George Stocking, Jr.: "On the Limits of 'Presentism' and 'Historicism' in the historiography of the Behavioral Sciences"

Hello all. I guess I have the distinct pleasure of offering up the first review/critique of the first pro-sem reading, that of George Stocking, Jr.'s. Obviously, the first question we have to ask is "why was this essay assigned reading?" The answer, I think, is to give us not only an introductory methodological analysis of the history of anthropology, a tool set if you will for viewing the early anthropological writings that we will be tackling, but also the historical biases that we, as anthropologists, bring to our research. In that regard, Stocking argues that there are two oppositional, and yet ultimately complementary, approaches to the history of the behavioral sciences (which I take to mean anthropology, sociology, cultural psychology, etc.): "presentism" and "historicism."

Stocking begins by telling us that history is an undisciplined discipline, without a clear consensus as to motive for research or methodology. Stocking's stated project in this essay, therefore, is to define these competing viewpoints, "presentism" and "historicism" and to argue their relative merits. Basically, Stocking divides historical inquiry into two perspectives: "to understand the past for the sake of the past" and "to understand the past for the sake of the future" (and primarily, the present). Stocking points out that what I would call the discourse of modernization or development seeks to view history through the lens of the present. In other words, history is simply a series of events that inevitably prefigured our present, and by analyzing this history we can make predictions about the future. Clearly, by using the present as a referent the past is interpreted only as to what contributions it made to the present. We have all heard the saying that history is written by the "winners," which is essentially what I think Stocking is saying here. Contemporary regimes of power use the past as validation for present public policies, and also as an explanation for why those policies are necessary. This is the discourse of development, summed up well in Modernization Theory, which is in my opinion a poor argument for the adoption of capitalism. The interpretive mode of this "presentism" as Stocking puts it, is based in "justice," not in "understanding." At Chicago, we called this perspective "Historical Narrative" and highlighted the emphasis in this approach in looking for historical agents of change rather than the historical processes that led to that change. Following from Butterfield, Stocking calls this "Whiggish history" or "presentism."

The alternative approach in Stocking's dualistic model is "historicism," which seems to be the study of historical events, people, and processes within their contemporary historical context. As Stocking elaborates, the historicist tries to understand history not from a position of present-day "reasonableness" but rather from a position that takes into account the contemporary "rationality" of historical context. In other words, rather than judging the past in terms of the present, one is analyzing the past in terms of the past. (Incidentally, this is the very reason that I love Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" simply because it presents an alternative "rationality" to my own, and in a way that reveals the logic and rigor (to shamelessly rob from Althusser) of that "reasonableness.") "Understanding," Stocking argues, is an attempt to get at the "reasonableness" of what might be considered "irrational" in the present.

How does this all fit into the history of the behavioral sciences? Well, Stocking says that a historian of the behavioral sciences will be "historicist" in her or his methodology, and "affective" in motivation. This is not to ignore the inherent bias that contemporary historians have when writing about history, but it is an ideal-type of methodology and motive to adopt. Behavioral scientists, on the other hand, are "presentist" in their approach, and their motives are "utilitarian." History, in other words, is useful for inspiring and guiding work in the present. Finally, there is a discussion of Thomas Kuhn (who, along with Hilary Putnam, is arguably one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century), and eventually the assertion that "presentism" has its usefulness as a measuring stick against which to judge the "historicist" approach, but on the other hand many "historicist" questions have yet to be answered by "presentists" (case in point: Ann Stoler's argument that we can't talk about "post-colonialism" until we understand truly what "colonialism" was). Well, that's my reading of it at least. Any objections, amplifications, or outright propositions to battle are all welcome!

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