ДИСКУРС-АНАЛИЗ И «ИСТОРИЯ ПОНЯТИЙ» РАЙНХАРТА КОЗЕЛЛЕКА В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ ЗАПАДНОЙ ИСТОРИОГРАФИИ

Научная статья
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18454/RULB.6.20
Выпуск: № 2 (6), 2016
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Аннотация

В статье рассмотрена рефлексия современной западной историографии в отношении исторической семантики и структуры исторического времени, проблематизации которых посвящены труды немецкого исследователя Райнхарта Козеллека. Его историческая эпистемология, находящаяся между «пространством опыта» и «горизонтом ожиданий» современного поколения рассматривается как преодоление тупика лингвистического поворота и традиционной методологии историописания. Данный подход позволяет сочетать анализ исторического опыта и его дискурсивного описания. Авторы рассматривают влияние теоретических и методологических оснований исторической семантики Р. Козеллека на современные немецкие конкретно-исторические исследования. На примере немецкого россиеведения 2000-2015 гг. авторы анализируют интернационализацию «истории понятий» и развитие концептуально-исторического подхода в контексте новых предметных полей исторической науки.

Acknowledgements

Статья подготовлена при финансовой поддержке Гранта РГНФ № 15-01-00427а "Современная историческая эпистемология и исследовательские парадигмы западной историографии 2000-2015 гг." (соисполнитель).

The Author would like to express gratitude to the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation for the presented study financial support (the project no. 15-01-00427а “Modern historical epistemology and research paradigms of Western historiography in 2000-2015s”).​

Introduction

The most significant trends of a contemporary historical epistemology are historical semantics - the study of basic sense-making concepts used in the reflection to the past, and the analysis of the historicity (the concept of the German philosophy of history developed by Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer) which should be understood as a continuously changing connection of historical times. Every generation creates its own understanding of the past, present and future, which is formed on the basis of the historical experience perception of living generations and their “'horizon of expectations”, a certain anticipation of the future. Modern research of historicity and semantic milestones in the perception of the past are inspired by concepts and grounds advanced in scientific works of German researcher Reinhardt Koselleck. Despite the fact that his works do not present a distinguishable and finally defined research development program, Koselleck’s "conceptual history" productive epistemological proposals can be grouped as follows: the first one is a new reading experience of the Modernity (New Time), the second, is the "history of concepts" or historical semantics, the third, is the concept of multiple historical times [1], [2], [3], [4].

Theoretical Background of Study

The study assumed the use of the traditional instruments of historiographical scholarship: general logical (analysis, synthesis, induction, abstraction, idealization, analogy, modelling), general historical (genetic, comparative, typological, problem-chronological, ideographic). With the help of these tools we will trace a connection between the basic ideas of Reinhardt Koselleck and modern trends of western historical epistemology.

Language and concepts in Koselleck’s “history of notions”

Reinhard Koselleck oeuvres remained inconsiderable in historical genre researches until the mid-1990s. They became widespread when the basic postulates of scientism successfully implemented in social history in the spirit of the French "Annales" of the twentieth century, along with all allied models were subsequently attacked by representatives of different disciplines fields - from ethnology to literary criticism. German historian offered to replace the traditional historical description by some fresh ideas that have been successfully developed in German national philosophical tradition by M. Heidegger [5] and H.G. Gadamer [6], but they were not accepted by the community of historians in Germany as well as abroad [7, P. 793].

Koselleck tried to dismantle the customary perception of history as a single continuous process, which were based on the principle of historicism. Instead, he proposed the idea of the historic ruptures of continuity and irreversibility on the example of the Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment considerably shifted human perception of time and historical consciousness on the ground of a secular eschatology formation, which required the development of new value-oriented social relations. Koselleck replaced the abstract idea of historicism, with Heidegger's “ontology of history”, which was considered to be the center of understanding human existence temporality in the world. He also borrows Heidegger's notion of "finality", a certain tragic milestone marked by unavoidable disruption of ages. It was the period of senses breaking and a new era outlines defining. At the same time Koselleck admitted the existence of profound basic concepts: male / female, master / slave, parents / children, external / internal, which retain their value regardless of the human experience specifics. Moreover, Koselleck endowed social and interpersonal interaction processes with their meanings in the comparison with German hermeneutical tradition and Heidegger who emphasized the importance of social and interpersonal concept.

Koselleck illustrates modern genesis as a transition from traditional historical experience to a new fundamentally different one; this transition is represented by replacement of history as a homogeneous, constant alliance with uncertain and running historical process or movement in which every historical object, every action, every intention is deliberately highlighted. At the turn of modernity the correlation between "experience" and "horizon of expectations" have become increasingly asymmetric and discontinuous, the project of the future has become uncovered and unpredictable [1].

Researches of modernity inverted the traditional values of the religious consciousness were reflected by other European authors’ research. Hence, Francois Hartog in his monograph "Modes of historicity. Presentism and time experiences" created a prospect of different historicity modes rotation - i.e. special types of time connection, describing each of the periods. In antique times the present was inspired by the experience of the past, and after the French Revolution the historicity of the New Age was fed upon the project of the future, whereas in contrast in the last decade of XX century historicity regime defining feature became the dominance of active short-term social memory and the phenomenon of the present. Time itself becomes an object of consumption and sale, circulated by numerous anniversary celebrations, "the years of national heritage". From the perspective of other ages this relationship is currently characterized by the author as a total presentism filled with artificially cultivated "sense of duty" rather than with natural perception of time connection [8].

“Time” and “Modernity” and forms of their reflection in historical discourse

Thus, the "modernity", as a period that covers the 18th-21st centuries, is characterized by break of relations of the past in terms of experience, traditions and beginnings, and a kind of obsession with the future in the form of expectations, scheduling, predictions and utopias. According to Helge Jordheim, English-speaking world takes Koselleck theory as a one-sided concept, providing a sense of modernity. However, his theory does not focused on proofs about the present, because it contains few characteristics of modern era, except the reference to technological and industrial advancement in parallel with the labor division issue in terms of increasing role of machine-assisted production. Koselleck work was aimed at creating a theory that would cover all kinds of historical time and forms of its reflection, which are formed into coordinate system of historical events and semantic representations of them.

Under the Koselleck editorship the topic of historical semantics was published in German under the title "The History of the basic concepts". These series were published with several authors’ assistance from 1957 to 1992. The series included 7 volumes and 119 articles. Koselleck being a disciple of the Haydereger and Gadamer historicity tradition differs from them in particular forms of language, expressing concepts and specific historical events that caused their appearance. Koselleck has specific pragmatic and contextual distinction between "words" and "concepts". The word can be a concept if it absorbs a set of historical events, a number of theoretical and historical issues, "which was given in a very concept only and can be experienced only within it" [1]. The concept is constantly connected with the experience of certain time; it fully absorbs and reflects the experience of contemporary generations, becoming a referent of "historical reality." "The concept is close to the word, but it is at the same time more than a word," it is not a narrow linguistic expression, "probably, it is a matter of epistemic, although this sphere cannot be separated from the language completely».

Another ideological Koselleck’s contribution was the theory of historical time, which, according to the author, should undergo some changes in order to reflect the historical specifics in connection with other social sciences. Koselleck expresses the intention to "denaturalize" or "dismantle" the notion of time as the natural historical chronology and create a theory of historical time, where time itself would be the result of historical research [9, 161].

All the experts on Koselleck writings noted that his ideas about modes of historical time are not systematically integrated, and can be modified according to the stances of his past articles. Olsen claimed that there were two lines in Koselleck’s research from which it became possible to trace his time ideas on history. The first one is historical authors’ representation idea of time and the end of time (the Heidegger tradition). The second trend originates from Gadamer's notions of anticipation and experience. Without denying the natural cyclical manifestations, such as sunrise or sunset, the circle of the seasons,  Koselleck  transforms "time" in the historic "times", paying attention to the certain boundaries of the human experience, such as "progress, decline, acceleration or delay, "not yet" and "no more", “too early” and “too late”, “duration” and  “situation" [9, P. 161].

For the first time Koselleck touched the topic of time in the 1970s, than he started to develop it in 1980-1990., later in 2000 he published the collection of articles under the specific title “The Layers of Time”. In these articles, Koselleck stated that all the historical examples based on different methods of historical experience generalization can be grouped into three branches. First level illustrates "the irreversibility of events", expressed by the idea of "before" and "after" in the definition of historical sequences. The second level is the phenomenon of ‘events frequency", from the two events point of view, which are almost the same, as well as from the point of view of this events constellation or category. In relation to the typological repeated events Koselleck uses the expression "the simultaneity of non-simultaneous," supposing that the historical succession may have the same natural historical chronology, with a completely different time organization, for example, when the utopian ideology project their political and social ideals into the future. The third type of historical experience is "long-term system changes" (e.g. the fall of the Roman Empire). Eventually, three levels of historical experience correspond to the Koselleck’s three historical time models.

In fact Koselleck, reproduce the famous Fernand Braudel concept of the three historical durations. The first layer is composed by the events that people usually experience during their unique personal destiny. The second - "average layer" - is also comprised of the individual events with rather clichéd frequency, what is explained by historians as a certain historical laws. The third time level is based on the biological laws of nature and leads beyond the historical boundaries ("quasi-immobile» Braudel’s history) [1].

Koselleck did not try to create a sort of comprehensive time methodology, he was more likely to offer ".something like a toolbar of consistent assumptions, which shows the history writings sense and how it can be applied.", and did not illustrate practical examples of historical writings, which could be implemented as an instruction manual [10, P. 233].

“The history of notions” and “the linguistic turn”    

Koselleck’s concept rejects the idea of petrified forms in history. Neither historical periodization nor linguistics dominates in this concept. In Koselleck concept, the language is always closely connected with the experience. There can be no independent language, which does not refer to individual and collective experiences, and these experiences are always endowed with temporal structures. Thus, the time penetrates the  language and dets it in motion [2, P. 264].

Contemporary Western historiography derives from Koselleck’s transactions some arguments for discussions with the adherents of the so-called "linguistic turn". The founder of the literary criticism approach to history, Hayden White considered himself a great admirer of Koselleck’s works; he put an effort to promote Koselleck’s works in the English-speaking world. Koselleck in his turn had also appreciated the American scholar’s ideas, he wrote a praiseful forward to the German edition of a famous "Tropics of discourse". Moreover Koselleck found some similarities between German hermeneutical tradition and White’s concept, expressed by the concentration focus on linguistic aspects of the historical experience representation. At the same time Koselleck marked a significant difference with respect to the White’s judgment: his interest in the historical writing metaphorical language does not leave room to social reality. Koselleck considered that the sources of historian and the special methods of their elaboration let him exercise his right of "veto" on the false or misleading past time representations and criticized White because he ignored the scientific nature of professional historiographic criticism, which was the best means to distinguish real historical scholarship from fiction.

The collection of articles, under the editorship of Carsten Dutt and Reinhard Laube, combined interdisciplinary conference papers on Reinhardt Koselleck’s intellectual legacy [11]. Thirteen scientists, representatives of various scientific fields, analyzed Koselleck specific contribution in the "linguistic turn", the debates on the relationship between absolutism and the Enlightenment, the culture of memory and theoretical approaches to historical time, focusing on certain aspects of the sophisticated reflection of the German scientist. Thus, Daniel Ute, with the help of Goethe interpretation, completed by Koselleck, explains his method of integrating different experience dimension in historical explanation, which is contrary to the model of initial theoretical construction artificial filling with historical factual knowledge. Niclas Olsen points out the specifics of the postwar German intellectual history, in which the idea of Koselleck’s secular eschatology and his concept of a multiple historical time clearly resonate with the Karl Löwith research. Reinhard Laube presented personal Koselleck’s library, which helped to understand the essence of his historical method. Other biographical recollections can be found in work by Jan-Friedrich Missfelder, who published biographical recollections of intellectual dispute between Koselleck and Habermas. Hans Erich Boedeker focuses on Koselleck’s approach to Enlightenment and the philosophy of Hobbes, largely inspired by Karl Schmitt. Dialogue between Koselleck and Gadamer is the subject of Dominic Kaegi and  Alexandre Escudier work analysis. Gerd van Heuvel on the example of the philosophy of Leibniz enters into controversy with Koselleck, adducing arguments that apocalyptic mode of thinking stepped aside to the line progress in the very beginning of seventeenth century.

Research of notions in modern Russian studies

In modern international Russian studies over the last decade, Reinhart Koselleck’s “history of notions” has become one of the leading trends. German Russian studies of 2000-2015 include the theoretical reflection of “conceptual history” on the basis of Russian history as well as direct references on Reinhard Koselleck’ epistemological statements [21], [22], [23], [24]. These practices of application of the “history of notions” to historical and discourse analysis are concerned with research projects of German Historical Institute in Moscow that aim at the popularization and internationalization of historical semantics,  German traditions of hermeneutics and “history of notions”.

Research in this field focuses on the genesis of certain concepts in the Russian history of language and ideas [12], [13]. The subject area include wide rank of notions from political (totalitarianism, genocide, democracy, “glasnost’”) [14], [15] and socio-cultural (person, fatherland, generation, West and East) [16], [17], [18] until the formulation of a question “Is “Russia” a basic historical Concept?” [19], [20]. In contrast to the Anglo-American Russian studies, German Russian studies is “the two-way street” due to the long historical traditions of scientific and cultural interaction and mutual influence.  German Russian studies are carried out in the close collaboration with Russian research centres. Many talented German specialists on Russian history are of Russian origin [17], [14], [19], so they combine perfect factual knowledge of Russian historical and cultural specifics with new theoretical approaches and methodological initiatives. 

N. Plotnikov, German researcher from the Ruhr University, carried out the historical reflection connected with a basic concept of “person” as a key point in Russian history of ideas. He stated that the thematic emphasis of Russian “history of person and personality” differs from the western conceptual tradition in which juridical and moral descriptions are central [17]. The “otherness” of Russian historical discussion about “individual” and “personality” is studied as an interesting semantic issue. According to the author, Russian discourse of “a person” appeared in the discourse of “Slavophiles” and “Westernizers” in 1830-1840s, under the influence of German Idealism and Romanticism. Therefore, contemporary western interpretations of personality based on theological and natural-law explanations of “person” are absent in Russian cultural and historical discourse. Russian understanding of “person” is in semantic field of “unique individual” rather than “autonomous man”. So, “persons” are outstanding men and “the personality” is not an obligatory attribute of every man. The author invites the readers to discuss the development of the notion “person” in Russian socio-cultural tradition as well as German-Russian intellectual and cultural transfer in 19th and 20th centuries.

Kristian Petrov, Sweden historian from the Goteborg University, studies the Soviet history from the conceptual point of view [14]. He revised sovietological studies of 1980s and 1990s focused on how the political key concepts were conditioned by a specific context and how they were able to unleash new opportunities and limitations. On the basis of wide historiographical review the author defined the concepts that disappeared in historical and cultural discourse. Moreover, K. Petrov highlighted concepts which died with their own context. On the historical example of the concepts of “perestroika”, “glasnost’”, “socialist pluralism”, “revolution” and many other, the author identified the category of so-called instrumental concepts and their key characteristics: mimicry of the instrumental concept to the similar common notion, and the inner contradiction of instrumental concept caused by historical conditions of emergence and its purpose.

Conclusion

To come up, it is necessary to note that the Reinhard Koselleck’s "conceptual history" creates a logically probative methodological balance of different and formally conflicting “historian’s craft” conditions. Neither periodization nor linguistic compulsion dominates in this context. Language is always associated with human experience, and the experience always takes the form of temporal structures. Koselleck’s epistemological proposals actively resonate in the development of modern Western historiography.

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