[Milton-L] historicism, formalism, etc. (Skulsky)

[James Rovira]

This doesn't seem to me to be a realistic account of historicism: it seems
to assume the possibility of an infinite number of readings of any given
text, all of which have equal validity.  I think our knowledge of the number
of possible readings of a text is in fact finite and limited.  The idea that
a text can be "infinitely" interpreted is purely theoretical, and probably
doesn't take seriously enough the word "infinite."

So we're always working with a limited range of possible readings.  The
question is always how to choose among them.  Once we've chosen a historical
approach, we've limited the range of possible readings of a given text
significantly.

Furthermore, this account demands what sounds to me like deductive certainty
and seems to present our options as either an infinite regress, or logical
certainty.  But again, this is unrealistic.  When working with historical
readings of text we reason inductively and come to probable, not certain,
conclusions, which are always subject to revision.  Furthermore, it assumes
an absolute and impassable gulf between the present and all of that which
may be subject to historical interpretation, when the objects of our
historical study (at least in the case of western lit) share common origins
with us in the present, and constitute in part our own origins.  There is a
sense -- a degree -- to which anything we study in history is part of a
continuity, a "present."

To deny this is also to assume a certain knowledge of history -- that it is
absolutely different -- which the assumption seeks to deny.  If that which
lies in history is absolutely different, then we cannot make any assertions
about it one way or the other.  We may understand it perfectly.  We may not
understand it at all.  The point is that we could not know.

So while we are reasoning inductively when we reason about objects of
historical interpretation, we are still reasoning and not guessing.  If we
were guessing one interpretive decision is as good as the next.  Since we
are reasoning and not guessing, we can choose among preferred readings.

I am not saying we will settle on one, but simply that the process, while
being never ending, is still not arbitrary, and not without results.

Jim R

On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 6:45 PM, <jfleming at sfu.ca> wrote:

> The only way to stop it -- on the objectivist logic of historicism -- would
> be, as I said before, to get at some point an understanding of historical
> interpretanda outside the regress of historicist interpretation. But that
> getting is exactly what historicism says is impossible. Thus historicism,
> by
> trying to ensure interpretative validity, succeeds only in deconstructing
> it. Again, _in its own terms_. The point is not to show that we can't
> understand historical texts, but that historicism cannot give a coherent
> account of how, or whether, we do.
>
> Or so it seems to me. Opposing pigs, poked or otherwise, more than welcome.
> JDF
>
>
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