Grice's Nose

This is a guide to "Cleopatra's Nose" as per wiki's entry on Carr. There is now a book "Cleopatra's nose: essays on the unexpected. The source was random and Pascal.


"Carr is also famous today for his work of historiography, What is History? (1961), a book based upon his series of G. M. Trevelyan lectures, delivered at the University of Cambridge between January-March 1961."

and which I was fortunate to have in my reading list in a class on the philosophy of history by D. Brauer. (Brauer my mentor in 'philosophy of history' stuff).

"In this work, Carr argued that he was presenting
a middle-of-the-road position between the empirical
view of history and R. G. Collingwood's idealism.[251]"

"Carr rejected the empirical view of the historian's work being an accretion of "facts" that he or she has at their disposal as nonsense."

[251] Carr claimed:

"The belief in a hard core of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the interpretation of the historian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which it is very hard to eradicate".[252]"

"Carr maintained that there is such a vast quantity of information, at least about post-Dark Ages times, that the historian always chooses the "facts" he or she decides to make use of.[251]"

"In Carr's famous example, he claimed that millions had crossed the Rubicon, but only Julius Caesar's crossing in 49 BC is declared noteworthy by historians.[253][251]."

"Carr divided facts into two categories, "facts of the past", that is historical information that historians deem unimportant, and "historical facts", information that the historians have decided is important.[251][254]".

"Carr contended that historians quite arbitrarily determine which of the "facts of the past" to turn into "historical facts" according to their own biases and agendas.[255][251]."

Carr stated that:

"Study the historian before you begin to study the facts. This is, after all, not very abstruse. It is what is already done by the intelligent undergraduate who, when recommended to read a work by that great scholar Jones of St. Jude's, goes round to a friend at St. Jude's to ask what sort of chap Jones is, and what bees he has in his bonnet. When you read a work of history, always listen out for the buzzing. If you can detect none, either you are tone deaf or your historian is a dull dog. The facts are really not at all like fish on the fishmonger's slab. They are like fish swimming about in a vast and sometimes inaccessible ocean; and what the historian catches will depend partly on chance, but mainly on what part of the ocean he chooses to fish in and what tackle he chooses to use - these two factors being, of course, determined by the kind of fish he wants to catch. By and large, the historian will get the kind of facts he wants. History means interpretation. Indeed, if, standing Sir George Clark on his head, I were to call history "a hard core of interpretation surrounded by a pulp of disputable facts," my statement would, no doubt, be one-sided and misleading, but no more so, I venture to think, than the original dictum"[256]

"For this reason, Carr argued that Leopold
von Ranke's famous dictum

wie es eigentlich gewesen
(show what actually happened)

was wrong because it presumed that the "facts" influenced what the historian wrote, rather than the historian choosing what "facts of the past" he or she intended to turn into "historical facts".[257]"

"At the same time, Carr argued that the study of the facts may lead the historian to change his or her views.[251]"

"In this way, Carr argued that history was "an unending dialogue between the past and present".[258][251]"

"Likewise, Carr charged that historians are always influenced by the present when writing about the past."

"As an example, he used the changing viewpoints about the German past expressed by the German historian Friedrich Meinecke during the Imperial, Weimar, Nazi and post-war periods to support his contention.[259]"

"The British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, one of Carr's leading critics, summarized Carr's argument as:

"George Grote, the 19th-century historian of Greece, was an enlightened radical banker; therefore, is picture of Periclean Athens is merely an allegory of 19th century England as seen by an enlightened banker. Mommsen's History of Rome is similarly dismissed as a product and illustration of pre-Bismarckian Germany. Sir Lewis Namier's choice of subject and treatment of it simply show the predictable prejudices of a Polish conservative".[260]

"In general, Carr held to a deterministic outlook in history.[261]"

"In Carr's opinion, all that happens in the world had a cause, and events could not happened differently unless there was a different cause.[261]"

"In Carr's example, if one's friend Smith suddenly starts acting out of character one day, then it must be understood that there is a reason for the strange behavior, and that if that reason did not exist, than Smith would be acting normally.[262] Carr criticized counter-factual history as a "parlour game" played by the "losers" in history.[263]"

"Carr contended that those who engaged in counter-factual speculations about Russian history, such as if Count Pyotr Stolypin's land reforms were given enough time, would the Russian Revolution have been prevented, were those who were uncomfortable about the fact that the Bolsheviks were the "winners" of Russian history and their opponents were not.[263]"

"Likewise, Carr asserted those who stress the importance of "accidents" as a central causal agent in history were the "losers" of history, who wished to play explain away their defeats as the workings of chance and fate.[264]"

"In the same way, Carr argued that historians must concern themselves with the "winners" of history.[265] In Carr's example, it is those who score centuries in cricket matches who are recorded, not those who are dismissed for ducks, and in the same way, Carr maintained that a preoccuption with the "losers" would be the equivalent of someone only listing the losers of cricket games.[266]"

"Carr dimissed the free will arguments made by Sir Karl Popper and Sir Isaiah Berlin as Cold War propaganda meant to discredit communism.[267]"

"In a similar way, Carr took a hostile view of those historians who stress the workings of chance and contingency in the workings of history.[261] In Carr's view, such historians did not understand their craft very well, or were in some way identified with the "losers" of history.[261]"

"In the same way, Carr argued that no individual is truly free of the social environment in which they live, but contended that within those limitations, there was room, albeit very narrow room for people to make decisions that have an impact on history.[268]"

"Carr made a division between those who, like Vladimir Lenin and Oliver Cromwell, helped to shape the social forces which carried them to historical greatness and those who, like Otto von Bismarck and Napoleon, rode on the back of social forces over which they had little or no control.[269]"

"Though Carr was willing to grant individuals a role in history, he argued that those who focus exclusively on individuals in a Great man theory of history were doing a profound disservice to the past.[270] As an example, Carr complained of those historians who explained the Russian Revolution solely as the result of the "stupidity" of the Emperor Nicholas II (which Carr regarded as a factor, but only of lesser importance) rather than the working of a great social forces.[270]"

"Carr claimed that when examining causation in history, historians should seek to find "rational" causes of historical occurrences, that is causes that can be generalized across time to explain other occurrences in other times and places.[261]"

"For Carr, historical "accidents" can not be generalized, and thus not worth the historian's time.[261]"

"Carr illustrated his theory by telling a story of a man named Robinson who went out to buy some cigarettes one night, and was killed by an automobile with defective brakes driven by a drunk driver on a sharp turn of the road. Carr argued one could contend that the "real" reasons for the accident that killed Robinson might be the defective brakes or the sharp turn of the road or the inebriated state of the driver, but that to argue that it was Robinson's wish to buy cigarettes was the cause of his death, that while a factor was not the "real" cause of his death[271]"

"As such, Carr argued that those who were seeking to prevent a repeat of Robinson's death would do well to pass laws regulating drunk driving and the quality of automobile brakes, but would be wasting their time passing a law forbidding people to take a walk to buy cigarettes[271]. In the same way, Carr argued that historians needed to find the "real" causes of historical events by finding the general trend which could inspire a better understanding of the present than by focusing on the role of the accidental and incidental[272]."

-------------------------- THIS THE BIT RE: DOCTOROW's comment:


"As an example of his attack on the

role of accidents in history, Carr

mocked the hypothesis of "Cleopatra's

nose""


"Pascal's thought that, but for the magnetism

exerted by the nose of Cleopatra on Mark Anthony

there would have been no affair between the two, and

hence the Second Triumvirate would not have broken up, and

therefore the Roman Republic would

have continued).[273]"


Carr sarcastically commented that the male attraction to female beauty can hardly be considered an accident at all, and is rather one of the most common cases of cause and effect in the world.[274]"

"Other examples of "Cleopatra's Nose" type of history cited by Carr were the claim by Edward Gibbon if the Turkish sultan Bayezid I did not suffer from gout, he would have conquered Central Europe, Winston Churchill's statement if King Alexander had not died of a monkey bite, the Greco-Turkish War would have been avoided, and Leon Trotsky's remark that if he not contracted a cold while duck hunting, he would not have missed a crucial Politburo meeting in 1923.[275]"

----

"Rather than accidents, Carr asserted history was a series of causal chains interacting with each other.[276]"

"Carr argued that the claim that history was a series of "accidents" was merely an expression of the pessimism, which Carr claimed was the dominant mood in Britain in 1961 due to the decline of the British Empire."


Bust of Cleopatra VII.

Caption:

"In What is History? Carr dismissed the theory of "Cleopatra's Nose" as
an example of the power of accidents in history.

"In Carr's opinion, historical works that serve to broaden society's understanding of the past via generalizations are more "right" and "socially acceptable" than works that do not.[261]"

"Citing Pieter Geyl, Carr argued that as the values of society changes, so do the values of historical works.[277] Carr argued that as society continues to progress in the 20th century, historians must change the values that they apply in writing their works to reflect the work of progress.[278]"

"Carr argued during his lectures that Karl Marx had developed a schema for understanding past, present and the future that reflected the proper and dual role of the historian both to analyze the past and provide a call for action for the present in order to create a better future for humanity.[279]"

"Carr emphatically contended that history was a social science, not an art.[280]"

"Carr argued that history should be considered a social science because historians like scientists seek generalizations that helped to broaden the understanding of one's subject.[281] Carr used the example of the word revolution, arguing that if the word did not have a specific meaning that it would make no sense for historians to write of revolutions, even though every revolution that occurred in history was in its own way unique.[282] Moreover, Carr claimed that historical generalizations were often related to lessons to be learned from other historical occurrences.[283] Since in Carr's view, lessons can be sought and learned in history, then history was more like a science than any art.[284] Though Carr conceded that historians can not predict exact events in the future, he argued that historical generalizations can supply information useful to understanding both the present and the future.[280]"

"Carr argued that since scientists are not purely neutral observers, but have a reciprocal relationship with the objects under their study just like historians, that this supported identifying history with the sciences rather than the arts.[285] Likewise, Carr contended that history like science has no moral judgments, which in his opinion, supports the identification of history as a science.[286]"

"Carr was well known for his assertions in What Is History? in denying moral judgements in history.[287]"

"Carr argued that it was ahistorical for the historian to judge people in different times according to the moral values of his or her time.[287] Carr argued that individuals should be judged only in terms of the values of their time and place, not by the values of the historian's time and/or place.[287]"

"In Carr's opinion, historians should not act as judges.[288] Carr quoted Thomas Carlyle's remark on the British reaction to the French Revolution: "Exaggeration abounds, execration, wailing and on the whole darkness"...", and complained that exactly the same could be said about too much of Western commentary and writing on the Russian Revolution.[289] Likewise, Carr quoted Carlyle on the Reign of Terror as a way of confronting Western complaints about Soviet terror."

""Horrible in lands that had known equal justice-not so unnatural in lands that had never known it".[289]"

"Thus, Carr argued that within the context of the Soviet Union, Stalin was a force for the good.[287] In a 1979 essay, Carr argued about Stalin that
"He revived and outdid the worst brutalities of the earlier Tsars; and his record excited revulsion in later generations of historians. Yet his achievement in borrowing from the West, in forcing on primitive Russia the material foundations of modern civilisation, and in giving Russia a place among the European powers, obliged them to concede, however reluctantly his title to greatness. Stalin was the most ruthless despot Russia had known since Peter, and also a great westerniser".[287]".

"Though Carr made it clear that he preferred that historians refrain from expressing moral opinions, he did argue that if the historian should find it necessary then such views should be best be restricted to institutions rather than individuals.[287] Carr argued that such an approach was better because the focus on individuals served to provide a collective alibi for societies.[287] Carr used as examples those in United Kingdom who blamed appeasement solely upon Neville Chamberlain, those Germans who argued that Nazi-era crimes were the work of Adolf Hitler alone or those in the United States who blamed McCarthyism exclusively upon Senator Joseph McCarthy.[290] In Carr's opinion, historians should reject concepts like good and Evil when making judgements about events and people.[291] Instead, Carr preferred the terms progressive or reactionary as the terms for value judgements.[292] In Carr's opinion, if a historical event such as the collectivization of Soviet agriculture in the early 1930s led to the growth of the Soviet heavy industry and the achievement of the goals of the First Five Year Plan, then the collectivization must be considered a progressive development in history, and hence all of the sufferings and millions of deaths caused by collectivization, the "dekulakization" campaign and the Holodomor were justified by the growth of Soviet heavy industry.[293] Likewise, Carr argued that the suffering of Chinese workers in the treaty ports and in the mines of South Africa in the late 19th-early 20th centuries was terrible, but must be considered a progressive development as it helped to push China towards the Communist revolution.[294] Carr argued that China was much better off under the leadership of Mao Zedong then it was under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, and hence all of the developments that led to the fall of Chiang's regime in 1949 and the rise to power of Mao must considered progressive. Finally, Carr argued that historians can be "objective" if they are capable of moving beyond their narrow view of the situation both in the past and in the present, and can write historical works which helped to contribute to progress of society.[295]"

"The Price of Progress? Child victim of the Holodomor. In Carr's view, the suffering and deaths in the Soviet Union during the First Five Year Plan period were justified by the growth in Soviet heavy industry in the early 1930s, which in turn allowed the Soviet Union to defeat GermanyAt the end of his lectures, Carr criticized a number of conservative/liberal historians and philosophers such as Hugh Trevor-Roper, Sir Karl Popper, Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison, Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier and Michael Oakeshott, and argued that "progress" in the world was against them.[296] Carr ended his book with the predication that "progess" would sweep away everything that Popper, Morision, Namier, Trever-Roper and Oakeshott believed in the 20th century just the same way that "progess" swept away the Catholic Church's opposition to Galileo Galilei's astronomical theories in the 17th century.[297] Elaborating on the theme of "progress" inevitably sweeping away the old order of things in the world, in a 1970 article, Carr argued that with the exception of the Mexican Revolution, every revolution in the last fifty-odd years had been led by Marxists[298]. The other revolutions Carr counted were the revolutions in Cuba, China, Russia, and a half-revolution in Vietnam (presumably a reference to the then on-going Vietnam War)[299]. This together with what Carr saw as the miserable condition of the Third World, which comprised most of the world led Carr to argue that Marxism had the greatest appeal in the Third World, and was the most likely wave of the future[300]. Carr expanded on this thesis of "progress" being an unstoppable force in September 1978 when he stated."

""I think we have to consider seriously the hypothesis that the world revolution of which [the Bolshevik revolution] was the first stage, and which will complete the downfall of capitalism, will prove to be the revolt of the colonial peoples against capitalism in the guise of imperialism".[301]"

"The claims that Carr made about the nature of historical work in What Is History? proved be very controversial, and inspired Sir Geoffrey Elton to write his 1967 book The Practice of History in response, defending traditional historical methods."

"Elton criticized Carr for his "whimsical" distinction between the "historical facts" and the "facts of the past", arguing that it reflected "...an extraordinarily arrogant attitude both to the past and to the place of the historian studying it".[302] Though Elton praised Carr for rejecting the role of "accidents" in history, he maintained that Carr's philosophy of history was merely an attempt to provide a secular version of the medieval view of history as the working of God's master plan with "Progress" playing the part of God.[303] The British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper argued that Carr's dismissal of the "might-have-beens of history" reflected a fundamental lack of interest in examining historical causation.[304] Trevor-Roper asserted that examining possible alternative outcomes of history was far from being a "parlour-game" was rather an essential part of the historians' work.[305] Trevor-Roper argued that only by considering all possible outcomes of a given historical situation could a historian properly understand the period under study.[305] In Trevor-Roper's opinion, only by looking at all possible outcomes and all sides could a historian properly understand history, and those historians who adopted Carr's perspective of only seeking to understand the "winners" of history, and treating the outcome of a particular set of events as the only possible outcome were "bad historians".[306] In a review in 1963 in Historische Zeitschrift, Andreas Hillgruber wrote favourably of Carr's geistvoll-ironischer (ironically spirited) criticism of conservative, liberal and positivist historians[307]"

"The British historian Richard J. Evans credited What Is History? with causing a revolution in British historiography in the 1960s[308]"

------- AND THUS MUCH MORE RELEVANT THAN DANTO AS FAR AS Grice's OXFORD GOES.

"The Australian historian Keith Windschuttle, a critic of Carr noted regretfully that What Is History? has proved to be one of the most influential books ever written about historiography, and that there were very few historians working in the English language since the 1960s who had not read What Is History?[309] The conservative British historian Andrew Roberts was to write in 2005 in defence of counter-factual history that: ‘anything that has been condemned by Carr, Thompson and Hobsbawm must have something to recommend it"[310]"