Histories and Fallacies
April 12, 2013
Carl R. Trueman, Histories and Fallacies (Crossway, 2010)
Did you ever read a book on sanctification or the 
Christian life and become awakened to a whole new host of sins that you didn’t even know you were committing? Well, this book had that same effect on me with historical misdemeanors. As Trueman was introducing fallacies such as anachronism or reification, I had that sinking feeling that you get when you come home from a social event worried that you said the wrong thing. I was trying to do a rewinding of my words, pretty sure that somewhere along the line I had committed these offenses in some form.
I picked up this book because I wanted a Carl Trueman answer to the all too common remark I hear that history can’t really be known. The reasoning goes that no one writes unbiased from their own prejudice and worldviews. And so they say that the strongest and most powerful get to write history. It’s never neutral. On top of that, there’s the whole postmodern deconstruction that we can’t truly know anything. When you get these sort of comments, the conversation usually ends because you are now made to feel that nothing you say has any weight.
I got so much more than an answer to my question. Along with demonstrating that non-neutrality doesn’t wipe away objectivity and valid evidence, this book gives the reader tools to discern the validity of a claim on their own, all the while giving a history lesson. Trueman does this by educating the reader on how to work the case of a conspiracy theory. Conspiracies abound everywhere from the claim that Elvis is really alive and working in your local grocery store, to Holocaust denial. Trueman tackles both, but uses the Elvis conspiracy as more of a colorful example of ridiculousness while taking the Holocaust deniers much more seriously. He shows that Holocaust Denial operates the same as the other conspiracy theories: “it creates doubts in the overall narrative by highlighting myriad inconsistencies or errors in the minor details of the evidence, as if the cumulative effect of such is sufficient to overthrow the evidence as a whole” (39).
The reader is then taught some history detective strategies. Through examining the claims of the Holocaust deniers, Truman teaches about the aesthetic fallacy, the fallible nature of eye-witness testimony, discerning scientific standards, and how to make a positive case interpreting the evidence through corroboration and verification. It is very informative and I have a whole new respect for the discipline of history.
In the next chapter we learn about Marxism. Well, at least this is the example given when we take a philosophy and blow it up to be our interpretive grid. This chapter calls for modesty. It challenges the historian to do some self-examining on their own ideological commitments that color the way they interpret evidence and construct their historical narrative. I love how Truman teaches these points while also teaching history. He equips the reader with a skill for asking good questions while examining their own presuppositions.
Trueman compares learning about the past to visiting a foreign county. The historian needs to be careful not to impose their own culture and it its advancements in thoughts and philosophies onto the ones of they are researching. The big takeaway here is that “context is crucial to meaning,” and that “ideas enjoy no privileged status in comparison with other historical actions” (140).
And then we are introduced to a “fistful of fallacies.” As a writer, I found the historical toolbox of the first three chapters to be a valuable asset. Chapter Four was like the arsenal he had been keeping in the trunk for the blitz attack. This book isn’t just for the aspiring historian, it’s for truth seekers and truth tellers. In just 180 pages, you will be more self-aware of your own mistakes in remembering the past, as well as equipped to discern other’s claims.
“We tend, if you like, always to think of ourselves as the Last Men, and our times as the End of Time” (172). Trueman leaves the reader with a choice:
Christian life and become awakened to a whole new host of sins that you didn’t even know you were committing? Well, this book had that same effect on me with historical misdemeanors. As Trueman was introducing fallacies such as anachronism or reification, I had that sinking feeling that you get when you come home from a social event worried that you said the wrong thing. I was trying to do a rewinding of my words, pretty sure that somewhere along the line I had committed these offenses in some form.
I picked up this book because I wanted a Carl Trueman answer to the all too common remark I hear that history can’t really be known. The reasoning goes that no one writes unbiased from their own prejudice and worldviews. And so they say that the strongest and most powerful get to write history. It’s never neutral. On top of that, there’s the whole postmodern deconstruction that we can’t truly know anything. When you get these sort of comments, the conversation usually ends because you are now made to feel that nothing you say has any weight.
I got so much more than an answer to my question. Along with demonstrating that non-neutrality doesn’t wipe away objectivity and valid evidence, this book gives the reader tools to discern the validity of a claim on their own, all the while giving a history lesson. Trueman does this by educating the reader on how to work the case of a conspiracy theory. Conspiracies abound everywhere from the claim that Elvis is really alive and working in your local grocery store, to Holocaust denial. Trueman tackles both, but uses the Elvis conspiracy as more of a colorful example of ridiculousness while taking the Holocaust deniers much more seriously. He shows that Holocaust Denial operates the same as the other conspiracy theories: “it creates doubts in the overall narrative by highlighting myriad inconsistencies or errors in the minor details of the evidence, as if the cumulative effect of such is sufficient to overthrow the evidence as a whole” (39).
The reader is then taught some history detective strategies. Through examining the claims of the Holocaust deniers, Truman teaches about the aesthetic fallacy, the fallible nature of eye-witness testimony, discerning scientific standards, and how to make a positive case interpreting the evidence through corroboration and verification. It is very informative and I have a whole new respect for the discipline of history.
In the next chapter we learn about Marxism. Well, at least this is the example given when we take a philosophy and blow it up to be our interpretive grid. This chapter calls for modesty. It challenges the historian to do some self-examining on their own ideological commitments that color the way they interpret evidence and construct their historical narrative. I love how Truman teaches these points while also teaching history. He equips the reader with a skill for asking good questions while examining their own presuppositions.
Trueman compares learning about the past to visiting a foreign county. The historian needs to be careful not to impose their own culture and it its advancements in thoughts and philosophies onto the ones of they are researching. The big takeaway here is that “context is crucial to meaning,” and that “ideas enjoy no privileged status in comparison with other historical actions” (140).
And then we are introduced to a “fistful of fallacies.” As a writer, I found the historical toolbox of the first three chapters to be a valuable asset. Chapter Four was like the arsenal he had been keeping in the trunk for the blitz attack. This book isn’t just for the aspiring historian, it’s for truth seekers and truth tellers. In just 180 pages, you will be more self-aware of your own mistakes in remembering the past, as well as equipped to discern other’s claims.
“We tend, if you like, always to think of ourselves as the Last Men, and our times as the End of Time” (172). Trueman leaves the reader with a choice:
We can ignore history, and thus doom ourselves to understanding our own small world as reflecting nature, just the way things are, and by so doing doom ourselves to be enslaved to the forces around us that remain unseen but which nonetheless exert a powerful pressure on us. Or we can study history, and in so doing, simultaneously relativize ourselves and our times and, ironically, somewhat liberate ourselves in such a way that we understand more of our world and how we fit into it. Only the man who knows the forces that shape the way he thinks is capable of resisting how those forces; and history is a great help in identifying and exposing such hidden things” (174).With all the hard work of research and discernment, history is a worthy discipline, and a very interesting one at that. Who doesn’t like a good story? Truman not only motivates the reader, but turns them into their own truth detective. There’s so much more to the book that I can’t cover in this small review. I commend it to anyone interested in the search for truth.
