On Being a Philosopher-Historian: Social Engagement after the Ethical Turn

The literary turn in twentieth-century scholarship sometimes threatened to reduce all reality to an effect of language. The most nihilistic expressions of post-modernism rarely (if ever) manifested themselves in historical – as opposed to literary - scholarship, given the latter's widely-acknowledged ultimate imperative to anchor in some empirical evidence. Nevertheless, fascination with the pleasures of the text in practice did little to encourage or support active social and political engagement on the part of historians. There is, in fact, some irony in this fact, given that the thinker perhaps most associated by professional historians in America with the need to study discourse, namely Foucault, was himself extremely active in the public sphere, for instance through his leadership of a movement for prison reform. Many other important “French theorists” – the source of the literary turn - likewise made regular appearances on French television to grapple with major issues such as Anti-Semitism and the legacy of Vichy France. In fact, it has been powerfully argued by Julian Bourg (in From Revolution to Ethics) that, during the latter decades of the twentieth century, French thinkers experienced above all an ethical turn. This presentation will explore how professional historians in America might better absorb the lessons of the ethical turn, and thus contribute more fully to meaningful public dialogue and policy concerning matters of social justice.