Science of History
Meeting Synopsis
Gurley Forum,
Our campus is closed to the public for this event
Henry Adams (1838-1918) was struck by a paradox: civilization (or at least technology), seems to move toward progress, whereas the Second Law of Thermodynamics demands that the universe moves toward entropy. For Adams - the doyen of the historical profession in America - the resolution of this puzzle would require a drastic solution: historians needed to become physicists. “The future of Thought, and therefore of History, lies in the hands of the physicists… and the future historian must seek his education in the world of mathematical physics. Nothing can be expected from further study on the old lines. A new generation must be brought up to think by new methods.”
Of course, in the intervening century, academic History has veered away from dreams of unity with the natural sciences. Meanwhile, the problem that Adams’ highlighted remains as puzzling as ever. But is his suggestion that historians concern themselves with thermodynamics, entropy, and phase transitions just a kind of “physics envy,” or does it point toward serious resources for rethinking the epistemic status of History, its place among the disciplines of knowledge?
Much will obviously depend on what History is. We might think of History as the past, as everything that has ever happened. Alternatively, we might think of History as the human construction of stories about the past. But if History is the former, what distinguishes it from other sciences of the past - cosmology, geology, evolutionary biology? If History is really our construction of narratives about the past, what rules or procedures distinguish it from fiction, say, or forensic sciences that concern themselves more with what happened than why? At the same time, much also depends on how we define Science. Is it a method of inquiry? Or does the essence of science lie in the object of inquiry (i.e. nature and nature’s laws)? Is the goal of science reductive explanation, and if so, is it (1) reduction to fundamental symmetries (compressed mathematical laws involving a minimum of particles, waves, etc.), or rather, (2) reduction to the most parsimonious adequate model?
The hardest challenge would be if History were both a domain of law-like regularities and conscious agency. Indeed, there is robust evidence for pattern, constraint, sequence and even direction in human history. Yet, there is culture, agency, meaning, freedom, contingency, and possibility or open-endedness. The participants of this workshop will convene to reflect on the relationship of History to Science.
This event is supported by the James S. McDonnell Foundation Grant Number 220020491, Adaptation, Aging, and the Arrow of Time. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the James S. McDonnell Foundation.