HY4101

Like Positivism in history, Idealism is an approach to the question: “On what grounds can historians reasonably demonstrate that they know what they claim?” ‘Idealism’ is an adverse reaction against positivism, and idealists believe that the positivists’ method, derived as an analogy from the natural sciences, cannot hold up, since the historian, unlike the natural scientist, deals with unique, specific and unrepeatable events that is not part of nature, and should not be universalized. Writing history thus requires different conceptual frameworks. Idealists emphasize the importance of the historian’s role and his imagination in writing history. Robin G. Collingwood, perhaps the most important and comprehensive theorist for the idealist school, famously distinguishes between the outside and inside of an event. “Outside of an event” means physical masses and movements, while “inside of an event” means events that can only be explained by the thought of the historic actors involved. For example, Frederick II of Prussia’s invasion of Silesia in 1740 is ‘outside’, while Frederick II’s defiance of Prussia’s traditional alliance with the Habsburgs or his ignoring of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 (which his father had signed) will be ‘inside’. Both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ must be investigated in any writing of history.

The ‘knowing’ aspect of idealism has come under critique from positivists, since this approach requires something unobservable – the actor’s mind – and the historian must empathize with the historic actor, whom he presumably never met. None of the above resembles scientific methodology, and is simply not verifiable. Idealists countered that so long they are careful and rigourous enough in examining the actor’s circumstances and known information (like letters, diaries, etc.), they can indeed tap into said actor’s mind, and their conclusions can be verified through other historians working on the same actor.

For the issue of causation, idealists tend to focus on one type of cause, regarding an event as a result of the will or intention of an actor. For example, Frederick II invaded Silesia because he believed the acquisition of the resource-rich province would improve Prussia’s strength, and Maria Theresa was too weak and inexperienced to stop him.

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