Użycia i nadużycia historii. O odpowiedzialności historyka w przeszłości i obecnie

Georg G. Iggers The Uses and Misuses of History. On the Historian's Responsibility in the Past and Now The instances of misusing history raise the issue of the historian's responsibility for the misuse. Iggers assumes that an honest approach to history is possible but he claims that the relation between using and misusing history is very complicated. The notion of misuse implies that the past can be treated instrumentally and can be disfigured for practical purposes. It also implies that at bottom there is some real past which is vulnerable to misuse. Iggers traces the development of history as an academic discipline (Wissenschaft) which came into being at the Berlin University after 1825. The professionalisation of the discipline should have ensured its reliability and immunity from ideological manipulation but Iggers's examples demonstrate that professional historians have also been part of institutional/ political structures and have participated in the distribution of power. Ultimately, Iggers believes that there are certain rational standards of practising historiography; he advises historians to be critical of their own premises and capable of realising the subjective limitations of their own point of view.

Georg G. Iggers The Uses and Misuses of History. On the Historian's Responsibility in the Past and Now The instances of misusing history raise the issue of the historian's responsibility for the misuse. Iggers assumes that an honest approach to history is possible but he claims that the relation between using and misusing history is very complicated. The notion of misuse implies that the past can be treated instrumentally and can be disfigured for practical purposes. It also implies that at bottom there is some real past which is vulnerable to misuse. Iggers traces the development of history as an academic discipline (Wissenschaft) which came into being at the Berlin University after 1825. The professionalisation of the discipline should have ensured its reliability and immunity from ideological manipulation but Iggers's examples demonstrate that professional historians have also been part of institutional/ political structures and have participated in the distribution of power. Ultimately, Iggers believes that there are certain rational standards of practising historiography; he advises historians to be critical of their own premises and capable of realising the subjective limitations of their own point of view.