Customer Reviews

Historians' Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical Thought

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Fischer presents a detailed and trenchant look at the problems of historical explanation in this fine book. It is certainly one of the best history books I've ever read, although it's not a history book per se, since it's really a critique of the different explanations historians use. Fischer discusses probably about a hundred or more of these, so you probably won't be able to remember them all, but if nothing else, you'll be more alert to the more common and egregious types of historical errors, and overall, the book is a useful analysis and reminder of the problems and difficulties of writing history. In that regard, it's still a very interesting and worthwhile book.

Some of the fallacies I already knew from philosophy, such as the pathetic fallacy, the fallacy of composition, the post hoc fallacy, and so on, which are already well known. But then there are plenty of others with more abstruse names, such as the "the fallacy of the hypostatized proof." My one complaint enters here, since Fischer would have benefited from a knowledge of logic and philosophy, since he sometimes gives names to fallacies that are well known in logic and philosophy by a different name.

But overall, this is one of the best books on the methods and philosophy of history I've read, and it should probably be required reading for every student of history and professional historian alike.

I've read this book cover to cover once and dipped into it on average once a month over the ten years since I first found it. It sits on my shelf with my other "correctives", such as Orwell's "Politics and the English Language". Fischer makes the same points about rhetoric as Orwell at greater length and with far more wit. But, Orwell is the better writer.

Yes, as one reviewer says, Fischer rants a bit, but amusingly and with dead-on quotations from his victims. One will think twice about the errors Fischer cites, if for no other reason than to avoid Fischer's next edition.

Fischer is quite even handed. The first felon he cites was a professor of mine -- and Fischer's -- as an undergraduate. A more generous critic and historian -- and human being -- one won't find. But there he is.

I cannot think of a better gift for anyone who takes persuasive prose seriously. No writer should be without it.

David Hackett Fischer's thesis is that there is a tacit and analyzable logic of historical thought and that historians can improve their historical thinking by applying this logic to their work. Historians' Fallacies is a successful attempt to make history a discipline better governed by reason. Fischer notes that history is mainly a problem-solving discipline; the historian asks pertinent questions and then develops a logical paradigm to answer them. He acknowledges that history will never be an exact science but it is his goal, by a careful examination of common historical fallacies, to develop a type of logic. Method is necessary in history, and logic makes a method more rigorous and useful. The historian must follow rules to write good, "scientific," history.

Fischer reveals his ultimate goal in his conclusion. He discusses the goals of history and makes an eloquent apology for the historian. He astutely notes that social scientists have never found a justification for history, making illogical arguments to justify their interest in the past. Calling history "fun," saying that history should be studied because it "is there," and stating "everyone needs to know facts" are three poor reasons for a defense of history. Likewise, claiming history provides a creative outlet and that it could prove useful for the future are spurious speculations, at best.

Fischer's apology of history explains that as history becomes more logical, it becomes more useful to society. History can clarify the contexts of contemporary social problems and can help with forecasting, allowing us to discuss future issues before they arrive. History offers theoretical knowledge, helping social scientists understand past conditions that best brought, say, stability and peace. A recognition of these conditions could help calm today's times. History helps people understand who they are, and by giving them an identity, frees them from the tyranny of the short-sighted present. Most importantly, history helps people conceptualize today's problems in today's terms. Effective solutions to problems in the past could well prove disastrous if applied to similar problems today, and an understanding of history lessens this threat. Logical history is necessary to useful history; the two are inseparable.

Fischer's self-proclaimed reason for writing this book was the lack of logical analysis in history. He believes that many historians hold a bizarre hatred towards logic, known as "misology." Despite this anti-intellectual attitude by historians, the use of history as an academic discipline and a social science demands a logical and scientific approach. The analytical philosophy of history is helpful for developing historical thought, but insufficient to actually create the logic that historians need. Fischer takes that next step in his book.

Fischer explains his thesis by taking the reader through the three major steps of a historian's method: inquiry, explanation, and argument. Inquiry begins every legitimate historical endeavor. Thus, the historian must seek to ask questions in the right way, while carefully verifying significant facts. The field of explanation consists of generalizations, narration, causation, motivation, composition, and false analogy. Finally, within the field of argument, there are fallacies of semantical distortion and fallacies of substantive distraction. In each category he discusses various fallacies, often in great detail. His book discusses over one hundred different logical fallacies, and he does not discriminate among giving specific examples from a vast variety of works. These specific examples make logical ideas that seem abstract at first easy to understand. At the end of each chapter, Fischer follows the logical messes by a clean-up attempt where he briefly writes suggestions towards methods that are more logical than those of the historians he has attacked.

A narrow thesis binds the book together, but history is not lacking in poor historians, so the examples come from all of Western history, keeping the reader involved. Fischer's prose is crisp and he tends to throw in delightful phrases to keep the tone light, such as, "a rathole of metaphysical speculation," or a "literary monstrosity." His use of specific and amusing examples prevent the vast number of logical terms from becoming tedious. No holds are barred: Fischer holds high standards for the historian-and rightly so, judging from his presuppositions-and he expects history to be logical and done in a correct manner. This book probably made him few friends, for he attacks contemporaries in his field with the same vigor that he attacks the virulent racist of ages past.

Fisher's major contribution, however, does not come from his deconstruction of others' historical analyses, though this is the majority of the book. At the end of each chapter, he includes concise summaries that offer advice to the historian wanting to avoid the previous logical fallacies. His deconstruction is vital to actually view bad history in progress. But his constructive suggestions are excellent for those who would write good history. His summaries are excellent in understanding exactly what he wants from a logical historical thought. Historians who consciously use his positive suggestions, while avoiding the logical fallacies he mentions will find themselves on the right track to creating works with significance. A sound and logical structure is necessary is history. Too many problems occurred in the past because of a misconstrued construction of previous events, and Fischer takes a giant step towards limiting the same mistakes.

...and then some

The study of history carries with it a load of fascinating philosophical and epistemological questions. Beyond such generalities such as "what is the nature of truth?", historians have to decide which facts are relevant to the case they are studying, what are causes in history, and how to make a narrative, a book or a mathematical model, that will capture something significant of the world.

All of these are interesting questions, but except peripherally, David Hackett Fischer doesn't discuss them. Rather, Fischer tries to track down specific fallacies that historians commit, and spell them out, apparently in order to help other scholars avoid them.

"Historians' Fallacies" is basically a collection and a catalogue of errors, some well known ones, such as "the fallacy of post hoc, propter hoc" (following, therefore caused by, p. 166) or "the pathetic fallacy" (ascribing animate behavior to inanimate objects, pp. 190-193) and some as obscure as "the fallacy of indiscriminate pluralism" (enumerating multiple causes without discrimination, pp. 175-177).

There are at least three commendable aspects to Fischer's study. First, Fischer is a fine writer, with remarkable turns of phrases: "Sir Lewis [Namier] was no enemy of chosenness in either facts or people. He was, indeed, a committed Zionist in both respects." (p. 69).

Another is Fischer's willingness to name names. Too many critics prefer uses such as "many writers", etc, but although Fischer does occasionally shies away (such as in his discussion of ad hominem attacks pp.290-293), he's generally willing to openly criticize some leading historians and intellectuals. Nor does Fischer satisfy himself with attacking such usual suspects as Robert Fogel, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Arnold Toynbee; Everyone who has any interest at all in American intellectual history of the 20th century will find at least some of his or hers heroes under fire. Historians from Charles Beard to E.P. Thompson, from economist Kenneth Boulding (who was the mentor of one of my college professors) to Henry Kissinger. My favorite is the critique of Southern historian C. Vann Woodward:

"Through two revisions, the author has held his ground with a tenacity worthy of a better cause. The result is another fallacy - the overwhelming exception. We are now told that the interpretation applies to all Southern institutions except churches, schools, militia, hotels, restaurants, public buildings, jails, hospitals, asylums, gardens, and the New Orleans Opera House" (p. 149 n).

A third highpoint of the book is that it sometimes hits the bull's eye. Under "the fallacy of semantical questions", Fischer criticizes historians who focus on labels instead of content such as the 'prolonged dispute among American colonial historians over the question "Was the political structure of seventeenth-century America 'democratic' or 'Aristocratic'?"' (p.22). If you've never read studies who committed the same offence, you will not recognize the immense desire to strangle a historian who does.

But in the attempt to describe the errors of Historians, Fischer falls to the same trap that my Business courses in college fell into - they tried to make laws and regularities of something that if far too context dependant for that. So almost all the time, what you've got is specific instances of erring historians, with fallacies which say something like "don't exaggerate", "do careful research" and "use sound judgment".

When it comes to generalize, to give positive insight as how to go on a historian's business, Fischer's advice is invariably trivial, true-but-obvious. "Motives are usually pluralistic in both their number and their nature. Abraham Maslow writes, 'typically an act has more than one motive'. To this, one might add that it has motives of more than one kind." Oh really? (p. 214)

Maybe some of my criticism of Fischer's book is (as he might have said) anachronistic. Fischer objects to unnecessary jargon: "Ordinary everyday words like "simple" are replaced by monstrosities such as "simplistic" without any refinement of meaning" (p.285). Today, I doubt anyone would write about a simple solution while meaning a simplistic one, but maybe in the 1960s the distinction was not as clear.

Within the point by point critiques of Historians' errors, there seems to be an overarching thesis that remains implicit, but that guides Fischer's thought process: the inevitability of history, or the assumption that events are caused by the forces of history, rather then the actions of individuals.

Fischer calls the "fallacy of responsibility as cause", confusing the problem of agency with that of ethics (pp.182-183). If I understand him correctly, he seems to argue that individual leaders are not responsible to wide scale events: "The cause of the failure of Reconstruction race policy muse surely be sought in general phenomena for which no free and responsible human agent can be held to blame" (Ibid.). Is Fischer really saying that there was nothing that, say, Andrew Johnson or Grant could've done better? Or that it wouldn't have mattered? If he does, then he robs human beings of their abilities to change the future. That's a highly controversial (and clearly metaphysical) position, and one that clashes with his call for using history as a way to teach people rationality (pp. 316-318).

Despite its frequent wit and occasional insights, Fischer's book does not quite illuminate a path for other historians to follow. I don't think we're any closer to a logic of historical thought than we were before.

Review of Fischer, _Historians' Fallacies_

This is a much-read classic. It is well-written, well-organized, fair-minded, and packed with ideas applicable to all sorts of discourse in addition to the writing of history. It is also full of wit. An example: "Historical science presently hovers naked and trembling on the edge of quantification, with Clio in the huddled, hesitant posture of September morn." p 104.

Strictly speaking, a fallacy is an error in an inference. Less formally, though, any mistake even in informal reasoning is today referred to as fallacy. Fischer took many of his fallacies (that is, their labels) from others; for example "tunnel history" from J. H. Hexter; "the fallacy of the hypostatized proof" from Perrll F. Payne; "the fallacy of the mechanistic cause" from R. M. McIver; and so on. Others, like the post hoc fallacy, or the confusion of correlation with causation, are in the public domain. But by far the majority of the some 100 fallacies he isolates are labelled as such by himself. Somewhat unfortunately for those in other disciplines, Fischer's examples are without exception from his own field of American History.

Since I like the book so much (and every serious reader ought to have it), I will just mention some negatives.

Fischer's main weakness is an apparent ignorance of philosophy, and it shows up in several places. Although there is a mine of thought in Chapter VI on fallacies of causality, Fischer seems to have no idea what the problem is with causality in philosophy (p 165), but plops down finally in favor of its reality, and necessarily uses it in the remainder of the chapter. (After all, there can be no fallacies of causality if there is no causality.) He deals nicely with the many euphemisms historians use for a sort of "disguised" causality, and, indeed, it seems to me that causality (no matter what it is called) is a sine qua non of any historical writing whatever.

On p.177 we encounter the "fallacy of identity" - the idea that a cause must resemble its effect. Here again he seems unaware of philosophy entirely. This is of course a classic principle. But Fischer is talking about a different idea, which is indeed fallacious, namely the idea that a big cause must have a big effect, and the converse. Oddly, for Fischer, the opposite of reductionism is not emergentism, but "indiscriminate pluralism" ( p 175) - i.e., too many causes.

Fischer also seems to have no conception of metaphysics, and thinks that an infinite variety of logics are possible on the same footing (pp. 263-264). He seems not to realize that "Western" logic has undergone various modifications of the same principles with which it began. Fischer himself, then, can be accused of relativism here and there, though he cites it as a fallacy or at least as wrong-headed.

Fischer is himself fallacious at one point, the fallacy involved being perhaps included somewhere under his categories (though I did not find it): it consists in regarding any trend as a change. On p. 160 he treats Barry Goldwater's thought as expressed in his 1960 _Consience of a Conservative_ as "dangerous" due to various "changes" that had occurred since the 19th century (presumably the source of Goldwater's ideas). One of these was, no doubt, the rise of Communism and the Soviet Empire. But today the Soviet Empire is a thing of the past, and the economic or free-market aspect of conservatism has for the most part won out. So what appeared to Fischer writing in 1970 as a change was merely a trend that didn't even last out the century.

It is obviously important to keep a book like this in perspective. Fischer in many cases makes sure to characterize his more renowned targets as "excellent," "great," "having considerable merit" and so on, before citing their fallacies. This raises the question whether much of any history would ever get written (and would be interesting enough to read) if all writers of history managed to avoid all of Fischer's ca. 100 fallacies. Perhaps if each historian believed each of his projects to be the one and only coverage of a period or topic ever to be available to future generations, all this would be a matter of greater concern. Also, some of the alledged fallacies Fischer sees in various historians makes me want to read them - Tacitus for example, or Dionysius of Halicarnasus. It is tempting to ponder, after reading Fischer, the possibility that history itself is simply fallacious, a necessary result of the grand unpleasant concession: "It is surely correct that no historian can know the totality of history as actuality." (p 182)

This is a classic that should be read by anyone interested in history. Fischer has created a typology of the kinds of errors historians make. He explains each clearly and entertainingly, drawing on examples from the works of eminent historians. I wonder if other historians still speak with him. If you like books on clear thinking, this one is a must for you. It can help anyone think and write more clearly.

Historians' Fallacies is not just about errors in writing history and it is not just for historians. This book tells you how to think, how to spot errors in logical analysis on any subject and how to avoid these errors. It is also hugely entertaining. Because the focus is on history - and each flaw in logic is illustrated by an excerpt from a prominent historian, anyone interested in history should read this book. But because these flaws in thinking can be seen everyday in the White House, the schoolroom and the daily newspaper (and everywhere else), this book is of immense importance to anyone who wants to think for him or herself.

This is an excellent book. Will try not to be repetitious. As a reader you should be mindful about Mr. F assumptions. Mr. F is an empiricist and this greatly affects his characterization of some of the fallacies. Mr. F is fallacious by his own standards in this respect. The other assumption that undergirds his work is pluralism. I do thank Mr. F for accepting the idea that in order for some of these fallacies to exist you have to make certain assumptions(in his conclusion). I would simply caution readers to not be persuaded on all accounts; some of his fallacies are also dependent upon a worldview. In spite of these comments, Mr. F deserves praise for his work.

I used Fischer's book in my Master's thesis. I had to not only go through it with a fine-toothed comb, but I also had to look up the sources Fischer claims made fallacious arguments. Although Ficher has a praise-worthy goal for his book, he falls short of meeting this goal (L.O. Mink discusses this in great detail in his review of Fischer's book). Fischer often incorrectly attributes the label "fallacy" to some parts of texts. In order to qualify as a logical fallacy, the text *must* be making a conclusion based on evidence that does not support that conclusion. Fischer frequently labels things as fallacies that are not drawing any conclusion or even making an argument, particularly in his section on analogy fallacies.
Moreover, Fischer commits some pretty egregious errors in identifying fallacies; he mislabels a number of fallacies. In some cases, he has skewed an author's words in order to find a fallacy.
I think Fischer's book brings to light an issue in historiography that too many historians are not aware of; however, his work is riddled with errors. Hisotrians should read this text should follow on with a text on logic.

This sentence and the dotted line and below added 6/9/08.

Fischer's goal is to improve the writing of history by teaching historians
how to avoid many common errors. Other reviewers have observed that writers
in other social disciplines could use many of the same lessons. Still others
have expanded the audience that could benefit to readers. I second their claim.
This is a very useful book for everyone that writes to explain to others, or
to persuade others. It is also useful to the consumers of those writings.
It has greater utility to readers than to writers, since there are so many
more of us.

The examples Fischer supplies are from the field of history, but the fallacies
are not limited to that field or even to the social "sciences". While reading
the book I thought of writings by economists, financial planners, educators,
critics of theater, wine, food, architecture, books, etc, economists, politicians,
preachers, environmentalists, hobbyists, and of course advertisers.

Fischer is kind and generous. He finds much to praise in most of the works that
contain the fallacies he uses as bad examples. He also claims that most of the
fallacies are simple mistakes, not intentionally deceiving. He may be right.
But some of the other fields are more likely to contain more than innocent
errors. The cost to the general public can also be much greater.

Fischer is also a fine writer. Every few pages there is a phrase or sentence
worth copying into your "Wow, I wish I'd said that!" notebook.

I found one more advantage to this book. The examples are fully documented.
I found several titles that seemed interesting covering topics I had never
even thought about.

This is a book worth rereading every few years.

............................................................
Fischer credits Jeremy Bentham's Work about Political Fallacies as the
source of many topics in his own book. I decided to read it, but this
site does not have it, so my local library tracked down a copy. It is
definitely worth reading, and worth at least four stars. It covers many
more fallacies than Fischer, perhaps because politicians are more devious
than historians. It has the heavy prose of the era and is thus a slower
read than Fischer. Bentham points out the few cases that are exceptions
to each fallacy. He describes each defense that might be made against his
attack and then debunks them. This is fair, but slow. Bentham wrote
during the rotten borough era in England. It is interesting to note how
the same fallacies are still used by politicians and lawyers today.