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History and science are both grounded in empiricism. "Empirical" means that a theory is based on observations (and not on private insights, revelations from God

History and science are both grounded in empiricism. "Empirical" means that a theory is based on observations (and not on private insights, revelations from God, etc.). Observations are not limited to experiments (if so, astronomy would not be "empirical"). In history, empirical evidence are usually observations of historical documents, artefacts and the like. They are then interpreted in the context of theoretical frameworks that are themselves based on a multitude of other empirical evidence. The lack of experiments does not make the construction of such theoretical frameworks unempirical, but in a way just harder.

stareatgoats 3y ago
What you say is true, modern history relies on verifiable facts like documents, artefacts, etc. But there of always a narrative involved, which to a smaller or larger degree is based off human values and as such lack the objectivity of the falsifiable physical science hypothesis. This seems to me to be a source of a gnawing sense of insecurity among (many) scholars in the humanities - but it shouldn't. They should simply recognize this situation as a fact, and declare their assumptions (even the physical sciences could benefit from this many times).
- Archelaos 3y ago
  I don't think that falsifiability is that much of a difference between the humanities and the sciences. No scientific hypothesis is falsified by a single isolated observation (such evidence could always be an error in measurement, faked data, an halucinating scientist, etc.). Instead, the particular professional community reaches a conclusion by evaluating new evidence in the light of established beliefs. If we think of falsification we usually mean the emergence of new evidence that is so striking that the community changes an established belief without much ado. But this might happen in history as well, if new valuable documents were discovered, an important artifact was given a new date, something crucial turned out to be a forgery, etc.

stareatgoats 3y ago

What you say is true, modern history relies on verifiable facts like documents, artefacts, etc. But there of always a narrative involved, which to a smaller or larger degree is based off human values and as such lack the objectivity of the falsifiable physical science hypothesis. This seems to me to be a source of a gnawing sense of insecurity among (many) scholars in the humanities - but it shouldn't. They should simply recognize this situation as a fact, and declare their assumptions (even the physical sciences could benefit from this many times).

Archelaos 3y ago
I don't think that falsifiability is that much of a difference between the humanities and the sciences. No scientific hypothesis is falsified by a single isolated observation (such evidence could always be an error in measurement, faked data, an halucinating scientist, etc.). Instead, the particular professional community reaches a conclusion by evaluating new evidence in the light of established beliefs. If we think of falsification we usually mean the emergence of new evidence that is so striking that the community changes an established belief without much ado. But this might happen in history as well, if new valuable documents were discovered, an important artifact was given a new date, something crucial turned out to be a forgery, etc.