Pocock's Test

Abstract Written in memory of the historian J. G. A. Pocock (1924 – 2023), this essay revisits a series of exchanges in 2004 and 2005 between the editor of Common Knowledge and Pocock, a founding member of the journal's editorial board. In the first exchange, Pocock drew a sharp distinction between, on the one hand, professional academic specialists like himself and, on the other hand, intellectuals such as read and write for Common Knowledge and who, “interested in themselves, . . . questioning themselves,” are ultimately philosophers rather than scholars. He then defined history, for the instruction of that idiosyncratic audience, as a record of what has actually happened. The editor, who is also the author of this memorial essay, responded in the journal by applying Pocock's definition of history with earnest interest to a new symposium he was introducing. Pocock then wrote, clarifying his position, that history is a “multiplex condition” and that among the “historical facts” to which historians must attend are constructed histories whose claims have already been invalidated. The editor's reply was that these were postmodern notions that belied Pocock's previously submitted definition. Looking back after twenty years, he now reflects on why Pocock criticized a journal he had helped to found, only then to write a sort of treatise in support of the journal's own views. He concludes that Pocock made the claim that his approach to scholarship and that of Common Knowledge were becoming incommensurable as a test of the journal that became, in the process, a test of his own liberality and open mind.