Wesleyan University

Jorn Rusen's Theory of Historiography between Modernism and Rhetoric of Inquiry Author(s): Allan Megill Reviewed work(s): Source: History and Theory, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Feb., 1994), pp. 39-60 Published by: Blackwell Publishing for Wesleyan University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2505651 . Accessed: 21/03/2012 09:00
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JORN RUSEN'S THEORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY BETWEEN MODERNISM AND RHETORIC OF INQUIRY

ALLAN MEGILL
ABSTRACT

JornRusenis the preeminent German practitioner "historics," theoryof historiogof or raphy.Unlikehis closestAmerican counterpart, HaydenWhite,Rilsenplacesparticular emphasison the historicaldiscipline.The emphasisis embodiedin Rilsen'snotion of the "disciplinary matrix" historiography, of whichembraces "factors": cognitive five the interestof humanbeingsin havingan orientationin time; theoriesor "leadingviews" the research concerning experiences the past;empirical of methods;formsof representation; and the functionof offeringorientationto society. Rilsen'saccountof the disciplinarymatrixwill remindsome readersof the "hermeneutic circle."But Rilsenis far closer to Jirgen Habermasthan to MartinHeideggeror Hans-GeorgGadamer,for, like Habermas,he emphasizes authoritative of universalrationalscience. the role Theessayarguesthat Rilsen's notionof the disciplinary matrixis an important contribution to the understanding historiography. of Combinedwith his parallelconception of differing of "paradigms" historiography, helps us to make sense of the historyof it (German) historiography, is useful for analyzingand commenting present-day and on historiography. The essay also argues for a greaterdegree of pluralismthan seems the assumedin Riisen's view. It suggeststhatin an age of diversity rhetorical conception of "topic" which providesquestionsto be asked ratherthan answers is of special Riisen'sdisciplinary matrixin a topicaldirection.Rilsenrightly use, and it reinterprets suggeststhat historieshas a unifying function. The essay suggeststhat, given social This diversity,only such reflective theorycan unite the variedbody of historiography. is one of the reasonswhy historiographical theoryis importantnow.

In a series of books, beginning with Fur eine erneuerte Historik (For a Renewed Historics) and followed by the three-volume Grundzuge einer Historik (Fundamentals of a Historics), Jorn Rusen, Professor of General History at the University of Bielefeld, has sought to articulate a historiess," or theory of historiography.1 Although a number of Riisen's essays have appeared in English, because
1. Jorn Rusen, Fu'r eine erneuerte Historik: Studien zur Theorie der Geschichtswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1976) (reviewed by J. L. Herkless, History and Theory 17 [1978], 241-245); Historische Vernunft: Grundzu'geeiner Historik I, Die Grundlagen der Geschichtswissenschaft (Gottingen, 1983) (reviewed by Peter Munz, History and Theory 24 [1985], 92-100); Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit: Grundzuigeeiner Historik II, Die Prinzipien der historischen Forschung (Gottingen, 1986) (reviewed by F. R. Ankersmit, History and Theory 27 [1988], 81-94); Lebendige Geschichte: Grundzuge einer Historik SII, Formen und Funktionen des historischen Wissens (Gottingen, 1989) (reviewed by Robert Anchor, History and Theory 30 [1991], 347-356). See also Zeit und Sinn: Strategien historischen Denkens (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), a collection of occasional essays of the years 1979-1988 in which Riusen'stheoretical concerns are manifest.

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of their diverse foci and often specialized character they do not afford much sense of his theoretical project generally.2One suspects that even among German historians the general shape tends to disappear, in part because Rfisen is such a prolific writer and editor, but more importantly because the historical profession tends to be quite sharply antitheoretical, or at least untheoretical. And yet theory, in the deep sense of a reflection on basic presuppositions (as a Grundlagenrefiexion, in Riisen's terminology), is important for the discipline, especially in its current, fragmented state. My main aim here is to give an account of Riisen's histories. I shall suggest something of the theory's background and rationale, situating it within the context of German historiography. At the core of Riisen's theory is his notion of historiography's "disciplinary matrix" (disziplinare Matrix), a term that he of course borrows from Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.3 (Riisen's disciplinary matrix differs markedly from Kuhn's, however, for, as we shall see below, he uses the term to designate not only the authorized orientations and procedures of the discipline but also its external relations its relations, that is, to the social community in general.) My secondary aim is to suggest a revision of Riisen's theory through greater emphasis on the notion, adapted from classical rhetoric, of the inventional role of topoi, or topics. The revision is intended to detach Riisen's histories from the context within which it was originally articulated, that of social democratic intellectual politics in the Federal Republic of Germany from the late 1960s until the recent past. My purpose is not to reject the theory's implicit politics, but rather to adapt the theory to a situation where a greater diversity of ends and identities is to be expected than was the case within the German historical profession in the 1970s and 1980s. The notion of a histories (we could equally well call it a "historiology") is even more foreign to the historical profession in the English-speaking world than it is to the German branch of the profession. Yet, at least in the United States, one historian has come to be especially well known for his theoretical work, namely, Hayden White. In an essay concerned with conveying a sense of what
2. Four of the essays appeared in History and Theory: Jorn Riisen, "Jacob Burckhardt:Political Standpoint and Historical Insight on the Border of Post-Modernism," History and Theory 24 (1985), 235-246; "The Didactics of History in West Germany: Towards a New Self-Awareness of Historical Studies," History and Theory 26 (1987), 275-286; "Historical Narration: Foundation, Types, Reason," History and Theory, Beiheft 26 (1987), 87-97; and "Rhetoric and Aesthetics of History: Leopold von Ranke," History and Theory 29 (1990), 190-204. l am aware of three other essays in English: Jdrn RUsen, "Theory of History in the Development of West German Historical Studies: A Reconstruction and Outlook," German Studies Review 7 (1984), 11-25; "New Directions

in Historical Studies," MiedzyHistoriaa Theoria. in nad Refleksje Problematyka dziejowi wiedzy

historycznej, ed. Marian Drozdowski (Warsaw, 1988), 340-355; and "The Development of Narrative Competence in Historical Learning: An Ontogenetic Hypothesis Concerning Moral Consciousness," History and Memory 1 (Winter/Fall 1989), 35-59. Most of these essays, and a number of others, appear in JmrnRiisen, Studies in Metahistory, ed. Pieter Duvenage (Pretoria, 1993). 3. See Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, [1962], 2nd rev. enl. ed. (Chicago, 1970), "Postscript- 1969," 182-187.

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to Risen's theoryis in the firstplace,it wouldbe inappropriate offera thorough comparisonwith the work of anothertheorist;but a cursorycomparisonwill offer us a quick way of situatingRiisen, throughcontrastwith White. Bornin 1938,Riisenis ten yearsyoungerthanWhite.But as theoriststhe two are more nearlycontemporary. AlthoughWhite publishedseveraltheoretical essays earlier,the first of his theoreticalpieces to acquiresome notice was a pugnaciousessay, "TheBurdenof History,"publishedin 1966.4In the same year, at the Universityof Cologne, Riisen defended his dissertation,on the nineteenth-century historian and theorist of historiographyJohann Gustav to Droysen.Whiteand Riisenhavecontinuedto contribute theoryof historiographyeversince. In 1969Riisenpublisheda revisedversionof his dissertation, J. Geschichte:Genesisund Begrundungder Geschichtstheorie G. BegriJfene Droysens (HistoryGrasped:The Genesisand Foundationof J. G. Droysen's Fur Historik appeared Theoryof History).5His programmatic eine erneuerte in 1976.Thereare also variouseditedor coeditedcollections,Grundzuge einer Historik (1983, 1986, 1989), Zeit und Sinn (1990), and many essays. White's work is of course much better known in America,both inside the profession and outside it: most importantly,his influentialMetahistory:The Historical Europe appearedin 1973, and two essay Imaginationin Nineteenth-Century collections, Tropicsof Discourseand The Contentof the Form, appearedin 1978 and 1987respectively.6 theoryas important historifor But whileRilsenandWhiteboth see reflective ography,and have addressedin their theorizingcertaincommonissues (most notably, the forms of historical writing), their basic concerns are sharply different.An economicalway of situatingthe two theoristsis via theirdifferent intellectualprovenances.In brief, Rusen finds his intellectualinspirationin Droysen. White, on the other hand, has found substantialinspirationfor his Nietzsche.(To be sure,the latterconnechistoriographical thinkingin Friedrich democrat tion needsto be nuanced,for, unlikeNietzsche,Whiteis an American the and a moralist.Still, by highlighting points of contrastbetweenWhiteand Riisen, the connectionwill help us to see betterwhereRiisen stands.) the Without discussingin detail Nietzsche'sreflectionson historiography, importantthingto know is that in the sectionon mythand historyin TheBirth of of Tragedy (1872),and in the essay"Onthe Uses and Disadvantages History for Life" (1874) that expands on that section, Nietzsche offered as harsh a criticismof the ethos of professionalhistoricalscholarshipas has ever been wereunimaginahistorians philologists and made.He claimedthatprofessional whose own lack of nobilitymadethem incapableof distive myth-destroyers,
Historyand Theory5 (1966), 111-134,reprinted 4. HaydenWhite,"TheBurdenof History," (Baltimore,1978),27-50. in White, Tropicsof Discourse:Essaysin CulturalCriticism J. Genesisund Begrundung Geschichtstheorie G. der 5. Jorn Rfisen,BegriJfene Geschichte: Droysens(Paderborn,1969). The in (BalImagination Nineteenth-CenturyEurope 6. HaydenWhite,Metahistory: Historical Criticism Essaysin Cultural (Baltimore, 1978);White, timore,1973);White,Tropics Discourse: of (Baltimore,1987). The Contentof the Form:Narrative Discourseand HistoricalRepresentation

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cerning nobility in the past.7 In "The Burden of History," White is entirely explicit about his acceptance of the Nietzschean diagnosis of professional historiography.8White's conception of historiography is resolutely nonprofessional. He strongly resists the professional historian's claim to offer, through the autonomous practice of history, an authoritative picture of the past. Little wonder that guild historians reacted with hostility to White's initial foray into the theory of historiography and to the later, more extensive writings that followed from it. Rtsen, for his part, is unequivocal about the Droysenian provenance of his histories.9 As Professor of History at Jena and then at Berlin, Droysen (18081884) offered a lecture course on histories a full seventeen times, the first time in 1857, the last in 1883.10Thus, while Nietzsche was castigating the professional practice of historiography Droysen was delivering his theoretical lectures justifying that very practice. Droysen aimed at providing an account of the "encyclopedia and methodology" of history viewed as a unified and autonomous academic discipline. Riisen's aim is in many ways similar: he conceives of his histories as offering a "Theorie der Geschichtswissenschaft," to cite the subtitle of Fur eine erneuerte Historik. When Rusen quotes Droysen's assertion that his aim is to offer "a systematic representation of the field and method of our science," he well conveys not only Droysen's aim but a large part of his own aim as well.11 In short, whereas White often seems to theorize in anarchic hostility to the discipline, to its compromises and its consensus, Rusen sees himself as theorizing on and for the discipline. In part (although not entirely), the difference seems situationally induced, for in the American context there has been little space within the discipline for reflective theorizing about it. Insofar as such theory has arisen, it has done so almost entirely outside the discipline -in philosophy and (more recently) in literary studies, as well as in the hybrid region between history, philosophy, and literary theory that History and Theory sometimes
7. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, sect. 23, in Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy" and "The Case of Wagner," transl. W. Kaufman (New York, 1967), 135-139, and Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life," especially sects. 5-7, in Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations, transl. R. J. Hollingdale, with an Introduction by J. P. Stern (Cambridge, Eng., 1983), 83-100. 8. White, "The Burden of History," 125, 134. 9. Rusen repeatedly notes the connection between his notion of a histories and Droysen's. See, for example, Fur eine erneuerte Historik 11 and 18, and Historische Vernunft (Grundzuge I), 22. 10. See Johann Gustav Droysen, Historik: Rekonstruktion der ersten vollstandigen Fassung der Vorlesungen (1858); Grundrifi der Historik in der ersten handschriftlichen (1857/1858) und in der letzten gedruckten Fassung (1882), ed. P. Leyh, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1977). (The promised vols. 2 and 3, which would contain textual apparatus, have not been published.) A translation by Elisha Benjamin Andrews of the final, 1882 edition of the published summary of the course, Grundrifider Historik, appeared in English as Outline of the Principles of History (Boston, 1893); it is currently out of print. A version of the lectures themselves was first published only in 1937: Johann Gustav Droysen, Historik: Vorlesungen uber Enzyklopddie und Methodologie der Geschichte, ed. R. Hubner (Munich, 1937). 11. Historische Vernunft, 22, quoting Droysen, Historik, 3. Rusen emphasizes that historics, in his conception of it, "stands ... in an inner relation to the practice of the historian" (Historische Vernunft, 11), not in opposition to it.

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occupies. In Germany, on the other hand, reflective theory of historiography has had a long presence within the German discipline, in part because of the discipline's close proximity to philosophy. Thus Rtisen is able to see himself as continuing, and renewing, Droysen's histories. Droysen, in turn, was able to attach himself to a tradition of reflection on historiography going back to the eighteenth century. 12 Pointing to the existence in many German universities of courses devoted to historics, Riisen and his colleagues are able to argue that by the second half of the nineteenth century "theory was part of 'normal' scholarly practice" in the discipline."3It is generally not so today even in Germany, as Rusen has noted; indeed, his major academic concern has been the revival of histories in a discipline now largely indifferent or even hostile to it. 14 Still, it does have a position within the German discipline rather than outside it in philosophy, literary studies, or "cultural criticism." Risen's position influences the character of his theorizing. But what is involved in Risen's professionally-oriented theory of historiography? How does it connect with the context of German historiography and politics from the late 1960s onward, within which it was articulated? Most importantly, what tools and insights might we derive from it in the changed context of the 1990s, given the concerns that now arise out of American society (and not only American society) as compared to West German society before the collapse of the German Democratic Republic? Risen's work, articulated over the last quarter century, involves four distinguishable yet connected projects. First, some of his work can be identified as what in the American context is known as intellectual history: his book on Droysen most clearly fits this mold. Second, and closely overlapping with the first category, in the Droysen book and in many essays Rusen contributes to the history of (German) historiography. 15Third, some of Risen's work is concerned primarily with commenting on the present situation and problems of (German) historiography: one notable concentration is in Zeit und Sinn. Finally, Rusen
12. On the long-standing tradition of histories in German universities, see Horst Walter Blanke, Dirk Fleischer, and Jorn Rtisen, "Theory of History in Historical Lectures: The German Tradition of Historik, 1750-1900," History and Theory 23 (1984), 331-356 (also, in more detail, Blanke, Fleischer, and Rtisen, "Historik als akademische Praxis: Eine Dokumentation der geschichtstheoretischen Vorlesungen an deutschsprachigen Universitaten von 1750 bis 1900," Dilthey-Jah'rbuchfur Philosophie und Geschichte 1 [1983], 182-255). Georg Iggers emphasizes the relation of history to German idealist philosophy in Iggers, The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thoughtfrom Herder to the Present, [1968] rev. ed. (Middletown, Conn., 1983), 3-4 and passim. 13. Blanke, Fleischer, and Rtisen, "Theory of History in Historical Lectures," 350. 14. Ruisen,Fur eine erneuerte Historik, 17; see also Blanke, Fleischer, and Rtisen, "Theory of History," 332. 15. See especially Jorn Rtisen, Konfigurationen des Historismus: Studien zur deutschen Wissenschaftskultur (Frankfurt am Main, 1993), which brings together and revises much previously published work. Note also the massive study by a Rusen student and collaborator, Horst Walter Blanke, Historiographiegeschichte als Historik [History of Historical Studies as Historics] (Stuttgart, 1991), which fits clearly into the Rusenian history of historiography program.

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offers a general theory of historiography-that is, a histories. This project, too, is articulated in many of his writings, but its most important concentration is

in Grundziige einerHistorik.
Rilsen's histories comes out of a particular conjuncture in German historiography. As Georg Iggers has shown, in the nineteenth century there emerged a specifically German conception of history, closely connected to the German state system. This tradition presupposed the existence and validity of a semiautocratic society guided by a small political elite. Although the social and political basis for this form of historiography largely collapsed in 1945, in West Germany historians continued for another fifteen years to write the same sort of history and to deny that the enormity of the Third Reich was anything other than an unfortunate aberration from the mainstream of German historical development. 16 Only in the early 1960s did the situation begin to change. The initial episode in the struggle against the older historiography was the "Fischer controversy" of 1961 and after. Fritz Fischer's revisionist account of the origins of World War I, Der Griff nach der Weltmacht (1961), did not diverge methodologically from traditional "historicist" historiography: it remained a work of narrative history focused on political events, with no appeals to explicit theory. But it challenged the nationalist political commitments of that historiography and breached, at least to some degree, its unquestioned dominance.'7 In consequence, the Fischer controversy made it easier for younger Germans to think that a historiography of sharply differentcast from traditional political narrative could and should be introduced into the German profession. When, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the German university system considerably expanded, some of these scholars were able to obtain secure academic positions. There thus emerged a new trend in German historiography. Such historians as Hans-Ulrich Wehler (b. 1931) and Jirgen Kocka (b. 1941) began to advocate and write a history that self-consciously diverged from the method of historicist history. Their ideal was a "historical social science" that would apply to history theories articulated by social scientists.'8 In addition to its methodological dimension historical social science had a political dimension, as did historicist historiography. But whereas, after the founding of the German Empire in 1871, historicist historiography served to justify the existing order, historical social science was explicitly critical of that order and was concerned to show, among other things, where, how, and why German history had gone wrong.'9 Critical
16. Iggers, The German Conception of History, 252-262, 269-270. 17. An abridged version of Fischer's book appears in English as Germany's Aims in the First World War (New York, 1967). On the Fischer controversy and its sequelae, see Georg Iggers, New Directions in European Historiography, 90-95. For a collection in English that focuses, however, on substantive rather than on methodological matters, see The Origins of the First World War: Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims, ed. H. W. Koch (New York, 1972). 18. For an important manifesto in this direction, see Hans-Ulrich Wehler, GeschichtealsHistorische Sozialwissenschaft (Frankfurt am Main, 1973). 19. The classic work along this line is Hans-Ulrich Wehler, The German Empire, 1871-1918, transl. Kim Traynor (Leamington Spa, Eng., 1985).

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historical social science was able to obtain a significant foothold in the German historical establishment in part because of the improved fortunes of the Social Democratic Party, which in 1969 formed the federal government. By the 1970s the University of Bielefeld held a concentration of these critically-oriented historians, and the new orientation in German historiography has sometimes been referred to as the "Bielefeld school."20 Risen's project of a histories emerges out of the reorientation in German historiography of the late 1960s and 1970s (accordingly, it is significant that Rusen holds a chair at Bielefeld; previously, from 1974 to 1989, he was professor at the nearby Ruhr University of Bochum). The reorientation provides the common ground on which come together his history of historiography, his commentary on contemporary historiography, and his reflective theory historiess properly so called). Indeed, even his decision as far back as the middle 1960s to write an intellectual historical study of Droysen makes sense in the light of the emergence of historical social science, although it is hard to believe that Rusen knew this when he first embarked on the study. For by choosing to write on the foremost theorist of "the German conception of history," he was able to do two things. First, by situating Droysen within the political context out of which he came, he was able to show that, far from being only an apologist of the existing order, Droysen was deeply concerned with the progressive, emancipatory political movements of his own time, thus suggesting the legitimacy of a critical and emancipatory historiography for our time. Second, he was able to find in Droysen a model of self-reflection in historiography that, mutatis mutandis, is applicable to historiography's future; in short, he was able to find in Droysen's histories the exemplar for his own project of historiographical selfreflection.21 As I noted at the beginning, Rusen borrows from Kuhn the terminology of the "disciplinary matrix," which is central to his histories. He also borrows
20. Useful accounts of the transformation in German historiography in the 1960s and 1970s are offered by Hans-Ulrich Wehler, "Historiography in Germany Today," in Observations on "The Spiritual Situation of the Age": Contemporary German Perspectives, ed. J. Habermas, transl. with an Introduction by Andrew Buchwalter [1979] (Cambridge, Mass., 1984), 221-259, at 232ff.; Georg Iggers, New Directions in European Historiography, [1975], rev. ed. (Middletown, Conn., 1984), chapter III, "Beyond 'Historicism'- Some Developments in West German Historiography since the Fischer Controversy," 80-122; Georg Iggers, "Introduction," in The Social History of Politics: CriticalPerspectives in West German Historical Writingsince 1945, ed. G. Iggers (Leamington Spa, Eng., 1985), 1-48; and Roger Fletcher, "Introduction"to Fritz Fischer, From Kaiserreich to Third Reich: Elements of Continuity in German History (London, 1986), 1-32. Geoff Eley situates the story within the wider context provided by the development in the late 1970s and 1980s of "history of everyday life" in his "Labor History, Social History, Alltagsgeschichte: Experience, Culture, and the Politics of the Everyday-A New Direction for German Social History?" Journal of Modern History 61 (1989), 297-343. Rusen discusses the evolution of German historiography from 1945 through to the early 1980s in "Theory of History in the Development of West German Historical Studies" (note 2, above), 14-25. 21. See Jorn Rusen, "Johann Gustav Droysen," in Deutsche Historiker, ed. H.-U. Wehler (Gottingen, 1971), II, 7-23, especially 11, 22.

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from Kuhn the terminology of the "paradigm,"which is central to his conception both of the history of German historiography and of its situation in the 1960s and 1970s. There is a close connection between Riisen's history of historiography, his commentary on current historiography, and his theory of historiography. The three projects are tied together at the theoretical level by a juxtaposition of "paradigm"and "disciplinarymatrix." They are tied together empirically by the particular interpretation of the past and present of German historiography and its contexts that Rusen offers. Ironies abound in the articulation and reception of Kuhn's brilliant and contradictory book.22 The irony most relevant in the present context is that Kuhn utterly denied that the account of science offered in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions had any applicability to social science, holding instead that its applicability was to natural science alone.23 Yet The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was quickly taken up by social scientists, who adapted the work to their own purposes. Our concern here is with its use by Rusen and by other proponents and practitioners of historical social science in Germany. Since Riisen's use of Kuhn is somewhat different from the roughly contemporaneous use of Kuhn in American social science, it seems important at least to point out the difference. In brief, American social scientists focused on the "structure" in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: they saw the paradigm notion as underwriting the authority of disciplinary communities.24Risen and other Germans associated with the new historiography focused on the "revolution" in Kuhn's book: their emphasis was more on paradigm change, and they used Kuhn as support for the legitimacy of moving from an old paradigm to a new one.25 The emphasis on paradigm change is manifested at many points in Rusen's work. In his commentary on current historiography, a crucially important concern is to highlight the need for and possibility of transformation. Thus in the initial "programmatic" essay in Fur eine erneuerte Historik he highlights a "fourfold problematizing of the traditional discipline of history," occasioned
22. For one discussion, see Steve Fuller, "Being There with Thomas Kuhn: A Parable for Postmodern Times," History and Theory 31 (1992), 241-275. 23. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 164-165. 24. For an important statement of this view, see David Hollinger, "T. S. Kuhn's Theory of Science and Its Implications for History," in Hollinger, In the American Province: Studies in the History and Historiography of Ideas (Bloomington, Ind., 1985), 105-129, especially 116-119 (originally published in American Historical Review 78 [1973], 370-393). As Johannes Fabian noted, from a hostile viewpoint, the use of Kuhn in [Anglo-American] social science "anoints the fetish of professionalism" (Johannes Fabian, "Language, History and Anthropology," Philosophy of the Social Sciences 1 [1971], 19-47, at 19). For a general discussion, see Allan Megill, "Four Senses of Objectivity," in "Rethinking Objectivity I," ed. A. Megill, Annals of Scholarship 8 (1991), nos. 3-4, 301-320, at 305-307. 25. See, for example, the brief discussion of Kuhn in Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Krisenherde des Kaiserreichs, 1871-1918: Studien zur deutschen Sozial-und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Gottingen, 1970), 163. The language of "paradigm"also appears in Iggers's 1975 discussion of recent historiography, no doubt picked up in part from discussion with German colleagues: see Iggers, New Directions, 6-8, 25-26, 31.

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by changesin the pre- and extra-scientific conditionsof the discipline,by the growing claimsof socialscience,by recenttheoryof science,andby the existence of the Marxist tradition.26 refersin thesubsequent He essayof Fureineerneuerte Historik to a "Strukturwandel" (structuraltransformation)in the historical discipline:the Wandelis, in essence, the hoped-forchange from traditional, "historicist" historiography "historical to social science."27 The same emphasison transformation to be found in Ruisen's is conception of the history of Germanhistoriography since the Enlightenment.Thus his 1984essay,"VonderAufklarung zum Historismus: Idealtypische Perspektiven einesStrukturwandels" to Per[FromEnlightenment Historicism: Ideal-Typical spectiveson a Structural Transformation], closely parallelsthose other essays in whichhe discusses"paradigm in WhileRusenhimself change" the present.28 H. has not cultivatedat lengththe historyof historiography, W. Blankehas.
Blanke's 809-page Historiographiegeschichte als Historik is essentially an at-

and of modeof historiogtemptto definethecharacter boundaries the historicist raphy.Herethe notionof historiographical findsits detailedapplicaparadigms tion. In the Riisenian perspective,the paradigm notion is deployed in a of diachronic way. The paradigms Enlightenment historiography, historicism, andhistorical threesuccessive socialscienceare"idealtypes"designating modes of historiography. to contribution theoryof historiography, not My concernhereis with Ruisen's with his contribution the historyof Germanhistoriography his commento or Germanhistoriography. the different But taryon present-day areasof concern are nonethelessconnectedin ways that help us to understand shapeof the the theory. I assertedat the beginningthat Rusen'scentraltheoretical contribution is his notion of the "disciplinary matrix"of historiography. Yet, as we have The of of just seen, Riisenalso usesthe terminology "paradigm." presence both in and matrix" Rusenraisesa puzzle,since, as is well "paradigm" "disciplinary matrixin the second known, Kuhn introducedthe notion of the disciplinary
edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions as a replacement for the much

disputednotion of paradigmin the firstedition.29

26. Rfisen, "Fur eine erneuerte Historik: Voruberlegungen zur Theorie der Geschichtswissenschaft," in Fur eine erneuerte Historik, 20-30. See also the earlier version of this essay in Denken uber Geschichte, ed. F. Engel-Janosi, G. Klingenstein, and H. Lutz, WienerBeitrdgezur Geschichte der Neuzeit (Munich, 1974), I, 227-252, where Rfisen likewise discusses the current "problematization" of the discipline (239) and introduces for the first time the paradigm notion (252). 27. Rfisen, "Der Strukturwandel der Geschichtswissenschaft und die Aufgabe der Historik" [The Structural Transformation of Historical Science and the Task of Historics], in Fur eine erneuerte Historik, 45-54. See also the 1986 essay "Grundlagenreflexion und Paradigmenwechsel in der westdeutschen Geschichtswissenschaft" [Reflection on Foundations and Paradigm Change in West German Historiography], in Zeit und Sinn, 50-76. 28. Rfisen, "Von der Aufklarung zum Historismus: Idealtypische Perspektiven eines Strukturwandels," in Von derAufkldrung zum Historismus: Zum Strukturwandeldes historischen Denkens, ed. H. W. Blanke and J. Rfisen (Paderborn, 1984), 15-57. 29. More precisely, Kuhn embraced within one aspect of his notion of the disciplinary matrix one aspect of what he earlier designated by the term "paradigm." A Kuhnian natural scientific disciplinary matrix has four components: symbolic generalizations (such as f = ma), models and

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that Rusen borrowsterminologyfrom Kuhn We must of courseremember much more than he does definitions(still, his appealto Kuhnis appropriate, since, like Kuhn,he is at a deep level concernedwith the questionof the rationality of [social] science). Conceptually,the interestingthing about Rilsen's matrixis that it providesa way of respondingto a notion of the disciplinary conceivedhisnumberof questionsbroughtto mindby his "paradigmatically" on and contory of historiography by the commentary presenthistoriography nected with that history. First, in responseto the descriptionof the past in therearisesthe questionof whetherin termsof a smallnumberof paradigms, are each case differences being obscuredin the attemptto fit phenomenato the paradigms.Second, wheneverone attemptsto conceptualize past in terms question, of a successionof paradigms,there arises the explanation-seeking namely, why did one paradigmgive way to another?Third, when one turns to the presenta normativequestionarises, namely,why should one paradigm give givewayto another(inthiscase,whyshould"historicism" wayto "historical social science"?).Finally, the questionarises why, if there is a successionof each givingway to the next, any of them at all shouldbe taken separadigms
riously.30

offersa conceptual matrixof historiography Riisen's notionof the disciplinary basis for respondingto the four questions. But before we can see how this matrix." is so, we need to see what content Rusen attributesto "disciplinary the "disciplinary matrixof the scienceof history" consists Accordingto Rusen, or of of a "dynamicconnection"among five "factors" "principles" historical thinking.3' They are: interest": Becausethe intentionsof humanbeings (1) thefactor of "cognitive always go beyond their presentsituations, and becauseresultsoften diverge fromintentions,humanbeingshavea needfor temporalorientation.Historical consciousnessemergesout of this need; so, too, does historicalscience. views"[leitendeHinsichtenJ concerning (2) the "theory" factor, or "leading is historiographical theexperiences thepast: "Theory" a loose termin German of In discussiongenerallyand in Rusenin particular.32 his broadestdefinitionof
metaphors, values, and exemplars of scientific practice. The term "paradigm,"Kuhn states, "would be entirely appropriate"'for the fourth element (Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 186-187). 30. I generate the questions out of a reflection on the descriptive, explanatory, and justificatory aspects of historiography. Iggers raises the first, description-oriented question in a review essay on Von derAufklarung zum Historismus, ed. Blanke and Riisen, in History and Theory 26 (1987), 114-121, at 121. 31. Rusen describes the disciplinary matrix at various places in his corpus. See especially Zeit und Sinn, 51-55 and Historische Vernunft (Grundzuge 1), 24-32. For an account in English, see Rfsen, "Theory of History in the Development of West German Historical Studies," 12-13. Rusen's first discussion of the disciplinary matrix of the science of history appears in "Der Strukturwandel der Geschichtswissenschaft und die Aufgabe der Historik," in Fur eine erneuerte Historik, 46-48; his account there is somewhat different from his later accounts, for he omits forms of historical representation and does not distinguish between "interests" and "functions." 32. As Ankersmit points out in his review essay on Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit(Grundzuge II) (note 1, above), 88-89.

JORN RUSEN'STHEORYOF HISTORIOGRAPHY

Methods (rules of empirical research)

49

Theories
views (leading the experiences concerning of the past)
---------

(of
- - - - - -

Fores representation)
____

-- -- -- --

[Historical

Discipline]

[Life-pratic]

----------------__

Interests
(interpreted orientation needs for in time)

Functions
(of existential orientation)

FIGURE 1 Rusen's Disciplinary Matrix

the "theory" factor, Rusen has in mind the conceptions that historians have concerning the historical character of human action generally. But he recognizes that theory enters into historiography at other levels as well - for example, through the application to history of explanatory theories articulated by social scientists.33 (3) methods of empirical research (4) forms of historical representation
(5) the functions of orienting existence: Having arisen from a human existen-

tial need, historiography then contributes back to life-practice, constituting identities and offering guidance. Ideally, it should serve to facilitate human interaction generally. The intellectual utility of such matrices resides, as I shall argue below, much more in their application than in their schematic presentation. Since my main aim here is to explicate Rusen's theory in general, the disciplinary matrix cannot be applied to specific cases here. Still, we can gain some sense of how it allows one to resolve the problems noted above.
33. In an essay originally published in 1979, "Wie kann man Geschichte vernunftig schreiben? Ober das Verhaltnis von Narrativitaitund Theoriegebrauch in der Geschichtswissenschaft," Rusen identifies six types of historical theory; see Rusen, Zeit und Sinn, 106-134, at 125-129. Theory is also addressed in Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit, chapter 1, "Systematik-Strukturen und Funktionen historischer Theorien" [Systematics - Structures and Functions of Historical Theories], 19-86.

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First, on the level of description, the disciplinary matrix allows the historian of historiography to respond to the objection that the paradigm notion, because it does not take account of differences within a given historiographical paradigm, is descriptively crude. For the matrix allows one to conceptualize historiography within the same paradigm as varying considerably with respect to interests, theories, methods, forms of representation, and functions, without such variations necessarily resulting in a paradigm shift. Of course, the question of whether in a particular case one is justified in speaking of a paradigm shift can only be answered by study of the details of that case. Second, on the level of explanation, the matrix offers an answer to the question, why does one paradigm give way to another? The matrix implies that a shift from one paradigm to another is primarily the result of a change in the world of Lebenspraxis that generates new cognitive interests and offers new possibilities of orientation. A change in the world of Lebenspraxis is a necessary, although not a sufficient, condition of paradigm shift. Third, the notion of the disciplinary matrix offers an answer to the normative question, why should one historiographical paradigm give way to another? The answer, clearly, is because the social order has changed. Thus a historicism that was (perhaps) adequate to German social and political life in 1850, and served emancipatory interests at that time, was not adequate to the Germany of 1960. In Fur eine erneuerte Historik Rusen makes the point that histories is concerned, finally, with the present situation.34Riisen's renewed histories is clearly inspired by the model of Droysenian histories. Its "renewed"character has to do with the claimed impossibility, in the face of the economic, social, and political realities of present-day life, of relying any more on the "commonly held ethical principles" (sittliche Gemeinsamkeiten) to which Droysen, deeply influenced by the German idealist tradition, appealed.35Given a society that has undergone a modernization process, involving an economic dynamic of increased productivity, a political dynamic of democratization, and a social dynamic of increasing equality,36one needs, the argument goes, a historiographical paradigm adequate to that reality. Finally, the notion of the disciplinary matrix offers an answer to the broadest and most difficult question of historics, namely, why should historiography be taken seriously at all? After all, the succession of historiographical paradigms and interpretations could be taken as arbitrary, as mere emanations of the Lebenswelt: "And we are here as on a darkling plain ... Where ignorant armies clash by night." But Rusen recoils from such an answer. Time and again, in one form or another, he asks the question, "How can one write history rationally?" His basic answer is that one can write history rationally by pursuing it as a universalizing, theory-oriented enterprise. The argument is not that historiography ought to articulate its results in the form of universal theories, but
34. Riisen, Fur eine erneuerte Historik, 44, 183-184, and passim. 35. Droysen, Historik, 212, 288, 437; Droysen, Outline, 37. 36. Rusen, Zeit und Sinn, 69.

JORN RUSEN'S THEORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY

51

rather that in various ways history depends on and connects with universals. Historiography has a set of more or less clearly identifiable methodological rules and practices. When properly done, it seeks to articulate a knowledge that is theoretically guided. It seeks consensus among its practitioners. Through the articulation of its research in appropriate forms of representation, it seeks to serve a general function of existential orientation, responding to the cognitive interests of human beings in their social lives. And, because it is theoretically guided, it is able to stand apart from, and adopt a critical stance toward, the vague and ideologically-tinted knowledge that circulates in the Lebenswelt. Indeed, because it is guided by theory, historical narrative is not just mimetic but also constructive, taking as its object not just what is given but what is intelligible.37 The question here is not whether Rtisen's vision of historiography as a science ultimately stands up, but rather what its significance is -both for Rtisen and for us here now, whoever this "us"may be. Particularly in its graphic representation, the disciplinary matrix will remind some readers of the notion of the hermeneutic circle, articulated by William Dilthey, Martin Heidegger, HansGeorg Gadamer, and other writers in the hermeneutic tradition.38 But as a progressive German writing in the wake of the Holocaust, Riisen cannot accept the hermeneutic circle unmodified, at least not as an account of scientific and scholarly investigation. Thus, contrary to the hermeneuticists, he draws a sharp boundary between discipline and "life-world." In his view, research-oriented historiography does arise from the life-world's orientational needs and from expectations in the life-world that identity (national and otherwise) will be supported. But he also holds that research-oriented historiography is not just a response to such needs and expectations; rather, as he writes in Zeit und Sinn, it "produces a theoretical surplus beyond the need for identity of acting subjects." As he emphatically puts it: "My thesis is that this theoretical surplus must be seen as the distinctive rational achievement of research-oriented historical narrative." With its theoretical (universal) aspect, historiography "transcends the particularity of the 'commonsensical' orientation of action within the life-world."'39 Whether the sharp line between Fachwissenschaft and Lebenspraxis is justified or not, one can see why it is there: for it is clearly a response to the realities of the Third Reich, to a historiography that did not adequately confront those realities, and to political tendencies in the present that have tried to minimize the enormities of modern German history. The impact of that history on Rtisen's
37. Risen, "Wie kann man Geschichte vernunftig schreiben?" in Zeit und Sinn, especially 114124 and 130-134. 38. For a brief and helpful account, see Richard J. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis (Philadelphia, 1983), 131-139. 39. Rusen, Zeit und Sinn, 119-120.

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to Indeed,returning his conceptionof the past and present thinkingis clear.40 we of Germanhistoriography, can see him as trying, in his advocacyof the criticaldimension the socialscience,to restore specifically of paradigm historical but that was muted and paradigm, that was importantin the Enlightenment then silencedin the historicistparadigm.In line with this criticalspirit, Rusen has devoteda greatdealof attentionto the projectof historicaldidactics,aimed at improvingcitizens'historicalconsciousness.41 Rfisen'scriticalposition may well remind some readersof the work of a Jurgen the intellectual, sociologistandphilosopher muchbetterknownGerman Habermas(b. 1929). The parallelsbetweenRiisen'sposition and that of Habermasare often striking.For example,when Riisen draws his line between offeredin Hahe and Fachwissenschaft Lebenspraxis, follows a thematization bermas'sclassic study Knowledgeand Human Interests, where the central out gets problemis how rationalknowledge constituted of the worldof praxis.42 Aufklarungim AngesichtderPostSimilarly,Rilsen's1988essay, "Historische [Historical im Moderne:Geschichte Zeitalterder 'neuenUntibersichtlichkeit"' in Enlightenment the Face of the Postmodern:Historyin the Age of the 'New Die 1985Streitschrift, alludesto, withouteverciting,Habermas's Obscurity"'], whicharguedin favor of the projectof "modernity" neue Untibersichtlichkeit, in Similarly, a 1989article, and or "Enlightenment" against"postmodernism."43 identifies"fouressential Rusen of "TheDevelopment NarrativeCompetence," forms of historicalconsciousness,reflectingfour stages of developmentby use story, Habermas's of Lawrence learning,"following, in this progressivist theory of moral development." Kohlberg's My claim, let it be noted, is not that Rtisenwas deeply influencedby Hahistorians that bermas.Theclaimis rather Rusen,alongwithsuchotherGerman as Wehlerand Kocka, occupieda politicalposition (social democratic,deeply that markedby "theGermancatastrophe") led themto respondin similarways to the problemof the intellectual'sand academic'srole in the social order. Habermasarticulatedon a philosophicalplane argumentsthat the historians divisions Thus, in spiteof disciplinary or also articulated, at leastpresupposed.
"post-modernism," with regardto Jacob Burckhardt's 40. See, for example,his reservations has Germany whichEuropeand especially experience whichhe viewsin the lightof "thehistorical forms of thought,"in Rusen,"JacobBurckof had with the politicalconsequences anti-modern hardt"(note 2, above), 246. (Grundzdge III), 77-135. discussion,see LebendigeGeschichte 41. For a summary 42. Jirgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, transl. J. J. Shapiro [1968] (Boston, 1971). Die Aufklarung 43. Riisen,"Historische ....," in Zeit und Sinn, 231-251;JurgenHabermas, am politischeSchriftenV) (Frankfurt Main, 1985).Partsof Die (Kleine neue Untibersichtlichkeit Criticism Cultural in have neue Unubersichtlichkeit appeared Englishin TheNew Conservatism: by ed. andtheHistorians'Debate, andtransl.S. W. Nicholsen,introduction R. Wolin(Cambridge, Mass., 1989). in Learning" (note2, above), Competence Historical of 44. Rusen,"TheDevelopment Narrative and 37. See Jirgen Habermas,Communication the Evolutionof Society, transl. T. McCarthy himself, 69-94. For Kohlberg and Development Ego Identity," (Boston, 1979),chapter2, "Moral (SanFrancisco,1981). Essayson MoralDevelopment Kohlberg, thebestpointof entryis Lawrence

JORN RUSEN'S THEORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY

53

(for historiography is not philosophy), there has long been an affinity between Habermas and the progressive historians. From the late 1970s onward, in the face of the so-called Tendenzwende (turn to the right) in German political life, the affinity became quite explicit. Wehler and other historians contributed to Habermas's 1979 collection seeking to evaluate the present situation and to counter the rise of the right, Stichworte zur "Geistigen Situation der Zeit" [Observations on "The Spiritual Situation of the Age"].45 Significantly, although not a historian, Habermas was the catalyzing figure in the "Historians' Debate" of 1986-1987 concerning the place of the Holocaust in German history.46 As part of his similar commitment to an "Enlightenment" position, Rusen articulates a version of the idea that there ultimately exists a single history. The idea of a single history-the idea of a "grand narrative," to appropriate Jean-Francois Lyotard's now famous term - is deeply imbedded in the Western historiographical tradition, in the shape of a preccupation with "universal history" that goes back to the sixteenth century and beyond. The concern has appeared in a number of different forms in the tradition of modern Western historiography. It is present in Droysen's Historik, manifested in Droysen's concern with the problem of converting "histories"into "History";one also finds it in Leopold von Ranke and in other participants in the historicist tradition.47 In Rilsen, it appears in the guise of his concern with discovering "historical universals"in terms of which the life of human beings in time is to be understood. These universals (concepts like progress, decline, individuality, process, and structure) enter into what Rusen, in Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit, calls "historical anthropology." Rtisen's historical anthropology is focused on the concept of humanity, which is the historical universal that embraces all the others.48As F. R. Ankersmit has pointed out, the term "transhistorical anthropology" might have been more appropriate, since Rusen stresses that these historical concepts are to be applicable to every conceivable historical period.49 In an essay published in 1990, "Der Teil des Ganzen: Uber historischen Kateg45. Note 20, above. 46. For an account of the Historikerstreit and Habermas's important role in it, see Charles S. Maier, The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), especially chapter 2, "Habermasamong the Historians," 34-65. Note also Die Zukunft der Aufklarung, ed. J. Risen, E. Lammert, and P. Glotz (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), where a number of authors write explicitly in the wake of Habermas's Die neue Unubersichtlichkeit, and Jiirgen Kocka, "Geschichte und Aufklarung," in Kocka, Geschichte und Aufklarung: Aufsdtze (Frankfurt am Main, 1989), 140-159. 47. Droysen, Historik, 441 (see also 253-254); Outline, 44: "Even the narrow, the very narrowest of human relations, strivings, activities, etc., have a process, a history, and are for the persons involved, historical. So family histories, local histories, special histories. But over all these and such histories is History." For Ranke's concern with universal history (which occupies a somewhat different register than Droysen's), see, among many possible references, Leopold von Ranke, "The Role of the Particular and the General in the Study of Universal History (A Manuscript of the 1860s)," in Ranke, The Theory and Practice of History, ed. Georg G. Iggers and Konrad von Moltke, with new translations by Wilma A. Iggers and Konrad von Moltke (New York, 1983), 57-59. 48. Rdsen, Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit, 56-65. 49. Ankersmit, Review of Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit (note 1, above), 91.

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orien" [The Part of the Whole: Concerning Historical Categories], Rusen reflects on the matter again, contending that "one of the tasks of historical science [is] to thematize the whole of history."50 In a certain sense such a thematization seems indispensable to history conceived of as a scientific enterprise, since science as we understand it claims universal validity. And yet with regard to the notion of a historical whole, one is caught on the horns of a dilemma. On the one side, unless one assumes some basic identity at the level of historical agents and sufferers, the historical whole can never actually be told (except at the end of time), since there is always the possibility of divergence from what we understand as human nature. On the other side, if we posit a human nature whose fundamental modifications are known now, we will have then articulated a substratum protected from the vicissitudes of historical time, and we will at the same time have deprived historiography of the possibility of generating knowledge that is simultaneously new, true, and important. Pragmatically, what is told will always be some version of an assumed historical whole. Rusen himself points out that the proposed anthropology is a regulative Idea in the Kantian sense; and so, obviously, is the historical whole.5" One is thus left with a paradox, namely, that one attaches oneself to the Idea of a single history, but that the single history is never actually articulated as history; instead, it remains behind the history, as a justifying theory. In Rusen, the assumed "grand narrative" is essentially a Weberian story of modernization and secularization, a movement toward what Ernst Troeltsch once referred to as the "kirchenfreie moderne Welt."52 Building on Rusen, I propose to suggest here a way of thinking about historiography that avoids the opposition between, on the one hand, a "modernist" or "Enlightenment" version of grand narrative that looks to (in Jurgen Kocka's words) a single "historischeZusammenhangserkenntis"(knowledge of historical interrelation), and, on the other hand, a "postmodern"view that would dissolve history into "miniatures and insular modes of representation."53 seems clear It that no conception of science can abandon a "methodical striving toward intersubjectively valid knowledge (truth)," to quote Kocka again.54The question is, to what extent does this also require a striving toward a single history? My point of entry to the revision of Ruisen'sdisciplinary matrix is the notion of topic, which Rusen, and Droysen before him, both evoke.55Topic is a classical notion, part of ancient dialectic and rhetoric. Obviously, my aim here is not
50. See Jorn Rusen, "Der Teil des Ganzen: uber historische Kategorien," in Teil und Ganzes, ed. K. Acham and W. Schulze, [Theorie der Geschichte, Beitrage zur Historik, vol. 6] (Munich, 1990), 299-322, at 299. 51. Ruisen, Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit, 59; see also the entire section, entitled "Der Zugriff aufs Ganze: zur Theorie 'der' Geschichte" [Access to the Whole: Toward Theory 'of' History], 47-64. 52. Ernst Troeltsch, quoted by Rusen, BegriJfene Geschichte, 144 n. 24. 53. Kocka, "Geschichte und Aufklarung," 156. 54. Ibid., 157. 55. See Droysen, Historik, 425, 445ff.; Rusen, Lebendige Geschichte (Grundzuge III), 57.

JORN RUSEN'S THEORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY

55

to offera reconstruction classicalnotions of topic, for that task is properly of the concern of historiansof rhetoricand dialectics, and its details are not For especiallyrelevantto the theoreticalconcernhere."6 our purposes,topic is best understoodas offeringcollectionsof subjectheadingsthat we can hold in our minds and activatein particularrhetoricalsituationswhen we find them suited. Topic in the classicalsense involvesthe listing of considerations that mightpossibly arisein discussionof any particular matter.Further,the Greek term topos and its Latin eqivalent,locus, are often translatedinto Englishas "lineof argument." The translationunderlinesthe fact that, most notablyin the adversarial situationscommonin the judicialuse of rhetoric,topic suggests to arguments that the advocatemight find advantageous employ. There are, of course, differentclassical presentationsof topic. Aristotle's accounts,in his Rhetoricand especiallyin Topics,are of fundamental impordo havea continuingintellectual But tance.57 whileAristotle'sdialectical topics relevance, topicas described CiceroandQuintilian theirrhetorical by in treatises is more immediately applicableto the work of historians.An importantpoint of character the is that Ciceroand Quintilianboth emphasize interrogative the topics. For example,Ciceroin his De Inventione,in the contextof a consideration of judicialrhetoric,proposesthat whenthe advocateexaminestwo competingnarratives thatis, his own narrative (narratio) thatof his opponent, and he will be better able to invent argumentsabout them if he has stored in his mind topics with whichto addressthe material.The topics come out as questions-such as "why,with what intention,and with what hope of successeach thing was done; why it was done in this way ratherthan in that; why by this
man rather than by that; why with no helper or why with this one . . .
,"

and

in so on. Nothing is determined advance;if a questionfits, it can be worked with; if not, not.58
56. The best entry to the history of topics is perhaps via the writings and translations of Eleonore Stump. See Boethius, De Topicis Differenthis, transl., with notes and essays on the text, by E. Stump (Ithaca, N.Y., 1978), especially "Introduction," 16-26, and the essays that Stump appends to her translation, 159ff. See also Boethius, In Ciceronis Topica, transl., with notes and an introduction, by E. Stump (Ithaca, N.Y. 1988). A good general history of rhetoric, within which topic finds a considerable place, is Thomas M. Conley, Rhetoric in the European Tradition (New York, 1990). 57. Aristotle, Rhetoric, in Aristotle, "Rhetoric" and "Poetics," transl. W. R. Roberts and I. Bywater, respectively, with an introduction by E. P. J. Corbett (New York, 1954), 1395b 20-1400 b 35; Aristotle, Topics, in Aristotle, A New Aristotle Reader, ed. J. L. Ackrill (Oxford, 1987), 60-77. 58. Cicero, Delnventione, in "Delnventione, ""De Optimo Genere oratorum, ""Topica, "transl. H. M. Hubbell (Cambridge, Mass., 1949), II. xiv. 45. The best introduction to topic is Quintilian's chapter on argument: Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, transl. H. E. Butler (Cambridge, Mass., 1920-1922), V. x. 20-125 (vol. 2, 213-271 of this edition). A word to rhetorical cognoscenti: I intentionally absorb into my discussion of topic the ancient conception of "status" or "basis" as well. "Status" questions (often taken to be "An sit? Quid sit? Quale sit?" [Is it? What is it? What character does it have?]) seem to be of similar character but of more general formulation than "topic" questions. On status theory, Lucia Caboli Montefusco's La dottrina degli 'status' nella retorica greca e romana (Hildesheim, 1986) is the best survey. For a parallel in historiography to the status questions, see the discussion of "What was the case? Why was it the case? What grounds do we have for believing so?" in Allan Megill, "Recounting the Past: 'Description,' Explanation, and Narrative in Historiography," American Historical Review 94 (1989), 627-653.

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The payoff for the rhetorically trained speaker is clear. By holding in mind sets of questions that can be posed when particular cases come up, the rhetorician has a device for quickly inventing arguments for and against. But topic need not be limited to the world of the advocate. For topics -understood, here, as sets of questions ready to be activated where it seems appropriate to do so - are an enrichment of the understanding. They enable us to see the world more fully, and to impart some sense of order - indeed, various senses of order to what would otherwise remain buzzing confusion. They are the elements of a mind that is well-stocked, in an active sense of "stocked." They stand between, on the one hand, a consciousness that seeks to understand the world in terms of universal laws, abstracting from particular cases, and, on the other, a consciousness so caught up in the charm of particulars as to be unable to gain any intellectual, let alone critical, purchase on them. I wish to suggest here a conjunction between historiography and topic in its judicial or (more generally) adversarial use. In classical antiquity the conjunction occurred only in a highly limited way, for classical historians and rhetoricians saw historiography as epistemologically unproblematic -as lux veritatis, in Cicero's well-known phrase.59While Roman historians did employ topics, the topics in question (for example, lists of virtues) came from the demonstrative genre of rhetoric, which was concerned with praising or blaming, rather than from the judicial genre; they were thus not contributions to an argument against an adversary. Admittedly, as Jacqueline de Romilly has pointed out, the speeches that Thucydides included in his History have a rhetorical argumentative structure.60 But classical rhetoricians did not see historiography itself as an argumentative project (as was, for example, a speech in a law court, or the political speeches summarized or reconstructed in Thucydides' History), because historiography had not yet developed into an enterprise involving the systematic confrontation of competing narratives -which it became, with ever greater insistence, in the modern period.6' Since the classical rhetoricians saw history as embodying the light of truth (any work that did not was in their view simply not history), they could hardly see it as standing in need of rhetorical argument, for in their view rhetorical argument was required only in instances where one possessed, not the light of truth, but only plausibilities. Accordingly, when the classical rhetoricians turned to historiography they focused on historians' literary styles, not on argumentative strategies.62Nor, despite Droysen's use of the term "topic," did a conjunc59. Cicero, De Oratore, transl. E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1942), II. ix. 36. 60. Jacqueline de Romilly, Histoire et raison chez Thucydides (Paris, 1956), "Les Discours antithetiques," 180-239. 61. In John Tinkler's words, among"modern 'accurate'historians ... historiography has tended to shift from the demonstrative genre to the judicial" (Tinkler, "Bacon and History," Cambridge Companion to Francis Bacon, ed. Markku Peltonen (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). 62. See, for example, Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, IX. iv. 16-18 (Vol. 3, 514-517), X. i. 33, 73-75, and 101 (Vol. 4, 20-21, 42-43, 58-59), and X. ii. 17 (Vol. 4, 82-85). For a useful survey of classical rhetoricians' views on historiography, see Eckhard Kessler, "Das rhetorische Modell

JORN RUSEN'S THEORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY

57

tion of historyand topic in its adversarial occurin Droysen's use Historik,for, far from seeingtopic as a devicefor the inventionof arguments,Droysenused or shetermto designate"apodeixis" representation (Darstellung, Darlegung).i3 In short, he assumedthat topic is a stylisticconception,aligninghimself with the generaltendency,going back to the second half of the sixteenthcentury, to reducerhetoricto elocutio.6M Only in the last generation,in Paul Veyne's Comment on ecrit ('histoireand in a paper by Nancy Struever,"Topicsin History," havehistoriography topicin an argumentatively and inventional sense been broughttogether.65 Veyne'sand Struever's But suggestionsfor relating have for the most part not yet been taken up. topic and historiography In an age of diversity,a unificationof historiography a substantivelevel on cannotbe attained,for different identitieswillfinddifferent historiesimportant. Nor can one find unificationon the more abstractlevel of method, for the pursuitof different histories,someof whichwill involvehybridinteraction with other fields and concerns, may well requiredeploymentof different,and to some extentcontradictory, methods.66 Rather,assumingsocialdiversitywithin the practiceof social science (which, as Kuhn rightly points out, has direct connectionsto largersocialpraxis),disciplinary consensuswould seemto have some chance of existingonly on the level of a reflectivetheory of historiography-on the level, that is, of "histories" Riisen'ssense. Riisenhimselfsees in historiesas having a unifying function, helpingus to see the "forest"as well as the "trees."67 is a necessaryfunction, especiallyat the presentmoment. This The historicaldisciplineis widely- and I thinkrightly- held to be in a state of fragmentation.68 Fragmentation suchis not theproblem,for fragmentation as
der Historiographie," in Formen der Geschichtsschreibung, ed. R. Koselleck, H. Lutz, and J.

Riisen(Theorieder Geschichte, Beitragezur Historik,vol. 4) (Munich,1982), 37-85.

63. See Droysen, Historik, 217, 405, 425, 445. This edition contains three distinct versions of the Historik, dating from 1857, 1857 or 1858, and 1882. Droysen uses the term "topic" only in the 1882 version among the three printed here. (The presence of "topic" in the 1882 Grundri])der Historik is obscured in Elisha Benjamin Andrews's English translation, where the unfamiliar term "Topik" is rendered as "The Doctrine of Systematic Presentation" [Droysen, Outline, 49]). 64. On this reduction, see G. Mazzacurati, La Crisi delta Retorica Umanistica nel Cinquecento (Naples, 1961). 65. Paul Veyne, WritingHistory: Essay on Epistemology, transl. Mina Moore-Rinvolucri [1971] (Middletown, Conn., 1984), chapter X, "Lengthening the Questionnaire," 213-235, especially 218224; Nancy S. Struever, "Topics in History," History and Theory, Beiheft 19 (Metahistory: Six Critiques) (1980), 66-79. Since the fact will be at least vaguely familiar to some readers, I should note that in ancient tradition topic also served as a device of memory; this is the form of topic highlighted in Frances Yates, The Art of Memory (London, 1966) and Jonathan Spence, The

MemoryPalace of MatteoRicci (New York, 1984).

66. On hybridization, see Mattei Dogan and Robert Pahre, Creative Marginality: Innovation at the Intersections of Social Sciences (Boulder, Colo., 1990)- although the notion could be carried much further than Dogan and Pahre do. 67. Risen, Historische Vernunft, 21, 32, 36; "Theory of History in the Development of West German Historical Studies," 13.

68. SeePeterNovick, ThatNobleDream:The"Objectivity the HistorQuestion"and American

ical Profession (New York, 1988), especially 415-629; Allan Megill, "Fragmentation and the Future of Historiography," American Historical Review 96 (1991), 693-698.

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also known as "specialization"- is essential to the advance of research, and the fragments produced by that research may well enter into productive, hybrid interactions with other fields and with practical concerns. The problem, rather, is narrowness, and theory of historiography - especially if practiced as a rhetoric of inquiry carried out in ways both interrogative and analytical - can help practitioners to see beyond their specialties, opening their minds to broader issues and improving their work in the process. As Struever has pointed out, the rhetorical discipline of topic is rooted in a civil discourse, beginning as it does in "reputable opinion."69 Since topic is rooted in opinion, not in claimed certainty, and since its medium is the give and take of argument, it is peculiarly open to pluralism.70Part of its pluralism is its propensity for the interrogative mode.7' On the level of theory, Rfisen's most important contribution is the notion of the disciplinary matrix: thus I have emphasized it, and have put less emphasis on other aspects of his work. Shifting the disciplinary matrix to the interrogative mode yields not "principles" or "factors" but rather a typology of good questions to ask when one is attempting to come to grips with the multifarious projects of historiography. (Note that Rusen is in principle open to such a pluralism: he always speaks of a historics, thus suggesting that more than one histories is possible.) One might also wish to make the matrix easier to keep in mind by simplifying it, perhaps in the following way:

History(conceptionof, in general) Life-world(connectionto)

FIGURE

Empiricalresearchmethods Presentation(forms of)

2

The Disciplinary Matrix of Historiography (Revised)72

69. Struever, "Topics in History," 70-71, 72-73, and passim. The reference is to the beginning of Aristotle's Topics, where Aristotle states that "our treatise proposes to find a line of inquiry whereby we shall be able to reason from reputable opinion about any subject presented to us" (Topics, 100a, in The New Aristotle Reader, 60). 70. Conversely, one might suggest, anti-pluralism is peculiarly resistant to topic. Referring to Aristotle's Topics, G. W. F. Hegel saw "topic" as being concerned with enumerating "the different points of view from which a thing may be considered" (G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, transl. E. S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson, 3 vols. [New York, 1974], II, 217218). Hegel's overall objection to the philosophy of Aristotle was that it was not sufficiently systematic: instead of being "developed in its parts from the Notion," the parts "are merely ranged side by side"(II, 118). Hegel's objection is of a piece with his conviction that there is a single, authoritative worldview. From such a perspective, topic might well be seen as nonessential -a matter of (inadequate) modes of representation. 71. Cf. Michel Meyer, From Logic to Rhetoric (Amsterdam, 1986), especially chapter 6, "Dialectic and Questioning," 99-114. 72. By integrating Rfisen's categories of "interests"and "functions" into the single heading of "life-world" (since "interests" arise from the life-world and "functions" represent a contribution back to it), the revision perhaps underplays Rfisen's immense concern with historical didactics

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59

My schema does not embody a substantive theory of historiography. It is only a reminder of what sorts of metahistorical questions we can and ought to ask when we confront works of history and the institutions that produce such works. The schema offers, in short, the basis for a topic of historiography, with such questions as the following: How is this historian, in writing this work, influenced by his or her own society and by his or her place within that society? What social agenda does the work implicitly or explicitly attach itself to? What overall vision of history informs the work? What type or types of method does the historian deploy? What forms of representation? One could also ask questions about the relations among the four categories -for example, how does a work's conception of History connect the historian's life-world with the methods deployed in the work, and with its forms of presentation? The questions are calculated to help us discover arguments about historiography -showing us (as Quintilian says that topic does) "the secret places where arguments reside."73In the language of rhetoric, the matrix offers a strategy for the "invention" of arguments, which can then be methodically tested. Out of the four slots an infinite number of questions can be developed by division and subdivision. In considering forms of presentation, for example, one could well be prompted by a knowledge of the major branches of poetics to ask such questions as the following: How is the text arranged (a question deriving from narrative theory)? How is the author manifested in the text (theory of enunciation)? How are the text's assertions rendered persuasive (rhetoric narrowly construed)? Finally, how is the text made readable (stylistics)?74 A topical list can be extended or retracted as the specific case demands. It can also be simply set aside when it does not prove illuminating. Strictly speaking, a topic should not be seen as either true or false, for, qua list, it makes neither theoretical nor empirical claims. Rather, it is "abductive," in Charles Peirce's sense, articulating things that may possibly be true.75Thus the question "Is this
(discussed most sustainedly in Lebendige Geschichte, 76-120). Without denying the importance of historical didactics, one might say that this aspect of Riisen's theoretical project is far more tied to particular national contexts than are "leading views," "methods," "forms of representation," and even "interests." Consequently, didactics seems harder to grasp at the broad theoretical level that is in play here, and more appropriately grasped in connection with specific institutions (for example, schools), media (for example, television), communities, and events. 73. Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, V. x. 20 (II, 213). 74. The four branches of poetics are suggested (and their application to historiography exemplified) in Philippe Carrard, Poetics of the New History: French Historical Discourse from Braudel to Chartier (Baltimore, 1992). 75. On the Peircean sense of "abduction," see Charles Peirce, Collected Papers, ed. Arthur W. Burks (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), VII, chapter 3, "The Logic of Drawing History from Ancient Documents," especially "Abduction, Induction, and Deduction," 121-125, and "Abduction," 136144. For a discussion by a historian, see Edward Muir, "Introduction: Observing Trifles," in Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe, ed. Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero, transl. Eren Branch (Baltimore, 1991), xviii-xix. Abduction is to be distinguished from deduction, that form of argument in which, if the premises are true, the conclusion is necessarily true, and from induction, that form of argument in which, if the premises are true, the conclusion is probably true. Historians generally believe, as an article of faith, that theirs is an inductive science. I would suggest, however, that many important historical arguments are better seen as abductive than as inductive, for nontrivial historical arguments will hinge in part on our own conception of ourselves and of our projects

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topic true?" makes no sense at all. The only reasonable question is "Does this topic offer illumination, in the range of cases with which we are currently concerned?" Riisen's project of a histories, which he and others have begun to apply in a variety of ways to the past and present of historiography, is rich in illuminating topics. In focusing on his notion of the disciplinary matrix of historiography, I have presented only one aspect of his historics, albeit an important aspect. His theoretical project is best approached not as an attempt to offer a definitive view of historiography but rather as a tool-box, containing questions that can be asked with illuminating effect of the immense and varied body of historiography that, after a century and three-quartersof "professional" historical production, now confronts us. University of Virginia

and prospects.But thesecan be dealtwith inductively only if we have knowledge the futureof whichwe do not have, except,of course,trivially.