Munslow on Carr

[Joel S. Berson]

At 8/25/2008 03:49 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
>Impositionalism.
>
>Not in OED.
>
>1997-2002 Alun Munslow _Reappraisals: What Is History?_
>[http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/reapp/carr.html]: Carr's
>unwillingness to accept the ultimate logic of, in this instance, the
>narrative impositionalism of the historian, and his failure to
>recognise the representational collapse of history writing, even as
>he acknowledges that "the use of language forbids him to be neutral"
>(Carr 1961: 25), has helped blind many among the present generation
>of British historians to the problematic epistemological nature of
>the historical enterprise.
>
>Translation:
>Carr was not an extreme relativist. While acknowledging that
>language itself makes perfect objectivity impossible, he did not
>believe that historians necessarily impose their own subjective
>orderings and interpretations on history,  The acceptance of Carr's
>views, however, has blinded many British historians to many knotty problems.

With this more refined and expansive translation, I would assert that
Munslow mischaracterizes Carr's position.  Carr discusses -- and I
would say emphasizes -- other reasons than the non-objectivity of
language for historians imposing their own subjective
interpretations.  Carr gives much discussion to the errors/biases
introduced by (1) starting with a thesis, something one sets out to
prove; or (2) failing to enter into the context of the period being
studied.  (The page that Munslow cites is from a chapter titled "The
Historian and His Facts".)

Also, I don't recall Carr "acknowledging that language itself makes
perfect objectivity impossible", but I'd have to re-read him to be sure.

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org