Pragmatic Reflection

Abstract

The habitual linking of the origin of pragmatism, i.e., the idea of ascribing practical tasks to history writing, with the names of Polybius and even Thucydides is not correct, because, as J. Dobias has shown, writing history with the intention of providing recommendations for, and evaluations of, public and private activities can be traced back, in its nuclear form, to Hittite (14th cent. B.C.) and Hebrew historiography (the latter connected with the editing of the Old Testament).¹ The term pragmatikos is due in fact to Polybius (2nd cent. B.C.), but all the writings of Thucydides (5th cent. B.C.), the founder of political historiography, writings intended to instruct statesmen, were already marked by advanced pragmatism.2 The fact that the Muse of history was called Clio testifies to the early domination of Greek historiography by pragmatism, which has been stressed on other occasions.⁸ The name Clio presumably comes from kleio, “to glorify, to worship”. This opinion regarding the goals of history writing came to mark historiography for a long time, thus determining the tasks of any historian conscious of his role, even though such historian, as Polybius, believed that history could be written otherwise for the “sages”, i.e., without faith and the fear of gods (deisdcdmonia).