"Assemble what we collectively know about how to move beyond our hyper polarized politics, and start solving societies problems." -Unknown
Scientific facts are theoretical constructors, describing and explaining a phenomena, given to researcher as a sensitive reality, by fundamental laws. Facts from the past unlike a scientific facts, describe not-being which is transcendental, incognizable and reproduced only abstractedly. Facts from the past describe the events that are unique and unrepeatable and which cannot be proved by experiments.
That's why the methods of historical facts constructing are significant different from the methods of describing and explaining empirical facts of reality. They are based on imagination and life experience, and are not determined by the object of cognition, but by the worldview of the historian.
The task of historiography is to describe and explain historical facts. But before beginning to its solution, it is necessary to determine what the historical facts are and to understand how they differ from the nature and social reality facts. Semantic analysis of the historical fact concept shows that it is used in different meanings. In some cases it is used as a synonym for the concept "event" (the Battle of Waterloo is a historical fact), in others — it is used as a "testimony" (historical facts testifying of the French revolution), thirdly, as validation of the truth of this judgment (this story is based on the facts)
[1]. One more meaning of the term fact — is a synonym for the objective reality phenomenon given to the ego in sensation. If we consider the fact not as a synonym for the event, but as a confirmation about it, then by fact we will understand the description in the narrative form of the phenomenon of objective reality since in terms of of the cognizing subject, "all factual is already a theory"
[2]. Consequently, a fact — is a theoretical construct that "exists only in thought, language or discourse" and, in this meaning, is a semantic reality.
[3]. In this meaning, fact is a symbolic reality, by which we can recreate the events of being in consciousness. Those, describing the phenomena of reality, facts exist in the linguistic phenomena form. Therefore, a fact should be understood not as a phenomenon of reality independent of the subject, but as a subject-object unity, being the result of learning. It is expressed in the fact that, as a fact, a phenomenon is describing in accordance with a priori forms and categories of pure reason. However, this understanding of the fact does not correspond to the past events description, since the past does not exist and, therefore, is not a reality. Ontologically, the past — is a non-being that can be thought, but cannot be observed. Therefore, the events of the past descriptions represent a special class of facts from the past (the facts from the past further), fundamentally different from the facts describing the phenomena of reality. II. FACT FROM THE PAST AND ITS INTERPRETATION AS A HISTORICAL FACT Historians do not deal with events, but with statements about them, i.e. with a narrative allowing imagining these past events. As a result, in historiography the subject-objective unity of fact and the cognizing subject is unobtainable as "the object of observation and the object of historical presentation, in other words the source and fact, do not concur"
[4]. Another difference between the facts from the past and the facts of empirical reality is that they cannot be verified outside the evidence of sources and explained on the basis of a more general fact, since, for example, in medicine, the fact of illness can be explained by the fact of pathogenic activity of bacteria or viruses. Describing and explaining the events from the past, historians use everyday language. The subjects of their description are unique events that cannot be generalized on the basis of general laws. Therefore, it is incorrect to use the thesis of the theoretical task load of empirical facts to the facts from the past. Historian's conclusions about the connection of the facts from the past are based not on theory, which is based on knowledge of the necessary cause-effect relationship (laws), but on logic and personal experience and are similar to the thoughts of Kant's pigeon, which imagines that it would be more comfortable for him to fly in airless space. As the past is ontologically a non-being and the artifacts are objective reality for historiography that can be divided into sources (various kinds of documentary records) and monuments of material culture. Therefore, the past is not a non-being in the meaning of something that has never existed, but a being that has existed previously, but does not exist right now, but is one of the reasons for the present.
YOU ARE READING
OUR HISTORY
Historical FictionUPDATES COME SLOW- sorryyyy 🧍 this book is, and always will be, dedicated to my one and only, Eli Mixon. he's been there for me through tough times, and i don't have the words to thank him for all he's done. so i've written a book about the world...
