Historical Epistemology Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
En quelques formules définitives, concluant sa remarquable synthèse sur la fin de l'Antiquité, Henri Pirenne (m. 1935) s'est imposé comme la référence historiographique contemporaine majeure du monde méditerranéen proto-médiéval. L'Islâm,... more
En quelques formules définitives, concluant sa remarquable synthèse sur la fin de l'Antiquité, Henri Pirenne (m. 1935) s'est imposé comme la référence historiographique contemporaine majeure du monde méditerranéen proto-médiéval. L'Islâm, en faisant irruption sur ces rivages du VIIe au VIIIe s. aurait d’après lui si profondément bouleversé les échanges entre l'Ouest et l'Est qu'il aurait provoqué une véritable « fermeture » économique et circulatoire de la Méditerranée occidentale. L'Europe de l'Ouest, amputée de son accès à l’ancien Mare Nostrum, aurait été obligée de se réinventer pour donner naissance à l'Occident chrétien, sous l’égide de la dynastie carolingienne, issue d’ailleurs de Francie septentrionale. En somme, « Charlemagne sans Mahomet serait inconcevable » . Or cette thèse, en dépit de ses qualités, a très vite été contestée, notamment par les spécialistes du monde arabe, dès les années 1940. A la fin du XXe s., avec la prise en compte de nouvelles sources en particulier archéologiques, elle a perdu un peu de son éclat.
L’Occident méditerranéen du haut Moyen Âge doit-il donc encore être considéré comme un lac musulman ou comme une frontière de l'Islâm ?
Sans prétendre trancher cet épineux problème en quelques pages, il nous a paru intéressant d’analyser la controverse en elle-même pour tenter d’y voir un peu plus clair. Confronté aux assertions contradictoires d’historiens qui délaissent parfois l’habit du chercheur pour endosser celui du polémiste, on verra qu’un retour aux sources au sens littéral de l’expression s’impose, avant de proposer quelques nouvelles pistes d’analyse
Kinder zeichnen schon sehr lange. Und es ist schwer vorstellbar, dass sie es nicht in jeder Kultur getan haben, die den allgemeinen Gebrauch von Ritzinstrumenten oder Stiften und Formen der bildlichen Repräsentation kannte. Dennoch ist... more
Kinder zeichnen schon sehr lange. Und es ist schwer vorstellbar, dass sie es nicht in jeder Kultur getan haben, die den allgemeinen Gebrauch von Ritzinstrumenten oder Stiften und Formen der bildlichen Repräsentation kannte. Dennoch ist die ›Entdeckung‹ der Kinderzeichnung ein genuin modernes Phänomen. Seit dem 16. Jahrhundert ist ein Interesse der professionellen Maler am Phänomen Kinderzeichnung nachweisbar, aber erst in den 1880er Jahren werden die graphischen Versuche der Kinder zum Gegenstand wissenschaftlicher Reflexion. Die »Kunst der Kinder« etablierte sich in der Folge als ein wichtiges Instrument der Entwicklungs- und Intelligenzpsychologie, der Pädagogik und Psychoanalyse. Die Wissenschaften vom Kinde erschlossen das Zeichnen als ein Mittel der Kommunikation, welches Dispositionen, Bedürfnisse und Konflikte dokumentiert, die das Kind selbst (noch) nicht sprachlich artikulieren kann. Mehr noch als das Spiel oder die Phantasie- und Lügengeschichten soll die Kinderzeichnung seither Auskunft geben über Entwicklung, Intelligenz und Raumwahrnehmung, über psychische Veranlagung und psychoanalytische Ätiologie. Das Zeichnen wurde damit als Instrument einer Normalisierung des Kindes in Dienst genommen. Die Experimentalisierung der Kinderzeichnung brachte aber auch ein neues Verständnis der anthropologischen Funktion des Zeichnens hervor, das uns bis heute begleitet: Sie hat den Blick dafür geschärft, dass es sich schon bei der harmlosesten Kritzelei um ein Medium der Subjektwerdung des Kindes handelt, das es ihm ermöglicht und erleichtert ein erkennendes, denkendes und handelndes Subjekt zu werden.
Die Untersuchung versteht sich als Beitrag zu der in der Literaturwissenschaft, Philosophie und Wissenschaftsgeschichte geführten Debatte um die Darstellungsformen von Wissen bzw. das »Wissen der Literatur«, geht jedoch in zweifacher... more
Die Untersuchung versteht sich als Beitrag zu der in der Literaturwissenschaft, Philosophie und Wissenschaftsgeschichte geführten Debatte um die Darstellungsformen von Wissen bzw. das »Wissen der Literatur«, geht jedoch in zweifacher Hinsicht über diese hinaus. Zum einen zeigt sie, wie und warum die Forderung nach einer gegenüber wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis alternativen, literarisch vermittelten Erkenntnis in einer bestimmten geistes- und kultur-geschichtlichen Konstellation virulent wird: in der Lebens- bzw. Weltanschauungsphilosophie von 1870 bis 1930 sowie im Werk Robert Musils. Zum anderen nimmt die Arbeit eine Akzentverlagerung vor. Im Mittelpunkt steht nicht die oft mit unbefriedigenden Ergebnissen diskutierte Frage, ob Literatur generell, sondern unter welchen konkreten Umständen ein bestimmtes literarisches Werk Wissen vermittelt. Die nicht zuletzt mithilfe von Begrifflichkeiten und Einsichten der Analytischen Erkenntnistheorie formulierten Bedingungen, unter denen dies der Fall ist, ermöglichen schließlich exemplarische Analysen von Musils schriftstellerischen Versuchen, eine »lebendige Erkenntnis« zu kommunizieren.
Ian Hacking’s Representing and Intervening (1983) is often credited to be one of the first works that focused on the role of experimentation in philosophy of science, initiating a movement which is sometimes called the “philosophy of... more
Ian Hacking’s Representing and Intervening (1983) is often credited to be one of the first works that focused on the role of experimentation in philosophy of science, initiating a movement which is sometimes called the “philosophy of experiment” (Hacking, 1988) or “new experimentalism” (Ackermann, 1989). Moreover, in the 1980s, a number of other movements and scholars also started to focus on the role of experimentation and instruments in science, ranging from science studies (Pickering, 1984; Shapin & Schaffer, 1985; Latour, 1987), Hans Radder (1984) and postphenomenology (Ihde, 1979). A philosophical study of experiments seems thus to be an invention of the 1980s, with Hacking being one of its central figures.This article aims to assess this historical claim by Hacking and others. First of all, from a broader perspective on the history of philosophy, this invention narrative is incorrect, since experiment has been a topic for philosophers before, ranging from Ernst Mach (1905), Pi...
Gustav Adolf Bergenroth (1813-1869) manipula documentos diplomáticos del Archivo de Simancas, que maltraduce y malinterpreta para deformar la personalidad de la reina doña Juana de Castilla con el objetivo de calumniar criminalmente al... more
Gustav Adolf Bergenroth (1813-1869) manipula documentos diplomáticos del Archivo de Simancas, que maltraduce y malinterpreta para deformar la personalidad de la reina doña Juana de Castilla con el objetivo de calumniar criminalmente al hijo rey Carlos emperador, al padre Fernando, a la dinastía hispano austriaca, y para denigrar la historia de España, de Europa y el Nuevo Mundo. La influencia de sus manipulaciones en la historiografía incluso profesional y en todos los ámbitos de la cultura, sigue activa.
Lorraine Daston arrived in Montevideo in the last carnival holidays. Although it was her first time not only in this city but in Latin America, her books are well known among historians and philosophers of science from... more
Lorraine Daston arrived in Montevideo in the last carnival holidays. Although it was her first time not only in this city but in Latin America, her books are well known among historians and philosophers of science from this part of the world. In her visit, she gave a Seminar about
Historical Epistemology – the historical practice that she develops in the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, in Berlin –, a way to understand scientific past in order to comprehend the science of the present. She also offered a lecture at the National Museum of Arts named “Big Calculation and the History of Intelligence”, where she presented – for a big audience – what the roots of nowadays fashioned studies in machine learning and artificial intelligence are. Finally, she participated in the reunion of the General Archive of the Universidad de la República de
Uruguay [the academic Department of the archive was the main responsible for her visit to Uruguay], and discussed the role of archives in the constitution of future science.
Presentation at “The Way We Think: A Research Symposium on Conceptual Integration and the Nature and Origin of Cognitively Modern Humans.” University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Demark, August 19-23, 2002. Document includes Supplemental... more
Presentation at “The Way We Think: A Research Symposium on Conceptual Integration and the Nature and Origin of Cognitively Modern Humans.” University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Demark, August 19-23, 2002. Document includes Supplemental Materials: Resource Guide and Commentaries
In recent years the relationship between language change and biological evolution has captured the attention of investigators operating in different disciplines, particularly evolutionary biology, AI and A-Life (Zeimke 2001, Hull 2001), as well as linguistics (Croft 2000; Sinha 1999), with each group often bringing radically different conceptualizations of the object under study, namely, “language” itself, to the debate. Over the centuries, meanings associated with the expression “language” have been influenced by mappings of conceptual frames and inputs from the biological sciences onto the entity referred to as “language”. At the same time the prestige of the “science of linguistics” created a feedback mechanism by which the referentiality of “language”, at each stage, was mapped back into the field of evolutionary biology along with the emergent structure(s) of the resulting “blend”. While significant energy has been spent on identifying ways in which biological evolution has been linked to concepts of language evolution (Dörries 2002), little attention has been directed to the nature of the conceptual integration networks that have been produced in the process. This paper examines the way conceptual integration theory can be brought to bear on the “blends” that have been created, focusing primarily on examples drawn from 19th century debates concerning the “language-species-organism analogy” in the emerging field of comparative-historical philology.
Resumen. Propósito: identificar, en la obra del filósofo francés Michel Foucault, el uso del concepto diagnóstico como un instrumento de comprensión de las identidades individuales y colectivas en el mundo contemporáneo y su relación con... more
Resumen. Propósito: identificar, en la obra del filósofo francés Michel Foucault, el uso del concepto diagnóstico como un instrumento de comprensión de las identidades individuales y colectivas en el mundo contemporáneo y su relación con las arqueologías y genealogías de la medicina realizadas por el propio autor. Tema: historia
de la medicina, antropología médica, filosofía médica. Desarrollo: se realiza un seguimiento a la obra del autor en tres etapas, con el fin de mostrar el tratamiento diferenciado del tema de la medicina en las mismas. También se destacan los modos de comprensión y los fines que cada lectura tiene sobre el discurso médico en estos tres momentos. Hallazgos: la medicina en la obra de Foucault explica tres
fenómenos. Primero, la identificación de las condiciones de posibilidad discursivas que permitieron la aparición de la medicina clínica moderna. Segundo, el señalamiento de fenómenos extra-discursivos (política, economía, sociedad) que permitieron la aparición de una medicina en sentido estricto moderna. Tercero, las formas como las racionales médicas intervienen en los individuos y la sociedad. Conclusión: la obra de Foucault contribuye, en su lectura de la medicina, a la clarificación
de las formas de sujeto que produce la vida moderna.
RESUMO: O objetivo deste artigo é demonstrar a ruptura entre senso comum e conhecimento científico da Química a partir da epistemologia de Gaston Bachelard. Como fio condutor para tal análise, tomou-se os conceitos de materialismo... more
RESUMO: O objetivo deste artigo é demonstrar a ruptura entre senso comum e conhecimento científico da Química a partir da epistemologia de Gaston Bachelard. Como fio condutor para tal análise, tomou-se os conceitos de materialismo imediato e materialismo instruído, que aparecem principalmente na obra bachelardiana Le Matérialisme Rationnel de 1953, como grandes bases de pensamentos que fundamentaram a ciência Química em períodos históricos diferentes. Demonstrar-se-á que, na epistemologia de Bachelard, o conceito de materialismo imediato equivale ao momento em que ocorria continuidade entre senso comum e conhecimento científico e que as diversas rupturas e inovações conceituais que ocorreram na contemporaneidade irão instaurar uma nova Química, fundamentada em uma nova base de pensamento, intitulada por Bachelard de materialismo instruído. Aqui, o materialismo se encontra no estado avançado da cultura científica e, ao incorporar o conhecimento discursivo sobre a matéria, rompe com os conhecimentos das aparências e se distancia definitivamente das ideias elementares ligadas ao senso comum. A Química do novo espírito científico é apresentada pela epistemologia bachelardiana como uma ciência inventiva que cria seu objeto, ela instruí e ordena a realidade a partir do pensamento matemático através de técnicas muito peculiares e, deste modo, se distancia da análise imediata sobre os dados empíricos da realidade comum. A epistemologia da química bachelardiana aponta para uma série de reorganizações e atualizações conceituais que servem para caracterizar as provas da evolução do pensamento científico.
Résumé : Ce texte concerne la place de la théorie de l’évolution dans l’argumentaire de L’Essai sur quelques problèmes concernant le normal et le pathologique. Après avoir rappelé l’importance de la pensée biologique dans l’œuvre du... more
Résumé : Ce texte concerne la place de la théorie de l’évolution dans l’argumentaire de L’Essai sur quelques problèmes concernant le normal et le pathologique. Après avoir rappelé l’importance de la pensée biologique dans l’œuvre du philosophe et survolé ses premières « études évolutionnistes », l'article analyse du « problème de l’évolution », tel qu’examiné par Canguilhem lors d’un cours en 1942-43 à la faculté des lettres de l'université de Strasbourg. Demeuré inédit, ce cours intitulé "La biologie" complète celui sur "Les normes et le normal" et montre que le philosophe était moins préoccupé par la question de l’hérédité de l’acquis que par la démonstration scientifique du rôle des mutations dans la genèse des espèces. En effet, si la mutation n’est pas de facto létale ou subpathologique, comme le croient habituellement les biologistes d’orientation « fixiste », mais apte à donner naissance à de nouvelles formes de vie, c’est la preuve que « l’anomalie » ne doit pas en retour être tenue d’emblée pour anormale. L’examen des théories évolutionnistes conduit cependant Canguilhem à reconnaître qu’à lui seul, le mutationnisme échoue à rendre compte de « l’orientation adaptative » des vivants ; d’où l’évocation du principe darwinien de sélection naturelle pour expliquer l’adaptation au milieu. Souvent décrite comme un processus conservateur du « type moyen » dans une population, la sélection apparaît elle aussi inadéquate à expliquer la production de la nouveauté en biologie. Afin de lever cette objection, Canguilhem fait appel aux travaux du zoologiste Georges Teissier qui montrent que la sélection peut se révéler « créatrice » lorsque les conditions extérieures changent. Teissier apporte également au philosophe des éléments qui appuient la thèse de la non-indifférence du vivant au milieu, fondement de la « normativité vitale » et point de départ de sa philosophie biologique.
Zeit für ein neues Ignorabimus? Über Erkenntnisgrenzen in der Wissenschaft
The history of economics has often been described as the " history of economic thought. " In this essay, I explore an alternative perspective that builds on the French tradition of historical epistemology and treats economics as a social... more
The history of economics has often been described as the " history of economic thought. " In this essay, I explore an alternative perspective that builds on the French tradition of historical epistemology and treats economics as a social practice. I argue that a practice-based view provides a more philosophically robust conception of historiography and a richer field of investigation for historians of economics.
An introduction to Descartes' theory of knowledge (again, designed for those with little previous familiarity with the history of epistemology). The stage is then set to teach them in subsequent classes about Peirce's critique of... more
An introduction to Descartes' theory of knowledge (again, designed for those with little previous familiarity with the history of epistemology). The stage is then set to teach them in subsequent classes about Peirce's critique of Descartes, and Dewey's of Plato.
In irgend einem abgelegenen Winkel des in zahllosen Sonnensystemen flimmernd ausgegos-senen Weltalls gab es einmal ein Gestirn, auf dem kluge Tiere das Erkennen erfanden. Es war die hochmütigste und verlogenste Minute der... more
In irgend einem abgelegenen Winkel des in zahllosen Sonnensystemen flimmernd ausgegos-senen Weltalls gab es einmal ein Gestirn, auf dem kluge Tiere das Erkennen erfanden. Es war die hochmütigste und verlogenste Minute der "Weltgeschichte": aber doch nur eine Minute. Nach wenigen Atemzügen der Natur erstarrte das Gestirn, und die klugen Tiere mußten sterben.-So könnte jemand eine Fabel erfinden und würde doch nicht genügend illustriert haben, wie kläglich, wie schattenhaft und flüchtig, wie zwecklos und beliebig sich der menschliche Intellekt innerhalb der Natur ausnimmt. Es gab Ewigkeiten, in denen er nicht war; wenn es wieder mit ihm vorbei ist, wird sich nichts begeben haben. Denn es gibt für jenen Intellekt keine weitere Mission, die über das Menschenleben hinausführte. Sondern menschlich ist er, und nur sein Besitzer und Erzeuger nimmt ihn so pathetisch, als ob die Angeln der Welt sich in ihm drehten.
This article seeks to reconstruct the implicit epistemic assumptions that shaped descriptions of visuality and vision in three mid-eleventh-century collections of painters' biographies-Liu Daochun's 劉道醇 (fl. 1050-1060) Shengchao minghua... more
This article seeks to reconstruct the implicit epistemic assumptions that shaped descriptions of visuality and vision in three mid-eleventh-century collections of painters' biographies-Liu Daochun's 劉道醇 (fl. 1050-1060) Shengchao minghua ping 聖朝名畫評 (c. 1057) and Wudai minghua buyi 五代名畫補遺 (1059), and Guo Ruoxu's 郭若虛 (c. 1041-c. 1098) Tuhua jianwen zhi 圖畫見聞志 (c. 1074). Through a close reading of these texts, which record how these two Northern Song literati viewed and recalled paintings both lost and extant, this article will explain how they imagined the processes of visual perception and memory to function. Liu and Guo's written descriptions of the experiences of observers viewing paintings, and of painters viewing and painting pictorial subject matter, provide evidence of two distinctive understandings of visuality that involved both optical visualization in the present and mentalized visions in memory. For Liu and Guo, writing about viewing paintings reactivated the experience of seeing for themselves, which involved reconstituting images from their own visual memories, or describing other observers'-as well as visual experiences from a further remove. By analyzing these corpora of painters’ biographies, we can understand more than just the critical apparatus of connoisseurship at its formative stage. More important, we can reconstruct how Liu and Guo represented these acts of seeing, and what kinds of visual experiences and qualities they chose to remember and record. Liu and Guo articulated three types of visuality: the experience of viewing paintings firsthand, the mimetic abilities of painters to convey the life-likeness or form-likeness of painted subjects, and the capacity of painted images to induce mentalized visions of augmented realities. By revealing how textuality, visuality, and materiality were interconnected, this article demonstrates how these two writers presented distinctive and divergent conceptions of the visual experience of viewing and creating paintings.
This is the first edition of Haack's internationally-acclaimed book, published by Blackwell in 1993. readers may note with interest Putnam's observation, on the back cover, that Popper, Quine, Rorty, Goldman and the Churchlands, among... more
PREVIEW ONLY - READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE: https://doi.org/10.33929/sherm.2020.vol2.no1.09 This essay argues for the rationality of truth claims arising from religious faith over against the contention that such claims are, at best,... more
PREVIEW ONLY - READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE:
https://doi.org/10.33929/sherm.2020.vol2.no1.09
This essay argues for the rationality of truth claims arising from religious faith over against the contention that such claims are, at best, viewed as subjective "value" language or, at worst, strictly irrational. An argument will be offered for the epistemic warrant of faith-based claims, not for the objective veracity of the religious claims themselves.
Tese que reconstitui toda a trajetória do pensamento de Georges Canguilhem, buscando demonstrar a imprevisibilidade das mutações ocorridas em sua obra, bem como a originalidade de cada reformulação pela qual ela passou, sem que nunca se... more
Tese que reconstitui toda a trajetória do pensamento de Georges Canguilhem, buscando demonstrar a imprevisibilidade das mutações ocorridas em sua obra, bem como a originalidade de cada reformulação pela qual ela passou, sem que nunca se apagasse totalmente a conservação de uma herança dos períodos anteriores. Divide-se em quatro capítulos, para cada um dos quais foi priorizado um acontecimento externo como índice de modificação da filosofia canguilhemiana. O primeiro capítulo (1926-1939) inicia-se reconstituindo a influência exercida sobre ele por Alain e pela Wertphilosophie, tendo como marco de mudança os acontecimentos políticos que conduziram à Segunda Guerra Mundial, o que levará Canguilhem a romper com o pacifismo de seu primeiro mestre e a constituir um pluralismo axiológico que se coloca para além do neo-kantismo. O segundo capítulo (1940-1956) tem como acontecimento sua incursão no domínio médico, já iniciada alguns anos antes, mas que terá suas consequências com a publicação de suas três teses, em que reelabora sua filosofia dos valores inserindo agora a vida como valor a coordenar os demais valores. Entre o segundo e o terceiro períodos analisados, Canguilhem passa a emprestar conceitos à epistemologia bachelardiana na prática da história das ciências, o que permitirá que ele aborde o acontecimento que analisaremos no terceiro capítulo de um modo novo. Assim, o terceiro capítulo (1957-1966) prioriza a ruptura realizada pelo advento da genética no domínio das ciências da vida, o que exigirá uma retificação do conceito de vida por Canguilhem, o que ele fará concebendo essa novidade em biologia como uma “ruptura epistemológica”. O quarto e último capítulo (1966-1995) analisa um acontecimento na esfera das ciências sociais e humanas na França, ocorrida sobretudo com as obras de Althusser e Foucault. Canguilhem formulará um último conceito, o de “ideologia científica”, que permitirá responder a seus jovens colegas e revigorar o empréstimo que já fizera à epistemologia histórica de Bachelard, ensejando também um reexame de toda sua obra pregressa. Desse modo, a filosofia na qual a obra de Canguilhem culmina pode definir-se como: um pluralismo dos valores (cap. 1), coordenado nos termos de um vitalismo racionalista (cap. 2), que se nutre dos resultados colhidos a partir da prática de uma epistemologia histórica das ciências da vida (cap. 3), cujo objetivo é reformular o estatuto filosófico do homem enquanto ser vivente, investigando as condições de possibilidade práticas para uma pedagogia da cura (cap. 4).
Lorraine Daston é uma das mais importantes e inovadoras historiadoras das ciências da atualidade. A ausência, até aqui, de traduções brasileiras dos seus trabalho deixava uma lacuna considerável para um público mais amplo e interessado em... more
Lorraine Daston é uma das mais importantes e inovadoras historiadoras das ciências da atualidade. A ausência, até aqui, de traduções brasileiras dos seus trabalho deixava uma lacuna considerável para um público mais amplo e interessado em acompanhar os debates mais vivos na historiografia das ciências. O título deste livro, "Historicidade e Objetividade", não indica apenas um dos principais temas das pesquisas desenvolvidas por Daston no Instituto Max Planck para a História da Ciência, em Berlim – a história dos ideais e das práticas da objetividade científica –, mas um dos problemas mais fundamentais da epistemologia histórica.
Drawing from a rich corpus of art works, including sarcophagi, tomb paintings, and floor mosaics, Patrick R. Crowley investigates how something as insubstantial as a ghost could be made visible through the material grit of stone and... more
Drawing from a rich corpus of art works, including sarcophagi, tomb paintings, and floor mosaics, Patrick R. Crowley investigates how something as insubstantial as a ghost could be made visible through the material grit of stone and paint. In this fresh and wide-ranging study, he uses the figure of the ghost to offer a new understanding of the status of the image in Roman art and visual culture. Tracing the shifting practices and debates in antiquity about the nature of vision and representation, Crowley shows how images of ghosts make visible structures of beholding and strategies of depiction. Yet the figure of the ghost simultaneously contributes to a broader conceptual history that accounts for how modalities of belief emerged and developed in antiquity. Neither illustrations of ancient beliefs in ghosts nor depictions of afterlife, these images show us something about the visual event of seeing itself. The Phantom Image offers essential insight into ancient art, visual culture, and the history of the image.
Protocolo de Tesis Doctoral que presenta:
Knowing and doing history are two major approaches in teaching history.
In recent years there have been plenty of conferences dedicated to historical epistemology. In the last two years alone, three conferences on this topic have met in Berlin, Columbia and Leuven. The first conference dedicated to historical... more
In recent years there have been plenty of conferences dedicated to historical epistemology. In the last two years alone, three conferences on this topic have met in Berlin, Columbia and Leuven. The first conference dedicated to historical epistemology was organized by Ian Hacking in Montreal in 1993. This wealth of conferences has prompted some to think that such a craze is a mere fad: historical epistemology would only be a useless label ("naming without necessity," according to Gingras) 1 or even a brand that would only serve an advertising purpose: that of justifying the applications for funding of a particular institution. In other words, all the fuss about historical epistemology would merely amount to creating a market from nothing. However, anybody working in the advertising business knows very well that it is impossible to create a market from nothing: nothing can be sold if it does not answer a certain need, albeit more or less vaguely felt.
In the mid-1800s, there was much debate about the origin or 'exciting cause' of cholera. Despite much confusion surrounding the disease, the so-called miasma theory emerged as the prevalent account about cholera's cause. Going against... more
In the mid-1800s, there was much debate about the origin or 'exciting cause' of cholera. Despite much confusion surrounding the disease, the so-called miasma theory emerged as the prevalent account about cholera's cause. Going against this mainstream view, the British physician John Snow inferred several things about cholera's origin and pathology that no one else inferred. Without observing the vibrio cholerae, however,-data unavailable to Snow and his colleagues-, there was no way of settling the question of what exactly was causing cholera and how, or if, it was passed on. The question then arises as to how Snow arrived at conclusions so systematically different from those of his opponents. In this paper, I want to look at Snow's reasoning in some detail, and show that there were certain principles, explanatory power in particular, that were epistemologically important to Snow in their own right. I will show that Snow himself takes explanatory power to be an epistemic property, and makes explicit links between explanatory power and confirmation. Systematically juxtaposing Snow's claims and his opponents', I will show that Snow was right to tout the explanatory power of his theory, and that his conclusions about the epistemic superiority of his theory over that of the miasmatists' were justified.
This collection of essays and notes attempts to tread the invisible borders between mythos, the neoliberal-Christian-nationalist 'world view' and socio-political trends in the rise of Trump, the Red Hats and the Evangelicals to political... more
This collection of essays and notes attempts to tread the invisible borders between mythos, the neoliberal-Christian-nationalist 'world view' and socio-political trends in the rise of Trump, the Red Hats and the Evangelicals to political dominance in the United States.
This essay offers a reconfiguration of the possibility-space of positions regarding the metaphysics and epistemology associated with historical knowledge. a tradition within analytic philosophy from Danto to Dummett attempts to answer... more
This essay offers a reconfiguration of the possibility-space of positions regarding the metaphysics and epistemology associated with historical knowledge. a tradition within analytic philosophy from Danto to Dummett attempts to answer questions about the reality of the past on the basis of two shared assumptions. The first takes individual statements as the relevant unit of semantic and philosophical analysis. The second presumes that variants of realism and antirealism about the past exhaust the metaphysical options (and so shape the epistemology as well). This essay argues that both of these assumptions should be rejected. It develops as an alternative an irrealist account of history, a view based in part on work by leon Goldstein and Ian hacking. On an irrealist view, historical claims ought to be treated as subject to the same conditions and caveats that apply to any theory of empirical or scientific knowledge. Irrealism argues for pasts as made and not found. The argument emphasizes the priority of classification over perception in the order of understanding and so verification. Because nothing a priori anchors practices of classification, no sense can be attached to claims that some single structure must or does determine what events take place in human history. Irrealism denies to realism the very intelligibility of any imagined view from nowhere, that is, a determinately configured past subsisting sub specie aeternitatis. a plurality of pasts exists because constituting a past always depends to some degree on socially mediated negotiations of a fit between descriptions and experience.
Colonialism is both a practice and a worldview. As a practice, it involves the domination of a society by settlers from a different society. As a worldview, colonialism is a truly global geopolitical, economic, and cultural doctrine that... more
Colonialism is both a practice and a worldview. As a practice, it involves the domination of a society by settlers from a different society. As a worldview, colonialism is a truly global geopolitical, economic, and cultural doctrine that is rooted in the worldwide expansion of West European capitalism that survived until well after the collapse of most colonial empires.
The review of the different analysis that historiography has made of Queen Urraca of Castile (1109-1126) across centuries is an excuse to put forward two ideas on the nature: 1) of the narratives that each period made about the past and... more
The review of the different analysis that historiography has made of Queen Urraca of Castile (1109-1126) across centuries is an excuse to put forward two ideas on the nature: 1) of the narratives that each period made about the past and 2) their legitimacy as interpretations.
يقوم المنجز التأويلي الذي درس موضوع علاقة النحو العربي بالنطق الأرسطي، أو ”اليوناني“ مثلما يُطلق عليه أحيانا، على التحرك وفق استراتيجيات مختلفة : تاريخية، إبستيمولوجية، فلسفية، لسانية، المتشكلة كلها داخل التاريخ، بالشكل الذي اتخذ معه هذا... more
يقوم المنجز التأويلي الذي درس موضوع علاقة النحو العربي بالنطق الأرسطي، أو ”اليوناني“ مثلما يُطلق عليه أحيانا، على التحرك وفق استراتيجيات مختلفة : تاريخية، إبستيمولوجية، فلسفية، لسانية، المتشكلة كلها داخل التاريخ، بالشكل الذي اتخذ معه هذا الموضوع وضعا إشكاليا متميزا ومعقدا في آن واحد. وتتنزّل النماذج التأويلية التي اقتُرحت منزلة خاصة في الدراسات اللسانية والفلسفية المعاصرة أفضت إلى نظريات ومفاهيم كان هدفها الأساس إدراج التفكير النظري النحوي ضمن منظومتين: فلسفية وعلمية يونانية، ونظرية نحوية عربية
Reliabilism is offered as an alternative to more traditional theories of epistemological justification. After tracing its earlier history, Haack focuses on Goldman's several versions, showing that all fail. It's time, she argues, to... more
Reliabilism is offered as an alternative to more traditional theories of epistemological justification. After tracing its earlier history, Haack focuses on Goldman's several versions, showing that all fail. It's time, she argues, to acknowledge that what matters is the quality of a person's evidence---as her foundherentism does.
The following examination produces a status quaestionis out of historical theologies, primarily those published between 1943 and 1958. It identifies three striking profiles among contemporary essays on historical theology, then builds on... more
The following examination produces a status quaestionis out of historical theologies, primarily those published between 1943 and 1958. It identifies three striking profiles among contemporary essays on historical theology, then builds on a conversation between epistemology, philosophy and theology. It analyzes the potential tasks of historical theology and finally urges to reconsider real history through the angle of its end, an end that is promised an assumption and subjected to judgment.
This article explores epistemological bases for debates over the nature of archival research and practice, and argues that the lens of historical epistemology helps us best understand the critiques of the so-called "archival turn" as well... more
This article explores epistemological bases for debates over the nature of archival research and practice, and argues that the lens of historical epistemology helps us best understand the critiques of the so-called "archival turn" as well as continued interest in archives among the public. Close reading of the rise of "scientific" history in the nineteenth century and modern archival practice, as articulated in early twentieth-century archival manuals, offers a new theorization of principles like provenance, respect des fonds, and custody, as well as historians' "archive stories," as part of an overarching though usually unspoken epistemology of archives rooted in intellectual project of the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey to create an epistemological foundation of the human sciences. Following this line of inquiry, it suggests that we can reconceptualize the rise of archival research, the development of the modern archival profession, and the critiques of these trends through the so-called "archival turn" and the post-custodial era of archival practice as shifts that were not just methodological in character but also epistemological. Ultimately, approaching the history of archives through the framework of epistemology helps us make sense of new critiques and continued interest in archives. Despite a growing chorus of acknowledgement of archives' constructed nature, the instinct that documents provide access to the past with some kind of evidentiary value leads toward the value imbued into archives by professionals and the public alike and their continual contestation.