Are Historians “Failed Scientists?”
As I get deeper into a really awesome project with Words for Impact that recounts 125 years of history of a specific cultural group on Vancouver Island, I found myself revisiting historiography, or the study of historical writing.
This project is an important reminder of how messy History (and history) is.
Writing about history is not just a simple chronological retelling of events. There are ALWAYS important nuances, both within the events themselves, and the perspectives and biases through which it is being told (i.e. postcolonial, Marxism, postmodern, etc being a couple examples).
It took historians all too long to recognize, and own up to the fact that history has almost always been told by the perspective of the oppressor, and only now are we beginning to dismantle all we *thought* we knew about historical events and their impact.
Writing about history also calls into account whether you want to take a presentism or historicism approach; that is, very simply, looking at history through the lens of the present and what we know has occurred since the event, or choosing to capture the events, perspectives as they were in that time only, or a mixture of both. I’d certainly argue, among historical analysts, that it’s impossible to remove the historian from the historical writing and the present from the past.
In my reading, I came across the book “Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought” (1970) by David Hackett Fischer (possibly a relative, who knows), wherein he states that History is a “problem solving discipline”, “a process of adductive reasoning”, where the historian “asks an open-ended question about past events and answers it with selected facts which are arranged in the form of an explanatory paradigm.”
I think it’s safe to say that the study of History hasn’t evolved much, although we are starting to become more aware of its nuances and accepting of other ways of knowing about the past and are “letting” those stories that have been traditionally hidden come to light.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Fischer’s book that made me giggle, both in creepy realization/throw-your-arms-in-the-air-in-defeat way and in appreciation of the wit in his statement:
“History, it is said, is an inexact science. But in fact historians are inexact scientists, who go blundering about their business without a sufficient sense of purpose or procedure. They are failed scientists, who have projected their failures to science itself. Nothing could be more absurd, or more nearly antithetical to the progress of a potent discipline.”
Anne-Marie E. Fischer, BA (Hons), M.Ed., blends her passion for the written word with her vocation to create a better world through effective communications, education, and Community Based Research (CBR).
Words for Impact is the culmination of Anne-Marie’s passions, talents, training, experience, and education. This unique company offers grant and proposal writing, research studies, research reports, impact reports, content development, brand development, communications consulting, biography/autobiography (ghost)writing, education and training materials, curriculum development, podcast script writing, journalistic articles, press releases, developmental editing, in-line editing, and fact-checking.
Words for Impact has a specific interest in serving nonprofits, not-for-profits, community organizations, Indigenous organizations, highly-regulated sectors, individuals & entrepreneurs, podcast hosts, and innovative industries.
Learn more about Words for Impact’s services here and past Impact Projects that Anne-Marie has been involved in here. Dedicated to helping you find the right words for the things that matter.