Reflections on the Philosophy of Historiography and the Critical Legacy of “Narrativism”

Authors

Keywords:

philosophy of historiography, narrativism, historical representation, historiography

Abstract

The last 25 years have seen the consolidation of an approach to philosophy of history under the name of a “philosophy of historiography”. This philosophy involves the analysis of the procedures that make historical interpretations reasonably within an historiographic community of peers, the use of documentary evidence, the debate on inferences, and the assessment of colligatory theses. For the philosophy of historiography, particularly in the version developed by J.-M. Kuukkanen, the “narrativist” constructivism is a particular aspect within a wider comprehension of historians’ practices where the rational argumentation and the use of evidence has priority in the choice between competing interpretations by the historians’ community. The argument here developed shows that the “narrativist insight” loses of sight the critico-cultural dimension of narrativism regarding historical representations and reproduces the dualism between interpretation and epistemology that Frank Ankersmit refered to as the “dilemma of Anglo-Saxon philosophy of history”. 

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Published

2021-06-08

How to Cite

Reflections on the Philosophy of Historiography and the Critical Legacy of “Narrativism”. (2021). Epistemología E Historia De La Ciencia, 5(2), 5-19. https://revistas.psi.unc.edu.ar/index.php/afjor/article/view/30186