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A review by sense_of_history
Clues, Myths and the Historical Method by Carlo Ginzburg
“God is in the detail”, it is not a statement invented by Carlo Ginzburg, but it does characterize the work of this father of microhistory. Ginzburg uses the quote (from Aby Warburg) himself in his first essay. Personally, I think that this collection of articles does not add much to his work, you might be better off reading his concrete studies yourself (including the most famous: [b:The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller|71148|The Cheese and the Worms The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller|Carlo Ginzburg|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386924784l/71148._SY75_.jpg|1121275]).
The essay 'Clues' particularly appealed to me. In it he compares the work of a historian with that of a detective or a doctor, both of which proceed on traces or symptoms, a chaotic multitude of 'clues' from which 'order' is created. Clinzburg therefore makes a clear distinction with the natural sciences, initiated by Galileo. Historiography par excellence still works very differently, despite the rapprochement with the social sciences: “History has remained a social science sui generis, forever tied to the concrete. Even if the historian is sometimes obliged to refer back, explicitly or implicitly, to a sequence of comparable phenomena, the cognitive strategy, as well as the codes by which he expresses himself, remain intrinsically individualizing (although the individual case may be a social group or an entire society). In this respect the historian is like the physician who uses nosographical tables to analyze the specific sickness in a patient. As with the physician's, historical knowledge is indirect, presumptive, conjectural.”
And for Ginzburg, this is where a skill comes into play that he calls 'intuition', a bit of a strange term (he himself speaks of 'low intuition'), a skill used to make sense of a multitude of small details: “This “low intuition” is based on the senses (though it skirts them) and as such has nothing to do with the suprasensible intuition of the various nineteenth- and twentieth-century irrationalisms. It can be found throughout the entire world, with no limits of geography, history, ethnicity, sex, or class—and thus, it is far removed from higher forms of knowledge which are the privileged property of an elite few. It is the property of the Bangladeshi, their knowledge having been expropriated by Sir William Herschel; or hunters; or sailors; of women. It binds the human animal closely to other animal species.”
In my opinion, what Ginzburg here describes largely represents the classic concept of 'heuristics', a standard term in historical research, a concept that disregards the epistemological context it works in. In other words: he did not invent really new things, but it is good that he emphasizes the unique character of historical research, and that it doesn't work in a void.
The essay 'Clues' particularly appealed to me. In it he compares the work of a historian with that of a detective or a doctor, both of which proceed on traces or symptoms, a chaotic multitude of 'clues' from which 'order' is created. Clinzburg therefore makes a clear distinction with the natural sciences, initiated by Galileo. Historiography par excellence still works very differently, despite the rapprochement with the social sciences: “History has remained a social science sui generis, forever tied to the concrete. Even if the historian is sometimes obliged to refer back, explicitly or implicitly, to a sequence of comparable phenomena, the cognitive strategy, as well as the codes by which he expresses himself, remain intrinsically individualizing (although the individual case may be a social group or an entire society). In this respect the historian is like the physician who uses nosographical tables to analyze the specific sickness in a patient. As with the physician's, historical knowledge is indirect, presumptive, conjectural.”
And for Ginzburg, this is where a skill comes into play that he calls 'intuition', a bit of a strange term (he himself speaks of 'low intuition'), a skill used to make sense of a multitude of small details: “This “low intuition” is based on the senses (though it skirts them) and as such has nothing to do with the suprasensible intuition of the various nineteenth- and twentieth-century irrationalisms. It can be found throughout the entire world, with no limits of geography, history, ethnicity, sex, or class—and thus, it is far removed from higher forms of knowledge which are the privileged property of an elite few. It is the property of the Bangladeshi, their knowledge having been expropriated by Sir William Herschel; or hunters; or sailors; of women. It binds the human animal closely to other animal species.”
In my opinion, what Ginzburg here describes largely represents the classic concept of 'heuristics', a standard term in historical research, a concept that disregards the epistemological context it works in. In other words: he did not invent really new things, but it is good that he emphasizes the unique character of historical research, and that it doesn't work in a void.