Problem of Truth in Historiography

Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Humanities (ICCESSH 2019)

2019

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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.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical Memory as the Basis of Group Identity

Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Humanities (ICCESSH 2019)

2019

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“…The narrative can only match the sources or not advise them. At the same time, the source, in turn, is also a narrative [2].…”

Section: Historical Narrative Cannot Be Attributed To Science Becausementioning

confidence: 99%

Epistemological Status of Ideas About the Past: History Is Not a Science

Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Humanities (ICCESSH 2019)

2019

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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.

“…According to the French historians Charles-Victor Langlois and Charles Seignobos, constating the historical facts, historian uses an analogy, finding in the past similarities with and nowadays. In this case, the historian proceeds from the speculative assumption that the facts from the past occur in the same way as the analogous facts of the present [9]. But, the present is different from the past and in it in similar circumstances people act not like in the past.…”

Section: The Route That Historical Facts Are Createdmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical Fact, Fact from the Past and Historical Fact

Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Ecological Studies (CESSES 2019)

2019

Scientific facts are theoretical constructors, describing and explaining a phenomena, given to researcher as a sensitive reality, by fundamental laws. Facts from the past unlike a scientific facts, describe not-being which is transcendental, incognizable and reproduced only abstractedly. Facts from the past describe the events that are unique and unrepeatable and which cannot be proved by experiments. That's why the methods of historical facts constructing are significant different from the methods of describing and explaining empirical facts of reality. They are based on imagination and life experience, and are not determined by the object of cognition, but by the worldview of the historian.