Is History Based Upon the Scientific Method?

What do you mean by “the human element”, and how is this not accessible to empirical study?

One of the problems, @Faizal_Ali, is that ancient documents aren’t always about observation (as in scientific observation). Many are retellings of heroic myths and traditions. Some are mere polemic and propaganda. That’s not empirical evidence. It’s a kind of data but it is the data of what people thought or chose to believe or wished to promote. Not observations of past events.

I’ve known a number of folklore scholars. They employ many methodologies common among historians. But as with historians, I wouldn’t say that folklore scholars focus on empiricism, even though they certainly collect and analyze data.

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A comparison you might find helpful: Mathematics is not an empirical discipline. It deals with abstract concepts whose truth values can be determined purely thru rational thought.

History is not like that.

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I disagree. The writings themselves are empirical data. And the historian has to determine what conclusions can be drawn from them. That is using the scientific method. It’s not significantly different from what scientists do. That is to say, the “hardness” of the data in history compared to that used in biology is not much different from the degree of difference between biological data and data used in physics or chemistry. Do many people say biology does not use the scientific method? Not that I am aware.

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My own career involving computational linguistics was an example of bringing empiricism into traditional literary and history scholarship. I even gave lectures at Bible scholar academic conferences advocating greater consideration of empiricism and the scientific method in our exegetical research of the scriptures. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t say that empiricism is a central focus of Biblical scholarship or Ancient Near Eastern history scholarship.

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Origin subjects are indeed like history ones not open to testable methodology.
Scientific methodology doesn’t mean anything unless it means something. History is about events and motives. figuring these out id difficult. Science is about processes and results/events.
its easier to figure out because it repeatable. origin science is not repeatable , or almost, and so its very difficult to prove conclusions. thats why everyone complains about the others conclusions.

What is, then?

@John_Harshman and @dga471

I think disputing this point resembles the question of how much physical space angels occupy!

@Faizal_Ali,

Its about men’s conjectures about a power greater than mortal men.

I doubt that is what Biblical scholarship is only about. I am pretty certain it is not what Near Eastern history is about.

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@Faizal_Ali

My apologies… i had missed the specific nature of your question. I withdraw my point.

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Now that seems to be a useful point to try draw a line between empirical and non-empirical scholarship.

Biblical exegesis could be based on trying to understand the historical and cultural context in which the authors of the OT lived, from other historical documents as well as anthropological and achaeological research. Thru this we can attempt to come to a closer understanding of what those authors intended the stories of the OT to mean and how their contemporaries likely understood them.

At the same time, an exegetical approach could also entail a close reading of the text itself, divorced as much as possible from any contextual issues, and arriving at possible interpretations of the meaning of the text. This would be an example of non-empirical scholarship. It should be said, however, there there is no question of objective truth or accuracy in such an interpretation.

That seems like a distinction without a difference. Of course human behavior is quite complex, but it’s possible to study complex phenomena, especially when there are a great many individuals involved. What’s unpredictable on the individual level may be much more tractable in the aggregate.

You are referring to some history, apparently ancient history. Can we agree that some history is approached as science, while other history isn’t or couldn’t be? Some history is science, some isn’t.

I wonder if testimony or revelation would count as an additional source of knowledge. Recognizing those words carry several connotations, what I mean here is statements from one’s interior mental experience that are otherwise inaccessible. For example, I might reveal that my favorite color is green or my intention for wearing a particular pair of socks today was to feel comfortable.

Does that count as something separate, or does it fall under “simple direct observation” in the sense that we come by such knowledge of others by observing what they write or say? Or is it too subjective to count as knowledge? I would think that while my belief that green is the best color is a subjective opinion, the statement “Andy’s favorite color is green” can be meaningfully true or false. But maybe not everyone sees it that way.

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That makes sense. We’d have to weigh how much reliability we’d have to attribute to your testimony, of course. Also, we’d have to distinguish a statement that only pertains to your subjective mental processes like “Green is my favourite colour” to those that imply phenomena apart from your subjective experience like “I had a personal experience of God.”

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Yes, those are both important qualifications.

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History is concerned with the conscious intentions of the humans involved, not just with their physical actions.

Yes. So good historians use the scientific method to try determine the conscious intentions of humans who lived in the past.

Some is. Would you agree that not all historical research concerns intentions?

Yes, of course I agree with that.

My original objection was only to the “based upon” part of your title. History is broader than that suggests.

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