Generalizing in the Historical Sciences

The historical sciences are characterized by the irreducible plurality of the ways in which their objects are constructed and their capacity to generate assertions of a general nature. After giving an account of Durkheim and Weber’s critiques of ordinary forms of generalization, this article considers the challenging of macrological paradigms that characterized the social sciences in the last quarter of the twentieth century, principally manifested by a renewed interest in the local. Limiting oneself to a micrological level nevertheless involves imposing some severe constraints. It can be demonstrated that the level of generality on which sociologists locate themselves depends above all on the way in which their data are produced. Moreover, the development of the historical sciences within the context of the twentieth-century university has made it more difficult for very general assertions about the totality of human history to emerge. In order for something like an epistemological program to be proposed, it must be based on the analysis of the development of our methods for typifying, stylizing, and comparing. Generalization cannot be separated from the demonstration of consistencies and from the possibly of manipulating them through stabilized procedures for analyzing data. The political and intellectual history of generalization in the social sciences is thus to a large extent related to that of the development of the instruments which allow data to be treated as objects. The reflexive turn towards the politico-epistemological genesis of this set of instruments is a necessary stage in the reassessment of the potential of generalization within our system of knowledge, which can never be entirely disconnected from the moment in which it is produced, nor from the political goals that it reveals. The particular trajectory of historical knowledge has demonstrated that paradigmatic instability does not pose a threat to its development. In fact, this instability is a vital part of the way in which historical knowledge is produced.