Carl Becker
Part of a Series on the Philosophy of History
Today is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Carl Becker (07 September 1873–10 April 1945), who was born in Waterloo, Iowa, on this date in 1873.
Becker’s collection of essays Everyman His Own Historian includes studies of a number of contemporaneous concerns in historiography, including chapters on Marx’s philosophy of history, Frederick Jackson Turner, H. G. Wells, Henry Adams, and others. An interesting comparison between Henry Adams and H. G. Wells mentions the affirmation of a cosmic point of view by Henry Adams and the Denial of it by H. G. Wells:
“It goes without saying that Mr. Wells is not, in the conventional sense, objective. (O thrice blessed anchorage of the academic mind!) He is biased. Alas yes! He has a very special, even a personal, interest in the past. He will not take that cosmic point of view which reduced Henry Adams to the cold comfort of a mechanical formula. But then, no historian does. We all agree with Mr. Wells that the last three thousand years of human history are more worthy of our attention than the preceding three hundred and forty-seven thousand, for the simple reason that they are ‘more interesting to us.’ We write history from the human rather than from the cosmic point of view because, however indifferent the doings of man may be to the cosmic force of which they are the result, they are vastly interesting to us; and vastly important, measured by the standard of human desires, purposes, and aspirations. If the historian is to write history at all, he must be interested in these desires, purposes, and aspirations, must regard them as important in some sense or other. The most disinterested historian in the world has at least one preconception, which is that he will at all hazards have none.”
Today we would not pause long over either Adams or Wells in constructing a philosophy of history, but these were the books being talked about in Becker’s day, and they do serve usefully to drive home a point, which we might call Becker’s humanism. One doesn’t often hear about humanism as a philosophy of history, but I think it would be fair to attribute such a philosophy of history to Becker.
Charlotte Watkins Smith in Carl Becker: On History & the Climate of Opinion, wrote of Becker in relation to his early “Detachment and the Writing of History” (1910), that:
“According to the methodologists, the historian should endeavor to record the facts objectively, and he could do this only by ‘cultivating mental detachment,’ becoming as nearly as possible like Nietzsche’s ‘objective man’ — a mirror to reflect whatever came before him — in this case historical facts. This brought Becker at once to the heart of the matter — what is the historical fact?”
Notwithstanding the ideas of “objective facts,” “mental detachment,” and “objective man,” Becker keeps all of these at an ironic distance even as he appeals to them, as we find in Becker’s essay, “Detachment and the Writing of History” discussed by Charlotte Watkins Smith:
“…the historian selects facts that are unique, facts that have value on account of their uniqueness, facts that are causally connected, facts that reveal unique change or evolution. Historians who proceed thus, proceed scientifically; and while it is doubtless true that no two historians will use identical terms in phrasing their ‘concepts,’ yet ‘the progress of historical synthesis means a growing agreement among scientific historians touching the important facts of this or that period.’ ‘If they proceed scientifically,’ the same facts will be selected ‘by the opponents of the French Revolution … as have been selected by the supporters of it.’ It seems, therefore, if this is indeed a practical standard for evaluating the facts of history, and one truly objective, that we have at last a kind of philosophical recipe for making our contributions permanent; a guide sufficient even for one who has attained complete detachment, or for our disinterested objective man. One has only to examine the facts, select such as bear the mark, and put them together: the result is sure.” (The embedded quotes are from a paper by one Professor Fling about the work of Rickert — demonstrating that Becker was not limited to H. G. Wells or Henry Adams as theoretical references.)
This passage suggests a complete embrace of detachment on the part of the historian, but the whole essay is much more ironic, as is Becker’s better known, later essay, “What are historical facts?” (1955), to which Charlotte Watkins Smith, quoted above, was referring in regard to Becker getting to the heart of the matter. Here Becker seems to be a little easier to pin down, making himself quite explicit on the nature of historical facts:
“What then is the historical fact? Far be it from me to define so illusive and intangible a thing! But provisionally I will say this: the historian may be interested in anything that has to do with the life of man in the past — any act or event, any emotion which men have expressed, any idea, true or false, which they have entertained. Very well, the historian is interested in some event of this sort. Yet he cannot deal directly with this event itself, since the event itself has disappeared. What he can deal with directly is a statement about the event. He deals in short not with the event, but with a statement which affirms the fact that the event occurred. When we really get down to the hard facts, what the historian is always dealing with is an affirmation — an affirmation of the fact that something is true. There is thus a distinction of capital importance to be made: the distinction between the ephemeral event which disappears, and the affirmation about the event which persists. For all practical purposes it is this affirmation about the event that constitutes for us the historical fact. If so the historical fact is not the past event, but a symbol which enables us to recreate it imaginatively. Of a symbol it is hardly worthwhile to say that it is cold or hard. It is dangerous to say even that it is true or false. The safest thing to say about a symbol is that it is more or less appropriate.”
Even in this explicit pronouncement we can see the irony, and the final paragraph of this essay underline this:
“A hundred years of scientific research has transformed the conditions of life. How it has done this is known to all. By enabling men to control natural forces it has made life more comfortable and convenient, at least for the well-to-do. It has done much to prevent and cure disease, to alleviate pain and suffering. But its benefits are not unmixed. By accelerating the speed and pressure of life it has injected into it a nervous strain, a restlessness, a capacity for irritation and an impatience of restraint never before known. And this power which scientific research lays at the feet of society serves equally well all who can make use of it — the harbingers of death as well as of life. It was scientific research that made the war of 1914, which historical research did nothing to prevent, a world war. Because of scientific research it could be, and was, fought with more cruelty and ruthlessness, and on a grander scale, than any previous war; because of scientific research it became a systematic massed butchery such as no one had dreamed of or supposed possible. I do not say that scientific research is to blame for the war; I say that it made it the ghastly thing it was, determined its extent and character. What I am pointing out is that scientific research has had a profound influence in changing the conditions of modern life, whereas historical research has had at best only a negligible influence. Whether the profound influence of the one has been of more or less benefit to humanity than the negligible influence of the other, I am unable to determine. Doubtless both the joys and frustrations of modern life, including those of the scholarly activities, may be all accommodated and reconciled within that wonderful idea of Progress which we all like to acclaim — none more so, surely, than historians and scientists.”
This passage reminds me of the mathematician G. H. Hardy expressing relief that his work in pure mathematics at least had not contributed to any horrors, even if it had also not contributed to any good: “No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world.” Becker seems to be implying a similar contrast between historians and scientists such as Hardy implied between mathematicians and scientists.
Clearly, Becker is not an historian who wants to sanitize or idealize the past. This trend has only become more influential since Becker’s time. In other words, Becker was not only an historian, but also a prophet, though I suspect he would have denied being a prophet if confronted with the idea. The scales have tipped in the meantime, and it is now much easier to find an historian who brings the past before a tribunal in order to condemn it (what Nietzsche called critical history) than to find an historian who looks to the past for inspiration and to find the strength for future action (what Nietzsche called monumental history).
Further Resources
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Becker, C. L. (1955). What Are Historical Facts? Political Research Quarterly, 8(3), 327–340. doi:10.1177/106591295500800301
