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Historisk tidskrift 125:2 • 2005

Innehåll (Contents) 2005:2

Uppsatser (Articles)

Historia som vetskap

Göran B Nilsson

Fulltext (pdf)

History as Knowledge. The Historian is not Able to Become a Scientist but Well Capable to Produce Better Knowledge

The article develops the program for a ”partly new” theory of history, which I outlined in my contribution ”History as an artificial science”, for the anthology Artifacts and artificial Science. A fundamental starting point is the seemingly trivial observation that ”the past extends all the way to the present,” i. e. to the interface between the past and the future. Interesting complications arise if one connects this statement to the equally trivial claim that ”the historian’s task is to describe the past.” For from this follows that all people are every-day historians, unceasingly writing what I have called ongoing history (O-history). This in contrast to those people who call themselves historians – amateur historians or professional historians – and who produce what I have called conventional history (or C-history). Or is there really a theoretical difference?

As I demonstrate in the article the answer is no, even if the ongoing history writing usually is of a short-term and forecast oriented nature and based on direct observation of the so-called reality – which in fact cannot avoid being a social – though a remarkably stable – construction. I have not been able to discern any distinct limit in time. And even in the ongoing history writing complete professions can be found, whose principled situation is the same as that of the conventional historian, i. e. they are dependent on indirect observation of past events and processes. To this group belongs physicians, lawyers and not least journalists, the last of whom are especially emphasized in the article, since they are often engaged in political history writing, which I have programmatically emphasized as a central task for conventional history writing too.

From the thesis that the same rules of method ought to be normative both in ongoing history writing (O-history) and in conventional history (C-history), the use of the concepts of truth, common sense and source criticism are investigated in the two genres. From this it is clear that the theoretical relativist of knowledge is in trouble if he applies his tenets in the ongoing history writing – incidentally a corresponding demonstration could be conducted with regard to the presently extinct arch positivist. Inversely, it is demonstrated how the ambitious, conventional history writer in say 50 years would stand helpless before the task of structuring, describing, analyzing and explaining the entire complex reality, which is right now subjected to the ongoing history writing of six and a half billion people.

Consequently, the author’s advice to the conventional historian is that she ought to reduce her high scientific ambitions and be content primarily with improving the already existing, ongoing history writing. There are several good opportunities here, which are thoroughly discussed in the article. In her aspiration to give her enterprise badly needed relevance to social and individual practice the historian may nevertheless never refrain from using objectifying methods. Among these source criticism assumes a prominent place since its principles claim to be universal, i. e. valid for all source producers in all places and times.