The Emergence of the Idea of Scientific Historiography -- By: David R. Dilling

Journal: Grace Journal
Volume: GJ 09:2 (Spring 1968)
Article: The Emergence of the Idea of Scientific Historiography
Author: David R. Dilling


The Emergence of the Idea of Scientific Historiography

David R. Dilling

Instructor in Philosophy
Grace College

Introduction

An Overview of Historical Philosophy

If, as Carl Becker maintains, every normal person knows a great deal of history—indeed, knows all the history that is necessary for his immediate efficiency, it would be somewhat presumptuous to regard history as a modern discipline. But that is a semantic problem deriving from the ambiguity of “history.” In some senses—perhaps the most important—history is indeed a modern discipline: a child of the Enlightenment and a development of the nineteenth century.

The history great crises.1 The first of these occurred in the fifth century, B.C., when the Greek historian Herodotus introduced the idea of scientific historiography and his younger contemporary Thucydides wrote the critical history on the Peloponnesian War. This crisis marked a revolution from mythological and theocentric history to scientific and anthropocentric history. But, as with many great ideas, the idea thus introduced, became dormant, not to be revived until modern times.

The second crisis occurred in the fourth and fifth centuries of the Christian era when the idea of history was transformed by the imposition of Christian theology. The publication of Augustine’s De Civitate Dei in A.D. 426, established a motif for historical philosophy which dominated the field for a millennium. Augustine is generally credited with having produced the first systematic philosophy of history. The City of God is the first universal history and marks a great departure from the ancient cyclical interpretation to the linear and teleological view. Augustine’s introduction of the idea of providence is the first use of a single controlling idea by means of which all history can be written, interpreted, and utilized. It is in this sense that his work qualifies as the first philosophy of history. To be sure, Augustine’s philosophy of history is really a theology of history; but if a rigid distinction is maintained between philosophy and theology, then philosophy of history is a modern development, indeed.

A third crisis occurred in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with the final emergence of scientific historiography. In the eighteenth century, especially in connection with the French Enlightenment, the idea of providence was replaced by the idea of progress—humanistically

conceived. The progress of reason was taken as an indication of the inevitable perfectability of man and establishment of utopia. During the nineteenth century the idea of progres...

You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
Click here to subscribe
visitor : : uid: ()