Discourse of Historical Cognition: an Epistemological Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to consider the discourse of researchers actively working in the field of historical knowledge. In other words, the article examines the features of the verbalization of basic concepts and methodological attitudes of modern historical knowledge. Discourse analysis, in contrast to the traditional philosophical and methodological, allows you to penetrate into the microcosm of historical work, to observe the “historian at the workbench” outside the “spotlights” and other attributes of public demonstration. Discourse analysis is a specific section of historical epistemology. From the author's point of view, epistemology adheres to a descriptive attitude. It is intended to describe, not prescribe, as is the case with the methodology of science. The goal of the article is to trace and show the dynamics of the historical vocabulary in the hope of seeing emerging trends in the rethinking of the models of the historical process as a whole. Discourse analysis allows you to detail intellectual changes and see “point shifts” in patterns of thinking, which ultimately lead to “tectonic transformations” of the entire field of historical research. Science, according to the theory of P. Bourdieu, is a specific social game, and contains a competitive struggle within itself, in which the winner acquires the right to general recognition and authority, which consolidate the concepts he invented as legitimate. History is no exception here. The article focuses on such concepts that have gained legitimacy as “historical reconstruction”, “temporality”, “past”, “presentism”, “antiquarianism”, “narrative”, “contingent”. It is shown that words are the triggers of search thinking.