Monument for the Battle of Heiligerlee, at Heiligerlee, Netherlands
History is man-made and so it must be
studied by methods that reflect that history is man-made. This means that there
is no place for the objective methods of the exact sciences in the study of
history and in the other humanities as well. Instead we must use methods that
reflect the modifications of the human mind. This is the view that Giambattista
Vico advocates as we have seen in my blog last week. We can say it also this
way: In the natural sciences we look for general laws and for causes, in the
humanities we look for individual reasons, intentions and purposes. I basically
agree with this view, but as such it is too simple, I think. I want to make
this clear with the help of an example taken from Dutch history.
The 16th century was an age full of
developments that would transform the social structure of the world, to start
with the structure of Europe. Two developments stand out: The rise of protestantism
and the end of the medieval class society. These developments went together
with a new economic order, and new ideas on freedom and justice. In some parts
of Europe the developments went quickly, elsewhere in Europe it was a matter of
centuries. A country that was in the vanguard of progress was the Netherlands.
In the middle of the 16th century this country was ruled by the King of Spain,
but the Dutch found his regime so oppressive that they revolted. The result was
a protestant republic governed by civilians.
Traditionally this Revolt – also called the
Eighty Years War – is supposed to start with the Battle of Heiligerlee in the
north of the Netherlands, on 23 May 1568. Then a little Dutch army led by Louis
of Nassau (brother of Prince William of Orange Nassau, also called “William the
Silent”) defeated a little Spanish army. Now it is so that Louis of Nassau may
have had several reasons for attacking the Spanish. Besides that he had an
unique opportunity to ambush the Spanish, he had also political reasons to do
so. Maybe Louis saw his attack as an opportunity to advance the cause of
freedom, to advance the protestant religion, or he wanted to support the idea
to create a new Dutch state, led by the Dutch nobility, as it had been suggested
by his brother Prince William. So we can understand Louis’s attack in terms of
his reasons and purposes taken from his personal situation and his ambitions.
What we cannot do, however, is saying that Louis of Nassau saw his action – at the moment that he performed it, so
not interpreted afterwards by him – as an event in the transition period from a
medieval class society to modern age that contributed to this transition. Nor
can Louis have seen his attack as a step in the Revolt that advanced the rising
capitalism. For him the ambush near Heiligerlee was a lucky chance to advance
the interests of the Netherlands or something like that.
Anyway, whatever Louis’s thoughts may have
been when attacking the Spanish army – and we don’t know the details – we
should analyze them in terms of his reasons, intentions and aims, so Vico proposes,
if I interpret him well; so in my example we should analyze them in terms of a
contribution to the Dutch cause, against and oppressive regime and for
religious and political freedom. And if we want to complete our analysis of the
battle we should also analyze the motives of the other participants in the
battle like Louis’s brother Adolf, who fell in the battle, and the other
soldiers, but also those of their Spanish enemies. By doing so we would get a
description of a man-made historic event that reflects the modifications of the
minds of the participants.
Nevertheless, my example, which describes
the “view from within”, shows that there is also a “view from the outside”; a
“view from a distance”, so to speak, that sees the battle as an event within
certain social developments. In the latter view there is no room for the motives
of the participants of the event. As the Dutch historian Romein says it, in
this view there is no space for the idea of freedom as felt by the Dutch in the
middle of the 16th century. In this sense this approach is “objective”, and according
to Vico, there is no room for it in history.
At first sight, the two approaches just
sketched seem basically incompatible. A view from the inside is simply
different from a view from the outside. Nonetheless both approaches have the
same object, for both try to analyze the Battle of Heiligerlee, although they
do it in a different way. One approach sees the battle as an interaction of
individuals with their reasons, intentions and purposes, while the other approach
sees it as an event in the stream of history of political conflicts and social
changes that has led to a new order. However, both approaches have a common
element and that is the Battle of Heiligerlee. So we can say that this battle
binds the two approaches together. The “subjective” approach that analyzes the
battle as man-made and the “objective” approach that gives the battle its place
in the stream of history simply analyze other aspects of the fight. Such a
double approach exists for any historic – and social ! – event, I think. Therefore
although at first sight the two approaches seemed incompatible, on closer
inspection they just appear to supplement each other as well. That’s why I
think that there is room both for subjective and for objective methods in the
sciences of man, or – named differently – the humanities.
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