Abstract
This project focuses on two prominent 'intellectual historians'. My unexciting claim asserts that every historical interpretation is interrelated with morality. The following research in the moral foundations of contemporary historiography intends to expose the relation between the morals of two historians, the moral challenges they experienced and their scientific choices. Their writings and context suggested limiting the project to the period between the First World War and the bipolar stabilisation of the world order after the Second World War.
During this period, historiography was shaken in its foundations, as was much of the world around it. The crisis of historicism in the early 1920s and the ideological polarisation under National Socialism and fascismo are here read as signs of a scientific insecurity of historians. A 'total relativism' of meanings and values determined the contemporary theoretical discussions. New and partly powerful meanings seemed in this perspective as much founded as the traditional historicist understanding of the meaning of history. The decision between these alternatives was no longer an objective one, but depended on a personal level on a moral decision. Through the consequent detachment from an objective truth, historiography lost not only its guiding role in politics, but its very practice became ethically challenged, too: For what purpose and with which values could one approach the past? Accordingly, around 1945 historians searched, and if only for a short period, for new ways of writing history.
Research Topic and Research Question
The project researches the difficulties in the moral foundations of historical writing, raised already by Friedrich Nietzsche and discussed in the first decades of the 20th century by Max Weber and others. It follows two historians who had been educated in the historicist traditions of the 19th century and who had acquired around 1900 national and soon also international fame, Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) and Friedrich Meinecke (1862-1954). The two liberal conservatives were convinced of the political task connected to their work. Becoming antifascists after a temporary sympathy with the regimes, they remained relatively independent from them due to their age, international fame and a partial retreat from political matters. Until late in their lives, they followed new ideas and alternative approaches, influencing substantially the understanding of historicism in particular. Seemingly unencumbered by fascism, they were in the initial post-war period expected to offer also moral guidance.
When, in 1914, Croce read Meinecke's words that historiography should "bath more courageously in politics and philosophy", a 47-year long exchange began. The two intellectuals discussed their approaches to history between the poles Hegelian and Rankean, dialectic and monist, rational and irrational in numerous letters, reviews, paragraphs of their books, footnotes and during two personal encounters. Their debate mirrors the problematic of the function and potential of historiography: Does historical writing (historiae rerum gestarum) reveal 'the' or at least 'one' meaning of a history (res gestae) which entails ethical norms, or is it rather an incessant translation between former and current ethical notions which stands beyond reasoning?
In order to answer to this research interest, the analysis focuses on concepts that are both morally loaded and essential for the writing of history, such as concepts referring to the historical agent and to agency. The agent or 'individual' is the factor that yields the abundance with which historians are confronted and which is typically attributed to human will, be it 'singular' or 'collective', i.e. of a human being, a 'mass', a 'class', and so on. Directly connected to this are historical responsibility and coincidence, i.e. concepts regarding the type of agency that links the human being or any other historical actor to historical events and which thus 'explains' these events.
The research interest is not to ascertain that Meinecke and Croce's methodological choices depend on a specific biographical or psychological constellation. Instead, I intend to show the varying relation between their moral beliefs and their historical reflection in a context that was in many ways challenging (within the discipline, in disassociation to other disciplines, or in relation to the political and ideological choices and on a personal level).
Four reasons suggest a comparative study of Meinecke and Croce as historians who reflected on the moral implications of historiography. First, their mutual debate over half a century essentially contributes to the understanding of either of the two. Second, they share despite many differences a number of features that help to understand the moral developments of European liberal-conservative historians of their generation. Third, responding to recent debates in Italy and Germany on the relation between historians and the fascist regimes, it is interesting to compare figures from the two countries exactly because of the different degrees of control under fascist and National Socialist rule. Finally, the often repeated claim of a peculiar philosophical position of Germany invites outright the comparison with a non-German intellectual as Croce, who went not only very own philosophical paths but put especially German philosophers in relation to French, Italian, and English thinkers.
Argument of the Project
The first chapter presents important points of reference as an intellectual introduction to Meinecke and Croce's approaches to history. These points of reference guide the reader through the analysis of, first, their concepts of the 'individual' and of the 'masses' and, second, of responsibility and coincidence. Through these concepts their understandings first of the historical actor and second of historical agency can be established. The second chapter analyses the 'individual' as a central contemporary concern about the entities, which may attain the level of a historical actor. In a closely related contrast, 'masses' were a thorn in the contemporary considerations of conservatives, traditionally understood as an anti-historical force that was additionally connected to positivism; a point discussed in the third chapter. Responsibility and coincidence are analytical categories which allow to discern their theories of historical agency in the fourth chapter and that are of special importance to discuss the development of their philosophies of history after the defeat of the fascist regimes.
The project discusses first some intellectual positions out of which Meinecke (1862-1954, Berlin) and Croce (1866-1954, Naples) moulded their own approaches and in relation to which the project positions its results: Hegel 's (1770-1831) dialectic understanding of the course of history and his notion of a rational 'world spirit', Ranke 's (1795-1886) prevalence of foreign policy and the 'objective' approach to the writing of history on a religious foundation, Nietzsche 's (1844-1900) relativism of all values and call for a historiography that is serving life and not ruling it, and Max Weber 's (1864-1920) insight in pre-scientific Wertideen and theory of a strict separation of facts and values.
When, in 1924, Meinecke turns in depth to Hegel; he brings in a positive verdict. Hegel's individualisation of the state has been a crucial step for the foundation of historicism and for the acknowledgement of the historical role of the 'individual' in general. He rejects only Hegel's systematic philosophy because it rationalises the 'individual' under a 'world spirit'. Meinecke could not have come closer to Croce's interpretation of Hegel of 1905. However, neither the Hegelian individualisation of the state (understood differently by the two), nor a Hegelian dialectic notion of the course of history could solve their common ethical problem of the 'individual'. Meinecke withdraws consequently in the late 1930s to Ranke and to a neo-platonic approach to history inspired by Goethe, while Croce turns explicitly against Ranke and examines, again, Hegelian philosophy. In 1939/1941, despite their shared ethical convictions, they conclude that their views remain incongruous because of their differing intellectual heritage.
In fact, while Meinecke had come from a critical re-evaluation of Ranke and Kant and a traditional historiographical training that had led to historical tenure, Croce had initiated his studies with Marx and had then arrived, through aesthetics, at a critical review of Hegelianism, switching between philosophical and historiographical research. Croce attacked Ranke for his chronicles and his delight for power of the state, despised Nietzsche for the irrationalism of his philosophy, and quickly put aside Max Weber's historical sociology for its lack of a spiritual element. (Nevertheless, he initiated Weber's first Italian translation.) Nietzsche is for him nothing but an important predecessor of fascism and racism and the last outcry of romanticism. Instead, Croce defends a renewed, dialectic rationality which, based on Hegelian dialectics, comprises the irrational and leads to a common view on the individual and general elements of history.
A critical sympathy connects Meinecke to Nietzsche's anti-materialist idealism. He feels somehow connected to Max Weber's passionate "revolution of the spirit" that turned against the "classic-classicist" world, which was prepared by Nietzsche, but he dismisses Weber for the lack of soulfulness in his concepts of the state and of man. Meinecke embraces Weber's theory of the different forms of power for his own research on the raison d'état or the idea of the connection between Protestantism and capitalism. However, Meinecke's loyal reverence, despite occasional criticism, returns finally to Ranke, whom he praises for his empathic understanding of the past that refutes the natural law approach to raison d'état. Ranke's fusion of the 'real' with the 'spiritual', clearly indebted to Hegel, is the final ideal of Meinecke's historiography. But instead of elevating the relation between the 'real' and the 'spiritual', of 'kratos' and 'ethos' to a philosophical solution à la Hegel, he insists on its mystery and puts himself thus in fundamental opposition to Croce. In Croce's revised rationalism the ethos and kratos are no contraries, but are instead united in the sphere of the 'etico-politico'.
The second chapter analyses the development of Meinecke and Croce's views of the 'individual' as historical actor . 'Individual' refers at the same time as a philosophical term in the tradition of German idealist philosophy to the particularity of an entity and as an everyday term to a single and typically free human being. Meinecke and Croce continuously discuss their notions of the 'individual', returning to the great German philosophers of the 18th and 19th century and to Vico. This chapter discusses their approaches to the contemporary candidates for a historical agent such as any individual human being, or 'only' heroes, or collective entities such as 'classes', states or a 'spirit'.
Three developments had challenged the 'individual' (as human being or as a state) at the time of the First World War. Philosophically, an excessive individualisation combined with the relativism of values had deprived the 'individual' of the hitherto ethical foundation of its agency, be it devoted to a state or to a higher 'spirit'. In a certain regard related to this, Marx' writings as well as positivism had subsumed the individual human being under an economic sub-structure or under empirical historical laws. Other methodological solutions were based on religious or quasi-religious beliefs, 'organologic' laws, or 'biological' or racial facts. Third, historically, the 'rise of the masses', which had troubled historians already in the 19th century, had acquired new historical force with the new political and military forms employed since the First World War such as new forms of democracy.
Croce answered straightforward to the challenge: 'Liberty' was the guiding value for the individual; in his late philosophy, its 'guidance' even dominated individuality up to its elimination. Since the mid-1890s, Croce rejected vehemently positivism, including sociology, for its negligence of historical individuality. Finally, his despise for 'masses', the "volgo", went together with a deeply felt reliance on the individual in spite of the fascist mobilisation around him. He thus repudiated all attacks on the individual, be they philosophical, methodological or historical. Nevertheless, he was finally led to a hyper-individualisation of the liberal 'spirit' that then deprived the individual human being of essential elements of its individuality.
Meinecke was more cautious before answering to the philosophical, scientific and historiographical challenges to the individual. He elevated the final motivations and intentions of the 'individual' (as human being or state) and her agency into an enigmatic roam beyond reasoning and even language and embraced the Troeltschean notion of values that are absolute within a temporary and cultural context. He also attempted to ascribe some elements of 'individual' agency to the 'masses' and to give them thus a degree of individual actorship. Meinecke consequently accepted some positivist findings but continued to defend the ultimately idealistic and individualistic foundation of history and historiography. The confirmation of this dualism brought him in his late years back to Ranke on the cost of depriving 'lower' individuals of their historical agency.
These considerations show that Meinecke and Croce's views of the 'individual' actor and her agency should be understood together with their views of the 'mass' , discussed in the third chapter which thus mirrors in a certain degree the previous one. 'Masses' represent for the two conservatives an a-historic, if not anti-historic entity, an entity that through its irrational character ignores and destroys any progressive course of history. The appearances of 'masses' mark the pessimistic moments in history. Their rise is unalterably connected to the very idea of the individualistic democracy, although they abolish at the same time its democratic individualism. Hence, 'masses' stand in a contradictory relation to the civil conception of history that emphasises each citizen's responsibility to higher values.
Meinecke and Croce depart from this view around the end of the First World War, but in two different directions. The 'Vernunftrepublikaner' Meinecke (Klueting 1986) attempts to underline the 'individual' components of the 'masses' and understands them as historical 'individuals' in themselves, which have justified needs and fight adversaries. In his historiographical practice, however, Meinecke sees rather the realised individual that in elevating itself over the mass becomes a proper historical factor. Furthermore, he remains attached to the notion of the state as the bearer of leading higher values, although in variable measures and clearly diminishing since the mid-1930s.
Croce focuses on the notion of the individual acquiring its 'individuality' through its deeds; clearly, the 'state' attains no special attention in his thought. 'Masses', or in fact any (positivistic) methodology that disregards of the individuality of historical events, is almost absent from his writings. The economic as sphere of the 'masses' becomes in his philosophy of history one of the forms of the 'spirit' beside the ethical, the artistic and the philosophical one, and is thus exempted from ethical judgements. However, Croce makes in his last period the individual in such a degree the object of 'liberty' (the content of the 'spirit' that is fulfilled in historical actions and through historical agents) that mankind as the realm of this 'spirit' becomes the object of history and subject to the liberal 'spirit'. He thus dissolves the 'individual' in an absolute collective. For Croce, there is nothing between the human individual and mankind that could serve as the historical arena.
However, 'mass' is not simply the opposite or the inner other of the 'individual'. As in Marxist thought or as in historical materialism, it can also be considered an active historical factor with a substantial impact on the actual political events. In the 1920s, Troeltsch and others had attributed also to the 'mass' the value of an 'individual.' Meinecke takes the 'mass' into account, initially on the side, but with increasing interest, until in 1946, while reading Marx, he characterises the 18th century as an "era of the masses and of the now conscious 'Völker'".
Croce had quickly abandoned Marxist ideas after a 'Marxist parenthesis' in the 1890s. Now, he disregards of the state as well as of the 'masses' and refers to the latter by the Italian word volgo , rabble. Still, Croce returns to his study of Marx and of historical materialism and introduces an 'useful' or economic form of the 'spirit'. Only for a short period in 1944/1945, he considers, in quotation marks, 'masses' as an active political factor. Despite his disdain for 'masses', he allows thus for a non-individual factor in historical terms, though he would not attribute agency to it.
The final chapter analyses how Meinecke and Croce's approaches to the historical actor relate to their views on historical responsibility and coincidence . How much agency of the historical actors lies in historical events, and in what degree are historical events mere coincidence, i.e. beyond reasonable explanation? The question touches thus also upon Meinecke and Croce's views on the value of historiography and on their personal realisations, insofar both were actively engaged in politics, Croce up to ministerial offices.
(This latter point determined much of the post-war reception of either historian, which at a certain point in the 1960s seemed limited on their respective definitions of National Socialist Germany as "Irrweg" and of fascist Italy as "parenthesis". Although these phrases suggest an ad-hoc interpretation of the fascist regimes, both thinkers attempted to incorporate them into a broader understanding of the course of history. This project clarifies ultimately their potentialities and inabilities in this regard. Only after this clarification should a historian judge their historical writing about the fascist era.)
Meinecke pondered on historical coincidence again and again during his life, generally accepting it as a necessary 'factor' in history and thus, for him, also in historiography. Croce reproached him for this introduction of a 'non-value' into historical writing, because it deprived it of its ethical core. Meinecke continued attempts to go beyond historicist conceptions of historical responsibility and denial of coincidence in the initial post-war period; however, the octogenarian did not arrive at a coherent concept.
After the Second World War, Croce intensified his rhetoric against any historical reflection (historiae rerum gestarum) that contradicted the 'liberal spirit', which in his eyes expressed itself in the course of history (res gestae) or even guided it. To admit coincidence into historical reflection would mean to relinquish the very task of historiography, which is to understand the past in relation to the contemporaneity of the researcher, who hence orders the past events according to her needs and situation up to the point where their meaning becomes purely moral. From this point of view, Meinecke's interpretation of some events leading coincidentally towards the rule of National Socialism becomes a confession of his moral insecurity in 1946. However, the firmness with which Croce defends his pre-war philosophy of history does not allow to explain the rise of fascism, either, but as a short-term derivation from the main path of history to which he owes the liberal principle of his philosophy itself.
Meinecke and Croce differed substantially in character and in their philosophical approaches to history, which resulted in a considerable difference in their understanding of historical agency. It is this moral difference which explains their divergence from the late 1930s onwards and their different reactions in their philosophies of history at the end of the Second World War.
