Historians' Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical Thought 1st Edition

Fischer is great and has identified several fallacies I commit myself all the time. The best part is that his own prose is full of exactly the kinds of fallacies he deplores.

As always, David brings facts to legends.

Well worth reading again to maintain a strong discipline in the history field.

The wealth of information and examples in this book is amazing. Fischer's research and breadth of knowledge provides historians with a list of many examples and how historians might avoid to fall into the "pitfalls" made by many historians.

Some of the errors made by historians and the examples provided are a bit "over the top" and as I read about them I wondered if indeed historians really did make those "obvious" and ridiculous errors.

Overall, the book was organized logically, backed up with many specific examples, and a bit heavy to read at times.

I have to blame myself for not looking carefully into what this book is. After reading Wahington's Crossing, another book by David Hackett Fisher, and finding it to be one of my favorite books ever, I looked for other works by the same author. I was under the mistaken impression this was a book about historical fallacies. It's not; it's a book about the fallacies historians commit in doing their research and presentations. If you're a historian, this is probably a great book for you, but it's not light reading.

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.

...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.

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.