Open access
IS HISTORY ONLY THE STUDY OF THE PAST?
Damian Bębnowski1
PHILOSOPHY – PERCEPTION AND VISUALIZATION OF WORLD AND LIFE
Publication language: Polish
Journal article
Transformations No. 1–2 (88–89) 2016, Publication date: 10 May 2016
Keywords: history, theory and methodology of history, philosophy, Pan-History
Abstract This article is based on theoretical and methodological research about the object of history. The examples of views on the object of history from the general historiography show the centuries-old evolution of historical thought. It is also the starting point for the presentation of a new understanding of history which can be defined as the study of the concrete reality in definite space-time with all elements and correlations which are parts of that reality. Here, there is a possibility to overspread the object of history on three time spheres: past, present and future, with obvious stress on the past. What is more, the subject in that understanding of history is not only human, but – according to the posthumanistic approach – each category which is part of studied reality. The broad defninition of the object of history is also connected with the ‘reconceptualization’ of history as the ‘res gestae’. History is the continuum without chronological borders. Therefore, it is possible to challenge the traditional division between ‘prehistory’ and ‘history’, which is confirmed by such current projects as ‘Deep History’ and ‘Big History’. The article also emphasized the meaning of the philosophical reflection on history. Next to theory and methodology as well as empirical research, this kind of reflection is part of the model of an epistemology of history (the structure of history). This broad view on history is also the base of ‘Pan-History’, a conception which is the omnipresence of history.
Uniwersytet Łódzki, Wydział Ekonomiczno-Socjologiczny
E-mail: damian.beben@wp.pl.