Mark Malvasi
Human beings have an emotional and psychological need to convert history into a science, for we have longed to have life and the world make sense. Yet, there are no general laws of history that can give precise measurement to human thought or action. There is for historians only the intelligible disorder of life, the fragments of which they gather, and from which they try to uncover truth, describe reality, and craft meaning.
I. The Rise and Development of Scientific History
René Descartes considered history a subject unworthy of attention from those on a quest for truth. To be sure, history had its value. Knowing the “famous deeds” that men in the past had accomplished could elevate and ennoble the mind and, “if read with understanding, aid in maturing one’s judgment…. Reading all the great books is like conversing with the best people of earlier times.” But, Descartes continued, “those who are too interested in things which occurred in past centuries are often remarkably ignorant of what is going on today…, and even the most faithful histories, if they do not alter or embroider episodes to make them more worth reading, almost always omit the meanest and least illustrious circumstances so that the remainder is distorted.”[1] Too often history degenerated into an amalgam of legends, rumors, and gossip. Explorations of the past might constitute an enchanting diversion, but they were beneath the dignity of serious thinkers.
If historians wanted others to afford their research the esteem that they believed it deserved, they were obligated to study the past as an objective and empirical reality, subject to verifiable evidence. This “elevated standard of truth,” as J.B. Bury referred to it, was among the most important contributions of scientific history.[2] The application of the critical method was supposed to make reconstructing the past simple and clear; » Read More
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