Lecture by Professor Pierluigi Lecis held in class on February 2, 2009 On the epistemological status History '(part 1) by Claudia Aresu and Giulia Meloni.
For starters, the word for a historian. With a reply to prof. Martinez
I agree with the spirit in which Professor Martinez wanted to begin this meeting, giving the floor to a historian: this is very important for me and I would like to build upon it. We must first try to understand what they do historians giving them a voice, how they work, what materials, what methods, which are at least some of the key concepts that recur in their work (eg. Because, truth and reality of the past, objectivity of historical judgments). Before groped responding to the smallest provocation of Professor Martinez-if history can serve to predict the future-something, let me quote a very important contemporary historian: a British historian who lives and teaches in Italy for many years. In response to a group of guys from high school, at a meeting organized by RAI Educational, he faces the old question of whether the story resembles most of the hard sciences to literature.
How is it that you are unable to make present the facts of the past? In what may be to their truth? History has its own method, its procedures, but they are so diverse and inclusive, to get to make the value of the historian himself entirely ambivalent, leaning sometimes to the "scientific truth", but many times even at that kind of truth that can be transmitted from the reading of works such as novels, which are the result of the literary imagination. History certainly has a link with objective facts, a bond that can push you to enjoy an assimilation to the scientific method itself, since it can not be separated from the sources, the documents, the testimonies, which might serve as evidence, justifying any kind of historical explanation. They are sources that should be publicly available and verifiable. A central element of the definition of the scientific enterprise is the discovery of the truth can always be the result of open searches to one or more potential rebuttals based on evidence and facts in turn subject with the same method. But the historical method is also a narrative method: History tells stories, does not present the facts as the result of simple causal connections, but as the result of choices, ideas and human values. It is immersed in world views, in the imagination of historical characters, their personal worlds, allowing us to enter into a size able to see inside how the actions and policies, the great events of history can find its own sense in an accurate reconstruction. This movement of vision from the inside is a gesture of empathy and involvement that can take risks, instead of being radically excluded from a purely scientific explanation of the facts. The truth of the facts may, in fact, take on entirely different aspects. Historical events have certainly need to be reported to their materiality, their mere occurrence, but also represent choices and subjective dimensions of human life and their understanding requires that they be made our imagination. How history can make these demands conflict with each other?
What I will say is to present the philosophical discussions as something that does not overlap as a foreign element to the problems that historians encounter in their own craft. Before entering the
on, I will try to answer the question of Professor Martinez. "History can help us make predictions?" The application must include in my injury, that opens itself to a conception of history in which not all historians, philosophers and epistemologists agree. The question seems already to presuppose the idea that the story resembles mainly to the natural sciences that have this predictive power. For example, I can calculate, with mathematical and astronomical knowledge complex, where you will find in six months, the planet Neptune no: physics is the discipline, along with the strongest model in this regard. Many are wondering if history is a discipline of this kind, and apply its methods and concepts like object, looking for more regular, and many (historians and philosophers) re-spond to no, for many important reasons: firstly, because in history we are dealing with a very complicated subject, with an enormously complex set of variables such as human actions, or rather, the manner in which they are engaged in the natural environment, social relations and their change over time, and secondly because some of these variables appear to be quite different from those operating investigated in the natural sciences.
also studied physics actually quite complex: the physics of elementary particles not only studied mica-atoms but also that there is the matter complex, however, say the enemies of this idea (that the story 'works', broadly speaking, as the natural and social sciences), none of these particles is free to move as he wishes. So in reality I'm rica-we have not only a huge amount of variables, but also of particular variables, human individuals, who do not obey laws predetermined. This makes it very difficult to predict their actions, so you can not tell the story, as he thought Braudel, for example, is identified in almost the social sciences. On this basis, but many think it resembles more of a narrative, which allows me to understand the meaning of certain phenomena, a regular course and predictable of human events there, or at least, our ability to predict and know are very low.
So I can say that the story actually has a very different cognitive interest in the natural sciences and social needs. According to this perspective should rather be clear that historical knowledge is to understand the meaning of human actions. "Because Caesar crossed the Rubicon?" When I ask this question, I do not mind to predict the course of events whenever a person, maybe even important, pass a river. I have to understand the significance of this action, that I understand, for example, Caesar's intentions and the results of his conduct: the end of the Republic, the birth of the Empire, etc. .. It is to grasp the specific meaning of that action, rather than framing it as more of a general nature that reproduce similar events in future.
Some typical problems of the nature of historical knowledge
a) explain and understand
I do not think that things should be contrasted so strongly, but this schematic argument, in answer to the question of Professor Martinez, helps us to establish the nature of the problem. We may also make some other examples, to bring out one of the most controversial issues in European philosophy in the late '800 and early '900, and in different ways yet discussed: the notion the case was presented as a key concept of all knowledge: I know really know how to explain a phenomenon when, when I say that is caused regularly by certain antecedent conditions-teeth and produces certain conditions subsequent. For example, I understand why a stone falls because the frame it under the law of universal gravitation (and I can even calculate how fast it falls). Historians use or not use, should or should not use the concept of cause? This was a philosophical discussion very strong, very lively and contrasted for each of the previous year 's 800 and 900 of the first among philosophers, from Germany. The alternative was often presented as diversity between explaining and understanding a phenomenon. Explain a natural event means giving any reasons, the general law under which it occurred, and understanding human actions singifica, for example, to understand the intentions of the agent, if I do not understand the fall of a stone but the conduct of Caesar I try to understand the meaning attributed to Caesar crossing the Rubicon: a clear sense of intimidation, a signal for the Roman palaces, the senate of the republic and so on.
b) The objectivity of historical knowledge
Another question we can ask to highlight another problem area that concerns the nature of historical knowledge is: can I take care of past events Recent maintaining objectivity of judging? I can take care of fascism in Italy, Nazism in Europe, while maintaining a strict nature of knowledge, than a mere review, so independent of my political sympathies, moral, religious, historical analysis can give a content that can be shared even by those who have political preferences, moral and religious from mine? This we can do in history? And especially we can do for the contemporary history? Here there are two other problems, and two other key terms: objectivity 'of historical knowledge and the relationship between historical knowledge and political values, religious, moral (values \u200b\u200bso-called' non-epistemic ').
c) what they refer to the concepts of historiography? What is the historical reality?
Another question brings us to another area of \u200b\u200bphilosophical discussion on the story: what they refer to expressions such as the French Revolution, the creation of the city-state, Enlightenment rationalism, the industrial revolution? Here the question is whether these linguistic expressions correspond to something in reality the same way in which correspond to something in reality, statements like "Napoleon was born in Ajaccio 15 August 1769", "Caesar was murdered on the Ides of March": the latter expressions correspond to the facts, to things that are going in a certain way and you can determine whether they are true or false. Through the documents we can establish almost always. Of course we do not have clear records and complied with everything, but on many statements we can say if they are true or false, if not immediately, with appropriate investigations more or less complicated. You can say the same when we use terms like "French Revolution" or "industrial revolution"? Consider the typical case of the industrial revolution. The most recent historiography has shown that there is no precise and limited in fact that we can call "industrial revolution" because it is rather a lengthy process and diluted over time, there is one day a year where we can nail this concept . In case this is all to discuss what we refer to the historical reality, it is not immediately clear, in such cases in which sense we can speak of a reality independent of our representations. Which entity would be formed? would be made only to certain acts of individuals as "the birth of Napoleon on August 15," "Caesar's death", etc..? or rather the historical reality also includes entities other than individual facts? More generally we can ask: how can we succeed in establishing a historical representation in both cases that is true or false? These are problems that concern the METAPHYSICS OF HISTORY, the branch of philosophy that studies of that entity type consists of the historical reality. Behind this question of course is an old philosophical argument, which recurs in various forms historically, "the reality around us is made up solely of individuals, of individual things or there are not individual entities? For example: what is a political party? What is the Italian republic? And 'something different from all the Italians? What is the police? And 'all police officers in uniform or is it something else? It 'a building of the police station, the headquarters of the Interior Ministry? "
These issues are discussed sometimes in sociology. Social class what is it? It 'an entity other than the indi-viduals, and transcendent or superior to them is the set of individuals that belong to a social group? The real social-ties is made up of individuals belonging to the middle class and whose behavior has economic, political etc.. If we accept that there are only individual entities, all abstract terms (such as the industrial revolution, party, church, etc..) Have no direct referent in reality, are just our way of saying to talk about what they do, individuals ( this position, HCE has a story, very long) is called RATED. But there's an-that those who argue the opposite: your family There, like all institutions, because it has a proven effect on the lives of people-and community (thus there are separate 'abstract', ie non-individual, 'universal', collective. This position somewhat reminiscent of the realist conception of universal in medieval philosophy).
summarize: you can muster in three major areas of philosophical discussions about the nature of historical knowledge.
AREA OF METAPHYSICS, includes questions mentioned above: as the historical reality is made, what kind of entities constitute the historical reality. But it also extends to other issues. There is a divine providence in history? There an end to that history tends? In metaphysics we discuss these issues.
AREA hermeneutics. Hermeneutics means "art of interpretation" a great tradition of thought very influential throughout the 900 identifier for a particular kind of knowledge which is primarily with reference to human actions, based on the ability to grasp the meaning of events connected in a series in a total view. A typical image of the history of this type is that of Hegel, for him, history is the history of freedom.
grab just a few trivial meanings, to do what I do not need to look for causes and effects, but use the art of interpretation.
AREA EPISTEMOLOGY Philosophers are especially interpretation of the German area. The philosophers of the world-glosassone and an American have been studying the epistemological point of view of history trying to see especially as we build our historical representations from the very model of operation of the natural sciences. Many epistemologists
of analytical tradition (as Hempel and Popper), assimilating the work of historical knowledge to the work of the natural sciences, have argued that although there are slight differences substantially even sociologists, historians and so on. working with the same concepts, the same methods and the same goals of the scientists of the natural sciences. Even the human sciences looking for causes and effects of the ongoing socio-historical laws, in particular, historians seek to explain human actions using more psychological, sociological, etc. .. But this claim was not accepted peacefully cnhe in analytic philosophy
A case discussed by epistemologists is this: the assassination of the Archduke of Austria in Sarajevo triggered the outbreak of the First World War. Historians and philosophers who favor the idea of \u200b\u200bhistory as a science have argued that precisely the point here is to try to understand the laws of a psychological, sociological, etc.. for which the event which caused the outbreak of World War 1. Should be used in psychology to understand First motives which have prompted the murderess. It must also ensure the economic, social, the diplomatic relations between the great powers and so on. and you will notice that in this set of circumstances there is a certain regularity: when there are strong economic tensions, international politics, an event like an attack may have the power to determine a sequence of very important events.
contrast the historian and philosopher who do not see a close connection between history and empirical science, rather they tend to see the similarities between the literature, the story, even the novel, the poetic imagination have good game to say, but law that we speak in this case? There no law so every time you killed an arch-duke broke a world war.
The conflict that I just described in simple terms and is very schematic represents the theoretical contrast between two families that we call "natural" and "unnatural."
Naturalists are of course those who argue that historical knowledge is very similar to the knowledge of natural phenomena and works on the basis of laws, discovery and investigation of causal links between events. For naturalists in the history of nature as there is a relative uniformity of the behavior of the phenomena, even if the man is certainly different from an automaton from a stone, an animal and so on. and not moves only on the basis of physical and biological causes and effects, there is still a regular in the history and 'legality' of events. The unnatural
say just what we have already seen: there are no laws, there is a lack of uniformity of behavioral treatment of men, there are different situations. Some have argued that in fact the historian is interested in why a certain event happened in some circumstances there, finding a SPECIFIC CAUSATION (a-nes I know that links two special events that may not ever bind similar events in future It may not have ever linked in the past).
course there are extreme positions, that they had even denied that the concept of cause you can use in history. It 'important in this context, a great philosopher of the first 900, Wilhelm Dilthey, who thought that history does not provide causal explanations with a particular topic, but in fact the town is at the specialist level what we all do in everyday life when we understand the meaning of the actions of others. But today we can not go more than a hint on this issue, which, together with the positions Rants between natural and it is often re antinaturalistic in contemporary philosophy, in various forms, more complex, and in different cultural contexts.
Historical knowledge according to Max Weber
Why really talk about Weber? He comes from the same cultural environment of Dilthey, the German historian con-temporary (late nineteenth-early twentieth-century German), but has followed a different and theoretically very attractive. Has undertaken to show that this contrast between natural and unnatural is wrong, because the knowledge needs of different historical approaches to their material and can not be locked in either conceptual schemas. Weber's position involves all three philosophical areas that we identified as typical of re-bending philosophical knowledge historic metaphysics (what it is made the historical reality), interpretive (must also be able to understand the reasons, the reasons that guide the actions of individuals), epistemological (the story also needs the concept of cause and needs to admit a certain regularity of events). Weber's thought is worth all three points of view, and proposes a particular ideal of objectivity FOREM learning.
Weber theorized AVALUTIVITA the thesis of 'scientific studies, which was after him, the subject of numerous studies and controversies. He argued that historical knowledge is a knowledge interpretation, strictly scientific, that has to do with the rigorous and objective assessment of causal relationships between phenomena. History as a scientific discipline is by no means rigorous the task of making value judgments, moral, political, it can produce objectively verifiable truth (has a high descriptive), although the work of historians is obviously influenced by the values \u200b\u200bof society and culture to which they belong.
HISTORY:
• Subject • non-judgmental, even if values \u200b\u200bare not affected by Episteme (epistemic values \u200b\u200bare typical of scientific knowledge as coherence, simplicity, the power to lay and the like. Ckam-O is the first classic that has made this explicit policy conoscneza: to explain a phenomenon we should not bother most concepts (and even more entities) than those that are sufficient, we use the easiest way. The non-epistemic values \u200b\u200bare religious values, political and moral influence us, that do not belong to the sphere of knowledge and yet affect to a certain point on the training of hypothesis. . I
the classic example (in the writings of Weber) of the battle of Marathon, the case discussed by Weber himself in pole-mica with a great historian of the ancient history of his contemporaries: Meyer.
the early '900 why we study the battle of Marathon and we consider one important thing in terms of quantity is a matter of little importance compared to other battles, then why did the battle of Marathon is so important? To answer we need to introduce Weber had the idea that the role of non-epistemic values \u200b\u200bin the choice that historians do their research field: the historian faces the historical reality ready, defined and articulated, by contrast, is faced with a ALL 'DATA potentially infinite and there is therefore need a selection criterion that selects the facts or data material in relation to those who are not compared to some interest in cognitive faced with an "ocean of information" historians need selection criteria. The first criteria for selection are those derived from culture of belonging: to us as descendants of the ancient Greek civilization, the battle of Marathon and the Persian Wars in general are important facts because if the battle had not been there or had not been won by the Athenians, the whole historical course of our civilization would have been different, Greece would become a province of the Persian Empire, which was submitted to a regime of theocratic and we would not have seen the flourishing of free city-states of Greece.
So the criterion for selection of events is in the humanities, influenced by the values \u200b\u200bof the culture in which the historian belongs. In this sense, value judgments have a crucial epistemic role and positive, this is not a bad thing but positive, is a prerequisite to start historical research and spring-ter no interest in the past. Let
a moment by Weber, for a more general consideration about what drives us to study the pas-sato and general usefulness of this knowledge. Knowing your past is one of the most important ways in which we establish who we are and build a common world of beliefs and rules of life. There is a need for deep knowledge of history: no one without a past we do not know orient ourselves in life (even if, as Nietzsche tells us) the excess of historical knowledge can be damaging and paralyzing.
Back to Weber, who said that "we be cultural," that we need to take position to what is happening, but this poses particular problems for their correct description. Here begins the critical part of Weber compared the influence of values \u200b\u200b(non-epistemic): of course not that, as historian, I can write what I want on the fits of Marathon, on the basis of my value judgments, moral, political, etc. The historian, however, should not build myths and fables but must obey the rules of good knowledge, to point to the truth. After selecting the data collected should seek to establish causal links established according to the sources, at which point the value judgments, which initially guided the investigation, have exhausted their positive epistemic function, because we we should simply respect the methodological rules of good knowledge of the socio-historical facts.
The historian must show that really the battle of Marathon has had certain consequences, and was the result of some an-tecedenti and this must document: once that has documented that he or his readers are Muslims, Hindus or Christians , communist or liberal does not count anymore. Whatever ideology and point of view I embrace, I am able to establish and test the hypothesis that there are causal links between the battle of Marathon and the events preceding or following. Then, the historian on the one hand is certainly guided Celtic nellas object to be investigated, the values \u200b\u200bof his culture membership, and secondly he must leave behind his beliefs, ethical, religious and so on. and proceed with investigation techniques (causal) and rules (from the source) that allow us to ascertain the truth which is binding on all, anyone using these methods can establish the existence of these causal links. The historian can not (or should not) make the truth of his custom-made ideologies or interests external to the survey. Must not only do psychological reconstruction, but also make use of the whole system of possible knowledge in the field of human sciences: sociology, economics, geography etc..
Weber was open in this direction: the historian is not the one who with his Imagination gives us some members of the family and plausible story of how certain things have gone, not assomilgia a narrator in a literary sense of the word, but de-ve rigorous use of scientific knowledge, the laws of economics, psychology, ' political economy, should use this device as an instrumental apparatus needed to reconstruct individual phenomena of the past in their specific features.
The historian has the task of trying to read or make predictions but we need more of that all the science available to bring some regularity to understand the psychological and behavioral human actions.
Weber then tells us that in history, from a metaphysical point of view, there are a single individual and was therefore the nominal RADICAL (history is made of the actions of individuals and the intertwining of these actions). Concepts such as a-layers (capitalism, state, sect and similar) does not match more than the life and relationships between individuals, there is no entity 'supra'). These concepts (which Weber called ideal types) are ac-knowledge of general character: for instance, to learn how the capitalist society, I know what it means capitalism, political party, democracy, inflation, etc. ..
But there is also an important dimension of interpretation of historical knowledge as knowledge of facts and human actions. Weber considered important to study the reasons and grounds for which an individual performs a certain action.
S is open in all these directions and I do not know of any privileges, the historian can make judgments objectively valid, regardless of value preferences, political, religious and moral obligation to anyone. Produces judgments that tell us how things went: that "we like it" or not the historical past is structured in a way that we can not change. Weber believes in the objectivity and truth of historical knowledge. Weber
These ideas can also be found in the current debate in recent positions. But we will speak, if possible, on another occasion.
