Historical Interpretation

I've deviated from simplifying life to now complicating it. Why doesn't ever historian agree about simple facts like did Pocahontas save john smith's life or was there a world wide flood in our past? I digress...

History is an interpretative science and hermeneutics plays a key part in that interpretation.  The surviving documents, letters, testimonies, and written accounts are the only voices left to lend us insight into what happened and what caused those events to transpire. Many historians can agree on the day-to-day chronology of a certain event but differ in the explanations and reasons for those occurrences. A good example of an event which motivations and causes are still being debated today are the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. This 17^th century event, which shook the budding New World, has implications for today and therefore its understanding is important to modern life and how we view our society. Sociologist Isaac Reed, author of Why Salem Made Sense: Culture, Gender, and the Puritan Persecution of Witchcraft, makes the case for a gender-based explanation of the trials. His aim is to “…bring gender into not only the study of witchcraft but also its explanation” (Reed, 217). Right away, Reed acknowledges that this approach is not the “mainstream” causation of the witchcraft trials (Reed, 217). In fact, Historian Mary Beth Norton (whom Reed cites in his article) makes no allusions to a gender-related explanation in her article The Years of Magical Thinking: Explaining the Salem Witchcraft Crisis. Both authors pull their information from the same sources, transcripts, letters and eye-witness accounts, but they arrive at either a simpler or more complex conclusion.

Both authors start their discussions by mentioning a modern cultural artifact: Arthur Miller’s 1952 play entitled The Crucible. Since Mary Beth Norton is addressing her essay to those who have received their account of history from sources like the play, she continues use the play as an outline to correct misconceptions about the events of 1692. Reed, on the other hand, leaves this cultural reference behind and addresses his essay to fellow sociologists who more than likely agree to the same account of the trials in Salem (Reed, 230).

Norton’s explanations for the trials include “…a devastating war in northern New England, rampant gossip, and Pre-enlightenment magical thinking” (Norton, 3). Although she doesn’t specify her sources, she tells a narrative that adds frame to the events and then pulls her interpretation from that frame of events. She points out that, for hundreds of years, the English settlers believed to be living in a “world of wonders”, and that there was no distinction between the visible, physical realm of humans, and the invisible, spiritual world of demons and evil powers. The settlers, particularly the Puritan inhabitants of Salem, understood the Natives to be devil worshipers and tools of Satan (Norton, 3). Therefore the war with the natives was actually a war with the “un-seen” world and the witches that were thought to be in their midst was an extension of this war between the worlds. Norton points out that Tituba, A Native American, was the first to be accused of witchcraft. She also states that, “…that first large wave of accusations came in mid-April, immediately after one confessing witch revealed that the devil had recruited her into his ranks four years earlier while she was living on the Maine frontier”(Norton, 3). To Norton, this points to the people of Salem linking the two greatest difficulties of their time together and therefore imagining witches everywhere.

Isaac Reed, uses his article to bring gender as a cause over from the strictly ”Feminist” account of the Salem Witch Trials, to the “Mainstream” side of the cause of mass hysteria in 1692. Unlike Norton, Reed cites and quotes numerous books, papers, and firsthand accounts to bolster and support his claim that gender was the reason a whole town could hang 19 of their own people. Reed makes clear that, from his interpretation of the documents, “At stake was the nature and legitimacy of male authority” (Reed, 229) He states that even the accusation of “witch” was in itself, geared toward women (Reed, 226). Reed addresses the “oft-repeated observation that some of the witches were male” (qtd. In Whitney, 78). He states that “78 percent of accused witches were women, men accused of witchcraft tended to have family or sexual relations to the accused witches” (Reed, 216).  Reed recognizes the theories that Norton points out in her article; he even mentions the same idea of a visible versus an invisible world (Reed, 220). But he believes that the driving force behind the trials was an effort by the male patriarchal leaders to realign their social order into what they deemed appropriate. Witchcraft was a tool that made sense to the Puritans because of the socially accepted view that women were more susceptible to the Devil than men (Reed, 225). Possibly to get a reaction from his readers, Reed again makes the observation, “Who knew murdering women could be so useful” (Reed, 217)

Neither author concludes his essay with an attempt to apply his or her conclusions to present day culture. Reed states specifically that he wishes to resist “the transport of 20^th and 21^st century subjectivities into 17^th century Massachusetts” (Reed, 210). I believe he does this to keep interpretation pure to the context of the time, but by the end of the essay he has not brought anything from 17^th century Salem back to the present. Reed’s purpose, as well as Norton, is to give the reader another, possibly more accurate, explanation of the events of the Salem Witch Hunts.   

Norton points out that modern misconceptions about the events in history will more than likely stem from fictional accounts such as movies, plays and books. Even though these are “historical fiction” and based on real events, they should not be used as a sole source for information. But Reed also points out that we shouldn’t always take the actual historical documents “at their word” when they give their own explanations for why they did what they did. Reed writes, “We should not allow their interpretations of themselves to limit ours” (Reed, 218). Eric Foner in his textbook, Give me Liberty! An American History, he makes it clear that history is not static. “Rather than a fixed collection of facts, or a group of interpretations that cannot be challenged, our understanding of history is constantly changing” (Foner, xxvi). Foner goes on to add that this is “precisely because each generation asks different questions about the past, each generation formulates different answers” (Foner, xxvi). Later on, he weighs in on the topic of the Salem Witch Trials by pointing out that all the aforementioned theories hold historical weight and contain truth. It is therefore the questions our current generations asks that turns out an explanation specific to our time. Foner agrees with Reed that, “the witches alleged power challenged God’s will and the standing of men as heads of the family and rulers of society” (Foner, 105). He also supports Norton’s ideas about “magical beliefs” (Foner, 105) the threat from natives interpreted by the puritans as threat of “slavery and temptation” (Foner, 73).

In conclusion, we see that the most difficult aspect of historical interpretation is the fact that it requires diligence. Our culture and generation is so used to being “spoon-fed” the answers. Answers like who to vote for, what is good for the environment and what happened in history. Because of this “snap-acceptance”, we are in danger of missing those lessons from history that could pertain directly to our lives. Foner, Reed, and Norton all make the un-written point that the interpretation is up to the reader. We as a society cannot continue to get answers to our problems from pre-packaged, fictional history lesson such as The Crucible. It is a necessity that we research, explore and find out the truths for ourselves. Only then with the explanations work as answers to those questions we ask of history, in the first place. 

Basically; The reasons why historians disagree are many and varied, but the following represent some of them:

• Questions of the selection and relevance of evidence
• The method and the techniques of history
• Ideology and political predisposition
• The purpose for which history is studied in the first place
• More recently, arguments about the validity of historical method

Article Two: The First Stroke with a Disposable Razor

The first razor in our arsenal of simplification is, without a doubt, the most notorious. The term “Occam’s razor” can be found in pop culture, music lyrics, band names, and online blogs. It is notorious because the colloquial understanding of the phrase is very different than the original Occam’s Razor (or “principle of parsimony”) In everyday vernacular, the term is used as a way for people to pick the simplest solution to a dilemma they are faced with. If the problem involves changing the oil in the family van, and the choices are take it to the garage and do it yourself on a Saturday afternoon”…Occam’s Razor must mean I take it to the garage since that is the easier, simpler solution”(excerpt taken from a March 2005 blog called “Two Down”). Or when choosing between two explanations, the street version of Occam’s razor allows me to choose the one that involves the least amount of faith or brain power (whichever one is more uncomfortable).


Occam didn't say to never add complications. Or that the simpler idea is always better or correct. He said not to add unnecessary complications, and that you should go with the simpler idea if and only if all other methods of distinguishing between the two ideas fail. In other words, it's only for choosing between theories or hypotheses that explain the evidence equally well. Simpler theories that do not explain the evidence equally well are discounted. When the evidence is not equal, there is no Razor; you just go with the explanation that explains the facts better. Occam was only talking about plan B: what to do when you can't do what you'd prefer to do, which is a decision based on evidence.

Another key point about Occam’s Razor is it’s disposable; even in a case in which you were using it before, you throw it away when new evidence comes along which is better explained by one idea than the other. (Even if you then still end up favoring the same conclusion as before, it's not for the same reason.)Like we discussed last week, “Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate”, was not a new idea even in William of Ockham’s 14th century England. The idea of being forced to choose the simpler (I’m using this term lightly) of a set of theories dated back into 4th century Greece. (“The more perfect a nature is, the fewer means it requires for its operation "- Aristotle) It’s a concept that is true to our human nature. We keep things simple as far Homo sapiens go. For example, we design computers with the human brain in mind. Instead of coming up with something completely new we stick to what we know.

So how do we apply Occam’s disposable razor to our stressful lives? Just like shaving, we can only do so where it is appropriate and needed. If there is more supporting evidence to one side of an issue then we should start to lean toward. The difficulty is interrupting the evidence; we will touch on that in a later post when we pull out Newton’s Flaming Laser Sword.

Continental drift offers an interesting example of a theory that was utterly rejected by Occam’s razor (and scientists) only to be vindicated years later. It was recognized centuries ago by mariners and mapmakers that South America and Africa had complementary coastlines. Their respective west and east coasts seemed like they once fit together like a huge jigsaw puzzle. Other more tantalizing geological and fossil evidence also suggested that continents moved like flotsam over the surface of the earth. Meteorologist Alfred Wegener codified this thinking in his 1915 book On the Origin of Continents and Oceans. He proposed that all continents were, in the distant past, merged into one mega-continent he called Pangaea (Greek for “all the land”). The theory that landmasses migrated over the earth was, however, almost unanimously derided by American scientists. The geological and fossil evidence was also perceived to be not compelling since they could be explained equally well by other theories. The primary downfall of Wegener’s theory, however, was his assumption of the existence of the gargantuan forces required to move continents. His attempts to account for this were unpersuasive to the scientific community and even to Wegener himself. One example invoked gravity as the force responsible for continental drift. Physicists ridiculed this possibility by showing mathematically that gravitational forces were far too feeble to power such continental wanderings. Many years passed until a plausible mechanism was proposed, this time by Scottish geologist Arthur Holmes. He theorized that earth’s crust was composed of a mosaic of rigid and fractured plates. In addition, he claimed that convection currents in the earth’s mantle, powered by radioactive decay, moved these plates in different directions about the surface of the earth. These and other propositions eventually evolved into Holmes’ paradigm-shattering theory called plate tectonics, which now underpins our modern understanding of geology and the evolution of the earth itself. Full acceptance still took many years but when the evidence for plate tectonics became incontrovertible, continental drift finally had a plausible mechanism for its assumption that delayed acceptance for decades.

Another issue that Occam’s razor is often applied to is the existence (or non-existence) of a Divine Being. As Jodi Foster’s character stated in the 1997 Warner Bros. film Contact “…what's more likely? That an all-powerful, mysterious God created the Universe, and decided not to give any proof of his existence? Or, that He simply doesn't exist at all, and that we created Him, so that we wouldn't have to feel so small and alone?” This idea is used by atheists to give weight to the idea of the non-existence of a god. For example, atheists often apply Occam's razor in arguing against the existence of God on the grounds that God is an unnecessary hypothesis. We should be able to explain everything without assuming the extra metaphysical baggage of a Divine Being. On the other side of the debate, some “creationists” have argued that Occam's razor can be used to support creationism over evolution. After all, having God create everything is much simpler than evolution, which is a very complex mechanism. William of Occam himself used the principle to argue against Christian Platonism. Christian Platonism was a theory during the middle ages which believed that God modeled the creation of the world after the Platonic Forms in his mind. Thus the creatures of the world were degraded imitations of these perfect forms. Occam argued that these were excess assumptions. He then used this argument to paint of picture of creation in which God did whatever-the-hell he wanted to. This was a bit disturbing to Christian theologians, because this completely free creation meant that God could've made hating him pious and evil deeds virtuous. These present-day battles could be considered manifestations of the battles between scholastic and scientific thought:

In religion, the word is a given. The stories, explanations, concepts and formulations provided by the Holy Scripture are unquestionable: we can annotate them and interpret them, but to consider whether they could be replaced with different, more accurate words, immediately takes us out of the realm of (the Christian) religion.



In science, on the other hand, the word is just a working tool. Darwin makes an honest attempt to explain how evolution works based on what he observed, but his words may be replaced with better explanations, should they come along, since what really matters is not the words, but the actual world and how it works.



This explains why the creationism debate is so thoroughly unproductive; the collision is not about matters of fact or explanations of facts, it is a collision between the scholastic and scientific intellectual attitudes. From a scholastic viewpoint, Occam's razor, or for instance, the notion of a scientific theory held in science, is utterly nonsensical. God-given concepts on the other hand - starting with God - are seemingly impossible to understand from a scientist's point of view. On the other hand, scientific evidence can be used to back of claims by creationists. So far the creationist’s have been able to come up with just as much scientific, repeatable evidence for their claims of an intelligent designer (if not more) than the evolutionists have for their ideas concerning the progression of man-kind.

Who or what made us is a stressful concept because it concerns everything we are and who we are supposed or should be. Using Occam’s razor we can shave a few sides off of each side but the debate remains. Using the razor for things like the geo-centric theory, plate tectonics and deciding on the best way to take out the trash can take us through difficult territory. Keeping things simple and not coming up with complicated explanations for things when a simpler answer is available is a good place to start in de-stressing your life.

Well, that’s another graveyard shift post. Hope it all makes sense, I’ll re-read it tomorrow when I get some sleep. I did include some inconsistencies in there on purpose, let’s see if you can use Occam’s handy razor to cut through my complicated blog.

Newton's Flaming Laser Sword(Use with Caution and alot of shaving cream)

Keep It Short and Simple

Keep It Short and Simple

Dualism(Not a fan of the Razor)

Dualism(Not a fan of the Razor)

Walter of Chatton's Multi-Bladed (Anti)Razor

Walter of Chatton's Multi-Bladed (Anti)Razor 

Occam's Disposable Razor

Occam's Disposable Razor