HISTORIANS' FALLACIES: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought

by David Hackett Fischer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 14, 1969

A devastating display of 136 (count 'em) logical fallacies to which writers of history have fallen prey while venturing through the. ""dark corridors of learning."" Fischer, Associate Professor of History at Brandeis, is backing his way into a ""logic of historical thought""; condemning common malpractices is for him a ""heuristic device"" for constructive discovery. But the sparse positive suggestions he produces as postscripts to the catalogues of errors prove to be rather commonplace roles of right reasoning; their enumeration seems justified only by the rather hefty evidence Fischer marshals to demonstrate how blithely they are ignored. These errors in inquiry, explanation, and argument bedeck the works of not only the outright misologists (logic haters) and advocates of the ""absurd and pernicious"" doctrine of historical relativism, but historians redoubtable and renowned. There is a certain entertainment value in the roll call of pertly and pertinently yclept fallacies--statistical impressionism, the insidious generalization, the overwhelming exception, hardening of the categories--and the assorted examples and comparisons are generally accurate and frequently amusing. Fischer seems particularly to relish razzing historians of some repute: A. J. P. Taylor, ""the Paganini of historical prose, who likes to open an essay with a paradox and to close it with a petitio, or else to begin with an insoluble puzzle and end with an insidious quibble""; Charles Beard, ""the mightiest muckraker of them all,"" a king of ""the furtive fallacy."" To the uninitiated, some of his high-powered polemics against lesser lights in the ""band of methodological Nullbruder"" may seem like a tempest in an ivory tower. Though Fischer does maintain the sense of serious and lofty purpose implied in his subtitle and elucidated in his introduction, the substance of the book is less imposing than it seems at first and not as challenging as one would have hoped.

Pub Date: Jan. 14, 1969

ISBN: 0061315451

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1969

Categories: NONFICTION