[Reader-list] Non-archival history? Here it is.

[ARNAB CHATTERJEE]

[This post and the subsequent series -- is dedicated
to Partha Chatterjee, Gautam Bhadra and Tapati
Guhathakurta who taught this odd and unworthy student
of theirs  -historiography in 1997-98 and to Mahmood
Faruqui, Sadan Jha, Prem Chandavarkar and Ritwik
Bhattacharya who have pursued –even while
disagreeing-- an energetic discussion on the subject
on this List and outside.)

As all of you know --but because this mail is also
being sent to many others ( not at one go to manage
the number of CC or there will be mail errors) who may
not have been aware of what was going on here at the
SARAI-CSDS Reader’s List, let me preface the present
offering by saying a few introductory words.
          For quite some years –in my engagement with
the Neo-Hegelians of the 19th century I confronted and
studied in some detail what is known as the Hegelian
mode of ‘philosophical history.’ The relevance was
further accentuated by the ravaging postcolonial
critiques of Hegel staged by Ranajit Guha to Gayatri
Spivak—which were –though mistaken on many counts ( I
shall show that in the second part of this post) were
enough to show how much of this Hegelian heritage
lives. But while contemporaneously, philosophical
history has been perverted to stand for intellectual
history or the history of ideas ( though some like  
Alisdair MacIntyre still practice ‘philosophical
history’) and is thus  an accepted fact in its
anonymity, the mainstream of disciplinary practice,
pedagogy and research of history,  knee deep in the
positivistic, scientific sand of sources which have
been museumised in the archives ( despite all
critiques), has been reluctant enough to negotiate
with the fact ( which is why the Subalterns were
reproached of not going to the archives), that there
was and there are still types of
history/historiography which are not dependent on the
archives. Simply put, there are non-archival concept 
based histories. And may I reiterate that this kind of
history is dangerous to say the least ( in the portion
quoted below don’t take Hegel’s use of the word
tyranny too lightly).  It is this kind of history
where the worldly reality ( if there is one) is forced
to conform to the concept; it fashions the future
accordingly. Marx’s eternal threat that the world has
to gain a certain form of consciousness whether it is
willing or not is a demonstration of the above
approach. I show—elsewhere in the main text—Marx is
the best example of a philosophical historian and whom
(if not Hegel) the newspapers ( as today’s archival
elements) are compelled to remember—whether they are
willing or not.  And in all this,  where does Hegel
live? Isn’t it in Marx himself?
                        
            As a question –and in pursuance of a
conversation with Mahmood Faruqui –I had submitted
this as an agenda to the list readers and some of my
friends. With reference to that discussion pursued on
the List and to be fair to it, it must be acknowledged
that there is a fresh breath of air and which, I
think,  is very very   significant. A brand of
brilliant, young and emerging historians, architects
are trying to suggest an other way. They seem to be
vouching for  a phenomenological transformation of the
historical archival object by relating to them as a
part of experiencing it in a different way  and
interrogating whether this relating is at all
separate, in terms of essence,  in other forms of
collections ( Sadan Jha), or invoking  the
phenomenological  version of historical time ( Ritwik
Bhattacharya) and thus a subjective vigil or alertness
( Prem Chandavarkar) in the use of the archives
merging in the grand suggestion of Mahmood Faruqui
that conceptual labour of the negative and the
positive labour of the archive may both be
accommodated, because, he might say now-inspired by
his friends, the fracture does not happen in the
experiencing subject and the time of the archive ( or
the archival objects)  may not be  a separate time. 
             Now, what I see in the above is a
‘reconstruction’ of the archive and the attendant
problems of the above I shall again address and argue 
 in the article being drafted. But what Hegel could
have said while he was pitting philosophical thought
and historiographical facts as antagonistic and
marrying them in philosophical history—unaware of
Prem, Sadan, Ritwik and Mahmood of 2007, I can guess,

 “My dear friends,  this reconstruction or
transformation that  you are attempting to, is
achieved by thought itself. Only in the realm of pure
thought or notion that these distinctions (
experiencing subject and experienced object) are
erased. So if you acknowledge this and Arnab calls you
a band of ashamed but clever and cunning philosophical
historians entering  through the back door [ because
debunking archives (currently as they are named,
claimed,  used and enforced by the establishment)
publicly might be  a problem to your career], I’ll not
object.” 
        Now, this is enough fuel for my friends and
the Readers shall wait and  shall see who wins ( not
in terms of earthly gains ( Namrata)  of course, that
way you all  are on the victory stands already). 
               
So, we start by giving a definition of philosophical
history as proposed by Hegel and in the next part we
shall address the postcolonial critiques of the same. 
  
   						I. 
     
    “ The subject of this course of Lectures is the
Philosophical History of the World. And by this must
be understood, not a collection of general
observations respecting it, suggested by the study of
its records, and proposed  to be illustrated by its
facts, but Universal History itself”(p.1)[1]  .
Hegel suggests a three pronged approach to history or
“methods of treating History” (1) of which
Philosophical History forms the third.

1.	Original History, 2. Reflective History, 3.
Philosophical History. Having gone through the first
two, they being interesting in themselves, Hegel now
reflects on his project : philosophical history--

“The most general definition that can be given, is,
that the Philosophy of History means nothing but the
thoughtful consideration of it
 To insist upon Thought
in this connection with history may, however, appear
unsatisfactory. In this science it would seem as if
Thought must be subordinate to what is given, to the
realities of fact; that this is its basis and guide:
while Philosophy dwells in the region  of
self-produced ideas, without reference to actuality.
Approaching history thus prepossessed, speculation
might be expected to treat it as a mere passive
material; and so far from 
leaving it in its  native truth, to force it into
conformity with a tyrannous idea, and to construe it,
as the phrase is, “ a priori.” But as it is the
business of history simply to adopt  into its records
what is and has been, actual occurrences and
transactions;  and since it remains true to its
character in proportion as it strictly adheres to its
data, we seem to have in Philosophy, a process
diametrically opposed to that of the
historiographer(Ibid., pp. 8-9).” 
             Now, this kind of history—whose
description we’ve had from the father’s mouth have
been critiqued from two directions :one, which was a
19th and early 20th century critique : that this is a
speculative, theoretical and idealistic history;
secondly, the contemporary post colonial critique
which is here. 

II.
The question can be stated in an other form : what
happens when Hegel is taken to task for a kind of
history/historiography he does not stand for? This can
be had from the postcolonial critiques of Hegel with
illustrative names running from Ranajit Guha, Dipesh
Chakraborty to Gayatri Chakravory Spivak. It is only
Partha Chaterjee who could be spared of this error.
Because elsewhere I’ve elaborated on this premise,
today I limit myself to quoting the relevant portion
only ( excerpted from my ‘Reading Hegel in the
Colonial Night’).

“
The  postcolonial critique of Hegel:  The synopsis
of that critique is – in the language of Spivak, Hegel
is a strong moment in the “ epistemic graphing of
imperialism” [2]  Apart from Gayatri Spivak, Ranajit
Guha[3]   and Dipesh Chakraborty [4]  have approved of
such a critique in their works. Now, it would not be
correct to or even it is perhaps not possible to
engage with Hegel in the colonies without referring to
the above critique; but as it will be shown, I’ll not
require this critique at all. Not,  because I think
this critique, by and large, is misplaced. This
misplacement emerges handy because its authors
consider Hegel without his system[5]. 
But the point is not whether Hegel belongs to this or
that kind of historiography. If there is any thing
that Hegel belongs to, it would be a philosophical
history which some including Hegel have observed as a
kind of apriori history i.e., Hegel is said to have
provided the transcendental conditions by which the
experience of history or us experiencing history
becomes possible. Following Gilian Rose, the
historical apriori is the precondition of the
possibility of actual histoical facts or values; “it
is an apriori, that is, not empirical, for it is the
basis of the possibility of experience” [6].  This
experience is not dependent on the empirical realities
of factual history because the latter kind of material
history itself draws its categories or becomes
possible by such already present forms. For instance
we would not be able to make sense of anything called
social facts if we did not presuppose the concept of
society; similarly historical facts are nothing
without the [apriori] concept of history. “It cannot
be  a fact, because it is the precondition of”
[historical] “facts and hence cannot be one of them:
it is a ‘transcendent objectivity [7]. ’’ Hegel is,
infact, categorical on this: “ the philosophy of
history is nothing more than the application of
thought to history” [8].  This thought in Hegel is the
self-activity of the concept which is independent of
empirical data :“ Philosophy, 
is credited with
independent thoughts produced by pure speculation,
without reference to actuality
[and]..forces it [
i.e., the latter] to conform to its preconceived
notions and constructs a history a priori” [9].  That
endorses the perceptive remark made by William Stace
that civil society is a logical derivation and not a
historical derivation in Hegel [10].  And the
justification of such a logical derivation, Hegel is
very clear on this, cannot “ come from the world of
experience.” Because-

“what philosophy understands by conceptual thinking is
something quite different; in this case, comprehension
is the activity of the concept itself, and not a
conflict between a material and a form of separate
origin. An alliance  of disparates such as is found 
in pragmatic history is not sufficient for the
purposes of conceptual thinking as practiced in
philosophy; for the latter derives its content and
material essentially from within itself. In this
respect, therefore, despite the alleged links between
the two. The original dichotomy remains: the
historical event stands opposed to the independent
concept” [11]. 

Therefore Hegel—given his project—should be judged for
the correctness of the philosophical journey that he
traces for autonomous concepts rather than being
faulted for various cultural and ideological,
anthropological reasons; we are  perhaps forgetting
his own objections made against such trials. The
postcolonials have made Hegel –unlike Marx and  for
all the wrong reasons,  stand on his head “requiring 
identity of the non-identical. Historic contingency
and the concept are the more mercilessly antagonistic
the more solidly they are entwined [12].  I think this
last reprimand from Adorno forecloses the postcolonial
critique[13]  which prides itself by placing  Hegel on
the imperial theatre. 
              With this I come to the end of this
sample post where non-archival history no. 1( like
hero no.1) has been referred to’ next will come sample
of non-archival history no. 2
and what is that?
                                                      
                                                      
     [To be continued]

with regards
yours in discourse and debt
Arnab Chatterjee

ENDNOTES
[1] Hegel, G.W.F. The Philosophy of History ( transl.
J. Sibree), New York, 1956.

[2]Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, p.65.

[3]Guha, History at the Limit of World-History. 

[4]Chakraborty, Habitations of Modernity: Essays in 
the wake of Subaltern Studies, p.81.

[5]A  plain historical approach may be corrected in
the following way: Take for instance `the observation
that the Hegelian construct of civil society  exhibits
exhortations that   express Hegel’s  fear of the
rabble  or the large mass of the poor people. Some
with a historical nose smelled in this Hegel’s fear of
the future industrial proletariat and the communist
revolution. It has been recently pointed out by those
historians with a different positivist nose-- how this
is mistaken. Hegel’s face is rather turned towards the
past. It is rather England’s poor law that could be
said to have had a remote thematic reference. For some
 such corrections see Jones, “Hegel and the Economics
of Civil Society”. The philosophical historical
reading is offered by Stace above.
[6]Rose, Hegel, p.14.

[7]Ibid., p.15

[8]Hegel, Lectures on the philosophy of World History,
p. 25.

[9]Ibid., p.25.

[10]Stace,  The Philosophy of Hegel, p. 412.

[11]Hegel, Lectures on the philosophy of World History
, p.26, (italics mine).

[12]Adorno, Negative Dialectics,p.359.
 
[13]Gayatri Spivak in her more deconstructive moods
remarks that there is a lack of fit between morphology
and narrative in Hegel (  Spivak, Outside in the
Teaching Machine, p.209). But, if that is so, then
Hegel’s historical narrative should be assumed to have
been belied by his abstruse and complicated logical
machinery or morphology; in other words, Hegel could
be shown to have been opposing his own historical
conclusions. Among those who are known as
“postcolonials” and  have engaged with Hegel, it is,
to my mind, only Partha Chatterjee (Chatterjee,
‘Communities and the Nation,’ pp.220-239) who has been
able to avoid this trap by not trying to address Hegel
historically.


REFERENCES

Adorno, Theodor. Negative Dialectics ( trans. E.B.
Ashton), London, 1973.

Chakraborty, Dipesh. Habitations of Moderntiy: Essays
in the wake of Subaltern Studies, New Delhi, 2004.  

Chatterjee, Partha. ‘Communities and the Nation’, in
his The Nation and its Fragments.  Delhi, 1994, pp.
226-239. 


Guha, Ranajit. History at the Limit of World-History,
Delhi, 2003.


Hegel, G.W.F. 
---------------- Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind,
Translated from The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical
Sciences (transl. William Wallace), Oxford, 1894.

--------------The Philosophy of History ( transl. J.
Sibree), New York, 1956.
..
---------------Lectures on the philosophy of World
History, Introduction : Reason in History (trans. H.B.
Nisbet), Cambridge, 1987.
----------------Phenomenology of Spirit (transl. A.V
Miller), Delhi, 1998. 


Jones, Gareth Stedman. ‘Hegel and the Economics of
Civil Society’, in Sudipta Kaviraj & Sunil Khilnani,
eds., Civil Society: History and Possibilities,
Cambridge, 2002, pp. 105-130.


Rose, Gilian. Hegel : Contra Sociology, London, 1981.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Outside in the Teaching
Machine, New York, 1993.
------------------------------------- A Critique of
Postcolonial Reason: Towards a History of the
Vanishing Present,  Calcutta, 1999. 

Stace, William Terence.  The Philosophy of Hegel: A
Systematic Exposition, N.Y, 1955. 


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