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E. THOEN / E. VANHAUTE
situation, differing social order (density of population, class relations, etc.)
proximity and influence of other peoples, and religion. The alleged influences of
race and nationality ought to be carefully disregarded. It might happen that in
looking for everything to be explained by purely human causes, an inexplicable
residue remains. It is then time to see whether it is necessary to involve those
factors which, if you had introduced them in the beginning, would have falsified the
calculations by giving a predetermined value to an unknown factor. It is left behind
like the actions of key figures which also have to be methodically reduced to the
minimum. This is to say that if one can fall back on the general, then it does not
belong to science but to generality. Until now, it is usually done the opposite way"
(Ibid., 192-193).
Even before the World War, he warned against the blind application of
sociological theory. In 1897 he wrote that using a sociological approach
might lead not to sociology, but to "a reintroduction of arbitrary historical
philosophy" (Pirenne, 1897, 7).
But does this mean that World War I did not influence Pirenne as has been
suggested so many times? The war did influence him but only to a certain
extent. The fact that so many of his former German intellectual friends and
sources of inspiration had chosen to collaborate actively with the German
Reich
and that he himself became a prisoner of war impacted his ideas
tremendously. Both Lamprecht and Von Schmoller signed the famous
"Manifesto of the Ninety-Three", which caused a rupture in their personal
relationships with Pirenne.
18
After the war he focused much of his energies
on challenging the 'nationalist view', as well as racist and
Pan-Germanic ideas
during and after the war (Violante, 1997). However, in his lectures after the
war he still concentrated on the importance of comparative history, a method
which he had learned from the very inspirational sources he later rejected. In
his reflections he repeatedly emphasised that economic attitudes were and
should not be confined within national borders (Pirenne, 1917, 201; Pirenne
1933). However, his methodological ideas do not show much change, despite
what others have argued. His thoughts were never 'radical', never purely
'Marxist', and never purely 'liberal'. He never renounced the role of
interdisciplinarity, or the importance of sociology and psychology for
18.
The "Manifesto of the Ninety-Three" is the name commonly given to a 1914 proclamation
signed by prominent German scientists, scholars and artists, in which they declared their
unequivocal support of German military actions in early World War I. (It was signed by
others, such as Lujo Brentano, the other economist of the historic school, Ernst Haeckel the
biologist, the theologian and church historian Adolf von Harrnack, and the physicist Max
Planck. For the entire list, see:
http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Manifesto_of_the_Ninety-Three [20 June 2010]).
PIRENNE AND ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL THEORY
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explaining historical events. His ideas and methodological principles after the
war were just as nuanced as they had been during his educational period. At
both times, his ideas conformed to the initial general "principles" of the
(Young) German historical school. In the second stage of his career, it was
the radicalisation of the ideas of many of this school's adherents that he par-
ticularly challenged. This radicalisation of many German economists
developed from their critique of free market principles, which led them to
favour forms of neo-mercantilism and finally to abandon "classical"
economic principles completely (von Mises, 1969). Pirenne also criticised
radicalism because it was based on racist ideas encouraged by (pseudo-)
romantic and pseudo-interdisciplinary concepts, but he continued to defend
their methodological principles with which he found nothing wrong. One
visible change in his methodology is that before the war he could still agree
with Lamprecht that it was 'the nation' which determined "l'esprit collectif ou
objectif qui se manifeste dans chacun de nous" (the collective or objective
spirit that manifests itself in each of us) (Pirenne, 1897, 6), while he rejected
this notion after the war. In his methodological article defending the use of
sociology and psychology, written in 1928 and published in 1933, he wrote:
"The comparative method alone can diminish racial, political, and national
prejudices among historians…" (Pirenne, 1933, 444).
The war probably sharpened (but was not the origin of) Pirenne's focus on
"comparative (after the war also and even more non-nationalistic) themes",
such as the Pirenne thesis, which minimalised the role of Germanic invasions
in the evolution of Western Europe (Violante, 1997).
19
In 1923, he even
wrote an article dealing exclusively with this comparative and anti-nationalist
point of view (Pirenne, 1923, 10).
20
However, this article also stemmed from
his earlier thinking, because he had written a similar plea for the same
methodology in 1898 (Pirenne, 1898, 11). Moreover, his increased focus on
comparatism was certainly as much influenced by the progressions made
within comparative sociology via the work of Emile Durkheim, which he did
19.
However, the general idea of this thesis goes far back in Pirenne's career. See Dhondt
(1979).
20.
"…We only come to scientific knowledge by comparison. We confine ourselves within
the limits of national history…" See also Pirenne (1917, 192-193): "One chiefly has studied
national history. The vices of this method are blindingly obvious. Here are some: 1. the danger
of mistaking the general for the national (primitive Germanic constitution); 2. the danger of
mistaking something that stems from chronologically different development for the national
(aristocracy, democracy, etc.); 3. the danger of mistaking something borrowed for the national
(gothic style), feudalism which is ...".