The Role of the Historian According to Heidegger (by David Kosalka)

In the wake of the collapse of modern philosophy and in its disastrous effects on the discipline of history, this discipline itself faces a crossroads of identity and purpose. The distillation of the supposed pure historical fact from the dialogue of history and the society which it serves has left the discipline vulnerable. Many historians perceive that their much beloved ideals are being torn apart by new interpretations and applications of historical thought. In such a time it is necessary for historians to redefine themselves philosophically to come to a common and consistent sense of purpose. The philosophy of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) gives both an explanation of the supposed crisis of history as well as giving a glimpse of the true power and purpose of history. It is through a Heideggerian lens, then, that the crisis can be understood and steps made towards a new role for the discipline.

To begin with, it is necessary to observe the development of the new "crisis" of history from within the discipline. According to the most traditional paradigm, history was to be a retelling of the central events of a historical drama. The historian Peter Burke found that the old history had these components: "According to the traditional paradigm history is essentially concerned with politics . . . traditional historians think of history as essentially a narrative of events . . .[and] traditional history offers a view from above."1 And as history was a view from above it was dominated by the idea of the "Great Man". In this view, history is forged by the elite, the Churchills, the DeGaulles, the Caesers and the Medici. Each was a unique individual and the art of history was the art of the narrative, of telling the story of the great men. On such and such a date, the old history would say, Cicero did this and saved the state of Rome by stopping the dreadful Cataline who was plotting this and that. History was also a form of didactic literature. The great men were models of characters that the rest of the society could emulate. The villains of the story showed us what kind of character to avoid. These men, events and the like became symbols that stood as icons painted by the respectful hands of the historian for men to venerate and follow.

This role of history was widely recognized by the classical historians and was a driving thought behind their work. Livy in his Early History of Rome he states the purpose of studying history. "The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things rotten through and through, to avoid."2 This view continued on into the middle ages, having gained a strong theological bent, through people like the Venerable Bede. In the beginning of his great work he says "For if history records good things of good men, the thoughtful hearer is encouraged to imitate what is good: or if it records evil of wicked men, the devout, religious listener or reader is encouraged to avoid all that is sinful and perverse and to follow what he knows to be good and pleasing to God."3

This view dominated the writing of history until the forces of the enlightenment began to change the conception of history and the role of the historian. Following the lead of von Ranke (d. 1885) and others, history began to aspire to the level of an empirical science, searching for the irrefutable "truth" of what happened. No longer was the historian a literary artist but instead was a scientist, testing his documents, using his sources scrupulously so he could be certain of his result and come up with the definite facts. These facts then, he believed, spoke on their own to the true meaning of history. These revised facts of history were then discovered and formed a new and supposedly improved historical narrative.4 Through the institutionalization of the methods of von Ranke this view would quickly become the standard methodological view of the discipline. However, this view was not without problems. Despite the claims of impartiality, even this scientific mode of history was corruptible and something as small as the selection and arrangement of the historical "facts" could serve the biased motives of a historian.

This was not the only challenge to the traditional narrative of history, however, as the character of the old venerable icons and their ability to stand as historical symbols for the entire society was called into question. The established narrative was no longer acceptable, it could no longer stand without taking into consideration the differences among all the groups of the society. There came to be gender history, racial history, and ethnic history. When these new areas of history were taken into account the idea of cultural solidarity behind the symbols of history was like so many bundles of sticks shoved through a chipper shredder.

This disunity was further aggravated by the development, again from the more scientific model that came with the rise of the social sciences, of more structural histories. They would try to form theories and models to explain historical phenomenon according to the scientific method. Historians began viewing peoples' actions as a conglomerate and not just as individuals acting out of the venerable concept of free will. People defined history in regard to forces that theoretically could adequately explain people's actions, implying that human behavior can be defined by scientific laws. As the most noted of these force theories of history, Marxists see the force of economics driving classes into conflict. Other people see actions as being defined by ideas such as race, genetics, psychology, gender. This paradigm was further entrenched by the advent of the computer and the advancement of statistics which quantified demographic data to support the matrix of these theories. People began to study what were once considered the brigands of history, the underclass and the most ordinary of everyday experiences.

This then was the perplexed view from within the discipline. As people pulled the historical narrative this way and that, to the eyes of the more traditional, history was being stretched to a breaking point. Overall for the profession, there is no sense of cohesion or unity in regard to purpose or method even to the present day. This lack of a common understanding has brought the discipline of history to a position which many historians regard as a modern day identity crisis. As put by Burke: "In this expanding and fragmenting universe, there is an increasing need for orientation."5

At a time of such rapid change and such widespread confusion as to the direction and purpose of history, it is necessary to have, in a Heideggerian sense, a clarion call of conscience for the discipline. As has always been the case, what consists of history and what purpose history serves is related to the dominant philosophies of the age. New types of history and new applications of historical thought are often related to some philosophical school adapted by a historian. Therefore, the clash in history is inseparable from the clash within philosophical thought, experiencing the death rattles of modern philosophy. What the historian needs to do, and the discipline as a whole needs to do, is to take its philosophical bearings, and come to an agreement of purpose with some sense of philosophical consistency.

There are actually several connections between history and philosophy in the modern era that need to be explained. It is necessary to understand from whence the methodological standards of the scientific mode of history arose. This view of history has its origins in the enlightenment and an empirical tradition, now most strongly associated with the natural sciences, that has a high epistemological standard. In their book Telling the Truth About History, Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob constantly refer to the effect of the "heroic model of Science" for which the pursuit of supposed incontrovertible and morally neutral facts was the goal. It was a search for the absolutes of history which would theoretically allow the facts to speak for themselves.6 Facts were sought for the truth itself without a context of its usefulness for a society and certainly not to satisfy an agenda of the historian. Indeed, ideally the historian of this school sought to be completely anonymous in the work. E. H Carr demonstrates such a viewpoint with the following anecdote;

The shorter Oxford English Dictionary, a useful but tendentious work of the empirical school, clearly marks the separateness of the two processes by defining fact as "a datum of experience as distinct from conclusions." This is what may be called the common-sense view of history. History consists of a corpus of ascertained facts. The facts are available to the historian in documents, inscriptions, and so on, like fish on the fishmonger's slab. The historian collects them, takes them home, and cooks and serves them in whatever style appeals to him. Acton, whose culinary tastes were austere, wanted them served plain. In his letter of instructions to the first Cambridge Modern History he announced the requirement that our Waterloo must be one that satisfies the French and English, German and Dutch alike; that nobody can tell without examining the list of authors where the Bishop of Oxford laid down the pen, and whether Fairbairn of Gasguet, Liebermann of Harrison took it up.7

This kind of standard has a detrimental effect on the venerable icons of history, an art whose subject is uncertain at the best of times. Paradoxically because of the uncertainty of the alternatives this ideal was also the one that historians would cling to in the attacks of the new history that sought to give a broader perspective of representation to the discipline. The difficulties of this high standard have been sufficiently demonstrated in philosophy8; however, historians, unwilling to shift their focus, see these challenges as the loss of the discipline itself. As these facts were distilled from the current cultural discourse however it was the power of the historian to provide life and meaning to the historical facts which was the gravest loss from this form of philosophical thinking.

This condition of the disembodiment of the historical facts from the historian's context of interpretation originates in the method of enlightenment philosophies like Descartes' which is the foundation of so much of modern philosophy. Descartes in his Meditations attempted to prove the state of the world a-priori, i.e. from an indisputable basis separate from the specific empirical conditions of his environment. This effort of Descartes is representative of modern philosophy's attempts to understand the world from pure reason, in its confidence in our ability as human beings to understand the thing in-itself from some kind of dis-interested standpoint. Heidegger and many other of the post-modern philosophers would criticize our ability to pull ourselves back from the world in such a fashion.9 The human consciousness in the world is not able to be some kind of absolute narrator on the world around us completely independent of its own interests and limitations. Rather, what is at the heart of the Heideggerian phenomenology is the revelation that being-in-the-world (Da-sein) is a fundamental being-with (mitsein), a being in relation to that with which we live.10 Mankind is unable to completely separate itself from its influences and the state of its "thrownness", the mood and situation in which Da-sein finds itself.11 Therefore, the historian, who is just a human after all, cannot separate himself from the simple "facts" of history, but rather his perception of events of history are always influenced by the biases, experience and preferences of the historian.

This kind of conception has tremendous influence on fields like racial history. It is not enough to have the singular perspective of history, because it is influenced by the worldview of the historians themselves, the elite white Protestant educated males. But if the historian and history itself are influenced by cultural and perspective concerns that affect the individual historian's interpretation, then there needs to be an analysis of the sets of influences on all people as well as an examination of the influences on the historians themselves in order to achieve the enlightenment goal of a narrative which mirrors history in-itself, as it actually was. This view coincided with an influx into the university of a more pluralistic pantheon of historians who sought to express the views of their own culture, race, class, or even gender, into the historical dialogue.12 Some go even so far as to express the idea that only a black person could truly do black history, only a female can do proper woman's history, etc. At the very least it seems a separate or a diverse representation to portray these other perspectives is needed. How is a historian to divide these categories and relate them to the comprehensive narrative that modern history had worked so hard to develop? These questions continue to plague the historian.

At the same moment there was a movement to disunity in the historical narrative, in other ways there are movements to greater unity. In Heidegger's conception of Da-sein, the primordial structure of being-in-the-world, it is not the human independent of context, but it is the being-with that is important. With such a philosophical perspective there arises a destruction of the self as an identifiable independent entity. Da-sein encompasses both subject and object, it is used to understand a conglomerate that are being with each other.13 Men can then become parts of institutions or forces. Thus it allows for the more structural histories that began to emerge. History is no longer the clash of sovereign and undetermined individuals at the head of their states, but history should be the clash of groups of differing structures of being. The Marxist approach is again an example of this kind of historical reasoning. History is dominated by the clash of the beings of different classes. The differing worldviews of each class was responsible for the conflict and the devastating results.

In this context it is interesting to note Heidegger's own nazi connections. Indeed, many have argued that his nazi heritage was a direct result of his philosophical constructs. While Heidegger had some fundamental character flaws, his philosophy is both so influential and so powerful that one can hardly be keen on saying that it automatically leads to a nazi politics. But, in terms of his respect for the German people, this interpretation of Da-sein as a more conglomerate entity can be very influential. When one combines this interpretation with his notion of resoluteness it is a good match for a Nazi phenomenon. With this in mind, however, it is important to remember the nature of Heidegger's investigation. It was an attempt at a description of fundamental ontology, to explain the nature of being itself, to understand the nature of the phenomenon in the context of the legacy of Husserel. It is not a philosophy of ethics. One philosophical thinker made the distinction clear with the following anecdote:

Lowith observes that the "superb joke made up one day by a hearer of Heidegger's lecture -- 'I am resolved; I just don't know upon what' -- was received with unexpected seriousness" (pp. 162-63). It was indeed a good joke, and Heidegger was a distinctly humorless man. But the seriousness with which the joke was received was not wholly undeserved. Resoluteness, for Heidegger, is a decision to become and remain awake and waitful in life. It is not being waitful of any particular thing or awake for any particular purpose. Resolute wakefulness is what Heidegger means by historicity.14

Indeed, it does not flow directly to nazism because it is not designed for a particular worldview, but all forms of being-with. It is like putting up the sails in expectation for any coming wind. But certainly the conglomerate Da-sein allows for such a cultural and possibly racial history. It is therefore a weapon to be used with utmost care. Indeed, one modern author stated the dilemma this way:

Heidegger suggests that justification depends on resoluteness alone. One's ethico-political principles or actions are of little import. Only upon the resolute individual is the gift of Being bestowed. However, Luther's attachment to faith was grounded in an object of faith -- the Christian God -- that was itself understood to be good. Heidegger's philosophic relation to Being, in contrast, remains quite untethered to ethical categories. Perhaps for this reason it was, when faced with a cultural and political crisis, particularly susceptible to the allure of Nazism.15

Having examined a critical history of the history profession and having come to an understanding of the philosophical history that has created and reflects what is perceived as a crisis of the historical profession, it is necessary to up the ante and present what ought to be the philosophy and therefore the role of a historian. It is clear the concepts of the new history need to be appropriated, but the important questions Heidegger raises for the discipline are not so much a consideration of how history is constructed, rather it should be carried a step deeper to an understanding of the role the historian plays in society. Indeed, on one level the dispute is a result of the unsettled question of the purpose of history. Hayden White makes this point as part of his Metahistory. Early in the work he offers the following analysis:

Historiographical disputes on the level of "interpretation" are in reality disputes over the "true" nature of the historian's enterprise. History remains in the state of conceptual anarchy in which the natural sciences existed during the sixteenth century, when there were as many different conceptions of "the scientific enterprise" as there were metaphysical positions. In the sixteenth century, the different conceptions of what "science" ought to be ultimately reflected different conceptions of "reality: and the different epistemologies generated by them. So, too, disputes over what "history" ought to be reflect similarly varied conceptions of what a proper historical explanation ought to consist of and different conceptions, therefore, of the historian's task.16

Heidegger tells us that it is through an appropriation our past that we become authentic, and can claim our possibilities. Through the phenomenon of discourse we form a conception of ourselves out of the aspects of our historic throwness so that we may resolutely define our possibilities.17 Who else is better suited to do this on a societal level than the historian? Indeed, especially in an American context the appropriation of history has played a significant role in the every day lives of the inhabitants. The governmental institutions were constructed on the assumption that history was evolving towards the triumph of reason and democracy. The Americans can claim this concept through an appropriate and interpretation of the past that provides for this possibility. In the American constitutional heritage there is a great emphasis on original intent as defining the possibilities of the constitutional law. As the legal system reappropriates the meaning of the founders' ideas the law fluctuates to encompass the new possibilities of legal action. On a broader level, if the Heideggerian challenge is taken up in the years to come, the historian is going to play a significant role in helping to redefine the culture as the old assumptions seem to crumble and require a reappropriation.

The old school history of any age therefore is a large component of the "They", the inherited paradigm that defines the presuppositions of a culture, and has a tremendous influence on the human position as thrown. As the they is challenged and reappropriated, that interpretation of history soon becomes an orthodoxy and defines the possibilities for the age to come. It is, therefore, as a culture of the "They" is challenged by some call of conscience and reappropriated that the possibilities are redefined to form a new paradigm. In the middle of this struggle for identity ought to be the historian as the person most adept at creating, arranging, and explaining the historical imagery that is at the heart of any societies understanding of itself. The new reappropriations of society, which both stem from and then become reflected in the symbolic language of history, involves a clear co-dependent relationship between society and historical expression. It is simply the nature of Da-sein, a cycle for every age in a great discovery of its self, its being.

What then is the task of the historian? How is the historian to compose his work in accordance with this new philosophical ideal? The first answer is found in the classical use of historical discourse as described by the venerable prophet of the post-modern age, Nietzsche. His essay "On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life", the second in his Untimely Meditations, presents a critical insight on the effects of the new criterion for historical truth. He focuses on how the profession of history being dominated by the standards of scientific inquiry have destroyed the Classical connections between history and the purposes it serves for life as it was found in people like Livy and Bede. Indeed, he says

And now let us quickly take a look at our own time! We are startled, we shy away: where has all the clarity, all the naturalness and purity of this relationship between life and history gone? In what restless and exaggerated confusion does this problem now swell before our eyes! Does the fault lie with us, who observe it? Or has the constellation of life and history really altered through the interposition of a mighty, hostile star between them? Let others show that we have seen falsely: for our part we shall say what we think we see. And what we see is certainly a star, a gleaming and glorious star interposing itself, the constellation really has been altered -- by science, by the demand that history should be a science.18

In fact, he sees the ideal of history as a pure science as a dangerous interpretation of the role of historian. For Nietzsche this concept disturbs the traditional role history has played in the formation of a viable culture and a common identity. In consequence he has harsh things to say about the academic historians who follow strictly the scientific standards for history and invalidate the cultural duties of historians. At one point he says:

But, as I have said, this a race of eunuchs, and to a eunuch one woman is like another, simply a woman, woman in herself, the eternally unapproachable -- and it is thus a matter of indifference what they do so long as history itself is kept nice and 'objective', bearing in mind that those who want to keep it so are for ever incapable of making history themselves. And since the eternally womanly will never draw you upward, you draw it down to you and, being neuters, take history too for a neuter.19

Not only does he criticize the modern regime but he provides a vision for what needs to be done in order in his mind to recover the lost balance between history and life. That position was summarized in a recent article as follows:

Retrospectively, the onset of the crisis of historicism might be identified with the publication in 1874 of the second of Nietzsche's Untimely Meditations, "On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life." Here Nietzsche speaks of the malady of history that afflicts modern man, draining him of his vital energies and burdening him with a life-numbing memory. "a man who wanted to feel historically through and through," Nietzsche writes, "would be like one forcibly deprived of sleep20." The extreme historical thinker would be condemned to see everywhere a state of becoming. . . would no longer believe in his own being . . . would in the end hardly dare to raise his finger" Nietzsche insists that history must be made useful to life . . . But our making history useful to life is conditional upon our learning to live "unhistorically" and "suprahistorically". We need history to show us how and when it is better to forgo the enervating burden of historical consciousness so that life itself might be celebrated and greatness achieved in the here and now. History , if it is to serve life, must be transformed into art, with all its strategic forgetfulness.21

The historian has an essential duty to use history to set the cultural debate for the rest of the society. But does it follow from this that the discipline of history ought to be reduced to the writing of historical novels? That seems to be Nietzsche's position. Upon reflection it seems regressive for the department of history to be submerged into the fine arts college. Certainly the purpose of a historical work is, in part at least, to be an elegant work of literature, and a bit didactic at least in its result. However, the task of the historian seems to be more than just painting an arbitrary picture of the past. There does not seem to be a justification for the complete abandonment of a standard of truth within the discipline. What the Nietzschean account reminds the historian is that truthful accounts of history should not be an end in themselves, but rather should be a guideline of the engagement between history and life. This is the only proper means by which the discipline can justify its existence.

This conception of the relationship of history to life is found explicitly by concentrating on another of the ideas of Heidegger, the idea of discourse (Rede).22 He argues that it is through discourse with the other that we come to explain our position in the world. Discourse is, indeed, the fundamental structure for our coming into an understanding of the nature of our throwness.23 On a societal level, the components of history become primary symbols for the language of that discourse. Historical events, people, concepts, become the universally recognized symbols for relating ourselves to our possibilities. The historians are the ones who should be defining these symbols and composing with them to influence society.

There are some however who fear this significant power of the weapons such conceptions of the historical narrative can produce, especially in consideration of the ends for which it can be wielded. The largest cry among those opposing post-modern views of history, and the kind of perspectivism it entails, is that it seems to lead to an anarchical state of relativism the likes of which historians have been battling for centuries. One modern philosophical commentator in reviewing the effects of Heidegger's philosophy and the nazi influence of the day made the following criticism:

Auschwitz exercises a more direct influence as well the ever-shifting edifice of Postwar theory has been constructed by thinkers who either actively collaborated with he Nazis (Heidegger and Paul de Man) or remained indifferent to atrocity. The theories they formulated in the aftermath of the war, Hirsch claims (with specific reference to Paul de Man), are "a useful device for creating an intricate and elaborate set of evasions that would help him nullify his own guilt-ridden past" (p 100). It is certainly convenient for anyone who has committed gross transgressions to argue that 'value' is a fiction designed to legitimate middle-class oppression of the lower classes. If words, deconstructed, can be show to contain their opposites, then collaboration can be - presto! - another form of resistance. If the synchronic excludes concern with the diachronic, the forgetfulness of history is a virtue. If language necessarily distorts, how can I be accountable for my particular lies? 24

Such an analysis is at the very least uncharitable to Heidegger and his counterparts, at worse an unreflective reactionary backlash at his philosophy. It does, however, demonstrate the modern school's fear of this new idea. It is destroying their notion of history as the search for independent and universal truths. The apparent irresolvable conflict of relativism seems to them to be the worst kind of nihilism. Such arguments, however, are perhaps the last means of defending an absolutist epistemological approach that is collapsing under its own weight.

Not only is there a problem of the historian just making stuff up to make his own picturesque version of history, there is the fear that everyone's history will be their own. That my history, determined by my position in this great labyrinth of being with, cannot be applicable to any other individual on the planet. Where then does this leave the historian, who is supposedly some kind of caretaker of the common history? If this view prevailed there could be no interaction on a professional level among historians. However, this kind of concern falls back again onto modern concepts. It is relying on the absolute nature of the individual which can be separated from the environment. Being-with and Da-sein are more expansive concepts than the individual. In regard to historians then it would be studying the structure of being for a community, however the forces of discourse in a society have defined it. Then, in their relation to others of these structures of Da-sein, a coherent whole can be derived. Thus each historian is not so independent that his work in some way is influenced by his relation to others and not so dominated that he does not add to the discourse. It relies on the understanding that the historian does not purposefully lie or ignore the historical evidence, but rather he should not be afraid to use it to his own interpretation and to the benefit of his community.

History needs a thorough revaluation of the overall dilemma. An indication of this is outlined with the comment "Heidegger explains that "philosophy will never discover what history is as long as it analyzes it as an object, in terms of a method. The enigma of history lies in what it means to be historical."25 Just as Da-sein for Heidegger is awakened with the experience of nothingness and the call of conscience, so too must history be awakened from this nightmare. The historian needs to become again authentic and realize that the issues and duties which seem to conflict in the standard interpretation are false dichotomies. The historian's job is to look at all the evidence and derive the vision he can from that to form the possibilities of her existence. To ignore some of the evidence as Nietzsche seems to suggest is to be inauthentic to our being in the world. Historians must examine being completely. In this the historian defines this being for his fellow humanity. Indeed "'The question of how it stands with Being proves to be the question of how it stands with our being-there in history, the question of whether we stand in history or merely stagger' The degree of our openness to temporal Being-in-the-world determines whether we are truly living historically -- that is, living our historicity with resoluteness."26 This then is the object of historical analyses according to Heidegger.

Certainly this concept seems to the old epistemological standards to flirt with the edge of the abyss of relativity in the worst sense, but when the old standards are removed it is clear that this is the only path for understanding that can be taken. Indeed, the historian in this context, while he certainly might employ some of the tools of the old scientific historical methods, is not a scientist, but rather a humanist, as well as a poet and a philosopher; not one who runs from the past, but who takes her position as being in the world to create the context of life which is necessarily in a historical context. It is an essential task to be performed with any age to understand its own possibilities and to break out of an outdated historical "They" culture. The historical facts then are the tools of the historian and not independent aims of his craft.

That is not to say that the gap between history and life has gone completely unnoticed in the current curriculum. If there is one area that has made explicit note of the common uses of history and the far different academic pursuit it has been those who have studied public memory. While at the moment these theorists still maintain an artificial divide between academic history and public history, they recognize the power of historical symbolism in society for determining identity and defining culture. This symbolism of history is a substantial component of the language of discourse for the appropriation of history on a public level. This kind of recognition is the initial attempt to bridge the gap that has been left by academic history. One commentator on public history in fact argues that it is essential to a revitalization of the historical profession: "Moreover, public historians are well positioned to contribute to this scholarship. The insights the first-hand knowledge of how historical knowledge is created, institutionalized, disseminated, and understood can help revitalize the entire historical profession as it redefines itself both professionally and intellectually in the years ahead."27 The first step to a cure is to admit you have a problem. Public memory will help serve the purpose of explicating the gap that exists and then the task is to destroy it.

Thus are both the problem and a possible solution to the problem of modern history derived from the historical narrative and the ideas of Heidegger. There are lots of diligent old School historians trying yet to patch up and bail out the old ship but it is becoming increasingly apparent that it simply will no longer do. The vision of Heidegger stands out as a possible means of interpretation for this explosion, as well as a reassurance, that while historian need new boats to navigate the post-modern waters, it is a cohesive system, if one that is extremely different from the ones of the past. And, indeed, the historian is to play an important role for redefining culture and reappropriating the past to meet the needs of our present and future possibilities. The gap and the ivory towers of academic history that separates it from the real power of history for life must be destroyed. To do this is essential for the well being of culture and world.

Notes

1. Peter Burke, New Perspectives on Historical Writing (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995) pp 3-4.

2. Livy, The Early History of Rome (London: Penguin Books, 1971), p 34.

3. The Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People (London: Penguin Books, 1990), p 41.

4. Mark T. Gilderhus, History and the Historians: A Historiographical Introduction (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996), pp 47-48.

5. Burke, p 2.

6. Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth About History (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995), pp 15-90.

7. Edward Hallett Carr, What is History (New York: Vintage Books, 1961), 6.

8. Martin Heidegger, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, trans. Michael Heim (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992).

9. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: State University of New York Press, 1996), pp 88-94.

10. Stephen Mulhall, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Heidegger and Being and Time (London: Routledge, 1996), pp 65-74.

11. Hubert L. Dreyfus, Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, Division I (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1995), p 173.

12. Appleby, pp 146-148.

13. Dreyfus, pp 141-162.

14. Leslie Paul Thiele, "Heidegger, History, and Hermeneutics," The Journal of Modern History 69 (1997): 543.

15. Thiele, p 546.

16. Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973) p 13

17. Dreyfus, p 328.

18. Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) p 77.

19. Nietzsche, p 86.

20. What does he mean like one? I am forcibly deprived of sleep!

21. Thiele, p 535.

22. Mulhall, pp 90-104.

23. Being and Time, pp 123-164.

24. Peter J. Leithart, "Heidegger Deconstructed", Contra Mundum 13 (1994) at http://wwww.wavefront.com/~contra_m/cm/reviews/cm13_rev_heidegger.html(accessed on 22 November 1997 6:09 p.m.)

25. Thiele, p 544.

26. Thiele, p 560.

27. David Glassberg. "Public History and the Study of Memory", The Public Historian, vol. 18 n 2 (Spring 1996): 8.