In this chapter, three conceptions of historical inquiry represent middle ways between the poles of positivism and postmodernism: John Dewey's, Michael Oakeshott's, and Hans-Georg Gadamer's. Their philosophies of history are pragmatist in that they refuse to efface the subjectivity of the historian in terms of one's purposes, guiding interests, and conceptual schemes. They are conservative because they refuse to let the subjectivity of the historian become the whole of history. They till and harvest the soil of history in the admission that the field of potential data is greater than the engines of their conceptual combines. Much as the blades of the combine's thrasher jam when they encounter a stubborn rock in the soil, the historian's ability to spin a tale may be resisted by the text she interprets, according to the theories of Dewey, Oakeshott, and Gadamer. Thus, there is always a limit to the narratives they tell and always denotative reference points, offered by texts, surviving artifacts, and other honest historians' inquiries, to restrict their excesses.¹