Epistemology of History Discussion

[benczeb90]

It can and it happened with medieval chronicles, but that was because the concept of objectivity did not exist, you cant ask medieval people to behave like us.

According to the current principles, as long as there's no proof that something happened otherwise, it is considered to be the truth ... while proof has nothing to do with truth. The proof that 'proves' the official story to be 'true' is proof, and the proof that if found, would prove the official story to be false. Both are proofs. Again, proof has no correlation with truth.
Proof is a thing or an information source which supports one's theories. This is all it does. Supports my theory or proves my theory to be false. Even opposite things can be proven with the right 'proof' and a right interpretation.
If i'm famous for spreading a world view and i suddenly find something that i know with my intellectuelle that if i actually "found" this and published this, it would tear my theories apart and my credibility would be suddenly none existent. So i'd either destroy this evidence that would prove that i was wrong, or i'd hide it, or i'd publish the truth anyway.
A man who has to feed his children, wouldn't consider the last option.

[juanplay]

I dont know what kind of discovery would merit such hard measures (destroying the proof), but history right know is not about discovering some kind of mighty primary source, is more about asking the right questions for the research you want to develop, reviewing existing points of view and in general constantly revitalizing the discipline. Also, there are several tendencies within social sciences that are highly critical (even radical sometimes) of the status quo, like marxism (remember there are several branches of this current of thought ), and for example British history marxism is highly respected within the discipline even though its views might be controversial for neoliberalists and conservatives. There are several important british marxist historians whose works are widely readed and studied in several universities around the world (including top tier US and European universities). I strongly recommend Eric Hobsbawm (The most famous british historian of the XX century), cristopher hill and E.P Thompson.

[benczeb90]

http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/beowulfen.htm
http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/anatoliafakeen.htm

Short and good reads!

[juanplay]

I found both texts to be suspicious at the very least. In the first one there is no mention of carbon tests to provide proof of the supposed false texts, that should be enough to say whether they were written in the X, XI, XVIII centuries or not. in the second they treat the historical Abraham as an individual figure when he is most likely to represent (metaphorically) the movement of a group of people during a long time.

[benczeb90]

Where did you get the idea of historical Abraham? i didn't read this in the second article i sent. Maybe i misunderstand you.

Carbon dating of what? The manuscript's material? OR the tint? These two cannot say when it was actually written down. It's like saying that a stone carving is X thousand years old according to the age of a pot right beside it. Complete crap. You cannot carbon-date the act of writing, only the materials used.

[Riothamus]

''If it is plausible that ideology will in general serve as a mask for self-interest, then it is a natural presumption that intellectuals, in interpreting history or formulating policy, will tend to adopt an elitist position, condemning popular movements and mass participation in decision making, and emphasizing rather the necessity for supervision by those who possess the knowledge and understanding that is required (so they claim) to manage society and control social change.'' Norm Chomskiy

[juanplay]

True Riothamus, there are some intellectuals that regardless of the research and a lack of curiosity and self criticism serve the Elite and/or the State. These are Gramci´s organic intellectuals, people that legitimize and suport the structure of powe because they themselves were created by that same power in order to provide it with an identity, a set of ideologies, arguments for existence and the means to control the population. Needless to say, we must be open to the fact that people cannot be classified in two extremes (in this case organic vs non organic intellectuals), instead there are various degrees of allegiance, dependence and rejection of the structure of power in a given society, and usually any intellectual has a mix of those three.