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Is history a science? Can human activities be studied in the same manner as the activities of the non-human world?

These are the central questions of the epistemological debate surrounding history that arose in the nineteenth century. Two schools of thought arose to answer these questions: Positivism, and Idealism. Positivism was founded by the French philosopher and sociologist, Auguste Comte (1798 1857). He believed that knowledge of the world comes from observation, and that the goal of science is prediction. Taking his cue from Kant, he believed that events are explained by subsuming them under laws of succession, and he criticized metaphysics as ungrounded speculation that failed to keep imagination subordinate to observation. Scientists discovered general laws by repeating careful, and disinterested, observations. Regularities in these observations were used to generate laws, which were then used to explain the data. As a sociologist, Comte applied this positivist approach to history,[1] believing "that historians would in due course uncover the 'laws' of historical development."[2] History, as a science, has failed to generate these sorts of laws leading modern positivists to seek historical explanation through "the correct application of generalizations derived from other disciplines supposedly based on scientific method such as economics, sociology, and psychology."[3] According to the Handbook of World History, "Any system of thought in which ideas, mind, reason, thought, or spirit is viewed as the basis of knowledge, or the ground for understanding reality may be said to be idealistic."[4] R.G. Collingwood, whom John Tosh called "the most original and sophisticated exponent of the Idealist position" in the English-speaking

world, "maintained that all history is the history of thought, and that the historian's task is to re-enact in his own mind the thoughts and intentions of individuals in the past."[5] This task requires empathy and intuition, which are rejected as methods within science. Clearly, though, science relies upon ideas. So what then are the differences between positivistic and idealistic historical views? Positivist historians followed the methods of empirical science; that is, they observed and then generalized laws by induction. They maintained that mind is not fundamentally different from nature, and that historical processes are the same as natural processes. Empathy and intuition were rejected as unscientific. According to Collingwood, "the question whether the facts really are what they are said to be is never a vital question [for the positivist], because he can always reproduce the facts under his own eyes."[6] These are empirical facts; "something immediately given in perception."[7] For the idealist historian, the facts are not given, as they cannot be observed, and they cannot be repeated. The events and individuals under study were unique, and not repeatable. Thus, induction was of limited use. Historical facts, according to Collingwood, are "arrived at inferentially by a process of interpreting data according to a complicated system of rules and assumptions."[8] The idealist historian makes great use of intuition and empathy to try and enter the mind of her subject. He believes that mind is fundamentally different from nature, and that historical processes are not identical with natural processes. Based on these fundamental differences, what are the differences in the histories generated by such views?

Positivist historical knowledge was considered to be objective, and the historian was not allowed to pass judgement on the facts.[9] This meant that history was only of external events. Positivist historians amassed large numbers of atomistic facts, but they rarely moved on to generalizing laws. Their methods also constrained them to primarily political history, as they were incapable of acquiring or dealing with the sorts of facts required by other forms of history. According to Collingwood, "The legacy of positivismis a combination of unprecedented mastery over small-scale problems with unprecedented weakness in dealing with large-scale problems."[10] Idealist historical knowledge, "inherently subjective" according to Tosh, is based on two fundamental principles: "[E]verything in experience is related to everything else"[11] and, "[U]nderstanding an object involves knowledge of its genesis and development."[12] Its subject matter is the intentions, aims, and mental states of the individuals under the historical lens. This gives it an internal feel compared to the external feel of positivist history. The emphasis on the mind of the historical agent also allowed the idealist historian to subsume a broader range of study. This form of history was not constrained to the 'great man' and the plethora of sources generated by and about him. Both positivist and idealist views are subject to several limitations. The main problem with positivism is its assumption that the scientific method is the only valid form for generating knowledge. A brief intellectual acquaintance with Postmodernist thought, or the simple process of living more than a few weeks on Earth as a sentient creature, should disabuse anyone of such a simple-minded conceit. Knowledge, from the simple, pragmatic, everyday sort of getting along in the world, to the more formal kind generated by the

empirical sciences, comes from experience. A priori knowledge is a philosopher's concept; one that is not as useful as he would like to think. This sort of knowledge cannot even get started without the concepts generated by the experiences that are required to fuel it. The second problem faced by positivism is its reliance on the facts as given. Tosh points out several failings that arise from problems of evidence. The facts are selected; some are left out, some are never found, and some simply do not, or never did, exist. These facts, as given by the evidence, are incomplete, tainted or biased in various ways, and exist in such profusion as to be overwhelming. Even if one was to accept the facts as given by the evidence, how are they to decide the relative weight of each of them in constructing an analysis? Positivism, also, ignored the impact of the unique event or individual in shaping history. Events had to be repeatable, that is verifiable, or they were not facts, and could not be subsumed under general laws. Thus, positivist histories either ignored the unique, or improperly placed it into categories in which it did not belong. The primary problem for the idealist view, at least according to their detractors, was that it relied on inference. Inference can be either inductive or deductive. Deduction is only valid within a formal system, and thus, most inferences are inductive. Induction, in its broadest sense, is considered to be an ampliative inference, and is defined as "any inference where the claim made by the conclusion goes beyond the claim jointly made by the premises."[13] Of course, positivists also rely on inference, but the inferences they make are considered to be of a more rigorous type, one that relies on a semi-formal method. Tosh criticized idealism on two accounts: Collingwood's maxim that all history is the history of thought "unduly confined the scope of the subject."[14], and the overemphasis on the unique. The unique may be the

primary subject for the idealist historian, but she must go beyond this in analyzing trends and filling in the gaps left by the evidence. Although Karl Popper has created a much more acceptable view of science for the historian, Tosh still notes important differences between science and history. The first is that the historian is allowed far greater use of her imagination. The second involves the status of explanation within the two disciplines. Historical explanation is considered to be inferior to explanation in science. He claims that scientific explanation enjoys a much greater claim to a general consensus by all the leading experts than does history. The reason for this is the much-vaunted uniqueness of the historical event and individual.[15] I would add one more distinct difference, and that is the explicit use of theory in science against the often-flagrant disavowal of theory by the historian. It is a widely accepted today in philosophy of science that all theory is observation-laden and all observation is theory-laden. The historian cannot escape his own prejudices and assumptions, or those of his society. These, at a minimum, constitute a theory from which she cannot break unless they are made explicit. I found the readings by Tosh to be quite good, except for his very limited explication of Idealism as a concept. He provided succinct insight into the problems generated by both schools of thought, along with the differences between science and history. Boucher's article is a good overview of British Idealism, particularly for the concepts of rival ways of knowing, facts, historical change, and character. Parker's article is a historiography of the influence, or lack thereof, of positivism on the British historians of a particular period. I found Collingwood's "History as Re-enactment of Past Experience"

to be very interesting. He foreshadowed many later twentieth century philosophical ideas, and as much as he was addressing the possibility of, and conditions for, historical knowledge, as opposed to the methodology of historical practice, he was almost entirely correct.

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