Historical Epistemology Research Articles

Megill: the Danger of Sacralizing Memory

The article discusses the relationship between memory and historical science in the concept of historical epistemology by American historian Allan Megill. Based on the analysis done, the danger of the process of sacralization of historical memory is shown. The article discusses the issue of consequences arising with the increase in the value of collective historical memory.

Discourse of Historical Cognition: an Epistemological Analysis

The purpose of this article is to consider the discourse of researchers actively working in the field of historical knowledge. In other words, the article examines the features of the verbalization of basic concepts and methodological attitudes of modern historical knowledge. Discourse analysis, in contrast to the traditional philosophical and methodological, allows you to penetrate into the microcosm of historical work, to observe the “historian at the workbench” outside the “spotlights” and other attributes of public demonstration. Discourse analysis is a specific section of historical epistemology. From the author's point of view, epistemology adheres to a descriptive attitude. It is intended to describe, not prescribe, as is the case with the methodology of science. The goal of the article is to trace and show the dynamics of the historical vocabulary in the hope of seeing emerging trends in the rethinking of the models of the historical process as a whole. Discourse analysis allows you to detail intellectual changes and see “point shifts” in patterns of thinking, which ultimately lead to “tectonic transformations” of the entire field of historical research. Science, according to the theory of P. Bourdieu, is a specific social game, and contains a competitive struggle within itself, in which the winner acquires the right to general recognition and authority, which consolidate the concepts he invented as legitimate. History is no exception here. The article focuses on such concepts that have gained legitimacy as “historical reconstruction”, “temporality”, “past”, “presentism”, “antiquarianism”, “narrative”, “contingent”. It is shown that words are the triggers of search thinking.

Between Reception and Reflection

In this work, I propose some notes for a current epistemological evaluation around Whiggism and presentism in the historiographical proposal of Guillermo Boido (1941-2013). In the first place, I will locate the topic proposed in the shared framework from the “Colloquium of Historiography of Science in Latin America (Argentina – Brazil – Uruguay): Reception, Reflection and Production.” Second, I will refer to some aspects of Boido’s academic career and I will place him in what I identify as a “second stage” of the history of science in Argentina. Third, I will dwell on some of Boido’s writings, particularly on those in which he addresses the questions of Whiggism and presentism. Fourth, I will recover some elements on the treatment of these issues in recent works carried out from the perspective of historical epistemology. Finally, in conclusion, I will propose a current epistemological evaluation of Whiggism and presentism between reception and reflection; an evaluation oriented to sustain a “critical” (Loison 2016) and “pluralist” (Chang 2021) presentism, in the face of the epistemological, ethical and political challenges of our current days.

KOSELLECK ON “HISTORIES” VERSUS “HISTORY”; OR, HISTORICAL ONTOLOGY VERSUS HISTORICAL EPISTEMOLOGY

ABSTRACTThe theme of this journal issue deals with the opposition between what can be said to be the “inside” and the “outside” of a culture or a civilization, a question that can be approached in different ways. To begin with, one may ask whether certain anthropological constants can be discerned in all of humanity or, to take the opposite approach, whether civilizations possess certain cultural features that are unique to them. An approach focusing on certain anthropological constants gives us access to an “inside” shared by all of humanity, whereas the latter approach is part of how a civilization demarcates itself from its “outside.” How “inside” and “outside” relate to each other had best be investigated historically, since cultural and social differentiation grow historically out of the common soil of anthropological constants. This article focuses on Reinhart Koselleck's oeuvre to illustrate this claim. Why Koselleck? To begin with, one may find in his work an “inside” defined in terms of a philosophical anthropology and a culturally defined “outside,” both of which he contrasts in an original and thought‐provoking way. As I will argue, the contrast runs parallel to the one between historical ontology and historical epistemology that can be discerned in Koselleck's writings. I will show how the dichotomy between ontology and epistemology reappears in his notion of the saddle time (Sattelzeit)—that is, the period in which Western modern historical writing was born. Prior to the saddle time, history was seen as the product of the anthropological constants of human nature, but afterward, these constants had to give way to the belief in a historical development requiring a historical epistemology to achieve historical truth. This is how the “inside” (ontology) and the “outside” (epistemology) are interwoven in Koselleck's notion of the Sattelzeit. In sum, ontology provides an interculturally shared “inside,” whereas epistemology divides it into as many “insides” as there are different civilizations.

Cultural-historical psychology and V.A. Romenets’ creativity

The study is dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the birth of a prominent Ukrainian scholar, Academician V. Romenets (1926–1998) – the founder of cultural and historical psychology, the author of the theory of deed. The purpose of the study is to analyze ways of explaining the nature of the mental that exist in cultural and historical psychology, to characterize the work of the scholar and deepen the understanding of the subject of this discipline, and to analyze the theory of deed and take the next steps. The first part of the study characterizes the history and current state of cultural and historical psychology, the leading theories in this area, the problems that are not solved. It is stated that the authors of works in this field are just beginning to look in the direction, where the prominent Ukrainian scholar has already paved the way with Herculean efforts and ideas of great significance content. The article substantiates the proposition that the theory of deed of V. Romenets fills cultural-historical psychology with the real content and brings it to a fundamentally new level of development. The second part of the study presents the positions of the concept that sets the guidelines for analyzing the work of V. Romenets, periodization of creativity; the theory of deed is characterized as an explanation of the nature and essence of objectification of mental in action as a cornerstone of historical human existence in culture. According to V. Romenets, the image of a person in the history of culture appears as evidence of the psychology of the era, on this basis, the historical levels of formation of psychological knowledge are distinguished. The components of the theory of deed is given to the words of the scholar: the theory of creativity, the history of world psychology, historical psychology, the life path of a person, philosophy of the transitory, the theory of the sources of human life, a person as an inspiring personality, canonical psychology. The definitions of the components of the main triad in V. Romenets’ thinking are given: person – deed – world. It is noted that due to the work of the scientist, psychology is filled with proper humanistic content and highlights the cultural and historical mission of this science, which is to remind people of the responsibility for what has been done and has not been done, for what has been done and has been lost. It is claimed that the system of knowledge created by the scholar has no analogs in world psychology. The third part of the study analyzes Romenets’ solution to psychology’s main problem, represented by the relationship “subjective – objective”. In this regard, the place of the scholar’s creativity in Ukrainian and world science is determined. It is shown that the theory of deed is constructed by thinking, which is implemented as a deed, the theory of deed is a historical-logical-psychological product, its completion is the logical conclusion of the history of psychology. It is shown that the creativity of V. Romenets is in line with the leading trend in the history of epistemology, which runs from dualism to increasingly meaningful monism. A provision on the principle of involvement is introduced, which fixes the fact of a person’s direct presence in the cognitive process and is further deepened by the idea of the identity of thinking and being. It is shown that the principle of involvement essentially characterizes the creativity of V. Romenets and opens the possibility to see that psychological cognition is carried out by a particular scholar and that the individual in this process lies in the realm of natural as historical-logical-psychological. That which in epistemology acts as anthropocentrism, in psychology arises as the basis of the anthropological approach, the subject of which is the mental of a person as a directly present way of being inherent in it in the being of the world. The positions of the anthropological approach are formulated, it is noted that the approach is formed in the process of analyzing the creativity of V. Romenets and serves to study human life in its specific psychological dimension.

Bringing Emotions to Reason

In his new book Emotion: The Basics, Michael S. Brady introduces the fundamentals on the philosophical approach to emotions: by fleshing out these basic tenets Brady provides insight into a core component of all our lives and covers the nature of emotions, their relationship to knowledge and understanding, and their relationship to our moral and social selves. In my comments, I value the achievements of Brady's work as well as explore a critical approach to the book in which I emphasise how the book deals with the dichotomy between emotions and reasons. I also engage with the limitations that emerge from a viewpoint of a scholar specialised on the history of philosophy and epistemology, and point towards some puzzles that ought to be further considered.

The Philosophy of History and New Testament History: A Survey of the Former with Some Implications for the Latter

Abstract This article surveys a selection of figures in the recent history of historiography with particular focus on their discussion of the nature of historical epistemology (including facts, evidence, and knowledge) and concludes with implications for New Testament history. Figures and works are selected for their representativeness of new thinking in the field at their time, their critique of prior thinking, and in some cases their reception/critique by representatives of that prior thinking. Specifically, I consider in varying depth the historical epistemology of E. H. Carr, G. R. Elton, Hayden White, Richard Evans, Frank Ankersmit, John Zammito, and Aviezer Tucker. These exemplars are considered in order to construct a landscape of traditional, postmodern, and post-postmodern philosophy of historical epistemology. The survey is selective, but the effect is dialectic; ending with recent post-positivist historical epistemology, I raise a number of considerations for thinking about New Testament history.

Natural relativism in lieu of moral absolutism

Natural relativism in lieu of moral absolutism

Diaries as \u201cSoul Portraits\u201d? Interpretation and Theorization of Adolescents\u2019 Self-Descriptions in the German-Speaking Youth Psychology of the 1920s and 1930s

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, the figure of the adolescent (Jugendlicher) was introduced into public discourse in the German-speaking world. The adolescent soon became an epistemic object for the still loosely defined field of psychology. Actors in the slowly differentiating scientific field of youth psychology were primarily interested in the normal development of adolescent subjects and sought out new materials and methods to research the inner life of young people. In order to access this inner life, they turned to the interpretation of diaries and other self-descriptions. This article takes up the questions of how diaries were used in the scientific context of psychology, and how diary writing was psychologically interpreted and theorized. The theoretical and methodological contexts of psychological knowledge production grouped around the subject of the diary will be examined in keeping with Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s concept of historical epistemology. This analysis is carried out by using the example of three central actors who were in conversation with each other during the 1920s and 1930s: the developmental psychologist Charlotte Bühler (1893–1974), the psychologist and founder of personalistic psychology William Stern (1871–1938), and the youth activist Siegfried Bernfeld (1892–1953), who was influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis.

The Crucifix and the Art Gallery: An Odyssey from Religious Material Culture to Fine Art

This article focuses the epistemological processes through which a thirteenth-century Spanish Crucifix in less than pristine condition transformed from an obscure rural Catholic devotional into an art commodity and celebrated work of medieval art now exhibited at the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester (MAG) in Rochester, New York. By situating the Spanish Crucifix within the nascent art historical epistemology and museum movement in the late eighteenth to early twentieth century, this article offers a case study in how religious material culture becomes embedded in capitalistic systems as products or commodities, yet suggests the ways that critical religious studies approaches might enhance our understanding of religious material culture in fine arts museums.

Towards a reflexive intelligence of emerging sociology in France around 1900

Abstract Recent years have seen a proliferation of publications reconsidering the emergence of sociology in France. The present review discusses and compares three of these works: S. Mosbah-Natanson’s bibliometric study on the fashion of sociology around 1900 (2017a); Th. Hirsch’s history of the idea of social time from the Durkheimians to Les Annales (2016a); and M. Joly’s enquiry into a purported sociological revolution in France and Germany at around the same time (2017a). Pushing respectively for a sociological, a historical and an epistemological history of sociology, they represent three distinct ways of renewing the historiography of the social sciences. The article argues that qualities and limitations of these works alike suggest two challenges for the history of sociology: (1) integrating sociological, historical and epistemological competences in a comprehensive intelligence of sociological texts; and (2) accounting for the reflexivity involved in a social history of the social sciences.

Encuentros entre filosofía de la ciencia, filosofía de la tecnología y CTS

The relations between philosophy of science, philosophy of technology and the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) have been very broad and diverse over the past five decades, although distance, controversies and disputes have prevailed. Our analysis shows that in some specific philosophical perspectives on science and technology, unfortunately not yet well known, and in the wake of the “science wars” debates, a new scenario of novel and constructive encounters between these fields has emerged. These include: studies of experimentation, the practical turn in the philosophy of science, the development of historical epistemology, the empirical turn in the philosophy of technology, and new methods for interpreting the moral relevance of artefacts. This analysis of the encounters between the aforementioned philosophical perspectives and the STS field stimulates and invites the development of other possible encounters such as those presented in this thematic dossier.

A philosophical history of programmatic assessment: tracing shifting configurations.

Programmatic assessment is now well entrenched in medical education, allowing us to reflect on when it first emerged and how it evolved into the form we know today. Drawing upon the intellectual tradition of historical epistemology, we provide a philosophically-oriented historiographical study of programmatic assessment. Our goal is to trace its relatively short historical trajectory by describing shifting configurations in its scene of inquiry-focusing on questions, practices, and philosophical presuppositions. We identify three historical phases: emergence, evolution and entrenchment. For each, we describe the configurations of the scene; examine underlying philosophical presuppositions driving changes; and detail upshots in assessment practice. We find that programmatic assessment emerged in response to positivist 'turmoil' prior to 2005, driven by utility considerations and implicit pragmatist undertones. Once introduced, it evolved with notions of diversity and learning being underscored, and a constructivist ontology developing at its core. More recently, programmatic assessment has become entrenched as its own sub-discipline. Rich narratives have been emphasised, but philosophical underpinnings have been blurred. We hope to shed new light on current assessment practices in the medical education community by interrogating the history of programmatic assessment from this philosophical vantage point. Making philosophical presuppositions explicit highlights the perspectival nature of aspects of programmatic assessment, and suggest reasons for perceived benefits as well as potential tensions, contradictions and vulnerabilities in the approach today. We conclude by offering some reflections on important points to emerge from our historical study, and suggest 'what next' for programmatic assessment in light of this endeavour.

State, Floods and Politics of Knowledge: A Case of the Mahananda Basin of Bihar

This article identifies two main perspectives on flood control: the traditional and the modern hydrological. The objective here is to look at the contest between them from the point of view of the politics of knowledge. The traditional perspective views floods as a part of life and focuses on people’s wisdom or local knowledge of flood control. The hydrological approach, on the other hand, is mostly concerned with taming a river and views floods as a disaster that ought to be controlled and possibly eliminated. This perspective dominates the policy of the post-colonial state in India. There are five vantage points, such as historical context, state policy, political economy, collective action and epistemology, to understand the politics of knowledge around floods. In the first section, through history we discuss the transition from the colonial to post-colonial India on the issues of floods, dams and embankments. The second section of this article describes the flood policy and politics around it, from Patna Flood Conference (1937) to Disaster Management Act, 2005. In Political Economy section the article explores the link between land-holdings, tenancy and floods and also observes how agriculture has changed due to floods. The fourth section, Forms of Collective Action, explores the politics of collective action. Epistemology section presents the debate of lokvidyavs versus rajyavidya or living with floods versus hydrological knowledge.

XII—The Distinction in Kind between Knowledge and Belief

Abstract Drawing inspiration from a well-attested historical tradition, I propose an account of cognition according to which knowledge is not only prior to belief; it is also, and crucially, not a kind of belief. Believing, in turn, is not some sort of botched knowing, but a mental state fundamentally different from knowing, with its own distinctive and complementary role in our cognitive life. I conclude that the main battle-line in the history of epistemology is drawn between the affirmation of a natural mental state in which there is a contact between ‘mind’ and ‘reality’ (whatever the ontological nature of this ‘reality’) and the rejection of such a natural mental state. For the former position, there is a mental state which is different in kind from belief, and which is constituted by the presence of the object of cognition to the cognitive subject, with no gap between them. For the latter position, all our cognition is belief, and the question becomes how and when belief is permissible.

Naturalism, pragmatism and historical epistemology

Historical Epistemology is a discipline that draws on quite distinct sources, straddling the analytic-continental divide within the history and philosophy of science. In this paper, I examine the analytic side of the equation, namely the tradition of empiricist naturalism, and the emergence, within the work of Goodman, Kuhn and Hacking, of naturalized transcendental structures resembling Wittgensteinian language-games, and the correlated multiplication of “worlds”.

Capitals and decisions about sustainability in a Brazilian ecocide organization: a narrative analysis based on Bourdieusian sociology

PropósitoAnalisar, sob orientação da sociologia bourdieusiana, os capitais movimentados em decisões sobre sustentabilidade, a partir de narrativas da e referentes à Samarco Minerações S.A.Design/Metodologia/AbordagemOrientada por uma ontologia historicista e epistemologia histórica, essa pesquisa classifica-se como: qualitativa, descritiva e documental, com análise de narrativa e estudo de caso. A organização selecionada foi a Samarco Minerações S.A. As fontes documentais foram: relatórios de sustentabilidade, canais em redes sociais e notícias publicadas em jornais brasileiros de grande circulação. As informações coletadas foram submetidas ao método de análise narrativa.ResultadosA Samarco Minerações S.A. manteve a postura de sustentabilidade antes e após o rompimento da barragem. Os modelos de decisão adotados (descentralizado) e os capitais movimentados (econômico e tecnológico) após o ecocídio, revelaram uma mudança nas práticas organizacionais diante de um cenário de instabilidade, e a tentativa da organização de alcançar reconhecimento, legitimidade e poder.Impacto socialA organização foi selecionada por seu envolvimento em um ecocídio. O crime gerou impacto econômicos (suspensão de arrecadação de impostos causada pela inatividade organizacional), impacto social (desempregos e mortes), impacto ambiental (rejeitos de minério de ferro contaminaram o ecossistema da região).Originalidade/valorO principal valor e contribuição que o artigo oferece é uma abordagem metodológica intermediária e alternativa que se utiliza da microssociologia bourdieusiana para analisar narrativas baseadas na dinâmica dos capitais e da doxa. A abordagem teórico-metodológica pode ser benéfica para novas pesquisas em estudos de sustentabilidade, de narrativas, em outros temas e até mesmo em outros campos.

Feelings of Believing: Psychology, History, Phenomenology by Ryan Hickerson

Reviewed by: Feelings of Believing: Psychology, History, Phenomenology by Ryan Hickerson Hayden Kee Ryan Hickerson. Feelings of Believing: Psychology, History, Phenomenology. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2020. Pp. xii + 320. Cloth, $115.00. There has been a slowly developing appreciation from various quarters in recent decades that the overlap between the philosophy of the emotions and epistemology might be greater than one would initially assume. Ryan Hickerson's Feelings of Believing: Psychology, History, and Phenomenology makes a timely and highly original contribution to this discussion. But its scope and appeal reach far beyond that somewhat niche issue, extending (as the subtitle promises) to psychology, history of philosophy, phenomenology, and beyond. The book's central theses are that doxastic sentimentalism "plays a central role in the history of modern epistemology" (30), and that it ought to play a greater role in contemporary systematic work in epistemology. Doxastic sentiments are feelings related to beliefs, or "beliefy feelings" (1). Though there are various beliefy feelings, certainty and related feelings have been the most prominent and important in the history of epistemology. Hickerson admits various formulations of doxastic sentimentalism, varying from weak to strong (55), but the basic idea of doxastic sentimentalism is that "doxastic sentiments always accompany beliefs about what exists, or about what is the case" (2). Hickerson argues that doxastic sentimentalism has been an important strand in the history of modern philosophy, though one that has been largely neglected. It has gone unnoticed in part because certainty has been conceptualized by psychologists and philosophers alike in ways that obscure its sentimental character. Hickerson proposes to remedy this neglect by providing highlights of an alternative history of philosophy, critical overviews of the psychological research on certainty, and novel phenomenological analyses of the feeling of believing. The book consists of a substantial introduction and conclusion bookending six chapters on history, psychology, and phenomenology. The four historical chapters on Hume, Descartes, Husserl, and James tease out the overt and covert strands of doxastic sentimentalism in each thinker. Interrogating these classic texts in this light leads to refreshing, highly original readings, even where Hickerson needs to hack through a thicket of secondary literature to return to the original sources. The chapter on Descartes breaks an interpretive stalemate and refines the classic Cartesian circle by interpreting "clarity and distinctness" as doxastic sentiments. The chapter on Husserl carefully disentangles the various notions of Evidenz in Husserl's corpus to arrive at a doxastic sentimentalist understanding of imperfect self-evidence, a finding that is as provocative on first glance as it is compelling after considering Hickerson's careful exegesis and argument. A chapter reviewing recent decades of psychological research on overconfidence highlights the need to distinguish between metacognitive judgments and metacognitive feelings, an insight as important for psychology as for philosophy. And a chapter on the phenomenology and psychology of beliefy feelings makes the case, critical for the book's overall argument, that doxastic sentiments can go unnoticed and hence may be more prevalent in our conscious experience than we are wont to acknowledge. The book concludes with a segue to virtue epistemology, arguing that attending to these usually unnoticed doxastic sentiments is epistemically virtuous. Feelings of Believing is thoroughly researched and cogently argued. It spans a broad range of historical and contemporary issues from diverse perspectives, but with minimal sacrifice of depth on all fronts. Of course, any book that covers this much territory is bound to leave some gaps. One might have expected to find greater engagement with the burgeoning cognitive phenomenology literature. While the book stresses the distinction between beliefs and judgments, it does little to elucidate the process(es) of deliberation that lead from the former to the latter. And though the fruits of Hickerson's investigations themselves stand as a provisional proof of concept for the hybrid method of incorporating phenomenology, psychology, and history of philosophy, some specialists in each field will surely be irked by what will be perceived as external meddling from practitioners of the others. But these are niggling points of critique in the face of the book's many merits. Substantively, Hickerson advances an original, highly controversial thesis, and by the [End Page 340] book's end doxastic sentimentalism stands...

Cognitive Dimension of Historical Memory in Paul Ricoeur's Concept

The article considers Paul Ricoeur's concept of historical memory. Its three parts include the phenomenology of memory, the epistemology of history and the hermeneutics of the historical state, directly related to the notion of duty. At all three levels, the cognitive component is very important, but its nature differs significantly. From Ricoeur's perspective, the duty “not to forget” turns out to be an oath of allegiance to the very ability of human consciousness to construct and reinterpret temporal distance, while maintaining a sense of shock or uniqueness of the event that cannot be replaced by a conventional narrative. It is proved that this approach can be a productive basis for coordinating different conceptual approaches that have emerged in contemporary cognitive research.

Cultural-Historical Epistemology and Perspectives of the Philosophy of Science

The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the methodological effectiveness of one of the directions in developing the philosophy of science – cultural and historical epistemology. Cultural-historical epistemology does not pretend at all to be any radical epistemological originality but offers a general view of science as a part of intellectual culture, where both individual historical cases and broad sociological generalizations find their methodologically significant place. The authors believe that it is the development of methodological norms capable of determining the fundamental parameters and strategies of scientific research that is now the central task of the philosophy of science. One of the characteristic forms of organization of modern advanced science is interdisciplinary research programs that involve the joint activities of large research teams. This fact raises a critical question about the mutual understanding of specialists from different disciplines and, accordingly, about the development of methodological norms that can determine the generally accepted parameters of the reproducibility of cognition results. Thus, in the center of attention of the philosophy of science, epistemological plots are put forward, one way or another connected with a specific understanding of the phenomenon of communication in science. Moreover, according to the authors, in these philosophical and methodological searches, it is essential to overcome, on the one hand, the inclination to conceptual design that leads away from the real methodological needs of science and, on the other hand, straightforward sociologization and equally direct historicization of science. These approaches are fraught with relativization of the very idea of scientific knowledge as a rational phenomenon of culture. The authors of the article believe that in modern conceptual trends in the philosophy of science, it is necessary to accentuate quite traditional epistemological principles, which in their updated edition make it possible to activate, or, as it were, to revive the methodological functions of the philosophy of science that are partially lost today. Justifying this approach, the authors turn to the epistemological trend, which for two decades has been developed based on the traditions of Russian philosophy of the first half of the 20th century.