History: a Science or an Art?

[Cocoa]

Since I started studying history in North America I never questioned that History was an art, till I talked to my TA for one of the courses, and she said that in Europe History is classified more as a science.

This got me thinking.... which one is it?

I am not probably leaning more towards science. What about you? Please consider both sides before replying.

Please note: this is a 2 part question :)
So please answer both question. Thanks.

[Synamon]

Since I would define science as "knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method"*, my answer to your question is that generally history is not a science field since I assume you are not referring to natural history.

The kind of history you are referring to would fall into humanities, under the umbrella term art.

*Merriam-Webster dictionary (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)



edit: I didn't select any of the poll choices, none of them fit my way of thinking of this.

[voverdampfung]

I am not leaning towards science either. When I was younger I took History as the exact truth of past events. I did not consider that much of it is constructed in an often biased way. I think my primary intuitive side was too dominant and I was clouding my secondary side of critical thinking. I always loved history as a kid but often just had imaginations of what it must have been like fighting in the trenches in 1916 during WWI. I just read books and looked at old photos and just took everything the author wrote as "truth."

I didn't start questioning the construction of history until later. The only science I now see in history is the studying of tangible collections of artifacts such as old documents, personal items, etc and then making conclusions on them. Much of what we read in history now is just an author's critical, analytical, and often personal reflection of what was going on during the past.

[PeterIMC]

Since I started studying history in North America I never questioned that History was an art, till I talked to my TA for one of the courses, and she said that in Europe History is classified more as a science.

This got me thinking.... which one is it?

I am not probably leaning more towards science. What about you? Please consider both sides before replying.

Please note: this is a 2 part question :)
So please answer both question. Thanks.

I think long discussions can be held about what History is, but what it should be is said in one sentence: A correct account of the past.

[Plane Stress]

It both a science and an art. The art comes in when interpolating between missing records or putting together multiple accounts of what happened from different points of view, etc. Case in point: the Bible.

But whatever, my main point is that obviously it's in the eye of the beholder. The way America teaches Native American History obviously isn't the same story that Native Americans know as their own history.

[Polymath]

It depends what the historical subject is. If it's an account of something nobody would have much reason to lie or argue about, I'd generally view it with the fourth poll option. If it's an account of something like a war, it's almost guaranteed to be so heavily laced with lies and so full of conveniently-placed holes as to be worth less than the paper it's printed on, hence option five.

[eternaltriangle]

Do you mean history as it is studied or history as it should be studied?

[Cocoa]

Well to me it's sort of more of a science but it's definately between the 2.

I also think it's a construction. Every time I write a paper I see how I construct it, and often enjoy constructing it differently from what was written previously, searching for details and different interpretations in sources.

I do get upset with people who try to sell history to me as a permanent record, a fact. But that is just me.
Eternaltriangle I'm asking what is. You can comment what it should be below.

[eternaltriangle]

Okay, I asked because historical method as it is practiced is inherently unscientific. Historians seek to explain events in terms of themselves. I am a political scientist, but I view myself as a better kind of historian. I see historical events as being classifiable into generalizable categories. We can use variables to attempt to explain those general phenomena. I don't care about the war of Jenkin's Ear intrinsically, since it will never happen again. I do care about wars, however.

That said, you probably need for some people to avoid the bigger question and simply collect the necessary data. Since I view historians as being of little use beyond finding data for me, I get rather annoyed whenever they have their little Marxist/Feminist/interpretivist tizzies, which tend to pull them away from the quantifiable "high politics" events I am interested in.

I consider economic historians the most useful sort of historians (well they are really economists).

[Shadowgraphs]

I guess this depends on what kind of history we're talking about.

If it's just what happened where on what date and who was involved, then it's definitely a science, since it deals with facts and an attempt to reach the facts. However, if we start dealing with big-picture questions such as why certain things happened the way they did, then it starts to branch out into philosophy, literary theory, and so forth. I don't know if you could call those things "arts," but if they fall under that definition, then yes, interpretive history is definitely in that category.

[Cocoa]

Okay, I asked because historical method as it is practiced is inherently unscientific. Historians seek to explain events in terms of themselves. I am a political scientist, but I view myself as a better kind of historian. I see historical events as being classifiable into generalizable categories. We can use variables to attempt to explain those general phenomena. I don't care about the war of Jenkin's Ear intrinsically, since it will never happen again. I do care about wars, however.

That said, you probably need for some people to avoid the bigger question and simply collect the necessary data. Since I view historians as being of little use beyond finding data for me, I get rather annoyed whenever they have their little Marxist/Feminist/interpretivist tizzies, which tend to pull them away from the quantifiable "high politics" events I am interested in.

I consider economic historians the most useful sort of historians (well they are really economists).

Historians do collect data, and do research, but they also write, and you cannot remove the scientist from the science. There is always going to be an observer with his or her own view of the world who comes to the world with certain assumptions.

I do enjoy the economic history because I do believe that money makes the world go round. Does that make my views more valid then someone who believes that war and politics are central? I do not think so. Such is part of the art of history.

[eternaltriangle]

I do enjoy the economic history because I do believe that money makes the world go round. Does that make my views more valid then someone who believes that war and politics are central? I do not think so. Such is part of the art of history.

Economic history is not about money. Economics is not about money. Economics is a set of theories about scarcity and the allocation of resources, which encompasses war and politics. Political scientists that address war and politics often use tools borrowed from economists (eg. formal modeling, game theory). I was not suggesting that war is unimportant.

I AM suggesting that ideologically motivated "feminist/marxist" interpretations of history are largely unproductive, but that is nonetheless the majority of what academic historians put out.

I AM suggesting that history is generally useless because it is pursued without clear falsifiable hypotheses, or even if those are employed, authors try to explain a single event without generalizing to a larger population of events.

Maybe an example would help.

I DISLIKE THIS: "The First World War was driven by 19th century notions of masculinity, which shaped the upbringing of Kaiser Wilhelm and guaranteed war."

I PREFER THIS: "Major warfare is universally preventive warfare. The leading power fears the rise of a challenger, and initiates warfare in order to protect the rents of system leadership."

Argument 1 is
1. Impossible to prove to anybody's satisfaction (de facto unfalsifiable).
2. Ignores structural constraints and assumes (incorrectly) perfect agency
3. Cannot be generalized, and so offers little of relevance to modern conflict
4. Tells us nothing about the specific timing of the war (why go to war in 1914 and not 1890)
5. Prone to post hoc reasoning "The kaiser was a 19th century man because he went to war, he went to war because he was a 19th century man."

Argument 2
1. Can be falsified (are there instances where the leader was declining and war didn't happen or vice versa)
2. Can be generalized - it is discussing war in general
3. Can tell us why things happened at a particular time (decline had reached a particular critical number)
4. Can effectively separate out the noise (random things, like if Bismarck had diarrhea one day) from regular trends.

Argument 2 might be wrong, but at least we can prove it is wrong, and use its mistakes to generate a more sophisticated theory. Argument 1 - which is a clearer hypothesis than most historians will give you (generally they have multiple causes, and it is impossible to really determine which ones matter more or less) - will only lead to mental masturbation (semantic debates about definitions, etc.), not better understanding.

[Pouthas]

History fits the customary European definition of a science, but not the Anglo-American positivist version. When asked if history is a social science or one of the humanities, I reply yes.

As a historian LMAO at eternaltriangle's post. His viewpoint is as ideological as Marxism and possibly less scientific. The numbers crunchers are the only useful political scientists; everything else done in the discipline can be, and usually is, done better by historians.

[eternaltriangle]

History fits the customary European definition of a science, but not the Anglo-American positivist version. When asked if history is a social science or one of the humanities, I reply yes.

As a historian LMAO at eternaltriangle's post. His viewpoint is as ideological as Marxism and possibly less scientific. The numbers crunchers are the only useful political scientists; everything else done in the discipline can be, and usually is, done better by historians.

I do not solely endorse number crunching. Case study analysis can sometimes provide theoretical leverage (it is particularly useful where there are very few cases) if constructed appropriately. eg. by using Mill's method of agreement you can set things up so almost everything in two cases are the same, save one explanatory factor (there is also a method of disagreement). Sometimes case studies are useful for "critical cases". For instance, the Fashoda incident is arguably a critical case disproving the hard version of democratic peace theory (that no two democratic states will ever go to war). Case studies can also engage in process tracing, establishing the deeper causal mechanisms at work (statistics are not always the best for making a case for causality).

I am open to the use of "soft" concepts like norms (for instance the epistemic communities literature - eg. Haas, Emmanuel Adler - discusses the evolution of norms among policymakers, but with a clear mechanism at work), and sketchier techniques like discourse/content analysis if properly operationalized. Let me be clear, I have no problem stealing the methods of those with different epistomological commitments from me, if it can tell me something interesting.

Where I differ with many historians (or at least with the rising postmodern tide in history) however, is in that I believe case studies should be theoretically motivated. I suppose you are correct that this is a normative position. Its roots, somewhere down the line, rest on the assumption that being able to generalize is useful in some cases, that there is such a thing as verifiable truth, and that events have causation. The debate about truth is never going to be solved to anybody's satisfaction. If you are a scholar and believe that is a serious problem, you should quit. I contend that reasonable people can still differentiate between more and less convincing arguments (often they can't, but at least you can have a debate rooted in evidence, theory and falsifiable hypotheses).

If you are a hard relativist/pomo/hardline constructivist ("reality is constructed the whole way down"), obviously you reject that notion and there is not a lot we can discuss. You can go and write nice narratives, while others in your camp write nice narratives, exalt Arendt and Habermas, and if you are lucky, get tenure in the process. Why people would hire scholars whose premise excludes any possibility of progress (beyond the need for a few token crazies in the department) is beyond me, but to each their own.

I prefer a world where scholars produce clear ideas that can be proven right or wrong based on evidence. Through time methods will get better, ideas more sophisticated, theories more refined and predictions better. It is possible all reality is constructed and this is bunk. If so, positivists are but one of many groups trying to construct reality, and are just another postmodern narrative. If they are right, however, then post-modernism is bunk, while positivism is not.

[phantasma]

History involves not only facts and data, but interpretations and analysis.

[Tragic Hero]

Why does everything have to be classified as something else? Maybe I'm just being simple, but I just always thought of history as History. Science involves labs and tests and explosions and molecules. While Art involved Paint and Colours and Lines and Pictures.

[Cocoa]

History fits the customary European definition of a science, but not the Anglo-American positivist version. When asked if history is a social science or one of the humanities, I reply yes.

As a historian LMAO at eternaltriangle's post. His viewpoint is as ideological as Marxism and possibly less scientific. The numbers crunchers are the only useful political scientists; everything else done in the discipline can be, and usually is, done better by historians.

As a historian too I have a hard time understanding Eternaltriangle. Too me his view of the world seems to have a Veil just as much as marxist/feminist historians do. Perhaps it's just more capitalist. :)





Cocoa added to this post, 6 minutes and 11 seconds later...

Why does everything have to be classified as something else? Maybe I'm just being simple, but I just always thought of history as History. Science involves labs and tests and explosions and molecules. While Art involved Paint and Colours and Lines and Pictures.

I think it is because everything has an implication.

Fine Arts are:"Paint and Colours and Lines and Pictures."
Arts: (In North America) are things like History, Languages, I donno, Geography, Anthropology.

what about Archaeology, is that a science? if so, how can it be (as it is) part of Anthropology which is an Art?

It matters because my degree would be different. Instead of a bachelor of Arts, I would have a bachelor of science. Science also carries more weight, more significance and value in today's society then art does.

[Pouthas]

Relatively few historians are dogmatic about theory, especially compared to people in literature and cultural studies, because we deal with empirical evidence, too. We realize, though, that empirical evidence is not synonymous with the world as perceived by traditional elites.

Habermas is a brilliant philosopher but a so-so historian. I have deep doubts about his public sphere theory. My own analysis has been more informed by sociologists such as Mwx Weber and Pierre Bourdieu.

[Prunesquallor]

It's a social science.

[jesse]

I view history as science and art combined. Sometimes you can indeed decipher history as clear cut while in some occasions you could as well be drowning in misinformation, either deliberate or because a culture does not put an emphasis on writing history down. History can be studied by coming up with a hypothesis and then investigating if you can back such claims up or whether the material found would suggest the opposite. It's not an exact science while it strives for accuracy and truthfulness, at least this is what I have been told over the years.

History and events can be interpreted through a variety of glasses and points of view. I do not belive that there is an absolute universal truth which is why history cannot provide a completely accurate and precise description of an event. It will give you a description and probably be at least in the correct ball park in a general sense. I also tend to think that history is not completely written in stone and if you decide to scratch the surface it could provide alternatives to what is considered the accepted sequence of events in past times.

You'd hope that good historians take into account differences of views, explain what took place and have evidence as to why X happened and other events which facilitated or even forced X to take place.

On the poll I voted history as 50/50 and history being within the eye of its beholder.