Wallach, Efraim (2018) Historiographic narratives and empirical evidence - a case study. [Preprint]
|
Text
Historiographic narratives and empirical evidence - Final.pdf Download (261kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Several scholars observed that narratives about the human past are evaluated comparatively. Few attempts have been made, however, to explore how such evaluations are actually done. Here I look at a lengthy "contest" among several historiographic narratives, all constructed to make sense of another one- the biblical story of the conquest of Canaan. I conclude that the preference of such narratives can be construed as a rational choice. In particular, an easily comprehensible and emotionally evocative narrative will give way to a complex and mundane one, when the latter provides a more coherent account of the consensually accepted body of evidence. This points to a fundamental difference between historiographic narratives and fiction, contrary to some influential opinions in the philosophy of historiography. Such historiographic narratives have similarities with hypotheses and narrative explanations in natural science.
| Export/Citation: | EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL |
| Social Networking: |
| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creators: |
|
||||||
| Additional Information: | This is a pre-print of an article published in Synthese. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-02065-w | ||||||
| Keywords: | Historiography, Historiographic narratives, Archaeology, Narrative explanations, Case study. | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Explanation General Issues > History of Science Case Studies General Issues > Theory Change |
||||||
| Depositing User: | Dr. Efraim Wallach | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 15 Dec 2018 20:18 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 15 Dec 2018 20:18 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 15452 | ||||||
| DOI or Unique Handle: | 10.1007/s11229-018-02065-w | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Explanation General Issues > History of Science Case Studies General Issues > Theory Change |
||||||
| Date: | December 2018 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/15452 |
Monthly Views for the past 3 years
Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years
Plum Analytics
Altmetric.com
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
![[feed]](http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/style/images/feed-icon-32x32.png){kind=icon}