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

[jfleming at sfu.ca]

On Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:52:49 -0500 milton-l at lists.richmond.edu wrote:
> 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'm afraid I don't see this assumption in my remarks.

I think our knowledge of the
> number
> of possible readings of a text is in fact finite and limited.  

Maybe; but how?

The
> idea that
> a text can be "infinitely" interpreted is purely theoretical, and probably
> doesn't take seriously enough the word "infinite."

I don't understand that comment.

> 
> 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.
> 

Is it really consistent with historicism to hold that we can "choose" a
historical approach? Is this what "always historicize" means? I don't see
how.

> 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.	

But that's pretty much where deconstruction swoops in, as I tried to point
out.

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."
> 

With that I entirely agree. (It sounds, in fact, very close to Gadamer's
idea of tradition.) But it is not an idea I see as proferred in rigorous
historicism -- eg, Skinner-like readings of Milton's poems as political
texts-in-contexts. Surely the vector of such approaches is to demarcate the
texts ever-more-locally in their original times and places, thereby
alienating them ever-more-minutely from our own prejudices and concerns.	


> 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.

Again, I agree. But this sounds to me more-or-less like the critique of
historicism I was trying to offer. 

> 
> 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
> >
> >


James Dougal Fleming
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
778-782-4713
cell: 604-290-1637

"Not always, nor of necessity, nor for the most part."