tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13713642.post6727879549194753238..comments2024-03-28T11:03:41.050-05:00Comments on Unlocked Wordhoard: Historicism vs. PhilologyDr. Richard Scott Nokeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348275071082514870noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13713642.post-71978025828024762972008-07-22T13:34:00.000-05:002008-07-22T13:34:00.000-05:00I think the question about which to use first is t...I think the question about which to use first is the problem. As if either really needs to be first! I can imagine really enjoying a multidisciplinary approach, employing both sides of the coin simultaneously. Kind of like learning Spanish in high school: lots of language acquisition, but cultural studies too.<BR/><BR/>Given that, I always get a little twitchy at pronouncements about preliterate societies and their artifacts. Sure, we can dig up artifacts and propose meanings for them, but how can we really know without knowing what people actually said about them? Uh-oh, maybe I'm a philologist after all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13713642.post-47914584973461564242008-07-22T10:04:00.000-05:002008-07-22T10:04:00.000-05:00I wasn't so much quoting as adapting for historica...I wasn't so much quoting as adapting for historical (and much nicer...) purposes:<BR/><BR/><I>If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words</I>: Phillip K. Dick.<BR/><BR/>As for your post: yes. Indeed. Right you are.<BR/>Ideally, surely, one must do both in a sort of spiral? Starting out as a beginner: depending on your teacher, you might start with an introduction to the culture, or you might be thrown the first chapter of the ASC and told to swim... but as you go, your teacher will probably keep feeding you bits of both, fleshing out the history and filling in your knowledge of the language. Again, depending on your teacher or the kind of course, you might have a bias one way or the other, I guess...<BR/><BR/>Do people stop working in circles, though, as they get older and more erudite? I guess as you specialise in your subfield and you come to know everything you need to know about it, your need for background historical study might become less and less obvious to you?highlyeccentrichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14049193555531624608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13713642.post-44230498649463198962008-07-21T23:45:00.000-05:002008-07-21T23:45:00.000-05:00Charles,You wrote: "The relationship between philo...Charles,<BR/><BR/>You wrote: "The relationship between philology and historicism is that the former is an instrument of the latter."<BR/><BR/>You wouldn't have to swing a dead cat too long before hitting someone reversing that relationship.<BR/><BR/>Besides, everyone knows Charles Kinbote is an unreliable narrator!<BR/><BR/>(For those missing the joke, try looking up the name "Charles Kinbote")Dr. Richard Scott Nokeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01348275071082514870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13713642.post-24662949813690834362008-07-21T16:59:00.000-05:002008-07-21T16:59:00.000-05:00Oh dear, I'm afraid I will have to offer the antic...Oh dear, I'm afraid I will have to offer the anticipated dissent. The distinction between understanding the people first or understanding the language first is an altogether false dichotomy that is of little use. How is it possible to understand the historical people unless it is through the written documents of their existence? This is a basic tenet of New Historicism and familiar from most historiographical reflections from Hayden White on. (Thucydides and Herodotus also have a pretty sophisticated sense of what kind of evidence produces knowledge, even if they write thousands of years before the so-called documentary revolution.)<BR/>The relationship between philology and historicism is that the former is an instrument of the latter. Historicism seeks to understand a given work in its original historical context. Philology, whether understood as linguistics or textual criticism, aims to reconstruct that textual-linguistic context. It aims to strip away the history that intervenes between ourselves and the past so that we can see that past more clearly. <BR/>What you may have meant is that texts can be interpreted or understood according to interests that are primarily philological, that is, concerned with the use of language, or primarily historical, that is, how the written work reflects the world in which it was produced. In that sense, they are different lenses through which to read the work rather than opposed methodologies. Yes, that must be what you mean.Martinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14283590012216440773noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13713642.post-82725535503242882382008-07-21T16:50:00.000-05:002008-07-21T16:50:00.000-05:00Now here is one of those cases where I can actuall...Now here is one of those cases where I can actually see room for "befuddlement" on the part of readers.<BR/><BR/>You write: "Historicism suggests... : That to understand the language, you first have to understand the people." <BR/><BR/>This may be true from a literary theory and criticism perspective, but it is not necessarily true from other perspectives.<BR/><BR/>From a Philosophy of Science perspective, Historicism is a post-Kuhnian application of Hegelian ideas to the application of science. You have the period of normal science (the thesis) during which things behave under a dominant paradigm. Eventually, enough anomalies appear that the paradigm encounters a crisis and we enter a phase of "revolutionary" science where the dominant paradigm and its rivals are questioned all the way down to their basic principles (the anti-thesis).<BR/><BR/>From another philosophic perspective, the direct philosophy of Hegel, Historicism understands the passage of history as a struggle between theses and anti-theses which continually approaches "freedom" or some other teleological principle. These struggles are viewed as rational and understandable through scientific principles.<BR/><BR/>I don't know how exactly those fit with your description of Historcism in Medieval Studies, which seems to be an application of historical study (common usage) to the interpretation of literature. According to my copy of the John Hopkins guide to Literary Criticism, one might use Vico's NEW SCIENCE description, "the closest knowledge of a thing, lay in the study of its origins." <BR/><BR/>There's more in the entry that links it somewhat to the Kuhnian and Hegelian understandings, but I find the application of Hegel clumsy.Christian Lindkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05078403387362505754noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13713642.post-83277875934976484922008-07-21T16:40:00.000-05:002008-07-21T16:40:00.000-05:00I like the way you've characterized these two pole...I like the way you've characterized these two poles colliding--as both different but also emphasizing that "neither side can do without the other, and most scholarship needs the knowledge and skills garnered from both."<BR/><BR/>I wonder, how does one bring the two poles together? What I really mean is, if scholars should be using both concepts equally--because, let's phase it: as you've pointed out, language affects history, and history affects language--what is the middle ground? Is there a vein of linguo-historicism, or historio-linguistics to be found and utilized? I don't mean "historical linguistics," but a way of approaching history and language together.<BR/><BR/>As a young scholar entering the field through an interdisciplinary department and method (which I highly value as the best way to view the past), what might this look like, theoretically? I think your emphasis on the necessity of both views gets to this point a little, but is there more to be said for implementing both into one sphere of examination?bwhawkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17909010609907741198noreply@blogger.com