Suchergebnisse

(Originally published in History and Theory, 1987, 26, 1-29.) It is postulated that, despite the best efforts of professional historians, there is no way of inventing a direct assessment of historical events. In fact, the professional standards of historians' honesty & professionalism are measured against the very conventions that include or exclude certain aspects of historical events. Even the thickest synchronic or quantified description must be understood by its readers as an excerpt from an explicit or implicit narrative. The desire for a source of an unprocessed story is a futile, frustrating effort, since all historical texts or materials are part of a society's cultural system. Adapted from the source document.

Does science think or does it not think, this traditionally philosophical dilemma has today become, according to the central thesis of this essay, inherent to science itself. The author argues that it is in the interest of contemporary science itself to affirm itself as thought. It is precisely this perspective of science as thought which implies the ethical dimension of science. This is not to be understood in the sense of the necessity of some prohibitive instance such as an ethical demand, but rather in the sense that science, for its own internal reasons, should not give up regarding its desire: to be, both, an experiment of thought & a condition for thought. Only by being useful for thought can science be useful for something else. Adapted from the source document.