Anachronism and Tradition in Intellectual History
The second Oxford Centre for Intellectual History Graduate Conference took place on June 5 2025, with the theme of ‘Anachronism in History.’ The panel on ‘tradition’ considered the ideological role of tradition in political thought.
According to Conal Condren (2004), there are seven types of anachronism in Intellectual History. One of which is traditional anachronism, where a later tradition is used as a context for works written well before. The third panel, titled ‘Tradition,’ looked at traditional anachronism. What are the roles of tradition in anachronism in intellectual history? How did the people in the past approach ‘history’ and ‘traditions’? What are the risks and opportunities of mislocating traditions in historical narratives?
Our first presenter, Thomas Sherman, spoke of anachronism as a mistake, as misinterpretations by later theorists, imperialists, and politicians. He studied the distinctions between John Locke and James Mill’s thoughts, particularly in their understanding of land. While the two were often grouped together as coherent liberalist canon, a closer look at their concept of property within the British empire revealed some contradictions. To over-simplify Sherman’s presentation, Locke viewed private property as justified by labour; while Mill viewed property as a social product bounded by morality and law, the latter enforced security of land. Locke drew his inspiration from theology and took a religious framework, while Mill from metaphysics and philosophy. Sherman argued that fusing Locke and Mill’s ideas together under Liberalism is at risk for overlooking the granularity of their respective thoughts. Subsequent liberalists who looked at Mill as the tradition of Liberalism might commit the mistake of anachronism in ignoring their historical-intellectual context. If later scholars and politicians failed to acknowledge the autonomy of the past thinkers, then they were at risk of abusing this history.
On the other hand, the two following presenters spoke of anachronism as deliberate decisions of past actors. Mrinalini Wadhwa spoke to the traditions of family, marriage, and abortion in India, and the roles of such traditions in the debates around the codification in family law in post-independence India. Wadhwa studied two feminists: Clarisse Bader (1840–1902) and Seeta Parmanand (1901–79), one in France and another in India, but both turned to history and tradition to argue for gender rights. In these two cases then, the selective claims of tradition were the feminists’ effort to promote women’s freedom through legal reforms.
Seeta Parmanand, an Oxford-educated politician, studied women’s roles in society in Sanskrit epics, and argued in the Indian Parliament that the social status of Hindu women in ancient times was far better than that of twentieth-century Indian women. By invoking traditions, she urged the restoration of ancient morality during the Hindu Code debates in 1951-56. Parmanand advocated for reforming colonial-era marriage laws in the Parliament, using her Sanskrit research to show that such reform was actually in line with religious tradition. Employing modern feminist lens to look at Sanskrit epics, Parmanand’s weaponization of anachronism was deliberate, and in a deterministic way, effective. Wadhwa demonstrated why historical actors employed anachronism, and how they skilfully crafted their narratives of misplacing history for legal arguments.
A similar tactic of weaponizing traditions to serve presentist goals can be seen in Douglas Chung’s narrative of Tang Yue’s Debates on Science and Metaphysics. In advocating for Science being vital to China’s development as a nation, Tang frequently cited Chinese classics and folktales in his arguments. Like Parmanand, Tang drew inspirations from ancient literature, and gave these stories new meanings that fit with their agenda. With a background in Psychology, Tang inserted a modern scientific lens to Chinese classics, and in the process re-interpreted classics and traditions. He also used a scientific enquiry method to analyse the classic stories, almost as if treating the stories as a scientific experiment with hypothesis and results. While his weaponization of anachronism might be less successful than Parmanand, his incorporation of scientific knowledge and methodology into classics was rather innovative in 1910s-1920s China. This was a classic case of traditional anachronism.
Whether the past actors were aware of their anachronistic approach to traditions, classics, and history, we intellectual historians should highlight such anachronism. Our presenters showed us that their study of anachronism tells a unique story of that period, be it danger of intellectual conflations, or the opportunities of using classics to defend their current political stance. While the three presenters focused mainly on individual historical actors, it would be intriguing to see how collectives and communities at times committed anachronism, or their reactions to anachronism. All in all, the study of how the past actors approached history and traditions with their presentist motives was an interesting topic for intellectual history, especially when concepts and ideas were often weaponized anachronistically from past to present.
Ivi Fung chaired the panel on ‘tradition’ at the 2025 conference. She is a DPhil student in history at Exeter College.
