Military Historiography, Warriors and Soldiers: The Normative Impact of Epistemological Choices

Abstract

In this paper, the author shows how the epistemological lens through which one examines reality entails momentous normative consequences and that, quite often, these are not fully appreciated — or else they are wilfully ignored — by intellectuals interested in finding political and constitutional solutions to the aboriginal/non-aboriginal or Quebec/Canada conundrums. Some constitutionalists or political theorists, reflecting upon the place of Quebeckers or of aboriginal peoples within the Canadian State, oftentimes take for granted the ontological materiality of abstractions such as "nations", "peoples" and "cultural communities." These are implicitly conceptualized as endowed with a subjectivity of their own and their constituent members ideated as immersed in a sea of homogeneity and unanimity. Other authors, at the other end of the spectrum, conceptualize "individuals" as isolated monads capable of making significant choices in cultural vacuums, and impervious to any primordial attachments.