Problem of Truth in Historiography
- DOI
- 10.2991/cesses-18.2018.165How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- truth; truth criteria; science; history; historiography; epistemology; narrative; "we-group"
- Abstract
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.
- Copyright
- © 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Alexander Nesterenko PY - 2018/11 DA - 2018/11 TI - Problem of Truth in Historiography BT - Proceedings of the International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Ecological Studies (CESSES 2018) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 749 EP - 751 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/cesses-18.2018.165 DO - 10.2991/cesses-18.2018.165 ID - Nesterenko2018/11 ER -