Ethan Kleinberg and Hayden White on the Practical Past, Part 1

[@enriqueperez6064]

White's Practical Past recall Kant's Practical Reason. Undoubtedly Professor White is one of the greatest contemporary historians.

[@czarquetzal8344]

The world " practical" in that sense means ethics or morality expounded in Kant's second critique. I

[@mutroom9914]

Interesting. Thanks for the upload!

[@meghkalyanasundaram8720]

~4:39 "History used to be practical in the sense that it belonged to moral philosophy. Moral philosophy is about how do you act in such a way as to realise ethical goals or interests. But when you become, or aspire to become, scientific, you have to give up that kind of thing, I believe that, in principle, in becoming scientific, historians ought to have, or committed to, a non-evaluative way of thinking about the data they are dealing with" (almost verbatim)

[@kjetilsenNOWAY]

Wow, Ethan! Great moves, keep it up, proud of you!

[@meghkalyanasundaram8720]

~3:05 "And of course, by practical, I mean--in a philosophical sense--what Kant meant by it, namely, action, rather than theoretical way of contemplating the past. For many centuries, history was regarded as a practical discipline. But when it decided to become scientific, when historians decided to become scientists, shift over from a [not clearly audible] idea of what historical writing was, to a scientific notion--modern scientific notion--of investigation and research, they had to, in order to gain some kind of acceptance by other scientists, they had to eschew any claim to having practical relevance." (almost verbatim)

[@sandyqai]

Legend.

[@HistoricalPerspectiveRBr]

07:30 It is depressing how dated White's understanding of historical practice is. When he first published Metahistory and assume his discussion of 19th century historians applied to mid-twentieth century historians he was already badly out of date, here he is so hopelessly detached from actual practice that it makes his reflections on it largely pointless.

[@czarquetzal8344]

Your assessment of White''s philosophy of history is definitely based on your ideology, so I suggest you tane your passion for imposing your view unless you can clarify first your theoretical position.

[@kjetilsenNOWAY]

a quick game for a quick overview?