Towards a Critical Historiography: Recent Work in Philosophy of History

Bann, Stephen

doi:10.1017/s0031819100050336

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…111-155 3 That narratives are composed largely of "atomic narratives" embodying lawlike, causal explanations is argued by Danto (1985). For the opposite view see the works discussed by Bann (1981). The immanence of themes is echoed in many of the critical comments on the Humean concept of a cause found throughout Mandelbaum (1977).…”

Section: Beyond Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical explanation, folk psychology, and narrative

Bevir¹

2000

Philosophical Explorations

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This paper argues history differs from natural science in relying on folk psychology and so narrative explanations. In narratives, actions, beliefs, and proattitudes are joined by conditional and volitional connections. Conditional connections exist when beliefs and pro-attitudes pick up themes from one another.Volitional connections exist when agents command themselves to do something having decided to do it because of a pro-attitude they hold. The paper defends the epistemic legitimacy of narratives by arguing we have legitimate grounds for postulating conditional and volitional connections since they are given to us by a folk psychology we accept as true. HISTORICAL EXPLANATION, FOLK PSYCHOLOGY, AND NARRATIVE I. PreliminariesWhen we say that Susan crossed the road to buy a sandwich, we explain her action by attributing to her a desire to buy a sandwich and a belief that she can do so across the road. Our standard way of explaining human actions is by reference to the beliefs and pro-attitudes of actors. We should not be surprised, therefore, that historical explanations often appeal to beliefs and pro-attitudes. The most obvious examples are explanations of particular actions, whether decided upon by an individual or a group. Consider, for example, Colin Matthew's explanation of W. E.Gladstone's sensational production in 1886 of the controversial Government of Ireland Bill. Matthew describes how the Liberal Party was excluded from the process of discussion and how even the Cabinet was not given adequate time to examine the proposals. 'Gladstone,' he explains, 'hoped to trump Cabinet doubts and party unease by the production of a great bill' (Matthew, 1995, p. 236). The tactics Gladstone deployed are explained here by reference to both his wish to win support for his proposals and his belief, albeit surrounded by doubts, that he could do so through the drama of a great bill. A similar form of explanation appears whenever historians treat collective entities such as classes, institutions, and states as akin to people by ascribing to them things such as intentions.Numerous historical explanations work by pointing to the beliefs and proattitudes that informed an action or set of actions. Historians explain all sorts of aspects of life in this way, including not only particular actions or sets of actions, but

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Section: Beyond Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical explanation, folk psychology, and narrative

Bevir¹

2000

Philosophical Explorations

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“…I would argue that ignorance, in this particular case, may be warranted. 14 A history article without these three reference points-time, place, and historiography-could not appear in a major journal. The temporal-spatial anchors tie the author and the reader into the reality context, while the historiography demonstrates the author's minimal competence to undertake the work.…”

Section: Positivist Social Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

The Challenge of Quantitative History

Monkkonen

1984

Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdiscipli

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“…This matters because histories operate as powerful narratives that shape our understanding of management thought and our role as researchers in it. We believe choices of emplotment can be studied by looking at the textual practices of historians (Bann, 1981). To this end, our paper begins with an investigation of Daniel Wren’s (Wren, 1972, 1979, 1987, 1994, 2005; Wren and Bedeian, 2009, 2018, 2020) widely acclaimed series: The Evolution of Management Thought .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Evolution of Management Thought: reflections on narrative structure

Weatherbee

Durepos²

2022

JMH

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Purpose This paper aims to problematize the dominant narrative forms of disciplinary histories of management thought. Specifically, the authors explore the narrative mode of emplotment used in Wren’s (and later Wren and Bedeian’s) 50-year encyclical on the history of management thought, namely, the The evolution of management thought (EMT). Design/methodology/approach The authors propose that management histories operate as powerful narratives that shape our understanding of management thought and, consequently, our disciplinary futures. This paper explores the textual narrative of EMT. Additional data are drawn from other scholars’ observations of this text. This paper is positioned in the debates of management history. Findings While acknowledging the wealth of historical facts in EMT, the authors argue that the umbrella narrative orders events of the past in such a manner that the historical knowledge follows a form of Darwinian evolutionism. Thus, the narrative leads to problematic representations suffering from progressivism, presentism and universalism. Research limitations/implications Disciplinary scholars in management and organization studies need to carefully reflect on how we construct our representations of the past and histories. This will allow us to better craft transparent and reflexive histories. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to propose a remedy, albeit a partial remedy, which we believe is needed to avoid adverse epistemological consequences associated with the use of problematic narratives in management and organizational histories.

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Towards a Critical Historiography: Recent Work in Philosophy of History

Cited by 9 publications

References 3 publications

Historical explanation, folk psychology, and narrative

Historical explanation, folk psychology, and narrative

The Challenge of Quantitative History

The Evolution of Management Thought: reflections on narrative structure

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