Synopsis:
According to E.H. Carr, fusion defines causation within history, because time and space operate along the same causal line. In this way, history supplies both context as well as character vis-à-vis interpretation. Finally, value judgments via interpretation assist in crafting reality – past and present.
Excerpts:
“The great historian – or perhaps I should say more broadly, the great thinker – is the man who asks the question, Why?, about new things or in new contexts.
“Every historical argument revolves round the question of the priority of causes.
“History therefore is a process of selection in terms of historical significance. To borrow Talcott Parsons’s phrase once more, history is ‘a selective system’ not only of cognitive, but of causal, orientations to reality.
“And this recalls what I said earlier, about the dual and reciprocal function of history – to promote our understanding of the past in the light of the present and of the present in the light of the past.
“How can one discover in history a coherent sequence of cause and effect, how can we find any meaning in history, when our sequence is liable to be broken or deflected at any moment by some other, and from our point of view irrelevant, sequence?
*All excerpts have been taken from What is History?, Penguin Classics.
