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The Ethical Space of Historiography
Author(s) -
Jackson Mark
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of historical sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-6443
pISSN - 0952-1909
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6443.00156
Subject(s) - historiography , framing (construction) , reflexivity , epistemology , economic justice , sociology , space (punctuation) , philosophy , law , political science , social science , history , linguistics , archaeology
This paper explores the notion that the work of historiography, though centrally bound to epistemic concerns, is always already engaged as an ethical exercise in a necessary, yet impossible, promise of justice to the other. Framing this notion is Derrida's work on justice and the law. The inter‐relationships of evidence, integrity and responsibility are considered as three ethically constitutive moments for the historian. The paper concludes by briefly situating W.G. Sebald's descriptive novel, The Rings of Saturn , as exemplary of the ethically reflexive instance of the historiographic exercise.