1973/01/01 by J. R. Pole · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Race, History, and American Society #American Constitutional Law and Politics #Temptation #Utilitarianism #Politics #Power (physics) #Subject (documents) #History #Sociology #Classics #Aesthetics #Environmental ethics #Social science #Epistemology #Political science #Philosophy #Law #Psychology #Social psychology
paper · doi:10.2307/3678879
openalex publication_date 1973/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Historians have often been inspired by the power of spiritually high ideals or socially good intentions, sometimes by both. Orosius, a disciple of Augustine, composed his Seven Books of History Against the Pagans to prove that nations which had submitted themselves to non-Christian rulers had thereby incurred a series of disasters. The legend that Brutus of Troy had founded Britain was thought useful by King James I. Both in the earlier and later stages of the development of concepts of verification with regard to historical records, the idea of a past whose example points the way to present and future conduct or which gives validity to the régime of the present has been an extraordinarily potent instrument of social policy. The social instrumentalists who emerged, among the political scientists, econo-mists, sociologists, philosophers and historians of the western world about the end of the last century were hardly less ambitious than their predecessors. Among them, the American school was particularly confident of what could be achieved by wresting the study, teaching and writing of history from the hands of its orthodox exponents and redirecting the entire subject in the interests of social advance. There is an obvious temptation to describe this school as historical utilitarians, a word that suggests itself particularly because of their long emphasis on the use and usability of the past. But the term is inappropriate. Utilitarianism is a system which envisages the greatest good of the greatest number; whereas an instrumental view could be directed to special problems or be intended to promote the interests of a particular group.