I would like to consider the methodological problem of how historians read sources in terms of a tripartite taxonomy of reading attitudes: charitable, skeptical, and critical. I take a critical reading to be a combined form of charitable and skeptical readings. For some background, see the brief conversation that developed over at Time to Eat the Dogs.
The prerogative of the historian is to offer a critique of past events, which should be distinguished from criticism. A critique offers an articulation and analysis of events; it may be accompanied by a criticism, but its primary concern is with arriving at an interpretation which renders the past coherent. History is a science and not literature insofar as some critiques can render history more coherent than others. Interpretations of coherence are subject to agreement based on an assessment of:
- the physical reality of events of the past;
- the psychological motivations of actors; and, most provisionally…
- an account of the prerequisites and causes of events.
I take (1) to be reasonably unproblematic, and (3) to be extremely problematic—if ultimately most rewarding—requiring an extensive, complicated, and highly debatable taxonomy of historical “trends” as well as some physical, economic, and sociological theory of how “trends” unfold.
Concerning the possibility of agreement concerning either (1) or (3), historians must deal with the historical record, the interpretation of which almost always passes through an assessment of (2).
(1) can be discerned, if (absent non-textual physical evidence) historians are able to safely assume A) the ability of actors to observe and report an event (itself a version of (1)), and B) the sincerity of the actor reporting the event (itself a version of (2)).
The more corroborating accounts are available, the better assessments of (1) historians are able to make, given the difficulties presented by the recursive relationship between (2) and (1). However, if historians have no reason to doubt either A or B, then a charitable reading may be applied without further corroboration. In this case, a charitable reading assumes a report was both (1) possible, and (2) sincere. Often to move forward constructively, fairly charitable readings must be applied.
Concerning (3), historians may benefit substantially from historical actors’ own assessments, particularly if (3) concerns that actors’ own actions or the actions of people they knew well. Historians may also benefit from actors’ contemporary assessments of more general events and trends, though this of course hinges on an assessment of actors’ own abilities to articulate those things they witnessed, or of which they heard a report, as well as their good-faith effort to report without dissemblance. Even given these conditions, reports will still be shaped by the ideas actors had at their disposal to articulate their report. Naturally, historians must read such reports skeptically and not, if at all possible, assume any of the above.
Some issues:
The relationship between skeptical, charitable, and critical readings is more complex than historians may assume. Notably, a historian may be skeptical of a historical actor’s motivation, but be charitable concerning that actor’s ability to articulate, when, in fact, quite the opposite is what is called for.
Specifically, a historian’s “skeptical” reading may simply be the inversion or moral shading of that rhetoric. For example, if a historical actor offers a sunny appraisal of something, we historians might exercise our critical prerogative by suggesting that that thing might have been “not so sunny after all” or that there were “limits to the sunniness” or that “sunniness was not a universal or objective quality”, or we might suggest that the actor had ulterior motives for suggesting that it was sunny. If the actor made money off the fact that it was sunny, we might even assume the actor didn’t even really think it was sunny in the first place, even though we have no reason to suppose otherwise.
Ironically—and this is very important—historians’ use of inversion or shading so as to exercise their critical prerogative often leads them to accept unquestioned the actor’s articulation of events. The historian accepts as significant what the actors accepted as significant. The historian assumes what was at stake was what the actors said was at stake. The historian articulates the issue in the same language in which the actors articulated the issue. The historian may question the final outcome of the assessment or the motivation underlying the assessment, but makes an absurdly charitable reading of the structure of the assessment.
(This, incidentally, is a huge issue in the history and historiography of operations research, which I wrote up in other language in BJHS back in 2007; it is also the basis of Simon Schaffer’s critique of the history of discovery c. 1840.)
The flip side of this issue is that it also assumes a facile relationship between what actors said and what actors meant. If one merely inverts or shades historical rhetoric, rather than offer a full critique of it, one is no closer to understanding that rhetoric’s meaning than if one had offered a clearly Whiggish interpretation.
For example, if an actor said some situation was “sunny” and we say “it wasn’t sunny for everyone” we implicitly deny that the actor knew full well it “wasn’t sunny for everyone” but decided to say “it was sunny” anyway—the actor did not feel obliged to future historians to divulge their entire state of mind. Our assumption that the actor didn’t know full well it wasn’t sunny for everyone poisons our critique of not only the actor’s knowledge and motivations, but, by extension, the actor’s other words and deeds as well. We must make as full as possible an analysis of context to ascertain state of mind, lest we implicitly assume a state of mind.
Seeking out rhetorical patterns, tracking down rhetorical references, reconciling rhetoric with alternative patterns of rhetoric, reconciling rhetoric with actions or recommendations for action, is to offer a skeptical but charitable, i.e. a critical reading of rhetoric, which is to get at the ideas motivating both rhetoric and action, which is to unlock the problem of (2), which in turn leads to better understandings of (1) and (3).
Ultimately, though, (3) cannot really be achieved without a basis in philosophy, sociology, as well as psychology, and the sciences, which are issues I would like to address at a future date.