The Review: No History Without Philosophy! Plus: Wayne Shorter, RIP.

On a new edited volume by Quentin Skinner and Richard Bourke. ADVERTISEMENT [The Review Logo]( Did someone forward you this newsletter? [Sign up free]( to receive your own copy. You can now read The Chronicle on [Apple News]( [Flipboard]( and [Google News](. Americans are often accused of being ignorant of history. Whether or not that’s so, we’re certainly obsessed by the idea of it; that the years “1776" and “1619" have become metonymic talismans in our polarized politics is evidence of that. The history of history-mindedness is the subject of Richard Bourke and Quentin Skinner’s introduction to their new edited volume, [History in the Humanities and Social Sciences]( (Cambridge). They seem roughly to accept the philosopher R.G. Collingwood’s sense that, as they summarize, “historical thinking as such … had become the distinguishing feature of Western civilisation since the 18th century.” In figures like Montesquieu, Hume, and Adam Smith, the 18th century saw law, politics, society, and commerce subjected to historicizing, and often implicitly relativizing, modes of understanding. Skinner and Bourke contrast Montesquieu’s Laws of 1748 with the political thought of the preceding century. For Hobbes, they write, “true wisdom, which begins with definitions, involved pure rational appraisal, or the ‘summing up of the consequences of one saying to another.’” The Dutch natural-law philosopher Grotius’s political theory was even more historically static: “His primary goal was to examine fundamental rights as ‘Mathematicians consider figures abstracted from Bodies.’” For the thinkers of the Enlightenment, conversely, “society and politics were historically relative.” Skinner and Bourke emphasize the period’s concerns with the way dynamic interactions between diverse entities produce change over time. For Hume, for instance, “relations between property, government, law, the sciences, commerce, mores, and opinion constituted an object of systematic study.” By the end of the century, such historicization could be brought to bear on any object — not just law and society but even, say, literature. Germaine de Staël’s groundbreaking De la Littérature Dans Ses Rapports Avec les Institutions Sociales (1799), which “related national literatures to prevailing social and political conditions whilst also examining their reciprocal influence on manners,” practically invented a discipline. The new historical imagination also opened up endlessly fascinating and essentially irresolvable questions — “how to determine relations of causation, how controversial issues can be treated impartially, and how empirical description can inform our choice of value,” as Skinner and Bourke write — which have occupied academic history for its entire history, even if many practitioners get along just fine without thinking too much about them. If Skinner and Bourke gave their essay a slogan, it might be this: No history without philosophy of history! I haven’t had a chance to read beyond the introduction, but the 16 essays in History in the Humanities and Social Sciences look to cover an enormous amount of ground: Samuel Moyn on law and social theory, Susan James on history and philosophy, Ira Katznelson on history and political science, Adam Tooze on economists’ historical amnesia, to name only the essays I will read first. [Check out the volume here](. SPONSOR CONTENT | University of Wisconsin-Madison [Great Minds Converge Here]( NEWSLETTER [Sign Up for the Teaching Newsletter]( Find insights to improve teaching and learning across your campus. Delivered on Thursdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, [sign up]( to receive it in your email inbox. RIP, Wayne Shorter The great jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter died last week at 89. Read Nate Chinen’s [obituary]( in The New York Times. Also in the Times, Giovanni Russonello curates “[nine essential songs]( of Shorter’s, including work from his time with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, the Miles Davis Quintet, Weather Report, Steely Dan, and Joni Mitchell. In The New Yorker, Richard Brody [reflects]( on the “elusive, self-questioning” quality of Shorter’s playing. ADVERTISEMENT SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. The Latest THE REVIEW | OPINION [The Point of Education Is Not to Reduce Harm]( By Amna Khalid and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder [STORY IMAGE]( Macalester’s response to a controversial exhibit undermines the liberal arts. ADVERTISEMENT THE REVIEW | OPINION [The College Board’s Hollow Vision]( By Annie Abrams [STORY IMAGE]( The African American Studies scandal is just one clue: The AP experiment has run its course. THE REVIEW | OPINION [DeSantis’s Terrifying Plot Against Higher Ed]( By Keith E. Whittington [STORY IMAGE]( Even conservatives should oppose the Florida governor. THE REVIEW | OPINION [Sometimes Diversity Trumps Academic Freedom]( By Stacy Hawkins [STORY IMAGE]( Tensions between core values must be tested case by case. THE REVIEW | ESSAY [Where Rich Students Are Told: ‘You Deserve This’]( By Evan Mandery [STORY IMAGE]( At elite colleges the “best and brightest” are shamelessly flattered. Recommended - “For such young men, the First World War came like a gift from heaven. Karl Marx had wondered whether Achilles was possible in an age of powder and lead. It was now time to find out!” In Harper’s Magazine, Thomas Meaney [on the strange career]( of Ernst Jünger. - “Demons torment a holy woman by having sex in her presence, monks imagine themselves to be pregnant, lovers eat one another’s hearts, and a multitude of sins are revealed by holy people with the power of prophecy.” In the London Review of Books, [Irina Dumitrescu on Barbara Newman’s study]( of medieval selfhood. - “The mood of contemporary politics is one of incessant yet diffuse excitation.” Drawing on the visual arts, fiction, and social and political theory, Anton Jäger explains in The Point [how we got where we are](. Write to me at len.gutkin@chronicle.com. Yours, Len Gutkin FROM THE CHRONICLE STORE [The Future of Advising - Buy Now]( [The Future of Advising]( Good advising is widely seen as central to student success, but it is one of the most misunderstood and under-supported divisions on campus. [Order your copy]( to learn how university leaders can improve advising systems to help close equity gaps, and ensure students effectively navigate their path to a degree. NEWSLETTER FEEDBACK [Please let us know what you thought of today's newsletter in this three-question survey](. This newsletter was sent to {EMAIL}. [Read this newsletter on the web](. [Manage]( your newsletter preferences, [stop receiving]( this email, or [view]( our privacy policy. © 2023 [The Chronicle of Higher Education]( 1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037