Philosophy  and traditions of enquiry  in the great history debate  Robert Guyver

What is it with Governments, the history curriculum and philosophy? Why can't they ever reconcile the two ? In an open an democratic society any government which promotes an educational curriculum that handles "knowledge" should submit its chosen epistemology  to critical scrutiny. And, in the UK at least, many teachers of history may have thought that they belonged to a community that  had solved the perennial problem of historical knowledge when concepts were officially espoused as organising principles for knowledge, facts and content. But the philosophical considerations of this and subsequent curriculum decisions had not been fully examined. Let us return to 1989 when the Department of Education and Science in London set up a National Curriculum History Working Group with the task of dividing the assessment of aspects of the history curriculum into ten levels, corresponding to the hoped-for intellectual development of the children in schools in England and Wales. Its members may not have been aware that they were planning an operation that had not only political, but also philosophical implications. In fact,  if that had been made clear at the outset a great deal of  time and aggravation may have been saved.   When the Final Report was published in April 1990 there was no "knowledge" attainment target for children learning history, but there was one for understanding, and others for interpretations, the use of sources, and for organising and communicating. Knowledge and understanding ? There was a great deal of fuss. Teachers lamented a loss of autonomy, bemoaned too much or inappropriate content or both. Some politicians, journalists, and a few historians, mostly right-wing ones, accused the History Working Group of devaluing historical knowledge. Robert Skidelsky, (now Lord Skidelsky, Professor of International Relations at the University of Warwick, and biographer of Keynes) identified himself with the campaign for a "knowledge attainment target". He later became chair of the Government's history assessment committee., thundering in The Times in 1990 of the authors of the Final Report: "The working group understands perfectly well that knowledge includes understanding and that testing for knowledge must include testing for understanding as it always used to, but its nerve failed in the face of the caricature view of knowledge among teachers and in the media." And he added: "Recently, however,  the balance has shifted unduly against knowledge, partly because the mental activity associated with its acquisition - memorising - has been thought less valuable in a world of computers, calculators and rapid change. The balance now needs to be redressed. Factual knowledge is still essential to most kinds of thinking, and lies at the core of history." Skidelsky anticipated what the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, thought - not of the Final Report but of the initial terms of reference written by her own Secretary of State, Kenneth Baker. Though not an historian herself, Thatcher had had a very clear - and "naively" imagined to be uncontroversial - idea of what history was. History simply was an account of what happened in the past. Learning history, therefore, according to Thatcher, required knowledge of events. It was impossible to make sense of such events without absorbing sufficient factual information and without being able to place matters in a clear chronological framework - which meant knowing dates.  There had also been, it seemed to her, too much emphasis given to "cross-curricular" learning. She felt that history should be taught as a separate subject. Nor was she happy with the list of people that Kenneth Baker suggested when drawing up names for the History Working Group. His initial names had contained no major historian of repute but had included the author of the definitive work on the "New History" which, with its emphasis on concepts rather than chronology and empathy rather than facts, was at the root of so much that was going wrong. Her Secretary of State was persuaded to see her point and made some changes.  Empiricism versus rationalism; experience versus fact: a false polarisation? Skidelsky also reflects the debate about teaching as transmission versus transformation.  This debate has tended, in Skildelsky"s own language, to polarise both elements and caricature the transmission mode of didactic teaching as undemocratic, Gradgrindian rationalism, and the more child-centred transformation mode as enlightened, democratic empiricism. However, in his well-known article on epistemology Gilbert Ryle demonstrates, by using the example of a game of chess, how in the struggle between empiricism and rationalism (and between experience and reason) "their tug-of-war lacks a rope", and reason feeds constantly on experience and vice-versa. Thus, the causes of the History Working Group's lack of certitude over factual knowledge can be found in the views of Karl Popper, Lord Acton, and J.B.Bury.  However, Popper looked at the problem in a very different way to Skidelsky:  "To sum up, there can be no history of "the past as it actually did happen"; there can only be historical interpretations, and none of them final; and every generation has a right to frame its own."  He explains why he prefers to use the noun "selection" rather than "body" of knowledge, because of the "infinite wealth and variety of the possible aspects of the facts in the world". In this light it is impossible for the historian to avoid a selection and an ordering of the facts. Similarly the sources of history are subjected to Popper's scrutiny: "For in history (including the historical natural sciences such as historical geology) the facts at our disposal are often severely limited and cannot be repeated or implemented at our will. And they have been collected in accordance with a preconceived point of view; the so-called "sources" of history record only such facts as appeared sufficiently interesting to record, so that the sources will often contain only such facts as fit in with preconceived theory. And if no further facts are available, it will often not be possible to test this theory with any subsequent theory." Popper thus compares historical theories (about situations which cannot be repeated) with scientific theories that can be based on replicable contexts. He concludes that "history in the sense in which most people speak of it simply does not exist; and this is one reason why I say that it has no meaning". This is reinforced by Acton's point that "the facts of history never come to us "pure", since they do not and cannot exist in pure form: they are always refracted through the mind of the recorder".  Macaulay had written in 1828 that "Facts are the mere dross of history. It is from abstract truth which interpenetrates them, and lies among them like gold in the ore, that the mass derives its whole value". J. B. Bury had provided a useful analysis of the role of fact in knowledge. There were three stages - collection, connection, and interpretation.  Thatcher was assuming that the collection would be unproblematic, neglecting to mention her own assumption that British history should be the field in which this collection should take place. It is in the area of connection that a historian"s skill can truly be developed.  Another "philosopher of history", Oakeshott, threw further light on the problem of facts and knowledge by associating an historian's facts with a "world" of ideas.  "Each separate "fact" remains an hypothesis until the whole world of facts is established in which it is involved. And no single fact may be taken as historically true, and beyond the possibility of transformation, until the whole world of facts has achieved a condition of stable coherence."  The problem lay, and indeed lies, as it still very much "alive and well", in the polarisation of apparently opposite and apparently irreconcilable views about historical knowledge, and, as indeed Skidelsky suggested, in the mutual satirisation or caricaturing of the debating parties. Nothing could illustrate this more clearly than the way in which concepts have played a part. The History Working Group decided that the "key" concepts of "change and continuity", "causes and consequences" (but not necessarily the third set of "similarity and difference") should form the backbone of the first attainment target by which historical understanding would be assessed.  Let's pause a moment to form a mental picture of a key - perhaps a big old rusty one like the one used to open the door of the secret garden in the book of that name. A key will open doors, etc, that would otherwise remain closed.  In the case of the "key concepts" the concepts will (or can) be used to open aspects of  sources, narratives, interpretations and even "facts" that had not previously been looked at in a particular way by applying questions to them, or raising questions from them, based on change, continuity, cause or consequence.  A question requires an answer, or at least implies that one may be or should be available.   In the case of history a verifiable answer is of course not always possible, and the quality of the answer may vary according to the ability of the pupil (and indeed the teacher).  The moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre makes two relevant points.  First, a tradition of enquiry must be set in a historical context to throw light on its nature and origins. Second, moral and philosophical debate should never start with the assumption that there are shared standards of rationality, values, beliefs or even language. He reflects something of what Oakeshott was suggesting in the notion of associating "facts" with the "world" from which they come. Facts and texts are be set in hypothesis where the burden of proof must lie with the author. The historical origins of  the "world" from which the historian or philosopher comes  should be admitted and shared. Also, taking further Bury"s notion of connection, facts can not only connect with other facts, but also with sources of evidence and concepts. It is the origin of the chosen National Curriculum methodology of history which must be considered as well as its content. We must therefore examine the history and context of the tradition with which National Curriculum History was framed. Many of the curriculum issues which were causing so much interest in the media in 1990 had already been rehearsed in 1975 with the publication of a series of books and papers in connection with the History, Geography and Social Science (ages 8 - 13 years) Schools Council Project, Man in Place, Time and Society. At the heart of both the 1975 and 1990 debates was the relationship between content and concepts. The Schools Council team in the 1970s decided to recommend four "substantive" concepts of: communication, power, values and beliefs, and conflict/consensus. These were seen as a means for the selection and organisation of content across the three subject areas, along with an additonal three "methodological" concepts: similarity/difference, continuity/change, causes and consequences. (The plural was used for causes and consequences to avoid postulating a simple, one-to-one, cause-and-effect assumption.)  The relationship between the so-called "key concepts" and the content of history was perhaps the issue which led to so much bitterness in the spring and summer of 1990.  The best analysis of this controversy had, however, already been written.  In 1975, the Schools Council Project, Man in Place, Time and Society, had been  critically evaluated by Elizabeth Kingdom, of the University of Liverpool"s Institute of Extension Studies.   Kingdom analysed the ideas of the Califonian educationalist, Hilda Taba, who saw concepts as both methodological, reflecting the methodology of the discipline, and as offering the opportunity to organise content. Kingdom identifies this, first, as consistent with the dominant mainstream educational epistemology, i.e. empiricism, and secondly, traces Taba"s intellectual journey back to John Dewey and the particular brand of empiricism (pragmatic instrumentalism) in which "facts" are used to illustrate ideas (and not the other way around).  Kingdom criticises not the concepts themselves but the way in which Taba either had used or envisaged using them. She stresses that Dewey"s (and indeed any) epistemology is controversial and that in the teaching of history there are other epistemologies which could be considered.  She names a range of alternative philosophies (rationalist, idealist, existentialist, materialist), refers to some of these and to two post-structuralist French historian philosophers, and illustrates their philosophies. She also makes an important point that although content should not be seen to dominate any chosen teaching method, even when teaching is organised through key concepts, content  is obviously necessary. Why does Kingdom challenge the way in which empiricism or pragmatic instrumentalism (Dewey's form of empiricism) might underpin the use of key concepts?  She reminds the reader that there many ways of seeing history, and gives these examples. Dilthey saw history as memory, a form of autobiography - with a living, active creative and responsive soul present in every historical situation, and every document representing this kind of presence. Braudel stressed the plurality of social time and the creative tension between private time and social. Collingwood saw the task of the historian as re-enactment, with historical knowledge as the act of thinking itself not the object that was being considered. Acton argued that history was not "the art of accumulating material, but the sublimer art of investigating it, of discerning truth from falsehood and certainly from doubt". Perhaps at this point Kingdom could have taken her argument a stage further and suggested ways in which these ideas could be converted into substantive or methodological concepts for teaching. Problems with establishing true causes Of course these key concepts have a much longer history, and statements about, for example, causes and consequences (one set of the paired key concepts) have been recognised as controversial or at least in many ways unsatisfactory, since early times.  Herodotus wrote in 450 BC that he wanted to investigate the causes of the recent war. Herodotus"s journalistic methods were subsequently criticised by Thucydides who said that some people were only too ready to believe the first story they hear.  And David Hume anticipated some of the key concepts by two centuries. His associative qualities were resemblance, contiguity in time or place, and cause and effect, and they can be found in his Treatise of Human Nature, (1748, Book 1, Part 1, Section IV). Hume however attacked the notion of a necessitating tie between cause and effect, although, according to Penelope Mackie, several recent commentators argue that Hume did not deny the existence of genuine causal necessity. The terminology in the 1995 Dearing revision of National Curriculum history replaces "causes" and "effects" with "reasons" and "results". Are reasons causes? The dangers of applying concepts to content were appreciated by  the historian Conrad Russell, son of the philosopher Bertrand Russell, who described some ground rules on causes and effects which should be remembered, in the particular case of the English Civil War. Quoting the favourite phrase of the American lawyer in the television series Perry Mason, Conrad Russell places the burden on the historian, like the prosecution in a legal case, to prove the corpus delicti - the body of evidence. But Russell skilfully reminds the reader that if causes are deduced from wrong effects then the causes themselves will be wrong. He cites his own research into the causes of the Civil War in the 17th century, and rejects the work of historians who have seen the war as somehow associated with social class. His own view is that the strongest influence in persuading men which side to support was the preaching they were hearing in their local churches. "If effects are wrongly postulated, the causes will be wrong also".  This supports the view that a grasp of the facts of a narrative must be a pre-requisite of any teacher, pupil, or historian attempting to make statements about causes or effects. Russell does not deny the existence or the importance of the corpus delicti. But he does stress the need to prove the corpus delicti.  More controversially, the Whig historian Trevelyan, whom Elton described as an amateur, wrote this in his essay Clio, a Muse in 1914, confirming at least his agreement with Hume about the uncertain nature of statements about cause and effect: "Even if cause and effect could be discovered with accuracy, they still would not be the most interesting part of human affairs. It is not man"s evolution but his attainment that is the great lesson of the past and the highest theme of history. The deeds themselves are more interesting than their causes and effects, and are fortunately ascertainable with much greater precision ..." Why should Kingdom regard the key concepts themselves as endangering a "multi-epistemological" approach? She does not try to discredit the concepts themselves but just the ways in which Taba had said that they should be used, and the implication that history teaching should reflect a dominant pedagogical philosophy.  Are there any reasons why the concepts themselves should be a barrier to effective teaching and learning if they are used and approached in a sensitive and sensible way? Can the key concepts then be seen as necessary tools for teaching and learning, if they go hand in hand with  rigorously investigated content? Can they be accused per se of supporting or condoning a single or inappropriate epistemology? Can they be common to a variety of ways of viewing, teaching and learning history? Causes and consequences are not value-free or problem-free key concepts.  Any proposition which includes a causal statement is open to challenge and should be supported by sources of evidence. Neither empiricism nor pragmatic instrumentalism offer exclusive channels of truth through which a perfect model of history teaching can be attained. Foucault grasps a great truth which can be applied to statements implying causal links when he grapples here with notions of an historical a priori. "Moreover, this a  priori does not elude historicity: it does not constitute,  above events, and in an unmoving heaven, an atemporal structure; it is defined as the group of rules that characterise a discursive practice: but these rules are not imposed from the outside on the elements that they relate together; they are caught up in the very things that they connect; and if they are not modified with the least of them, they modify them, and are transformed with them into certain decisive thresholds."  Foucault's "they are caught up in the very things that they connect" implies the inextricability of causation and context. In history teaching the importance of context and setting is paramount. It is the teacher"s duty to provide a contextual frame of reference, and the History Working Group"s original first attainment target "Understanding history in its setting". MacIntyre wrote: "We cannot, that is to say, characterise behaviour independently of intentions, and we cannot characterize intentions independently of the settings which make those intentions independently of the settings intelligible both to agents themselves and to others." Conclusion: Is history an enigma that must be de-coded? The focus on concepts has solved neither the problem of the meaning of historical knowledge nor the problem of the selection of content. Concepts are useful as vehicles of organisation or as suggestors of questions or lines of enquiry. But all concepts depend on rigorously investigated context and setting. Concepts themselves are not pure forms of knowledge. The frailty and limitations of human cognition and intelligence prevent concepts from being the pure a priori forms which Kant identified.  A concept-based proposition is just as likely to be true or false as a so-called fact-based proposition and historians must resist any claims that concepts may be given to a higher status in the hierarchy of knowledge. They are just as subject to the rules of evidence - the corpus delicti of any statement which offers a causal explanation must be proved.  In fact,  the very (Latin) word conceptio relates to conceiving, to becoming pregnant. So many of our brash attitudes towards concepts are false. They are indeed like false pregnancies, full of hope and aspiration which sadly come to nothing, as there is no correspondence between the available data and proposed theory.  Like Turing's bombe, the prototype of the computer, which was used so successfully in cracking the Enigma codes at Bletchley in the last war, the only valid propositions are those that break the code, those that can comprehend and fit all of the possible variations and challenges that historical situations can pose.  However, the incomplete nature of the human record and the weaknesses of human memory and judgement make the analogy with Turing's bombe still inadequate, but perhaps a consummation devoutly to be wished.  Address for correspondence: Robert M. Guyver, Faculty of Teacher Education,  University College of St Mark and St John, Derriford Road, Plymouth, PL6 8BH  email: rguyver@compuserve.com