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Historical Knowledge (historical + knowledge)
Selected AbstractsCOLLINGWOOD, BRADLEY, AND HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGEHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 2 2006ROBERT M. BURNS ABSTRACT The central feature of the narrative structure of Collingwood's The Idea of History (IH) is the pivotal role accorded to Bradley, evident in the table of contents and in the two discussions of him. Few readers have noticed that, confusingly, the book's first discussion of Bradley (on pages 134-141) is a revision of the (1935) Inaugural Lecture "The Historical Imagination," which constitutes the book's second discussion of Bradley (on pages 231-249). The differences between these two presentations of Bradley are significant. The 1935 account (presented in IH on pages 231-249) seeks to portray the Bradley of the Presuppositions of Critical History as a Copernican revolutionary in historical thought, even though the neo-Kantian transcendentalism promoted in the Lecture had been the core of Collingwood's approach to philosophy of history from the mid-1920s, many years before he encountered Bradley's essay. By 1935 this transcendentalism was in the process of self-destructing because of inner contradictions. By 1936, once Collingwood's narrative and his criticisms of Bradley left the 1935 claims unsustainable, Collingwood shifted attention to Bradley's later works, in an unsuccessful attempt to sustain the notion of his originality (presented in IH on pages 134-141). Hitherto neglected Collingwood manuscripts held in the Bodleian prove that by 1940 Collingwood recognized this, so that the prominence Knox gave to Bradley in his editing of the IH is demonstrably not in accord with Collingwood's views and plans for The Idea of History. Knox's much-disputed claim that there was a radical shift to historicism in the later Collingwood is, however, confirmed, clear proof being adduced that in the later 1930s the attempt transcendentally to deduce universal and necessary presuppositions of historical knowledge is abandoned for a radically historicist account, paralleled by a demotion of "critical history" as the final form of "history proper" in favor of "scientific history." [source] Fact, Truth, and Text: The Quest for a Firm Basis for Historical Knowledge Around 1900HISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 3 2003Rolf Torstendahl The object of this essay is to discuss two problems and to present solutions to them, which do not quite agree with what is generally said of them. The first problem concerns the history of methods for reaching firm historical knowledge. In three methodological manuals for historians, written by J. G. Droysen, E. Bernheim, and C.-V. Langlois and C. Seignobos and first published in the late nineteenth century, the task of the historian was said to be how to obtain firm knowledge about history. The question is how this message should be understood. The second problem concerns the differences between the three manuals. If their common goal is firm historical knowledge, are there any major differences of opinion? The answer given in this article is yes, and the ground is sought in their theories of truth. [source] COLLINGWOOD, BRADLEY, AND HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGEHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 2 2006ROBERT M. BURNS ABSTRACT The central feature of the narrative structure of Collingwood's The Idea of History (IH) is the pivotal role accorded to Bradley, evident in the table of contents and in the two discussions of him. Few readers have noticed that, confusingly, the book's first discussion of Bradley (on pages 134-141) is a revision of the (1935) Inaugural Lecture "The Historical Imagination," which constitutes the book's second discussion of Bradley (on pages 231-249). The differences between these two presentations of Bradley are significant. The 1935 account (presented in IH on pages 231-249) seeks to portray the Bradley of the Presuppositions of Critical History as a Copernican revolutionary in historical thought, even though the neo-Kantian transcendentalism promoted in the Lecture had been the core of Collingwood's approach to philosophy of history from the mid-1920s, many years before he encountered Bradley's essay. By 1935 this transcendentalism was in the process of self-destructing because of inner contradictions. By 1936, once Collingwood's narrative and his criticisms of Bradley left the 1935 claims unsustainable, Collingwood shifted attention to Bradley's later works, in an unsuccessful attempt to sustain the notion of his originality (presented in IH on pages 134-141). Hitherto neglected Collingwood manuscripts held in the Bodleian prove that by 1940 Collingwood recognized this, so that the prominence Knox gave to Bradley in his editing of the IH is demonstrably not in accord with Collingwood's views and plans for The Idea of History. Knox's much-disputed claim that there was a radical shift to historicism in the later Collingwood is, however, confirmed, clear proof being adduced that in the later 1930s the attempt transcendentally to deduce universal and necessary presuppositions of historical knowledge is abandoned for a radically historicist account, paralleled by a demotion of "critical history" as the final form of "history proper" in favor of "scientific history." [source] LEON GOLDSTEIN AND THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF HISTORICAL KNOWING,HISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 2 2006LUKE O'SULLIVAN ABSTRACT Leon Goldstein's critical philosophy of history has suffered a relative lack of attention, but it is the outcome of an unusual story. He reached conclusions about the autonomy of the discipline of history similar to those of R. G. Collingwood and Michael Oakeshott, but he did so from within the Anglo-American analytic style of philosophy that had little tradition of discussing such matters. Initially, Goldstein attempted to apply a positivistic epistemology derived from Hempel's philosophy of natural science to historical knowledge, but gradually (and partly thanks to his interest in Collingwood) formulated an anti-realistic epistemology that firmly distinguished historical knowledge of the past not only from the scientific perspective but also from fictional and common-sense attitudes to the past. Among his achievements were theories of the distinctive nature of historical evidence and historical propositions, of the constructed character of historical events, and of the relationship between historical research and contemporary culture. Taken together, his ideas merit inclusion among the most important twentieth-century contributions to the problem of historical knowledge. [source] 2. THE PUBLIC RELEVANCE OF HISTORICAL STUDIES: A REPLY TO DIRK MOSESHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 3 2005HAYDEN WHITE ABSTRACT I am grateful to Dirk Moses for taking the time to study my work so assiduously and to comment on it so perspicuously. His essay is eminently well-informed and even-handed, and I have little to add to or correct of his characterization of my many, long on-going, and admittedly flawed attempts to deconstruct modern historical discourse. He understands me well enough and I think that I understand his objections to my position(s). We do not disagree on matters of fact, I think, but we have different notions about the nature of historical discourse and the uses to which historical knowledge can properly be put. [source] Fact, Truth, and Text: The Quest for a Firm Basis for Historical Knowledge Around 1900HISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 3 2003Rolf Torstendahl The object of this essay is to discuss two problems and to present solutions to them, which do not quite agree with what is generally said of them. The first problem concerns the history of methods for reaching firm historical knowledge. In three methodological manuals for historians, written by J. G. Droysen, E. Bernheim, and C.-V. Langlois and C. Seignobos and first published in the late nineteenth century, the task of the historian was said to be how to obtain firm knowledge about history. The question is how this message should be understood. The second problem concerns the differences between the three manuals. If their common goal is firm historical knowledge, are there any major differences of opinion? The answer given in this article is yes, and the ground is sought in their theories of truth. [source] On the business value and technical challenges of adopting Web servicesJOURNAL OF SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE AND EVOLUTION: RESEARCH AND PRACTICE, Issue 1-2 2004S. Tilley Abstract This paper provides a balanced perspective of the business value and technical challenges of adopting Web services. Technology adoption is a continual challenge for both tool developers and enterprise users. Web services are a prime example of an emerging technology that is fraught with adoption issues. Part of the problem is separating marketing hype from business reality. Web services are network-accessible interfaces to application functionality. They are built using Internet technologies such as XML and standard protocols such as SOAP. The adoption issues related to Web services are complex and multifaceted. For example, determining whether this technology is a fundamental advance, rather than something old under a new name, requires technical depth, business acumen, and considerable historical knowledge of past developments. A sample problem from the health care industry is used to illustrate some of the adoption issues. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Perspectives on Global-Change ArchaeologyAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 1 2007DONALD L. HARDESTY In this article, I explore the characteristics of global-change archaeology as an emerging field of research. Global-change archaeology seeks to document and apply historical knowledge of past human,environmental interactions to the understanding of contemporary environmental problems and management and planning for future sustainability. It takes place within an interdisciplinary research structure and is situated within the explanatory contexts of historical science and humanistic history with close links to historical and political ecology. Both history and agency play important roles in the practice of global-change archaeology. Past human decision making in the context of cultural attitudes and perceptions also has a significant role in the archaeology of global change. [source] Remembering the auca: violence and generational memory in Amazonian EcuadorTHE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 4 2009Casey High In Amazonian Ecuador and beyond, indigenous Waorani people have received considerable attention for their history of revenge killings during much of the twentieth century. In pointing to the heterogeneous forms of social memory assigned to specific generations, the article describes how oral histories and public performances of past violence mediate changing forms of sociality. While the victim's perspective in oral histories is fundamental to Waorani notions of personhood and ethnic identity, young men acquire the symbolic role of ,wild' Amazonian killers in public performances of the past. Rather than being contradictory or competing historical representations, these multiple forms of social memory become specific generational roles in local villages and in regional inter-ethnic relations. The article suggests that, beyond the transmission of a fixed package of historical knowledge, memory is expressed in the multiple and often contrasting forms of historical representation assigned to particular kinds of people. Résumé En Amazonie équatorienne et ailleurs, les peuples autochtones Waorani ont bénéficié d'une attention considérable pendant une bonne part du XXe siècle pour leur histoire de vendetta. En pointant l'hétérogénéité des formes de mémoire sociale associées à différentes générations, l'auteur décrit la façon dont les histoires orales et les performances publiques des violences passées médient des formes changeantes de socialité. Tandis que le point de vue de la victime dans ces récits oraux est fondamental dans les notions de personnalité et d'identité ethnique des Waoranis, les jeunes gens acquièrent le rôle symbolique des tueurs amazoniens « sauvages » lors de performances publiques évoquant le passé. Plutôt que des représentations historiques contradictoires ou concurrentes, ces multiples formes de mémoire sociale se muent en rôles générationnels spécifiques dans les villages locaux et en relations interethniques régionales. L'auteur suggère qu'au-delà de la transmission d'un bagage immuable de connaissances historiques, la mémoire s'exprime dans les formes multiples et souvent très différentes de représentation historique attribués à certaines catégories de personnes. [source] The Sources and Fortunes of Piranesi's Archaeological IllustrationsART HISTORY, Issue 4 2002Susan M. Dixon Susan M. Dixon earned her doctorate from Cornell University in 1991 with a dissertation on the archaeological publications of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. She studies the history of pre,scientific archaeology, from Pirro Ligorio to Piranesi, with a particular focus on illustration as a means to convey historical knowledge. She has published on this subject in a variety of venues, and is beginning a book,length manuscript on the subject. In 1995,96, she was awarded a J. Paul Getty post,doctoral fellowship to study the Accademia degli Arcadi, a society founded in 1690 primarily to restore good taste in literature, and its successes and failures in bringing about the reform of Italian society and architecture. She has written a book entitled The Bosco Parrasio: Performance and Perfectibility in the Garden of the Arcadians, which focuses on their garden meeting place as a breeding ground for a utopian society. Dr Dixon teaches art history at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720,1778) developed a way of representing the archaeological past by using the multi,informational image, an engraved illustration which appears to be a composite of various drawings, on various surfaces, and employing various modes of representation, scale and detail. The cartographic tradition, particularly maps from sixteenth,century Europe, offer a precedent for this type of illustration. Piranesi found theoretical underpinnings for it in contemporary discussions about the workings of the human memory, which was identified as a viable tool for those pursuing historical knowledge. His illustrations make visible the processes of memory on an assemblage of archaeological information, and they were a means to historical reconstruction. Archaeologists of the generation after Piranesi did not use the multi,informational image as the science of archaeology underwent a sea change at the end of the century. However, some compilers of travel literature, in particular Jean,Laurent,Pierre HoÃ,el, author and illustrator of Voyage pittoresque des isles de Sicile, de Malte, et de Lipari, found the format suitable to their purposes. Like Piranesi's, Hoüel's multi,informational images reveal the hand of the artist on the information he had diligently collected and ordered; Hoüel's picturesque illustrations of the southern Italian islands' people and places are self,consciously subjective. The format also makes apparent what was so appealing to many a voyager ,the apparent survival of the past in the culture of the present. [source] | ||||||||||