Sins of a Historian. Perspectives to the problem of anachronism

Abstract

Anakronismi on historiantutkimuksen keskeisiä metodologisia ongelmia. Anakronistisessa historian tulkinnassa historioitsija sijoittaa tutkimaansa aikakauteen käsitteitä tai ajattelutapoja, jotka kuuluvat johonkin toiseen aikakauteen. Tutkimus laajentaa teoreettista ymmärrystä anakronismeista sekä luo tulkintakehikon, jonka avulla anakronismeja on mahdollista välttää erityisesti intellektuaalihistoriassa.

Intellektuaalihistoriassa anakronismeihin päädytään mm. silloin kun ei huomata eroja omien ja menneisyyden henkilön ajattelutavoissa tai tavoissa käyttää käsitteitä. Tutkimuksen keskeinen strategia on tuoda esiin mahdollisia historiallisten katkosten paikkoja ja siten mahdollistaa anakronismien monipuolinen tunnistaminen. Työssä nostetaan esiin se seikka, että vaikka historioitsijan ei olekaan mahdollista varmistua tulkintansa anakronismittomuudesta, niin siitä ei seuraa etteikö historiallinen kuvaus voi periaatteessa välttää anakronistiset kuvaukset.

Tutkimus rakentuu pitkälti Quentin Skinnerin, W. B. Gallien ja Ludwig Wittgensteinin ajatusten päälle.

Anachronism is one of the central themes of the discipline of history. This study discusses the problem anachronism from various perspectives. The main aim of the work is to develop ways of identifying anachronisms.

In the firs part I discuss Quentin Skinner's methodological writings' relevance to the problem of anachronism. Skinner's methodological ideas offer both important views and a ground for further research on the topic. In this work I highlight some, partly unnoticed, original insights of Skinner and partly develop his ideas further by pointing out problems and offering a solution to them. The most important section is a re-reading of Skinner's article (1969) "Meaning and Understanding In the History of Ideas" in which Skinner presents a typology of anachronisms which is much richer than has so far been noticed. I demarcate thirteen types of anachronisms instead of the four that commentators usually notice and add four more form Skinner's other works. I also highlight the fact that Skinner already in this article maintains that it is impossible to get totally rid of one's contemporary perspective when studying the past. I conclude that even though we are tied to the contemporary view it does not follow that it is impossible to avoid all kinds of anachronism.

In the second part this is done by marking potential points of discontinuity in history of concepts. For this I develop a framework which I call conceptual prism. Its backbone is Wittgenstein's idea of family resemblance of concepts and I use W. B. Gallie's and Quentin Skinner's ideas to fill in the details. Conceptual prism offers a way to analyse concepts both on semantic and pragmatic levels which enables the historian to notice conceptual changes on different levels. The advantages of the conceptual prism are demonstrated by a case study on the concept of liberty. In general I regard that such questions sometimes addressed by historians and philosophers as how much changes a concept can go through and still remain the same concept and how this can be determined are not informative. The main point is to describe similarities and differences, and concluding whether the concept remains the same or not, does not add any information.

However, I consider that the main tool for a historian who wishes to avoid anachronisms is his or her imagination and that there is no universal method to avoid anachronisms. Every model has to be reconsidered and challenged.