Koselleck's 4 theses

 Hayden White distinguishes 4 theses peculiar to, the late German historian, Koselleck

1) Historical processes are marked by a different type of temporality from that found in nature.

This is obvious nonsense. Natural processes have 'differential rates of acceleration and deceleration'. Moreover, they are Game theoretic. A matrix which fully describes all natural processes would also include all historical processes. The former determines 'social reality', the latter can't because Nature trips up those following soi disant 'historical laws'. 

2) Historical reality is social reality. 

This is nonsense. Social reality features mimetic effects. However, mimetic targets may be incompossible. History, or hysteresis, matters very little- more particularly if the fitness landscape is changing rapidly.

Koselleck argues that 'historical knowledge' is driven forward by the vanquished asking 'what went wrong?'. But German historiography has not gone forward at all. What went right with that country was getting conquered and having to disintermediate its philosophers and political scientists and historians and other such charlatans. The vanquished learned that their pointy headed intellectuals were utterly shite. Just concentrate on making cool stuff and selling it for a good price so as to buy lots of beer and plenty of sausages. 

3) A critical historical consciousness is born of an awareness of a gap between historical events and the language used to represent them.

This is meaningless. A gap between an event and how it is described represents a lie. It may be a white lie. It may be a black lie. But if we are speaking of 'historical consciousness' it is a stupid lie. History Professors are imbeciles. History students may be promising athletes or comedians who make up for three or four years of studying a worthless subject by drudging, for the rest of their life, in some exceptionally boring profession. 

To say 'History is a discourse, not a discipline' is to admit it is a bunch of stupid lies repeated by hysterical clowns who know that they are a bunch of stupid liars.

4) 'Modernity' is the name we give to 'History's concept' in our Age.

In other words, History- despite having a room temperature I.Q- has gotten hold of the 'concept', that we are alive now, not in 'days of yore'. This may not seem a great discovery but Hayden White pays a fulsome tribute to Koselleck for making it. No doubt, White's own colleagues are under the impression that they live in the Stone Age. 

Progress occurs because people move forward in productive fields. Historians may say 'Aha! But you couldn't make progress unless History had developed a notion of historical progress.' Our reply is, 'fuck off. Monkeys didn't come down from the trees because Monkey historians had come up with a notion of modernity.' 

White speaks of Historical knowledge as providing a stable base from with to 'assess and augment' the 'space of experience'. This is nonsense. You need laboratories and scientific instruments to 'assess and augment' stuff which broadens and deepens the realm of the empirical. Historians are completely useless. They are ignorant of 'human reality'. They don't know that it can't 'ever more' become itself, because it already is itself. 

Concepts don't matter. They are only useful if they feature Tarskian primitives- i.e. are 'anything goes'. Structural Causal Models may matter but only if they give rise to better Mechanisms. That is an empirical matter. Methodenstreit is pointless when the conceptual game is not worth the empirical candle. 

As a case in point, Koselleck thinks comparisons based on temporal series presuppose a 'subject conceived as continuous'. This is not true. The 'subject' may be highly discontinuous. It may only arise above a tipping point or threshold. This does not detract from the utility of Time series analysis. Koselleck mentions Fogel's work on slavery. He doesn't get that Fogel contradicts himself. Precisely because the life-time 'surplus value' extracted was only 10 percent, Slavery was not economically viable. The 'Liberals' knew what they were talking about. The ex-slaves did not clamor to return to plantations under the old arrangement. Why? They were better off outside it- though, no doubt, mortality increased because freedom means more risk-taking. But expected utility still goes up. Moreover, freedom is 'regret minimizing'. 

Historians haven't really added anything to our understanding of slavery. Why? They are shit at Econ. So are academic Economists. But, for productive disciplines it makes sense to employ drunken helots as Professors. It gives kids an incentive to hurry the fuck out of College rather than linger on in campus 'safe spaces' talking shite about 'social reality' and 'historical consciousness'.