Historians and Critical Thinking
Historians and Critical Thinking
Although there were plenty of cases of historical credulity,43 and ancient historians were less critical of their sources than their modern successors are,44 most historians and biographers were capable of critically evaluating their sources. Thus, for example, Plutarch disputes a claim of Herodotus based on the numbers and an extant inscription.45 Elsewhere he tries to distinguish more accurate from less accurate sources by using reason,46 or questions a later source including information missing in an allegedly primary source.47
Such concerns are hardly rare. Livy opines that some numbers he found in early “annals” may be exaggerated, and simply concludes that in any case the slaughter was great.48 Pausanias complains that many think that Theseus instituted democracy, despite the inconsistency of such a notion with the claim that he was in fact a king. Then he adds, “there are many false beliefs current among the mass of mankind, since they are ignorant of historical science and consider trustworthy whatever they have heard from childhood in choruses and tragedies.” 49 Citing historical plausibility, the Jewish historian Josephus similarly argues against various claims.50
Dionysius of Halicarnassus,51 himself a rhetorician, critiques not only Thucydides’ style52 but his failure to achieve the expected standard of historical accuracy. “Art,” this rhetorician opines, “does not excuse history from such exaggeration.” 53 Yet Thucydides himself was hardly oblivious to the need for critical evaluation. Thucydides recognizes that Greeks were not called “Hellenes” before the Trojan War, since Homer, writing long after that war, does not yet use the term.54 He refused to dismiss Mycenae’s past splendor based on remains in his day, noting that cities of his own day might hold power without impressive physical structures.55 When a distinction between accurate and inaccurate sources proved impossible, writers often simply presented several different current opinions on what had happened.56 A writer might simply admit that he did not know how something happened.57
Even Herodotus’ methodology of reporting a range of sources without evaluating their accuracy58 did not thereby assume or pronounce judgment in their favor, provided the audience would be duly warned to, or would understand that they were obligated to, make their own decisions. Thus Lucian advised that the historian should report a myth found in one’s source without commiting oneself to it; “make it known for your audience to make of it what they will — you run no risk and lean to neither side.”59
Polybius recognizes that myth may be helpful for bringing pleasure,60 but argues that the goal of history is purely truth.61 Dionysius of Halicarnassus warns that history involves truth rather than legends, and that one should pursue facts, “neither adding to nor subtracting from” them.62 (Even if such historians underestimated the role of an author’s presuppositions, the value of facticity they articulated for historiography is not one easily applied to novelistic or purely mythical narrative forms.) Herodian (perhaps somewhat rhetorically) criticizes earlier historians for preferring rhetorical style to truth63 and emphasizes that he never depended on unconfirmed information.64 Because of their obligation to truth, biographers and historians could report unflattering accounts of individuals they generally respected.65 Historians might recognize exaggerations in an account, while averring that genuine historical tradition stood behind it,66 or might regard an account as too implausible altogether.67 Ancient historians were also aware that propaganda helped create legend.68
Such perspectives show us that some ancient historians criticized others for failing to live up to the ideals of the discipline. While it is also clear that the ideal was not always realized, these claims indicate how historians could expect to be evaluated by their peers and reveal the extent to which ancient historiography anticipated its modern namesake. Although some ancient historians were not consistently rigorous, ancient thinkers were as capable of critical thought as modern ones. The most vocal example of this principle, however, is Polybius.