Presentism and Precursorship in Intellectual History

Abstract

Presentism, which is to say the application of concepts of the present to the study of the past, is a topic that has recently earned a high level of attention, especially in the history of science and in the history of ideas. Over the past few decades, the historiographical discussion of the role that presentism plays has gradually become dominated by anti‐presentist methodologies. This article provides a careful overview of the debate about anti‐presentism in the history of science and the history of ideas; the coverage of the debate especially tries to pay attendance to non‐English language writings. The article argues that these anti‐presentist positions ultimately derive their plausibility from a historical availability principle. A significant part of the article is devoted to the examination of the availability principle, according to which historians should avoid interpretations that use linguistic and epistemic resources unavailable to the authors and their contemporaries. After a thorough reconstruction and critical assessment of the availability principle, I conclude that strict anti‐presentist accounts of historical interpretation ultimately face some major problems due to the implausibility of a general application of the availability principle. Against strict anti‐presentist methodologies I argue that presentisms might play a relevant and legitimate role in some areas of intellectual history.

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