Dear Klaus,

While I'm still working on a response to your earlier post, it is 
possible to answer this (from my view) swiftly.

The comment on epistemological baggage has to do with your assertion 
that I am weighed down with epistemological baggage, possibly 
unacknowledged, that makes my view unworkable. The epistemological 
baggage I refer to here is not the act of sorting. It is the fact 
that historians share a few notions in common with my epistemology: 
that something happened in a world external to the observer, that 
this happened whether observed or not, and that it is possible to 
attempt to represent it. Even knowing that this representation is 
imperfect, it is not fiction.

Fiction is the purposeful art of representing an idea that we believe 
to be false or where we believe the truth of representation to be 
irrelevant. One quality of fiction is that we acknowledge as fiction. 
Here is the definition from Merriam-Webster's (1993: 432). I choose 
it to illustrate my meaning, and the meanings that the word "fiction" 
commonly describes: "1 a : something invented by the imagination or 
feigned; specifically : an invented story b : fictitious literature 
(as novels or short stories) 2 a : an assumption of a possibility as 
a fact irrespective of the question of its truth <a legal fiction> b 
: a useful illusion or pretense 3 : the action of feigning or of 
creating with the imagination."

This is not what historians do. If an historian writes fiction 
without knowing that his work is fictional, he or she is wrong, 
mistaken, or incorrect. If an historian writes fiction knowingly 
while presenting it as history, he or she is a liar. There is also 
the case in which a scholar who practices history may also write 
fiction. Alan Lightman, Adjunct Professor of Humanities, Creative 
Writing, and Physics at MIT, does both. Lightman's history is history 
(f.ex.,  Lightman 2005a) while the fiction is fiction (f.ex. 
Lightman 1992, 1994). Lightman also writes essays that are neither 
fiction nor history, but his representation of his own views (f.ex. 
Lightman 2005b).

If I were to believe -- which I do not -- that history is fiction and 
fiction is fiction while people have the right to speak for 
themselves in their own voice, I'd have to ask whether Lightman's 
essays are also fiction. If I were to believe -- which I do not -- 
that all writing is fiction, I assume the essays are also fiction. 
But if that were to be true, why would Lightman's idea of his own 
views be any better than anyone else's ideas about what Lightman 
thinks? This is the kind of odd trap that arises with the claim that 
history is fiction or that all writing is fiction while at the same 
time claiming that people know their own minds. Unless they know what 
they think until they write their thoughts, at which time their 
thoughts become fiction. That's what I mean when I suggest that your 
assertions are also weighted with epistemological baggage, and I'd 
say -- my view, not yours -- that this positions constitutes an 
unacknowledged metaphysics.

The main point remains that history is not fiction, nor is it 
intended to be. This distinction has real consequences. In Lorenzo 
Valla (1922 [1440]) used historical and philological research to 
demonstrate that the so-called Donation of Constantine was a much 
later forgery of a document purported to be the fourth-century will 
of Roman emperor Constantine I. The forgery "gave" both temporal and 
spiritual rule over the empire to the Pope. It was used to create an 
effective theocracy, with the papacy holding power over all temporal 
rulers whatsoever. At a time when other methods of dating were 
impossible, only historical and philological methods allowed Valla's 
findings. One consequence of this was a first, early step in the long 
struggle of humanity toward democracy and self-rule from theocracy 
and even monarchy.

Victor mentioned the Holocaust. If we are to consider history as 
fiction, what are we to make of the painstaking use of German sources 
in Hilberg's (2003 [1961]) account of the evidence for the Holocaust 
at a time when people still did not understand the enormity of what 
happened. Or perhaps I  should wonder what "really" happened. Is it 
possible that the documentary films of dead bodies stacked like 
autumn leaves in the liberated death camps were artful 
reconstructions somehow selected to represent an enormous event that 
never took place, much as some assert the films of the moon landing 
to have been? I do not suggest that you deny this historical event, 
but I suggest that your epistemology leaves an opening for those who 
do. And then there are those who do not exactly deny the Holocaust, 
but minimize its extent, as though, well, yes a few hundred or a few 
thousand or possibly a hundred thousand Jews, Gypsies, communists, 
homosexuals and others were exterminated in the death factories, but 
not millions. Historical evidence is certainly a fiction to them. 
Hannah Arendt, who was a sharp critic of Hilbeerg's work, 
nevertheless praised his careful accumulation and mastery of evidence.

I do understand that "SORTING things out means rearranging things, 
selecting what fits, omitting what doesn't, putting things into 
plausible categories, filling in gaps, creating narratives from texts 
and artifacts that survived the time between an event that may have 
occurred in the past and the time of writing a history of it."

I acknowledge that writing history is a creative enterprise. So is 
writing mathematics, physics, or philosophy -- but these are not 
fiction.

Your concluding "if" takes the form of an incorrect syllogism: "if 
fiction is created, composed, sorted out and rearranged for others to 
make sense of, as i suggested, history is fiction with the claim that 
it is based on what happened."

It is true that fiction is "created, composed, sorted out and 
rearranged for others to make sense of." It is false that everything 
"created, composed, sorted out and rearranged for others to make 
sense of" is fiction. That's like saying, "if grass is green and my 
cousin's car is green, my cousin's car is grass." Or, as John Z. 
Langrish (2000) used this kind of false syllogism in the title of a 
memorable article in which he noted that even though a fork is made 
of steel and a battleship made of steel, a fork is not a battleship. 
Sharing a common property does not make fiction and history the same 
thing. Neither does sharing that same property make history a science 
in the sense that physics is a science. Neither does it make history 
the same as mathematics even though both use artfully arranged sets 
of numbers -- one represents reality or tries to, while the other 
uses numbers of represent ideas. (And then there is the debate on 
whether the number of mathematics are real.)

Sorting things out has consequences. I know this and respect the 
serious art of understanding the issues and consequences involved. 
This general field of study lies at the heart of most liberal arts, 
humanities, and sciences. Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Star (2000) 
wrote a nice book on these issues.

Closer to home, I've considered the issue of sorting things out in 
relation to theory construction (Friedman 2002, 2003). You've said on 
several occasions that the idea of theory is laden with 
epistemological baggage, but the enterprise of theory development 
continues to interest me. As with history, theory entails creating, 
composing, sorting out and arranging ideas and information for others 
to make sense of. None of this is fiction, either.

The other day, you wrote that there can be better fictions and worse. 
This may be true, but the standards by which we judge fiction are 
different to the standards that allow us to judge history or design. 
For that matter, I'd guess that even a description of design or 
design activity would become fiction in your account by virtue of the 
properties that any description would have to share with any other. 
One would assume that a report on the likelihood and consequences of 
global warming occupy the same territory. If all history and all the 
world we know is fiction, I can't see how we would sort better from 
worse, more responsible from less, or that which we ought to do from 
anything else. Perhaps like fiction or like a blockbuster disaster 
movie, we'd choose among alternatives based on action, drama, or body 
count.

I do not believe that any observer can stand outside himself to 
observe a real world that lies outside our nervous system. I do 
believe that a real world exists, over against the observer, and that 
responsible observers try to understand that world and the people in 
it. That's one task of historiography. I think that's the point 
Victor tried to make. (If I'm mistaken, Victor, or if I'm missing 
some nuance that I ought not to overlook, please correct me.)

Good historical writing is a creative act. It requires composition, 
sorting, and arrangement. Historians intend that others should make 
sense of the narratives and accounts they put forward. They do not 
intend their writing to be fiction. Writing history has a different 
goal and serves a different purpose.

Yours,

Ken

--

References

Bowker, Geoffrey C., and Susan Leigh Star. 2000. Sorting Things Out. 
Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The 
MIT Press.

Friedman, Ken. 2002. "Theory Construction in Design Research. 
Criteria, Approaches, and Methods." In Common Ground. Proceedings of 
the Design Research Society International Conference at Brunel 
University, September 5-7, 2002. David Durling and John Shackleton, 
Editors. Stoke on Trent, UK: Staffordshire University Press, 388-414.

Friedman, Ken. 2003. "Theory construction in design research: 
criteria: approaches, and methods." Design Studies, 24 (2003), 
507-522.

Hilberg, Raul. 2003 (1961). The Destruction of the European Jews. New 
Haven: Yale University Press.

Hilberg, Raul. 1996. The Politics of Memory: The Journey of a 
Holocaust Historian. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.

Langrish, John. 2000. "Not Everything Made of Steel is a Battleship." 
Doctoral Education in Design: Foundations for the Future. David 
Durling and Ken Friedman, Editors.  Staffordshire, UK: Staffordshire 
University Press.

Lightman, Alan. 1992. Einstein's Dreams. New York: Pantheon Books.

Lightman, Alan. 1994. Good Benito. New York: Random House.

Lightman, Alan. 2005a. The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 
20th-Century Science, Including the Original Papers. New York: 
Pantheon Books.

Lightman, Alan. 2005b. A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the 
Human Spirit. New York: Pantheon Books.

Merriam-Webster, Inc. 1993. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 
Tenth edition. Springfield, Massachusetts.

Valla, Lorenzo. 1922. Discourse on the Forgery of the Alleged 
Donation of Constantine. Translated with an introduction by 
Christopher B. Coleman. New Haven: Yale University Press.

--

Klaus Krippendorff wrote:

you are saying:

"one kind of epistemological baggage would be the notion that we 
cannot sort out reasonably well that some things have happened, even 
though we did not see them or experience them personally. That's what 
historians do -- imperfectly, as Victor notes, but not unreasonably"

i don't think there is an epistemological baggage involved when 
historians try to SORT out REASONABLY WELL what happened.

what you don't seem to get is that SORTING things out means 
rearranging things, selecting what fits, omitting what doesn't, 
putting things into plausible categories, filling in gaps, creating 
narratives from texts and artifacts that survived the time between an 
event that may have occurred in the past and the time of writing a 
history of it. surely, as i suggested earlier, historians do not 
record the past the way video cameras would. they make it 
interesting, relevant, and far shorter to read than what they 
describe. good history is a creative enterprise as every historian 
will readily agree. (bad historians are not particularly creative)

yes, in composing their narratives, historians are REASONABLE, employ 
REASONS for their claims.  plausibility is an important criterion for 
all stories. perhaps more important is coherence.  coherence has 
nothing to do with representational truth but much with the claim 
that things hang together logically, are REASONABLE, can withstand 
critical examination by competing historians who would dismiss a 
history if they contained contradictions.

if fiction is created, composed, sorted out and rearranged for others 
to make sense of, as i suggested, history is fiction with the claim 
that it is based on what happened. their representational truth is 
not accessible.