Aidan Ryall

Consider the difference between (a) Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon on the 10th of January 49 BCE, and (b) Julius Caesar had an odd number of hairs on his head when he crossed the Rubicon. Intuitively, (a) is historically significant, while (b) is not. What is this distinction? In this paper, I argue for a normative response-dependent account of historical significance. On this view, (a) is historically significant in virtue of how a relevant community of historians ought to respond to it. The normative account allows us to maintain historical realism while also accommodating the obvious ways in which history is contextual and value-laden.

Oral history interviews, and the testimony collected, depend on the interaction between the narrator and the interviewer. A different interviewer, interviewing for a different project, would prompt different responses. We argue that, to properly assess the status of the data collected in oral history interviews, we need to attend to the dynamic and oral nature of nar- ration. In this paper, we draw on resources from the philosophy of language to offer a toolkit that can track negotiation of narratives within oral history interviews. We argue an understanding of the reliability of oral history data must be sensitive to the ways in which narratives are co-constructed within interviews.