DeConick on methodology
September 21, 2009
Last week after our brief interchange, April DeConick posted some thoughts on methdology that sounded very much like oversimplification and false dilemma (see here and here and my thoughts here). Today she has plotted out, rather carefully, a much more reasonable series of methdological starting points for doing responsible historical investigation. While I still think she is undervaluing literary study as a legitimate avenue for pursuing historical research, I am glad to see her admit that even her approach has its biases.
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I get the feeling DeConick wants to claim history as a hard science, akin to physics (thus the need to keep theology out of it). We scientists need to be a bit more aware of what data can and cannot do. Historical data especially is fraught with missing pieces. The only way to get a clear picture would be for the whole of human history to be recorded on CCTV with sound. History is full of conjecture. Historians need to face up to that.