engleski

"Croesus logos" in Herodotus, ambiguity, and historical understanding

In this paper my focus is on the Croesus story from the First Book of the Histories by Herodotus, which is a defining work for the Western tradition of historical understanding. Due to the fact that an ambiguity plays a key role in the story, and thus makes the story open to diverse interpretations, forcing us to confront historical/historiographic problematique in a very explicit way, my proposal is to use the story-cum-interpretations as a paradigm (or a tangible model) from which one can draw a number of criteria for historical both explanation and inquiry. The first section of the paper serves simply to recount the story. The second outlines seven interpretations of the story that seem to be equally supported by both textual evidence and the common-sense assumptions. It also spots and emphazises their differences, and then briefly discusses two classical concepts of ambiguity: one implicitly proposed by Herodotus himself, the other proposed by Aristotle in the Rhetoric, which quotes a part of the Delphic prophecy to Croesus, but does not explicitly refer to Herodotus. The third section keeps a close look at the Croesus story and its interpretations, and points to the issue of ambiguity that influences and shapes, firstly, the character of interpretations and, secondly, the view one tends to take not only of the direction of the narrative, but also of the moral and cognitive standing of the narrative heroes/agents. A major part of the section suggests that we organize our historical understanding and/or research along the following five dimensions (of which the first three are to be categorized primarily as cognitive/theoretical, whereas the last two are to be viewed primarily and predominantly as ethical/practical): (a) plurality of potential interpretations, (b) requirement of a single interpretation, (c) holistic and mediated, but necessarily veridical character of interpretation(s), (d) the sharing of a common universe of concerns, likely responses, and interpretations, between the historical interpreters and the historical agents, (e) an inherent connection between the issue of interpretation, or narrative explanation, and the issue of moral agency/responsibility. The paper also points to a number of weak spots in so-called 'postmodernist historiography', which is here represented through its two leading advocates, Keith Jenkins and Hayden White. The arguments I offer support the view that their reflections on historical research and understanding do not fare well when confronted with the Croesus story and its interpretations, or with the key issues an historian needs to address to form an epistemically and ethically plausible, and also comprehensive, view of the moral, structure, cast, and impact of the story.

Herodotus ; Croesus ; ambiguity ; historical epistemology

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