"First, if we follow the radical fringe of the postmodern movement-especially those in the poststructuralist/deconstructionist camp-and thus jettison the possibility of arriving at, or even striving for, a more or less objective understanding of the past, we have to accept that we can no longer so much as speak about "good" versus "bad"-"legitimate" versus "illegitimate"-historiography. Or, if we insist on speaking in this manner, we have to concede that we mean by this distinction nothing more than that we merely prefer one form of historiography-or one set of historical conclusions-over another."
The problem with this criticism is that it is not something that the postmodernist, qua postmodernist, would disagree with. Indeed, one could see the conclusion that Eddy and Boyd insist upon here as just a restatement of the postmodern thesis.
From this, they move on to the following:
"A historical perspective can be judged to be biased and/or misguided only if it can be measured against other sources and/or by other methods one deems more reliable. But this, again, presupposes there is some way for us to step outside our "verbal fictions" and to some extent access objectively the reliability of historical sources. If this is not possible, we are utterly trapped in our purely subjective perspectives and preferences."
What must me taken note of is that the historiographical principle underlying the above quotation is overly simplistic and naive. History as a discipline, in particular when ancient history is under investigation, is not carried out by merely measuring sources against one that has already been determined to be "reliable." A general reliability of one's sources, and thus a hermeneutic of trust, albeit not an uncritical trust, must be assumed in order for historical investigation to move forward. In many cases, there can be no way of independently verifying one's sources other than just seeing how the sources all hang together and cohere. If they present a fairly coherent picture and are mutually supportive of each other, then it is warranted to suppose that they are, on the whole, reliable. What we do not have is an objective measuring stick with which to weigh the reliability of these sources.
The second problem that the authors have is expressed thus:
"Second, if White, Jenkins, Foucault, and others are right in insisting that texts cannot refer beyond themselves, it is not at al clear what these authors are referring to when they make the claim that no text can refer beyond itself... Again, to embrace their analysis is, at the same time, to subject it to its own critique, thus rendering it but one more "foundationless, positioned expression in a world of foundationless, positioned expressions"; thus their analysis cannot be said to be "correct" in any meaningful sense. Along these same lines, if all truth-claims are merely ideologically driven power plays, as radical postmodernists suggest, what are we to make of the truth-claim that "all truth-claims are merely ideologically driven power plays"? The claim itself must be taken to be nothing more than one more ideologically driven power play, in which case it constitutes no grounds for accepting the totalizing claim that all truth-claims are merely ideologically driven power plays."
There are two lines of criticism in this quotation. The first is that one cannot declare the postmodern critique to be either "correct" or "incorrect" if one accepts that line of thinking. This, however, need not worry the postmodernist, as he or she is likely to reject such ways of assessing beliefs/lines of reasoning anyway.
The second criticism is that the postmodern critique suffers its own criticism. In a simplistic way, this is indeed true. However, it would be rash to assume that postmodernists, in claiming that all truth-claims are really power plays, are making a universally quantified statement. I am not as versed in postmodern literature as I'd like to be, but the thrust of such a claim seems to be directed more at those who are in positions of authority and are making claims that are fairly substantial and significant, not against truth-claims per se. That is, one need not levy such a claim against someone stating that it is raining outside. Regardless, the authors' criticism is superficial at best and does not do much to promote further intellectual discourse.
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