Submitted by dmazella on Sat, 06/28/2008 - 11:12am.
Paul,
I take your point that the neglect of history can lead to unproductive cul-de-sacs in even your field. But I think it's a fair question whether previous, "superseded" scientific writings could ever become "foundational texts" that repay successive rereadings and reinterpretations. And I think that there's a recognized difference between people who "do" the history of science and those who "do" science, even when it's the same person.
On the other hand, the humanities do not have a consensus view of whether "foundational texts" actually exist, or just which texts might qualify for that status. Certainly different times and places (there's history speaking again) have awarded this status to different texts or traditions, and in innumerable ways, but that's just more grist for the historicist mill. These debates, which always feature claims about the "timelessness" of this or that classic text, are the best sign of the need to shore up the present reputation of a particular work under changing conditions.
As long as we recognize that the past is reconstructed in the present, by people who reflect present preoccupations, I don't think we are in any danger of losing contact with the present or its needs when we think about historical questions.
This to me does not involve eternal verities, but rather the opposite, the contingent relation of the present to the complex conditions of the past. In other words, the experiences, vocabularies, works of past may very well possess elements that are incommensurable with, or untranslatable into, the language or experience of those inhabiting the present.
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Narrative is determined not by a desire to narrate
but by a desire to exchange. (Roland Barthes, S/Z)
is there such a thing as a foundational text in the humanities?
Paul,
I take your point that the neglect of history can lead to unproductive cul-de-sacs in even your field. But I think it's a fair question whether previous, "superseded" scientific writings could ever become "foundational texts" that repay successive rereadings and reinterpretations. And I think that there's a recognized difference between people who "do" the history of science and those who "do" science, even when it's the same person.
On the other hand, the humanities do not have a consensus view of whether "foundational texts" actually exist, or just which texts might qualify for that status. Certainly different times and places (there's history speaking again) have awarded this status to different texts or traditions, and in innumerable ways, but that's just more grist for the historicist mill. These debates, which always feature claims about the "timelessness" of this or that classic text, are the best sign of the need to shore up the present reputation of a particular work under changing conditions.
As long as we recognize that the past is reconstructed in the present, by people who reflect present preoccupations, I don't think we are in any danger of losing contact with the present or its needs when we think about historical questions.
This to me does not involve eternal verities, but rather the opposite, the contingent relation of the present to the complex conditions of the past. In other words, the experiences, vocabularies, works of past may very well possess elements that are incommensurable with, or untranslatable into, the language or experience of those inhabiting the present.