This thread is Carrikature and I to stop clogging up the SB. We intend, for now, to restrict posting here to the two of us.
Carrik: from where we left off, I think now that I was too hasty to put the (possibly non-existent cart) before the horse to say that my method can lead to knowledge.
Maybe this is a better way to explain it: if historical investigation is not going to be about 'mere events' but to understand the people acting in various events, I propose that understanding their motivations would be one key factor in such investigation. And people in various cultures generally have different ways of viewing the world, different values, different praxis. If we want to embark on this task we have to reconstruct what I would term as their 'worldview'. In principle it shoud be possible to do so from what I think are the four main components: the story, the praxis, the symbols, and the questions.
If we can reconstruct the general aworldview, or better, if focusing on an individual, the individual's variation the worldview, we would be in a better position to understand how the person or group would act and why; we can more accurately answer the question of historical plausibility. Otherwise the great danger would be the unjustified projection of what we would consider plausible within our own worldview.
For example, the actions of the kamikaze pilots of Japan in WWII would make little sense from a very individualistic, anti-nationalistic worldview, but would, I suggest, make very much sense from theirs.
Carrik: from where we left off, I think now that I was too hasty to put the (possibly non-existent cart) before the horse to say that my method can lead to knowledge.
Maybe this is a better way to explain it: if historical investigation is not going to be about 'mere events' but to understand the people acting in various events, I propose that understanding their motivations would be one key factor in such investigation. And people in various cultures generally have different ways of viewing the world, different values, different praxis. If we want to embark on this task we have to reconstruct what I would term as their 'worldview'. In principle it shoud be possible to do so from what I think are the four main components: the story, the praxis, the symbols, and the questions.
If we can reconstruct the general aworldview, or better, if focusing on an individual, the individual's variation the worldview, we would be in a better position to understand how the person or group would act and why; we can more accurately answer the question of historical plausibility. Otherwise the great danger would be the unjustified projection of what we would consider plausible within our own worldview.
For example, the actions of the kamikaze pilots of Japan in WWII would make little sense from a very individualistic, anti-nationalistic worldview, but would, I suggest, make very much sense from theirs.
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