Zwischen Arktis Adria und Armenien

Debating the Mercantile Background 371
Shoulders of Giants. In particular, Merton stresses the difference between debates
carried on in public and those conducted in private, referring to a letter by Isaac
Newton to Robert Hooke, in which the famous scientist wrote: “What’s done before
many witnesses is seldom without some further concern than that for truth: but what
passes between friends in private usually deserves y e name of consultation rather
than contest, & so I hope it will prove between you & me.” 83 On the basis of these
observations, Merton formulated his “Hooke-Newton-Merton sociological theory of
the perverse effects of public debate upon intellectual clarity (not to say, integrity)”. 84
He states that a scholarly exchange of that type more often than not “becomes a battle
for status more nearly than a search for truth”. 85
The debate dealt with here was neither a purely private one, 86 nor an exclusively
public one. In fact, its public aspect was not even a debate in the real sense of the
word, since it lacked a debate’s most important ingredient: dialogue. One of the participants
– the late Artur Attman – presented his views in a monological, almost
autistic fashion, paying little attention to what others commented on in his writings.
In particular, he very rarely quoted Michael Roberts and did not reply at all to his
counter-arguments. Thus, the attempts of his British opponent, who constantly referred
(and still refers) to Attman’s views, presents them and takes a stand on them, to
enter into a direct and polemical exchange of opinion and criticism remained by and
large unsuccessful. It might well be said, therefore, that the rather one-sided debate in
question is not only a dispute between two directions of historical thought – ‘materialist’
and ‘historicist’ – and between two individual historians – a taciturn Swede and
an eloquent Anglo-Saxon – but even more so between two different academic worlds.
This one-sidedness is regrettable, since the pursuit of Attman’s argument would have
profited significantly from his answering at least some of Roberts’s pressing questions,
while the latter could have gained much from the former’s intimate knowledge
of Swedish archival sources. On the other hand, it probably prevented the debate
from becoming what Merton calls “a battle for status”. Maybe this is one of the reasons
why in marked contrast to other scholarly controversies the yield of the Attman-
Roberts debate is truly impressive.
83 Robert K. Merton, On the Shoulders of Giants. A Shandean Postscript. The Post-Italianate Edition.
With a Foreword by Umberto Eco, an Afterword by Denis Donoghue, and a Preface and Postface by
the Author (Chicago, IL and London 1993), 23; originally published with a foreword by Catherine
Drinker Bowen (New York and London 1965).
84 lbid., 142.
85 Ibid., 25.
86 In fact, there was hardly any private discussion between the two historians. While Attman habitually
avoided any talk about ongoing research, Roberts referred only once to a ‘conversation, June 1976,
. . . [with] Professor Attman’. Cf. Martin Fritz, ‘Artur Attman 1910–1988. Minnesteckning’, Kungl.
Vetenskapsoch Vitterhets-Samhällets i Göteborg årsbok (1989), 9–13 (12–13), and Roberts, Imperial
Experience, 31 and 31n. Responding to an enquiry, Roberts, in a letter of 30 May 1992 to the author,
described his personal relations with Attman as follows: ‘The conversation with him to which you
refer was certainly the only one to deal with historical subjects. I met him three or four times . . . , and
we seemed to get on well together. We never corresponded at all’ [emphasis added].
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