From its very beginning, history was regarded as rational and scientific knowledge objectively reflecting historical reality. Such ideal definition of the past has no fundamental epistemological foundation and is not based on the concepts of the classical scientific rationality, since historiography does not comply with any of the existing concepts of truth. The author concludes that none of the scientific criteria of truth can be applied to recounting the past. Conclusion can be made that claims of historiography for truth are not justified. Historical narrative cannot be true or false, it can only be consistent or inconsistent with the source. Historiographical constructs are ontologically subjective and biased preventing us from restoring the past as a whole picture without speculative assumptions. Thus, from epistemological point of view, scientific knowledge about the past is impossible.
The paper examines the role of historiography in the formation of the identity of imaginary communities ("wegroups") by conceptualizing the past. Historiographic concepts serve both to define the boundaries of "their" group and selfidentify its members, as well as to form opinions about other "we-groups". Concepts of identity based on the common perceptions of the past in this community are created within the framework of special institutions. They are considered as a phenomenon of "historical memory", which is a modus of "cultural memory". A distinctive feature of "historical memory" is an appeal to the mythological images and mutually exclusive interpretations of the past. In the ideological aspect, historiography serves as the basis for justifying the claims of this "we-group" in the present.
The paper is concerned with the idea that history is not a science, but a synthetic worldview, combining scientific rationality with mythological, religious, everyday and artistic worldviews. The task of historiography is not the search for truth, but the creation of concepts for the collective identity of imaginary communities and the ideological substantiation of their claims in the present. The methods of science are not applicable to historiography, and its narratives do not meet the criteria of truth and are not explanatory theories. The author emphasized ideas that from an epistemological point of view, history relates to opinion, instead of knowledge.
Рассмотрено значение историографии в формировании идентичности воображаемых сообществ («мы-групп») путем концептуализации и стандартизации представлений о прошлом. Исследован вопрос о том, как историографические концепты используются для определения границ группы и самоидентификации ее членов. Проанализирован феномен «историческая память», отличительными чертами которого является обращение к мифологическим образам и взаимоисключающие для разных сообществ интерпретации одних и тех же событий прошлого. Историческая память выступает как идеологически обусловленная модель прошлого и служит основой для оправдания притязаний данной «мы-группы» в настоящем.
Скудность летописных свидетельств вынуждает использ овать в качестве основного источника информации о князе Александре
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