What is your research philosophy?
I'm working on this page, but it might take awhile to get to it. For now, here's a skeleton and some other stuff:
First and foremost, my research goal is to always use the historical method to look at the evidence I've gathered in an honest and ethical manner that avoids evaluativism and presentism as much as possible. In this way, I do my best to "let the evidence lead" and to "let the people speak" even if it leads me down paths that are uncomfortable, unbelievable, or unfathomable.
In my view, historians have ideas about the past, not knowledge of the past. Ontologically, I classify myself as systems historian that uses post-qualitative, post-foundational, or a post-post-Structuralist approach for the lack of better ways to put it (hopefully, this answer will be as intentionally vague as I mean it to be). Perhaps the best fit I've found thus far is post-foundationalism since I don't view the act of historical inquiry as one that is truly knowledge apt. Another way to categorize segments of my historical approach is neo-consensus-y-an-ish. Also, absurdist philosophy also governs a great deal of my thoughts on history since I believe that we're doomed to repeat history even if we've "learned" from it, and even if we do "find" history we can't actually know when we have done so. Indeed, I don't really believe we can "know," the past, but that there is, (perhaps) value in trying.
I'm trying to incorporate psychology, philosophy, and cognition into my historical ideas, but there's no clearly-defined standard for this, nor is there a convenient, single-word "ism" that describes it. Some of my large-scale studies have used Natalie Zemon Davis' "decentered history" model as a base framework, but since I haven't spoken to her directly about them, I'm not even sure I've done them to her standards. However, I'm able to guide graduate students who do use other models as I'm familiar with most of the popular ones. I won't require you to think about history as I do. I care that you use evidence and the historical method to lead your analysis, no matter what framework you use as an interpretive foundation. Either way, I don't often bring these up verbally because the last time I did, one of my master's degree advisers waived her hands in front of her face and shrieked, "you can't do that!" Since the History Police have yet to raid my home, destroy my property, arrest me, and put me into an ugly cell, maybe it was just the person I entrusted my thoughts to more than an actual problem with "me."
Some of the frameworks I've used in the past are:
Some quotes that inspire me and the way I view history:
First and foremost, my research goal is to always use the historical method to look at the evidence I've gathered in an honest and ethical manner that avoids evaluativism and presentism as much as possible. In this way, I do my best to "let the evidence lead" and to "let the people speak" even if it leads me down paths that are uncomfortable, unbelievable, or unfathomable.
In my view, historians have ideas about the past, not knowledge of the past. Ontologically, I classify myself as systems historian that uses post-qualitative, post-foundational, or a post-post-Structuralist approach for the lack of better ways to put it (hopefully, this answer will be as intentionally vague as I mean it to be). Perhaps the best fit I've found thus far is post-foundationalism since I don't view the act of historical inquiry as one that is truly knowledge apt. Another way to categorize segments of my historical approach is neo-consensus-y-an-ish. Also, absurdist philosophy also governs a great deal of my thoughts on history since I believe that we're doomed to repeat history even if we've "learned" from it, and even if we do "find" history we can't actually know when we have done so. Indeed, I don't really believe we can "know," the past, but that there is, (perhaps) value in trying.
I'm trying to incorporate psychology, philosophy, and cognition into my historical ideas, but there's no clearly-defined standard for this, nor is there a convenient, single-word "ism" that describes it. Some of my large-scale studies have used Natalie Zemon Davis' "decentered history" model as a base framework, but since I haven't spoken to her directly about them, I'm not even sure I've done them to her standards. However, I'm able to guide graduate students who do use other models as I'm familiar with most of the popular ones. I won't require you to think about history as I do. I care that you use evidence and the historical method to lead your analysis, no matter what framework you use as an interpretive foundation. Either way, I don't often bring these up verbally because the last time I did, one of my master's degree advisers waived her hands in front of her face and shrieked, "you can't do that!" Since the History Police have yet to raid my home, destroy my property, arrest me, and put me into an ugly cell, maybe it was just the person I entrusted my thoughts to more than an actual problem with "me."
Some of the frameworks I've used in the past are:
- Decentered
- Transnational
- Memetics and Aspirationalism
- Consensus
Some quotes that inspire me and the way I view history:
- Whatcha got ain't nothin new. This country's hard on people. You can't stop what's coming; it ain't all waiting on you--that's vanity.
--Ellis, in No Country for Old Men - The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity.
--Jacob Burkhardt
And the similar:
"It's naive to thank that horrible things that we can't understand have simple explanations, because simple explanations make us feel like we have control when we don't. "
--Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica (re-imagining) - [Be] willing to speak on behalf of the beauty and joy we find in our tradition, including its ideals...The answer is not tearing down the culture because it has failed to live up to its ideals; it is to have faith in our tradition and to continue to strive for improvement, always with the recognition that to err is human.
-- Rachel Fulton Brown - The question of whether world peace will ever be possible can only be answered by someone familiar with world history. To be familiar with world history means, however, to know human beings as they have been and always will be. There is a vast difference, which most people will never comprehend, between viewing future history as it will be and viewing it as one might like it to be. Peace is a desire, war is a fact; and history has never paid heed to human desires and ideals…
--Oswald Spengler
This quote is actually shortened and paraphrased in the 2014 film, Fury, when the main character, Wardaddy, teachers his new, naive bow gunner, Machine, that "ideals are peaceful, history is violent." - [When people rage] against history and when the past is judged according to today’s standards, it provides an immense supply of atrocities and injustices for them to rail against. In this respect, history serves a useful function for [some] who want to use it to assert their moral superiority over their "unenlightened" ancestors. Fighting against the past affords [people] an opportunity to display their moral righteousness and certainty to full effect....when history is presented as a morality play rather than a search for the truth, it no longer has to have any relationship to reality. Pitching the benefits of hindsight that come with an entirely different social, economic and political era against a decontextualised past allows [people] to take the moral high ground.
As a consequence...protests against the past obscure how far society has progressed, the great strides that have been made in tackling oppression...Indeed, in allowing [those] who lead privileged lives with a reason to believe that they too are victims, this denial of social progress appears to be a prime motivation...
Complaining about history is far easier than challenging injustices in the present. The past is never able to answer back and defend itself and arguing against the past rarely entails adverse consequences...
--Joanna Williams - "Prejudices are what fools use for reason"
-- Voltaire - “Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.”
-- Haruki Murakami - We proceed on insufficient knowledge,
trusting in what comes,
in what comes down,
in winding corridors,
in clamorous big rooms,
above a gorge on windy cliffs.
--Robert Frost - “When something becomes [religious zealotry], we don’t choose the actions that are most likely to solve the problem, we do the things that are the most ritually satisfying.”
--Jonathan Haidt (the actual words he used were "a religion," but I believe that he was incorrect in this regard. One can be religious and thoughtful without becoming mindlessly zealous about it.)