State University of New York at Stony Brook
Department of Philosophy
Faculty/Graduate Student Research Colloquium
Soren Whited
Commentator
Jeff Edwards
"Possibilities of a Historical Science"
Abstract: Since the Enlightenment and the emergence of the modern scientific method,
there has been much speculation about the epistemological character of the study of
human and social affairs. In particular, there has been an ongoing debate about the nature
of history as an object of knowledge, and whether or not the study of history has gained
the right, or, if not, can gain the right, to claim the mantle of science. This paper asks the
questions, “Is a science of history possible?” and “If, so, what must such a science look
like?” To the former question it answers that perhaps the study of history has not up to
this point been able to make such a claim, but that there is no reason it cannot at some
future date. In response to the latter question, however, it argues, in the first place, that a
science of history can emerge only the degree to which certain historical conditions are
present, namely a realized or emerging state of social and human freedom, in the
Hegelian sense. And this would mean, in the second place, that a science of history would
be interdependently bound up with a social and political practice that has freedom as its
fundamental and guiding telos. The paper will take up and critique two essays by the
contemporary philosopher Hayden White in an attempt to more concretely demonstrate
this argument.
Wednesday, April 27th, 2016
1:00-3:00 pm
Harriman Hall 218