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Book Review
| Barbara J. Shapiro, A Culture of Fact: England, 1550–1720, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. Pp. x + 284. $42.50 (ISBN 0-8014-3686-9).
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| The central thesis of this book is that the concept of a fact emerged and developed in England first in the realm of legal discourse and courtroom procedure (chapter 1) and spread from there into other fields such as the study of history (chapter 2), the reporting of travels and news (chapters 3 and 4), the exploration of natural science and natural philosophy (chapters 5 and 6), and the understanding of religion (chapter 7). By the early eighteenth century, the book argues, England had acquired a "culture of fact," meaning that facts "grounded in human testimony [had become] a central feature of the Anglo-American philosophical tradition and cultural practice" (218). |
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Shapiro's argument is ambitious and largely persuasive. She convincingly demonstrates that these various aspects of English intellectual life adopted or adapted prevailing legal norms governing the evaluation of facts—in other words, evidentiary preferences for first-hand knowledge, corroboration, impartiality, circumstantial detail, and expertise. She demonstrates in chapter 2, for example, that in the early modern period "the lawyer's language of 'fact,' evidence, and proof became part and parcel of the historian's vocabulary" (60–61). Ditto the clergyman's: as she skillfully demonstrates in chapter 7, by the late seventeenth century theologians had begun to argue that Christ's resurrection should be believed because "all [the] witnesses [to it] had concurred" (171). |
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The one topic on which I must raise a quibble is causation: how did the legal norms spread? Shapiro points squarely to the jury: "experience with 'facts' and fact determination became familiar to that quite substantial group of ordinary individuals eligible to serve on juries.... I suggest that it was precisely this familiarity and this confidence in juries that made 'fact' so easily transportable to a variety of nonlegal contexts" (9–10). In this vein, she specifically contrasts England with Continental countries, where the absence of lay jurors "impeded the legal carryover into other fields" (215). This jury-centered explanation may well be right, but the book does not provide enough detail to make it fully convincing. If jury service is the key, did the historians, scientists, philosophers, theologians, and other writers borrowing legal norms actually serve as jurors? If general familiarity with legal fact-finding is the key, was the popular knowledge in England of jury procedure more widespread than the popular knowledge on the Continent of the fact-finding methods of the professional judiciary? |
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Let me emphasize that these unresolved questions do not detract from the book's achievement. No good book answers all the questions it raises, and the issue of causation is not Shapiro's central concern (see especially 217, discussing causation with a perceptible reluctance). Her stated aim is to explore the role of "fact" in various aspects of English intellectual culture and to show that the discourse of fact "crossed disciplinary boundaries" (2). To that end, I can say with probability and certainty, she has succeeded. |
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| T. P. Gallanis
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| Ohio State University |
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