Dewey, Mead, John Ford, and the Writing of History
The second half of the twentieth century has been witness to a blooming of reflections on the status of historical narrative. One of the main achievements of a narrativist philosophy of history (NPH) consists of having reinforced the worth of an autonomous historical knowledge vis à vis standard con...
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| Μορφή: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Γλώσσα: | Anglais |
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European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy
2017
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openedition-oai:revues.org:ejpap_641 |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:ejpap_641 https://doi.org/10.4000/ejpap.641 urn:doi:10.4000/ejpap.641 en https://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/641 2017-03-08T01:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/fn4p https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Dewey, Mead, John Ford, and the Writing of History European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy Associazione Pragma info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2036-4091 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ejpap Tozzi, Verónica The second half of the twentieth century has been witness to a blooming of reflections on the status of historical narrative. One of the main achievements of a narrativist philosophy of history (NPH) consists of having reinforced the worth of an autonomous historical knowledge vis à vis standard conceptions of science which made history appear as underdeveloped. Although NPH does not dismiss the importance of documentary evidence, it did not produce an integrative account of both dimensions (the work of writing and the work with evidence), being slave of a number of epistemological dualism. On one hand, NPH seems to remain in the representationalist paradigm in the case of evidence, while, on the other hand, it only admits pragmatic evaluation in the case of narrative discourse. In this paper, I sustain that John Dewey’s and George H. Mead’s reflections on our knowledge of the past offer NPH good reasons to assess the role that literary theory can play in reconstructing historical controversies, without neglecting the importance of empirical research. For instance, Dewey holds that historical writing is a case of the judgments produced in response to problematic research situations. By virtue of this, the meaning of judgments referred to the past (that is, historical narrations) “have a future reference and function,” and thus understanding their meaning involves displaying the consequences that follow from such judgments. Mead, for his part, has argued that by appealing to the independent reality of the past as ground for our beliefs about it, rather than contributing to the rational resolution of our historical problems, we stray towards the search of something which is by definition unattainable. As a consequence, I shall show the urgency of advancing in the development of a narrativist, pragmatistically-informed philosophy of history. My considerations will be illustrated through the analysis of a controversial case about a past event: the main plot of the memorable film The man who shot Liberty Valance, by the equally memorable John Ford. |
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OpenEdition Journal |
| language |
Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
| building |
0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| description |
The second half of the twentieth century has been witness to a blooming of reflections on the status of historical narrative. One of the main achievements of a narrativist philosophy of history (NPH) consists of having reinforced the worth of an autonomous historical knowledge vis à vis standard conceptions of science which made history appear as underdeveloped. Although NPH does not dismiss the importance of documentary evidence, it did not produce an integrative account of both dimensions (the work of writing and the work with evidence), being slave of a number of epistemological dualism. On one hand, NPH seems to remain in the representationalist paradigm in the case of evidence, while, on the other hand, it only admits pragmatic evaluation in the case of narrative discourse. In this paper, I sustain that John Dewey’s and George H. Mead’s reflections on our knowledge of the past offer NPH good reasons to assess the role that literary theory can play in reconstructing historical controversies, without neglecting the importance of empirical research. For instance, Dewey holds that historical writing is a case of the judgments produced in response to problematic research situations. By virtue of this, the meaning of judgments referred to the past (that is, historical narrations) “have a future reference and function,” and thus understanding their meaning involves displaying the consequences that follow from such judgments. Mead, for his part, has argued that by appealing to the independent reality of the past as ground for our beliefs about it, rather than contributing to the rational resolution of our historical problems, we stray towards the search of something which is by definition unattainable. As a consequence, I shall show the urgency of advancing in the development of a narrativist, pragmatistically-informed philosophy of history. My considerations will be illustrated through the analysis of a controversial case about a past event: the main plot of the memorable film The man who shot Liberty Valance, by the equally memorable John Ford. |
| author |
Tozzi, Verónica |
| spellingShingle |
Tozzi, Verónica Dewey, Mead, John Ford, and the Writing of History |
| author_facet |
Tozzi, Verónica |
| author_sort |
Tozzi, Verónica |
| title |
Dewey, Mead, John Ford, and the Writing of History |
| title_short |
Dewey, Mead, John Ford, and the Writing of History |
| title_full |
Dewey, Mead, John Ford, and the Writing of History |
| title_fullStr |
Dewey, Mead, John Ford, and the Writing of History |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Dewey, Mead, John Ford, and the Writing of History |
| title_sort |
dewey, mead, john ford, and the writing of history |
| publisher |
European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy |
| publishDate |
2017 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ejpap |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/ejpap.641 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/641 |
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