History-writing and the philosophy of language: a proposal for the periodization of early modern Jesuit historiography

Abstract

Any attempt to divide history into distinct periods is not just a challenging task but also an arbitrary one. Continuous forms have no caesurae: the parameters adopted to make different historical periods intelligible enable us to perceive discontinuities, which are in turn described by different labels. These interruptions are, therefore, manifestations of a lack of coherence between the parameters chosen to investigate the phenomenon and the phenomenon itself. On the one hand, the act of naming distorts the continuous nature of time, turning it into a series of discrete entities: the contrast between two linguistically constructed designations produces the idea of a partition of the phenomenon they both symbolize. On the other hand, the act of naming inevitably involves attributing values and expressing judgments, usually in an arbitrary and preconceived way. Consequently, every form of periodization has its own inherent dangers. These risks are particularly apparent when dealing with history and historiography. In these disciplines, competing models of periodization, formed over the course of many centuries, have turned the labeling of the past into a major methodological problem. Defining or “recognizing” individual historical periods means arbitrarily—or at least subjectively—promoting one or another aspect to the focal and essential feature of a certain phenomenon. In turn, the discontinuity of that artificially extrapolated feature can give the impression that history itself is equally discontinuous.[...]