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/).

Download article (PDF)

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  -