History’s unresolving tensions: reality and implications

Abstract

A prominent but often neglected feature of historical representation is the presence within it of ‘tensions’ of a sort that cannot be resolved within the limits of historical representation itself. This unresolvability is most readily seen when historians aim to be cognitively responsible in their work and when they are sufficiently skilled and self-aware to be so. Its wider implications have been largely invisible. This article argues that historiography’s most fundamental unresolving tension derives from the opposition between Determinism and Contingency. It also argues that the project of ‘modern’ Western historiography is characterized by two further unresolving tensions, between Present and Past and between General and Particular. The article notes the emergence in Germany from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century of rival traditions of ‘dialectical’ and ‘nondialectical’ (nonresolving) historiography (identified by Ian Hunter). Reaching from history to practice, the article recommends that historians follow a nondialectical path, attending to history’s unresolving tensions rather than denying them, overlooking them or purporting to resolve them. Finally, it suggests some rules of thumb as indications and reminders of how this would be done.