In his Antiquities of Rome, Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes: "History is philosophy teaching by examples." I cannot agree more, as long as it is understood, that we are talking about the best of what we call history. It must also be noted that the factual veracity of the historical account is not a necessary requirement for our historian. Herodotus is a historian of genius not for telling us the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but as an exceptional supplier of meaningful historical examples, which have become the perennial fodder for the philosopher-teacher. The question of factual veracity is by no means a moot matter. History is replete with errors and deliberate falsehoods. Recording it, with a naïve belief in its truthfulness, perpetuates the lie, and makes the straight historian an unwitting accomplice in the crime thus committed. In my entry Historian And The Poet, I look at Schopenhauer’s distinction between the two, in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, #51, where the poet is pronounced superior to the historian for several obvious reasons (see that entry), and find Schopenhauer right in his description of a bad historian, whereas in my notion, the good historian is a creator and, yes, a poet himself, rather than a recorder, the thought having been expressed by Nietzsche, but certainly finding its source in this passage from Schopenhauer! (Here is the passage itself, in shortened form, given here for reference: "That which is significant in itself is found far more accurately in poetry than in history and thus however paradoxical it sounds, far more really genuine truth is to be attributed to poetry than to history.
For the historian must accurately follow the particular event, according to life, as it develops itself in time in the manifold tangled chains of causes and effects. It is, however, impossible that he can have all the data for this; he cannot have seen it all and discovered it all. He is forsaken at every moment by the original of his picture, or a false one substitutes itself for it, and this so constantly, that I may assume that in all history the false outweighs the true. The poet, on the contrary, comprehends the Idea of Man from some definite side, which is to be represented; thus it is the nature of his own self, which objectifies itself in it for him. His knowledge is half a priori; his ideal stands before his mind firm, distinct, brightly illuminated, and cannot forsake him; therefore, he shows us the Idea pure and distinct, and his delineation of it is true, as life itself. The great ancient historians are, therefore, poets." Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, #51)
When Nietzsche talks about the only type of good historian, the one, who not just records history, but also makes it, he rightfully discerns the creative aspect of being a political scientist and a political philosopher in the best and, perhaps, the only true sense of the word. One must always have a nose for the truth, and an imagination to look for it in strange places.
There is another alleged aspect of the good historian, as stated by Polybius, and reiterated by Lucian:
"It is natural for a good man to love his country and his friends, and to hate the enemies of both. But when he writes history he must abandon such feelings, and be prepared to praise enemies who deserve it, and to censure the dearest and most intimate friends." (Polybius, Histories, I)
Lucian is even more uncompromising:
"He should know in his writings no country and no city; he should bow to no authority and acknowledge no king." (Lucian, How History Should be Written.)
Seeing the valid point of them both, in the quoted passages, I still wonder, whether they have gone too far, in denying the good historian a healthy measure of prejudice for his own "volk" and "Reich," if not always for his "Führer." After all, Stalin would seriously contradict them both, in describing history as a class concept, written by the ruling classes, and from their perspective, and Stalin did know a thing or two about the real life, as opposed to wishful thinking.
But returning to the good historian, does he really have to be a mirror rejecting all teleology, affirming as little as he is denying, in the sarcastic words of Nietzsche’s Genealogie (III-26)? One does not have to be a Sybel or a Treitschke, of Nietzsche’s ridicule, in Jenseits-251, to be a nationalist-historian without being a nationalist bigot. The examples of the greatest Russian historians: Karamzin, Solovyev, Klyuchevsky, plus Zabelin, Kostomarov, and others, show us that it is possible for a historian to be unabashedly patriotic, yet superlatively professional, and almost poetically all-encompassing and complete. Of course, these Russian historians were all historiographers of Russia, putting their motherland at the center of the universe by the virtue of their set task. None of them set out to write an objective history of the entire world, down to their contemporary times, which only an arrogant German scholar, like Dr. Jäger or Dr. Ranke, could venture. The best Weltgeschichte is always necessarily a derivative work. All original history must be both native in origin and thoroughly, poetically subjective.
For the historian must accurately follow the particular event, according to life, as it develops itself in time in the manifold tangled chains of causes and effects. It is, however, impossible that he can have all the data for this; he cannot have seen it all and discovered it all. He is forsaken at every moment by the original of his picture, or a false one substitutes itself for it, and this so constantly, that I may assume that in all history the false outweighs the true. The poet, on the contrary, comprehends the Idea of Man from some definite side, which is to be represented; thus it is the nature of his own self, which objectifies itself in it for him. His knowledge is half a priori; his ideal stands before his mind firm, distinct, brightly illuminated, and cannot forsake him; therefore, he shows us the Idea pure and distinct, and his delineation of it is true, as life itself. The great ancient historians are, therefore, poets." Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, #51)
When Nietzsche talks about the only type of good historian, the one, who not just records history, but also makes it, he rightfully discerns the creative aspect of being a political scientist and a political philosopher in the best and, perhaps, the only true sense of the word. One must always have a nose for the truth, and an imagination to look for it in strange places.
There is another alleged aspect of the good historian, as stated by Polybius, and reiterated by Lucian:
"It is natural for a good man to love his country and his friends, and to hate the enemies of both. But when he writes history he must abandon such feelings, and be prepared to praise enemies who deserve it, and to censure the dearest and most intimate friends." (Polybius, Histories, I)
Lucian is even more uncompromising:
"He should know in his writings no country and no city; he should bow to no authority and acknowledge no king." (Lucian, How History Should be Written.)
Seeing the valid point of them both, in the quoted passages, I still wonder, whether they have gone too far, in denying the good historian a healthy measure of prejudice for his own "volk" and "Reich," if not always for his "Führer." After all, Stalin would seriously contradict them both, in describing history as a class concept, written by the ruling classes, and from their perspective, and Stalin did know a thing or two about the real life, as opposed to wishful thinking.
But returning to the good historian, does he really have to be a mirror rejecting all teleology, affirming as little as he is denying, in the sarcastic words of Nietzsche’s Genealogie (III-26)? One does not have to be a Sybel or a Treitschke, of Nietzsche’s ridicule, in Jenseits-251, to be a nationalist-historian without being a nationalist bigot. The examples of the greatest Russian historians: Karamzin, Solovyev, Klyuchevsky, plus Zabelin, Kostomarov, and others, show us that it is possible for a historian to be unabashedly patriotic, yet superlatively professional, and almost poetically all-encompassing and complete. Of course, these Russian historians were all historiographers of Russia, putting their motherland at the center of the universe by the virtue of their set task. None of them set out to write an objective history of the entire world, down to their contemporary times, which only an arrogant German scholar, like Dr. Jäger or Dr. Ranke, could venture. The best Weltgeschichte is always necessarily a derivative work. All original history must be both native in origin and thoroughly, poetically subjective.
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