Example: biology

voltaire and the necessity of modern history

modern Intellectual history ,6,3(2009), 484C Cambridge University Press2009 and the necessityof modern historypierre forceDepartment of French, Columbia UniversityE-mail: article revisits what has often been called the naive presentism of voltaire shistorical work. It looks at the methodological and philosophical reasons for voltaire sdeliberate focus on modern history as opposed to ancient history , his refusal to makeallowances for time in judging the past, and his extreme selectiveness in determiningthe relevance of past events to world history . voltaire s historical practice is put in thecontext of the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns, and considered in a tradition ofuniversal history going back to Bossuet and leading up to nineteenth-century Germanhistoricism. Paradoxically, voltaire is a major figure in the history of historiography notin spite of his presentism (as Ernst Cassirer and Peter Gay have argued), but becauseof significant proportion of voltaire s enormous output is historical in nature:alifeofCharlesXIIofSweden(1731),1 a cultural history of France under LouisXIV (1751),2a history of the War of1741(1755),3a history of Russia under Peter theGreat (1760),4apr ecis of the age of Louis XV (1768),5a history of the Parliamentof Paris (1769),6a

voltaire and the necessity of modern history 459 Meineckeaddedthat“neverbefore...hadtherebeensuchadeliberateand determined effort to distinguish between the valuable and the valueless in the

Tags:

  Modern, History, Necessity, Relativo, Voltaire and the necessity of modern history

Information

Domain:

Source:

Link to this page:

Please notify us if you found a problem with this document:

Other abuse

Transcription of voltaire and the necessity of modern history

1 modern Intellectual history ,6,3(2009), 484C Cambridge University Press2009 and the necessityof modern historypierre forceDepartment of French, Columbia UniversityE-mail: article revisits what has often been called the naive presentism of voltaire shistorical work. It looks at the methodological and philosophical reasons for voltaire sdeliberate focus on modern history as opposed to ancient history , his refusal to makeallowances for time in judging the past, and his extreme selectiveness in determiningthe relevance of past events to world history . voltaire s historical practice is put in thecontext of the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns, and considered in a tradition ofuniversal history going back to Bossuet and leading up to nineteenth-century Germanhistoricism. Paradoxically, voltaire is a major figure in the history of historiography notin spite of his presentism (as Ernst Cassirer and Peter Gay have argued), but becauseof significant proportion of voltaire s enormous output is historical in nature:alifeofCharlesXIIofSweden(1731),1 a cultural history of France under LouisXIV (1751),2a history of the War of1741(1755),3a history of Russia under Peter theGreat (1760),4apr ecis of the age of Louis XV (1768),5a history of the Parliamentof Paris (1769),6and a very ambitiousEssay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations(1756),7which was a secular continuation of Bossuet sDiscourse on UniversalHistory.

2 Yet voltaire s status as a historian is an ambiguous one. TheEssay on1Vo l t a i r e ,Histoire de Charles XII,inidem,Oeuvres historiques, e Pomeau (Paris:Gallimard,1957),51 l t a i r e ,Le Si`ecle de Louis XIV,inidem,Oeuvres historiques,603 l t a i r e ,Histoire de la guerre de1741,inidem,Oeuvres historiques,1575 l t a i r e ,Histoire de l Empire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand,inidem,Oeuvres historiques,337 l t a i r e ,Pr ecis du Si`ecle de Louis XV,inidem,Oeuvres historiques,1297 l t a i r e ,Histoire du Parlement de Paris, ed. John Renwick, inidem,The Complete Worksof voltaire , (Oxford: voltaire Foundation,2005).7Vo l t a i r e ,Essai sur les moeurs et l esprit des nations,editedbyRen e Pomeau,2vols. (Paris:Garnier,1963).457458pierre forceMannerswas greatly influential in eighteenth-century Europe, but academichistorians like those of the G ottingen School were deeply suspicious of the kindof philosophical history that voltaire practiced and advocated.

3 In a brief andscathing review of the German translation of the second part of his history ofthe Russian empire, Schl ozer accused voltaire of errors, lies, faulty reasoning,and gross ranted against the pretentious little Humes orRobertsons, the little German Voltaires, and vowed to hunt down these insectswithout mercy, wherever they may be, because they can be dangerous, like allinsects. 9 When such distinguished representatives of German academic historyas Dilthey and Meinecke looked back at the history of the discipline, their view ofVoltaire was much more generous than that expressed by their eighteenth-centurypredecessors, Gatterer and Schl ozer. In1901 Dilthey wrote that voltaire was thefirst to attempt an account of the new universal history of human culture, 10and that the effect produced by applying the new ideas to historical facts wasextraordinary.

4 11In1936 Meinecke argued thatthe first and crowning achievement of the Enlightenment in the historical sphere is to beseen in the work of voltaire . In many respects, it is true, the historical achievements ofHume, Robertson and Gibbon may be ranked higher than voltaire s; but no one occupiessuch a broad and obvious and above all effective position within the whole developmentof historical Ludwig Schl ozer, inAllgemeine deutsche Bibliotek, (1769),254 , La Critique par Schl ozer de l ouvrage de voltaire Histoire de l empire deRussie sous Pierre le Grand, in Katia Dmitrieva and Michel Espagne, eds.,PhilologiquesIV. Transferts culturels triangulaires France Allemagne Russie(Paris: Maison des sciencesde l homme,1996),63 ottingen school see Peter Hanns Reill,The GermanEnlightenmentandtheRiseofHistorici sm(Berkeley: University of California Press,1975);and Michael C.

5 Carhart,The Science of Culture in Enlightenment Germany(Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press,2007).9 Johann Christoph Gatterer, inHistorisches Journal, von Mitgliedern der k oniglichenhistorischen Instituts zu G ottingen, (1773),2. Unless otherwise specified, translationsare Dilthey, The Eighteenth Century and the Historical World, inidem,Hermeneutics and the Study of history (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1996),348( Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert und die geschichtliche Welt, Deutsche Rundschau108(1901),241 62,350 80). When I quote another edition than the original, I give the date ofthe original between Meinecke,Historism: The Rise of a New Historical Outlook(New York: Herderand Herder,1972),54(Die Enstehung des Historismus,2vols. (Berlin: R. Oldenbourg,1936)). voltaire and the necessity of modern history459 Meineckeaddedthat effort to distinguish between the valuable and the valueless in thebroadmassofhistoricalevents.

6 13 Since his elevation to the status of founding father of modern historicalthinking by Dilthey and Meinecke, voltaire has had mixed fortunes in scholarlyaccounts. In her chapter on voltaire , Karen O Brien begins by stating that voltaire s histories have not recovered today from the low reputation to whichthey sank after the French Revolution. 14 Sheproceedstogiveanuancedaccountof voltaire s contributions to cosmopolitan history in the eighteenth century, without wishing to make excessive claims for their merit and influence. 15 Inhis multivolume study of Gibbon, John Pocock calls voltaire the exasperatingpredecessor, 16whoseoeuvrewas of vast importance to Gibbon, whenever andby what stages he carried it out. 17 voltaire taught Gibbon how the Enlightenednarrative could be constructed by means of a history of manners at onceerudite and philosophical.

7 18 However, because voltaire would not share hissources or his methods with others, it became doubtful whether he respectedtheir judgment or even his own. 19 Since the1958studies by Brumfitt20andDiaz,21only two monographs have appeared on voltaire and history . John Leigh sbook explicitly situates itself as a continuation of Brumfitt s work and studies thehistorical aspects of those works by voltaire that are not usually categorized her part, S ofra Pierse notes that voltaire s historiography hasnot yet been deciphered in a coherent fashion. 23 However, she deliberately staysaway from the question of the innovativeness or coherence of voltaire s historicalmethod. Overall, in the huge voltaire bibliography, the percentage of studiesdedicated to voltaire the historian is very small, especially (and surprisingly)in the French language.

8 As John Leigh puts it, tongue-in-cheek, the paucity O Brien,Narratives of Enlightenment: Cosmopolitan history from voltaire to Gibbon(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1997), G. A. Pocock,Barbarism and Religion, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1999), , , H. Brumfitt, voltaire Historian(Oxford: Oxford University Press,1970; first published1958).21 Furio Diaz, voltaire Storico(Turin: Einaudi,1958).22 John Leigh, voltaire : A Sense of history , SVEC series (Oxford: voltaire Foundation,2004).23S ofra Pierse, voltaire Historiographer: Narrative Paradigms,SVEC series,6(Oxford: voltaire Foundation,2008).460pierre forceFrench studies devoted to voltaire s histories might be explained by the prosperityof French historiography: voltaire s place in an ever progressive, sophisticatedtradition is possibly thought to be superfluous, incongruous, perhaps even mildlyembarrassing.

9 24 There is, however, at least one powerful counterexample to thischaracterization. When he edited his New history manifesto in1978(withRoger Chartier and Jacques Revel) Jacques Le Goff quoted extensively fromthe New Considerations on history ? , and he claimed voltaire as one of the fathers ofhistoire nouvelle(the oldest in a group of ancestors that also includedChateaubriand, Guizot, Michelet, and Simiand).25 Whatever importance one grants him in the history of historical thought,all studies of voltaire betray the same unease, which probably stems from thefact that voltaire did what every history student is taught to avoid: he wasan unabashed presentist, frequently judgmental and moralizing. On the otherhand, whatever can be redeemed in his historical method (distinguishing factfrom fiction, criticizing sources) is so obvious and unobjectionable that it seemshardly worth mentioning.

10 This unease can be seen in standard accounts ofthe Enlightenment, which include various attempts to exonerate voltaire fromthe Romantic accusation that he had no sense of history . Cassirer notices thatVoltaire falls prey to na ve teleology, 26yet argues that the flaws in his approach are far less weaknesses of his system than those arising from his personality andtemperament. 27 Peter Gay (who studies voltaire along with Hume, Robertson,and Gibbon without making distinctions between these four historians) concedesthat the view of history of thephilosophes has come to seem na ve. 28As aresult, the historical masterpieces of voltaire and the others have faded intomuseum pieces. 29On the other hand, Peter Gay sees thephilosophes critiqueof Christian history writing and their secularization of the art of history as amajor contribution.


Related search queries