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1 Český časopis historický (The Czech Historical Review)

1 2012

1 Sommer P.

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Moderní technologie a historická metoda

100%

Sommer P.

nr 3-4

750-756

The enormous boom of technologies (mainly electronics) experienced by our world in the last two or three decades has caused a radical change in the understanding of the methodology of science as such, in our context the methodology of social sciences. The postmodern scepticism connected with the possibility of learning the complexity of historical processes and evaluating large collections of resources that cannot be coped with in traditional “human” ways is often eclipsed precisely by references to the potential of modern technologies, which as very efficient tools manage what cannot be done by our weak human power and which correct the human tendency to err. Oftentimes, it is certainly true that these new tools, especially in the application of computers, unimaginably multiply the work capacity of individuals as well as teams. It is however also evident that the formulation of the point and purpose of the application of this capacity continues to be a merely human task. In general, this sense may be seen in learning and measured against the degree of this learning. A cursory look at the current state of historiography reveals that precisely that - the product of all research endeavours - is made the most problematic today. It is a task of the research community to return historical knowledge the position of an instrument bringing besides the undoubtedly subjective evaluation of resources and their testimony also conclusions that are controllably objective, because they have been achieved in a generally accepted and revisable way. At the same time, it is clear that no historical discipline can save itself but that a desirable principle of a historian’s work is the Braudelian ideal of total history, which still has contact points between individual historical disciplines and their resources. Not only does such an approach bring the priceless potential of the harnessing of source testimonies, but it also offers the exceptional possibility of a critical assessment of the conclusions of the individual fields, which must not contradict the conclusions of other disciplines. (Actually, they can, but then it is necessary, on the basis of convincing arguments, to decide whether the conclusion of a single discipline is right as opposed to the others or this single discipline is wrong.) Nevertheless, it is also crucial to know that a mere agreement of the sources and conclusions is not enough. Neither is a logically flawless argumentation model enough. Even here, it is essential to return to time-proven principles – namely that each conclusion should be a logical outcome of a stimulus of a source testimony, in no case vice versa. Free speculations on what a certain source stimulus might mean in total while not contradicting the source testimony, often with an unacceptable lowering of the threshold of argumentation’s sophistication, are at most a hypothesis. A hypothesis becomes a historical conclusion only if there is a generally accepted reason why it should be so. A reader of these lines may feel that I am quoting generally known banalities. My experience, however, takes me to the conclusion that it is a reminder of the frequently forgotten principles without which no historical work may claim scientific activity. We should realise that a historian’s work becomes a science only if it comes through a repeated path from a controllable resource base, through logical and clear methods, to generally acceptable conclusions. Only if these principles are generally not accepted can such absurdities occur that the official evaluation system of our research ostentatiously appraises the formal – not content – characteristics of its outcomes. The scientific quality of a work is determined by a correctly chosen opponent, the language used, the number of pages, the selected publication platform, index, in no case the correctness of the argumentation or the originality and novelty of the solution presented. New technologies and methodologies (even if applied from other scientific areas) are an important part of current research. For instance, it is hard to imagine today’s archaeology without natural-science applications enabling dating, technological interpretations of resources, accumulation and interpretation of many types of ecofacts, computer processing of large information sets, utilisation of digital geodetic methods etc. Once all the ‘bricks’ arising from that have been collected, it is necessary to select the building process, in whose every phase it must be clear what questions we study. In this phase, every scientific discipline relies on the already-mentioned controllable process. A significant prerequisite for its efficiency is the critical awareness of what potential the individual types of resources contain and what potential is contained in the methodologies of individual historical disciplines or methodological applications from the area of other sciences. Banalities again? Perhaps rather an observation that learning about history has clear principles and consequences, the ignoring of which means that the result does not bring new knowledge or that it does not belong in the area of history.