallyfeel the need to discuss various narrativeson the same topic and to

invest so much energy in answering the question as to which narrativesare

empirically adequate.If historicalnarrativeswouldjust representdifferent and

closed linguisticuniversesandnotempirically ustifiabletruth-claims,hefact of

historicaldebatewouldremain ncomprehensible.The relationshipbetweenreal

narratives nd Nss thereforeremains an unsolvedproblem n Ankersmit'snarra-tivism.

Now, althougha pluralityof explanations tself is not a problem,a pluralityof

narrativeexplanationsconceived in a Whitean or Ankersmitianway is because

this plurality s not restrainedby empiricalcriteria.Thereforeanythingseems to

go in the narrativisticuniverse, just as long as the individualdescriptivestate-

ments are true. The abandonmentby metaphoricalnarrativismof the monistic

and foundationalist deals of the covering-law theory of explanationthus has

resultedin its reversal:embracingan unlimitedvarietyof empiricallyundecid-

able narrative xplanationsandthe replacementof epistemological by aesthetic

criteria.47Hereagainwe see the fatalworkingsof the logic of reversal.As a con-

sequence of this unfettered "artistic" reedom of historiansfrom factual con-

straints,both White's and Ankersmit'sconceptionsof narrative xplanationare

seriously infected with subjectivism, which leads to a strained relationship

between metaphoricalnarrativismand the practice of history.48Therefore we

of explanation.Foran overview of the debateon covering-lawtheory,see W. Salmon, Fout-Decades

of ScientificExplanation Minneapolis, 1990).For theproblematic elationshipbetween covering-law

theory and history,see my Konstruktion er Vergangenheit, hapters9 and 10.

47. With respect to criteria for the evaluation of narrativesthere are significant changes in

Ankersmit'sposition over time. In Narrative Logic, 239-261, he suggests the applicability of the

Popperian pistemologicalcriterion"scope" o decide whichnarrative f a competingset is most ade-

quate, althoughhe fails to regard his criterionas "truth-tracking"becausenarratives n his opinion

cannotbe true).From his conversion o postmodernismonwards-around 1985-and his adoptionof

the vocabularyof "representation"e renouncesepistemology as faras historyis concerned n favor

of aesthetics.In a recently(1996) publishedarticle"Derationaliteit ande geschiedbeoefening" The

Rationalityof History),published nAnkersmit,De Spiegelvan hetverleden,59-96, Ankersmit eems

to return o a modest rehabilitation f epistemology in history.

48. Cf. Kansteiner,"White'sCritiqueof the Writingof History,"on White's original position:

"ThusWhite strives to sever anylink between the reality of past events and their semanticposition in

the historiographicalext."LaterWhitechangedthis position leadingto the signaledcontradictions.



324 CHRIS LORENZ

cannot regardmetaphoricalphilosophy of history as an adequateanalysis of his-

torical practice.The best we can do is try to learn from its mistakes and to ana-

lyze where its subjectivisticdrift stems from. This observation eads me to my

conclusion.

V. CONCLUSION

I have argued that the subjectivisticdrift of metaphoricalnarrativephilosophy

can be explained by its reversalof the two brandsof positivismI identified ear-

lier on, the positivism of factsand the positivism of covering-lawexplanation.As

both forms of positivism were derived fromthe dominant mage of naturalsci-ence, metaphoricalnarrativism wes its fundamental haracteristics o its rever-

sal of the nineteenth-century aturalscience model. So in a sense the ghosts of

Hume, Comte, and Hempel still hauntphilosophy of history,albeitin a negative

shape. As I have argued,the attackon both flanks of positivismhelps to explain

the fundamental raitsof metaphoricalnarrativism ndespeciallyits drifttowards

fictionalism and towardsthe mistaken parallelism of historyand literature.For

although metaphoricalnarrativism urely deserves credit for the rediscoveryy

that historiansproducetexts and thathistorythereforepossesses textual aspects,it is equally mistaken n its essential identificationof history with its textualqual-

ities (althoughWhiteis not entirely consistent on this score given his critiqueof

textualismin Foucault and Derrida).49 his is so because of a trivial but funda-

mental fact, namely, that history, contrary to all fictional literature, s always

about somethingoutside the text-the real past.This referentialquality of his-

torical narrativesexplainswhy the constructionof narratives boutthe past is an

activitywithdisciplinary, ntersubjective ontrols,becausetheways in which we

refer with wordsto thingsareintersubjective.The fact that reference s not self-

evident cannot be regardedas an argumentcontrathe referentialqualityof lan-

guage because reference is never a simple given.50 f this were to count as an

argumentone could on the same grounds argue againstthe reference of individ-

ual statements-in historyas well as all empiricalsciences (a position not even

White or Ankersmitsupports).

The same appliesfor the notion of truth, or the idea that the truthof individ-

ual statements-in contrast o the truthof a narrative-is self-evident andbeyonddebate,as picturetheories of knowledge suggest, cannotbe upheld.At both lev-

els the establishmentof truthandfalsity is dependenton fallible, intersubjective

conventions;the difference between individual statementsand complete narra-

49. Cf. White, "The Absurdist Moment in Contemporary Literary Theory," in Tropics of

Discourse, 261-183. Cf. Kramer,"Literature,Criticismand Imagination,97-128.

50. White's introduction n "Questionof Narrative n ContemporaryHistoricalTheory,"43, of a

distinctionbetweena "primary" nd a "secondary" eferentof narratives s a failed attempt o avoid

the self-createdproblem of reference. The "primary" eferent would consist of the past itself, the

"secondary" f the "theplot structuresof the various story types cultivated n a given culture."The

real problem s of coursethe referentialrelationshipbetweennarratives nd the past, that is, the rela-

tionship betweenthe "primary" nd"secondary" eferent.








tives is thereforea differencein degree and not in kind.51But, as stated earlier,

truthby itself is-contrary to what White and Ankersmitsuggest on the basis of

theirpicturetheory of knowledge-not a very exciting epistemological criterion,

although t is a constitutivevalue for cognitive activity as such. This is the con-

sequence of the fact that since episteme proved to be a false ideal, its distinction

with doxa has evaporated,and fallibilistic truth-theorieshave taken the place of

foundationalismandits picture theories of truth.This means that since Popper's

Logik der Forschung n 1934 epistemology has exchanged its interest in direct

truth-criteria or criteria to assess the relative quality of claims to truth alias

knowledgeclaims(in the form of theories,research-programs, aradigms,ornar-

ratives). With this goal epistemology has developed truth-tracking riteria-to

use Carroll'sapt phrase-such as scope, explanatorypower, comprehensiveness,

and so on and these are the criteria hatreallymatterwheneverwe want to assess

rival knowledge claims. Being true means somethingrather rivial ike "in accor-

dance with the known facts and not(yet) falsified,"but truth n this sense is mere-

ly a necessary and not a sufficientcondition for cognitive quality.52 his applies

to individualstatementsas well as to completenarratives nd theories.

Neither at the level of individualdescriptivestatementsnor at the level of thenarrativeorganizationof those statements s it possible to disentanglethe refer-

ential, descriptive rom the metaphorical,point-of-view function,because all lin-

guistic representationsof reality at the same time constitutepoints of view at

reality, recognizedas such or not. The singular descriptive statements"In 1997

freedom fightersin Zaire succeeded in ending Mobutu'scorruptdictatorship"

and"In1997rebels in Zaire succeededin overthrowingpresidentMobutu's egit-

imategovernment"bothcarry points of view, just as would complete narratives

on the subject.At both levels it is not thepresence or absence (the either-or)ofa point of view that matters-there is no viewfrom nowhere in both cases. Both

White and Ankersmitseem to hold thatthe pointsof view at the level of singu-

lar descriptive statementsare uncontestableand that the opposite is the case at

the level of total narratives.Theirargument hatthe notion of truthonly applies

to individualdescriptive tatements ollows directly rom thispresupposition. hey

fail to adduceany argument, owever,why we shouldfollow this, by nowfamiliar,

either-orscheme.Again, as long as there are differences n this respectbetween

statementsandnarratives,hesedifferencesare in degreeand not in kind.5351. The identificationof conventional and arbitrary, ften encountered n postmodernistcircles,

should be resisted by all means-unless one is prepared o label all of natural cience as arbitrary. s

Popper pointed out in 1934, even the acceptance of the most elementaryobservationalstatements

(Protokol-or Basissdtze) requiresconventionaldecisions by the scientificcommunity.See Criticism

and the Growthof Knowledge, ed. I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (Cambridge,Eng., 1970), esp. 102-

116 for the discussion on conventionalism n naturalscience in relationto the debate on Thomas

Kuhn's Structureof ScientificRevolutions.

52. Cf. Nelson Goodman, Waysof WorldinakingIndianapolis,1978), 18: "Truth, ar from being

a solemn and severe master, s a docile and obedient servant.The scientistwho supposes that he is

single-mindedlydedicated to the search for truthdeceives himself. He is unconcernedwith the triv-

ial truthshe could grindout endlessly;andhe looks to the multifacetedand irregular esults of obser-

vations for little more than suggestions of overall structures nd significantgeneralizations.He seeks

system, simplicity, scope; and when satisfiedon these scores he tailors truth o fit."

53. McCullaghargues along similar ines regarding he truthconditionsof metaphorical anguage.

See his The Truthof History,62-82.

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326 CHRIS LORENZ

The complexity of the notion of truth n the case of narratives or scientific the-

ories) cannotbe used as an argumentagainst t, for as long as we presuppose hat

historicalnarratives efer to a real past and thus representknowledge of the past,

historicalnarratives onstitutetruth-claims hat must be elucidatedand not anni-

hilated by philosophy of history.54How these claims are justified in practice is

anotherproblemthat need not botherus here because the meaning and the estab-

lishment of truth are distinct problems. This holds for individual statementsas

well as for narratives.

The importanceof the intersubjective haracterof the rules of "doing history"

in contrast o "doing literature" annot be overemphasizedbecause it constitutes

history's distinguishing hallmark as an empirical discipline. In contrast to

authorsof fiction,historiansdeal with anobjectand with definitionsof theobject

that are open to public scrutiny and debate.And so is the evidence they use to

back up theirarguments,because as a consequence of the public character f his-

tory historical narratives annotjust be presented, as aretheirfictionalcounter-

parts, but they standin need of constant empirical and logical backing.55These

characteristicsare manifest in the old habit of historians,contrary o all authors

of fiction,of criticizingone anotherfor the empiricaland conceptual nadequa-

cies of their stories as a whole and notjust for the individual statementsnarra-tives contain.In the recent debateon Goldhagen'sHitler'sWillingExecutioners,

for instance,one problemis the adequacyof the point of view embodiedin his

narrative ather han merely the truthof the individualstatements.

Itis the rule-govemedharacterf history hatmakes t an intersubjectiventerprise,

as the formernarrativist ionel Gossmanhas emphasized: Historians o apparently

believe hat hereareprocedures f verification ndcriteriaor udgingbetweendiffer-

enthypotheses ndnarratives."Modemhistoriography,ike modemscience, s apro-

fessionalized ndregulated ctivityn whichnoindividual anany onger magine hathe or sheworksaloneor enjoysa specialrelationshipo thepast.Inthis respectt dif-

fers from neoclassical r Romantichistoriography."56Itis not accidental hatmany

postmodernistsegardRomantic istoriographys theparadigm f all historywriting.)57

It is this permanentnecessity of argument as a consequenceof historicalnar-

ratives'truth-claims)hatexplains why there is such a thing as historical debate

which keeps the motorof history as a discipline running.And this is where the

rationalityof history can be localized, as Lionel Gossman,Allan Megill, and

54. In this respectDavidCooper's emarks n metaphor nd ruth re mportant. oopercriticizes hose

theoriesof metaphor ndtruth hat ail to elucidatewhy truth s a fundamental alueguidingourcognitive

activities.See his "Truth nd Metaphor,"n Knowledge ndLanguage,ed. Ankersmit ndMooij, 37-49.

55. This aspect of history is also stressed by Megill, "Recounting he Past."

56. Cf. L. Gossman, "The Rationalityof History," n BetweenHistoty and Literature,313, 315.

See also 309: "The way historianscommunicatewith each other and criticize each other's work sug-

gests that they indeed expect their colleagues to be able to recognize the force of contraryarguments

and narratives o adjusttheir own accordingly-either by developing answers to these argumentsor

by revising their own." See also A. Megill and D. McCloskey, "The Rhetoric of History," n The

Rhetoric of the Human Sciences: Language and Argument n Scholarship and Public affairs, ed. J.Nelson, A. Megill and D. McCloskey (Madison, 1987), 228, 235.

57. Cf. my Konstruktionder Vergangenheit,177-187, and F. R. Ankersmit, "The Origins of

PostmodernistHistoriography,"n Historiographybetween Modernism and Postmodernism, d. J.

Topolski(AmsterdamandAtlanta, 1994), 107-119.

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Paul Ricoeuralso have emphasizedrecently."8 o if history s characterized y its

narrative orm alone one disregards he fuel of its motor:historiansdon't claim

to presentjust a story but a true story,and this truth-claim s its distinguishinghallmark.The basic problemwith metaphoricalnarrativismas a philosophy of

history is that it does not account for this difference, although of course it

acknowledgesthe truth-claimof the individual statementscontained n a histor-

ical story.

In the end this neglect can be tracedback to the inabilityof metaphoricalnar-

rativism to connect history writing with historical research.Both White and

Ankersmitdisconnect,as we observed, the referential,descriptive,or literal con-

tent of metaphorsand the non-referential r figurativecontentof metaphors;andboth authors dentify the constructionof narrative xclusively with the non-ref-

erentialaspects.As a consequence of this split the problemsof truthandrefer-

ence arerelegated solely to the phase of researchwhile the problemof the rela-

tionship between research and narrativedisappearsin a philosophical black

hole.59

The disappearance f the relationshipbetween researchand narrative s in my

opinion fatal for any philosophy of history,since the dynamicsof history can

only be found in the relationshipbetween researchand narrative.60 therwise

why would historiansbotherabout research at all?6' Therefore, t is significant

thatin a confrontationbetween White's narrativism nd practicinghistorians-a

confrontationarisingout of the historiography f the Holocaust-White's theo-

ry got into very seriousproblems.Manyof White's crucialdistinctions,such as

the distinction between chronicle and narrativeand between "non-narrativized"

eventsin researchandtheir ater"narrativization"n history writing,weresevere-

ly criticizedby historianssuch as ChristopherBrowning,MartinJay,andCarloGinzburg.62White's narrativism s built on two distinctionsthatdo not show up

58. Cf. note 56. For Ricoeursee his "Geschichteund Rhetorik."

59. The restorationof this relationship is also Ricoeur's main objective in "Geschichte und

Rhetorik."He concludes thatthe connection betweenthe two componentsof classical rhetoric-the

theory of argumentation nd the theoryof tropes-is dissected by White. By identifying historywrit-

ing only with.tropologyWhite turnsa blind eye on its argumentative oundationsand its relationship

with the researchof past realityand searchfor truth.As a resulthistorywriting s cut loose from epis-

temology andultimatelydissolves in the tropologicalhalf of rhetoric.Ricoeur thereforepleads for a

systematicconnectionbetweenboth componentsof classical rhetoricand a rehabilitation f the epis-temological dimensionsof history.

60. I have analyzed this relationship and the dynamics of a historiographicaldiscussion in

"BeyondGoodandEvil? The GermanEmpireof 1871 and ModernGermanHistoriography,"ournal

of ContemporaryHistory30 (1995), 729-765.

61. Ankersmit,"HistoryandPostmodernism," 72, comes close to denyingthe role of research n

postmodernisthistory by completely dissolving historyin the interpretation f other interpretations:

"Themodernisthistorianfollows a line of reasoningfrom his sources and evidence to an historical

reality hiddenbehind the sources. On the otherhand, in the postmodernistview, evidence does not

pointtowards hepast butto otherinterpretations f the past;for thatis what we in fact use evidence

for.To expressthis by meansof imagery:for the modernist, he evidence is a tile which he picks up

to see what is underneath t; for the postmodernist,on the otherhand,it is a tile which he steps on in

orderto move on to other tiles: horizontality nsteadof verticality."

62. I am referring o theiressays in Probingthe Limits of Representation:Nazismnnd the "Final

Solution, ed. S. Friedlknder(Cambridge,Mass., 1992). See C. Browning, "German Memory,






328 CHRIS LORENZ

in the practice of history:first, a distinction between literal and figurative an-

guage, and, second, the exclusive use of literal language during the phase of

researchand the use of figurative anguage-read metaphor-during the phase ofcomposition or writing.The same distinctions and presuppositionsare, as we

observed, crucial forAnkersmit'snarrativism.

As a resultof these criticismsWhite was forced to drop-almost silently but

most significantly-the basic tenet of metaphoricalnarrativism:he presupposi-

tionthat all historicalnarratives an be emplottedat will by thehistorianbecause

emplotment s not restrainedby empiricalconstraints:"In the case of an emplot-

ment of the events of theThirdReich in a 'comic' or 'pastoral'mode, we would

be eminentlyjustified in appealingto 'the facts' in order to dismiss it from the

list of 'competing narratives'of the Third Reich."63But if the "freedom of

emplotment" thesis is given up, so must the thesis that narratives-just like

metaphors-are necessarilyexplanatory, egardlessof the facts-the other basic

tenet of "metaphorical" arrativism.64f the Third Reich cannot be emplottedat

will because of the facts, thenthe explanationby emplotment s also restrictedby

the facts.

The "metaphorical urn"as formulatedby White and Ankersmit s thereforeinadequateas philosophy of history and should be replacedby analyses that suit

the practiceof historybetter.Such analysesshouldacknowledgethe metaphori-

cal or theoreticalaspectsin both researchand narrativeand should use a notion

of metaphor hat does notprecludemetaphorical tatementsbeing true or untrue.

Such analysesof metaphorexist andareelaboratedby, for instance, MaryHesse

and Lakoffand Johnson.65 ccordingto these authorsall use of languageis fun-

Judicial Interrogation,and Historicial Reconstruction:Writing PerpetratorHistory from Postwar

Testimony,"n Probing theLimits,ed. Friedldnder,9-32: "Ashistorianshave increasinglyrecognized

over the past half-century, here is no clean distinction between 'facts' and 'interpretation,'n which

the latteremerges as self-evident or is constructedout of the undisputed aw materialsof the former."

"For he history of one day in Jozefow, as for all history,virtuallyevery 'fact' was an act of interpre-

tation in itself, which is to say that it resulted from a judgment of the historian.""Although would

not disagree that t is the plot that determines he narrative, would add that the questions being posed

shape the plot and narrative ogether.""In my view there are no distinct and separatecategories of

attestable act on the one hand and pure interpretation n the other. Ratherthere is a spectrumor a

continuum."Cf. also M. Jay, "Of Plots, Witnesses and Judgments," n Probing the Limits, ed.Friedldnder, 05: "Another onsiderationalso militates against the unfettered reedom of historians o

narrativizearbitrarily, nd this concerns the communityof others that reads and judges theirwork."

"It is not so much the subjective imposition of meaning, but rather he intersubjective udgmentof

meanings that matters."See also Kansteiner,"White'sCritiqueof the Writing of History,"290-293.

63. White, "HistoricalEmplotment and the Problem of Truth," n Probing the Limits, ed.

Friedlinder,40.

64. In "HistoricalText as LiteraryArtifact,"85, White has significantly"softenedup"his original

position without giving it up: "The importantpoint is that most [my italics] historical sequences can

be emplotted in a numberof differentways...." Ankersmit'sargumentconcerningthe explanatory

power of narratives uns into similar problems as White's. On the one hand Ankersmitclaims thatevery Ns is explanatoryby definition,on the other hand he states in NarrativeLogic, 246, that a Ns

or a set of singularstatements"maybe [my italics] sufficient" o give a historicalexplanation.

65. For theconceptionof LakoffandJohnsonsee C. Forceville,PictorialMetaphor nAdvertising

(Wageningen,1994), 27-32; for Hesse's conception, see M. Hesse, "Models, Metaphorsand Truth,"

in Knowledge and Language, ed. Ankersmitand Mooij, 50-67.




damentallymetaphorical,andthereforea clear separationbetween literaland fig-

urativeuse of language doesn't hold water. Mary Hesse has defended this view

which is a defense of realismat the same time: "Justas observation anguage is

theoretical and analogical through and through, but is still the basis for realistdescriptionsandcognitive inference,so I shall now arguethat natural anguage

is metaphoricalthrough and through, and yet has cognitive meaning." "I am

going to arguethatmetaphoricmeanings have logical priorityover literal mean-

ings in a way analogousto the priorityof theoreticalover 'observational'mean-

ings in science."66 his view is based on the argument hat all types of metaphors

are built into our ordinary descriptive language.A descriptive statement like

"White's theory has no solid foundationin historiography"hides the built-in

metaphor"Theoriesare like buildings."The circumstance hatmany metaphorsare not (any longer) recognized as such does not alter this fact. The enormous

advantageof this type of analysisof metaphor s that it does not contradict he

truth-claimof historical narrativeson a priori groundsand does not implicate

any a priori view on the explanatorypowerof narrativeas such.67

In my view the truth-claimsof history vis-a-vis literature emainessential and

thereforecannot be treatedas accidental.This crucial difference should prevent

philosophersfrom treating history and fiction as two exemplarsof the same

species, that of the narrative,of which the historicalstory, ideally, just happens

to be somehow connected to the search for truth. For whenever this happens

philosophersof historyend up on the wrongtrack.The stylistic or other textual

aspects of history writing then are substituted or history itself, and the philo-

sophical resultof this substitution, s thatphilosophyof history is treated as a

branchof aestheticsor of literarytheory.This is essentially what has happened

duringthe last two decades and therefore t is no coincidence thatmany (perhaps

even most) books on philosophyof history nowadaysareproduced n literaturedepartments.68

So paradoxically,n thelastanalysis he fundamental roblemwithmetaphorical

philosophyof historyturnsout to be, all its attention or the linguisticdimensions

of historynotwithstanding,hatit has forgotten o elucidatethe linguisticrootsof

the word"history"tself. For theoriginalmeaningof theGreekwordhistoria s not

story,butinquiry.Andtherefore,wheneverhistoricalnarratives re characterized s

"true tories,"heemphasisshouldbe puton the adjectiveand not on the noun.

University of Leiden / Free University of Amsterdam

66. Hesse, "Models, MetaphorsandTruth," 4.

67. In "LiteraryTheoryand HistoricalWriting"White is moving in this directionby relativizing

the differences between the literalandthe figurativeuses of language withoutspelling out the conse-

quences for his original position.

68. Cf. Megill and McCloskey, "The Rhetoricof History," 35: "The need is not to abandonepis-

temological standards.These too are part of the discipline and of its conversation.They mark out a

successful attempt o make history, ike science, cumulative.Yet at the sametime they create an obsta-

cle. Historythattries to do withoutrhetoric oses its contact with the widerconversationof mankind."See also J.Nelson,A. Megill, andD. McCloskey,"Rhetoricof Inquiry,"n TheRhetoricof theHunian

Sciences, ed. Megill andMcCloskey, 3-18.

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