Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Our Knowledge of the Past
- Introduction: The Philosophy of Historiography
- 1 Consensus and Historiographic Knowledge
- 2 The History of Knowledge of History
- 3 The Theory of Scientific Historiography
- 4 Historiographic Opinion
- 5 Historiographic Explanation
- 6 The Limits of Historiographic Knowledge
- 7 Conclusion: Historiography and History
- References
- Notes
- Index
3 - The Theory of Scientific Historiography
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Our Knowledge of the Past
- Introduction: The Philosophy of Historiography
- 1 Consensus and Historiographic Knowledge
- 2 The History of Knowledge of History
- 3 The Theory of Scientific Historiography
- 4 Historiographic Opinion
- 5 Historiographic Explanation
- 6 The Limits of Historiographic Knowledge
- 7 Conclusion: Historiography and History
- References
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Historiographic propositions about the past come in all shapes and sizes, factual and explanatory, more abstract and general or more local and concrete, narrative-like, part of a story, or in plotless summaries of statistical data and relationships. Historiography can be written in prose or as a poem. As Aristotle (1996, p. 52b) argued in the Poetics, the style of historiography does not matter since it would be possible to turn the works of Herodotus into verse and their epistemic status would not change. Historiography is about what happened, whereas poetry is about what would have happened, requiring imagination. Leon Goldstein (1976, pp. 36–8) concluded that good historiography is distinguished from bad according to its relation with the evidence. The significant criteria are epistemic; the forms of the statements, their complexity or generality are epistemically insignificant. The form or style of historiography do not affect its relation with the evidence, its epistemic status. Narratives are not necessarily fictional. There are scientific stories about the evolution of life, the creation of the universe in the Big Bang, Luci the mother of mankind, etc. There are even logical and mathematical narratives, in which Lewis Carroll excelled. Narratives, like scientific theories or legal verdicts, can be determined, indetermined, and underdetermined. Determination is achieved on epistemic rather than stylistic grounds (Laudan, 1992, p. 64).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Our Knowledge of the PastA Philosophy of Historiography, pp. 92 - 140Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004