PROJECTS Objectivity, certainty and fact in the humanities of Early Modern times: historical reconstruction and reception ways (RFH, 2012–2014) Head of the project: Prof. Irina Savelieva
The project is aimed at studying the historical trajectories and reception of central epistemological principles and categories, forms of self-reflection and legitimization of knowledge in the humanities in the time of the Scientific revolution.
Authors proceed from the assumption that fundamental principles of modern scientific thought, such as objectivity and factual certainty, took shape between the fifteenth and the seventeenth century. Therefore, two related tasks need to be solved: 1) an immanent theoretical and contextual (social, institutional) reconstruction of epistemological fundaments of the humanities in the Early Modern Times (15th through 17th century); 2) an analysis of the historical evolution and reception of fundamental epistemological principles and categories of early modern humanities in philosophy and history of science in the nineteenth and twentieth century.
It was a tradition in philosophy and history of science to explain the encompassing paradigm shift in the humanities with a methodological intervention of natural and exact sciences in the Early Modern Times. The ideas of the historic fact and historical veracity that established themselves during the Enlightenment, and the domination of the critical approach in biblical hermeneutics and in philology were regarded as results of conceptual shifts in philosophy and natural sciences. The present project’s aim is critical reconsideration of the methodological monism typical of the classical history of science. Thus, it will serve as prolegomena to a genealogy of object reality, the ontological a priori of the modern European worldview that was shaped by the linguistic and methodological syncretism of the Early Modern Times. Within the framework of this project, explication of the epistemological principles of early modern humanities will be attended as a necessary precondition of studying the nineteenth-century European science as well as the projects criticizing positivism and designing a twentieth-century ‘humanity epistemology’.
Works published
Book
Savelieva I. M., Poletayev A. V. Knowledge of the Past: Theory and History. 2 vols. V. 1: Construction of the Past. V. 2: Images of the Past.
Znanie o proshlom: teoriya i istoriya. V 2-h t. T. 1: Konstruirovanie proshlogo. T. 2: Obrazy proshlogo. SPb.: Nauka, 2003, 2006. 632 p.; 751 p.
Articles
Sokolov, Pavel V. Isaac Newton’s Physica Sacra within the Context of Treatises on the “Theory of the Earth”
Physica sacra Isaaka N'yutona v kontekste traktatov o «teorii Zemli» // «Gumanitarnye issledovanija» (IGITI NIU–VShE). WP6/2011/02. – 28 s.
Savelieva I. M., Poletaev A. V. History in the System of Social Knowledge
Istoriya v sisteme social'nogo znaniya. Sposoby postijeniya proshlogo // Metodologiya i teoriya istoricheskoi nauki / Red. M. A. Kukarceva. M., Kanon-plyus, 2010. S. 50–84.
Dmitriev A. N. Literary Criticism in State Academy of Artistic Sciences between Philosophy, Poetics and Sociology
Literaturovedenie v GAHN mejdu filosofiei, poetikoi i sociologiei // Logos. 2010. № 2. S. 105—121.
Ivanova J. V., Sokolov P. V. Main Tendencies of Italian Cinquecento Political Thought and Historiography after Machiavelli and Guicciardini.
Osnovnye napravleniya politicheskoy mysli i istoriografii Chinkvechento posle Mak'yavelli i Gvichchardini. // WP6/2009/08. – M.: Izd. dom GU-VShE, 2009. 36 s.
Savelyeva, Irina M. and Poletayev, Andrey V. History Among Other Social Sciences // "Social Sciences" (Minneapolis), 2008, Vol. 39, No. 3, P. 28–42.
Rezvykh, Piotr V. Schellings Rede über die Bibelgesellschaften, “Zeitschrift für neuere Theologiegeschichte” (Berlin-New York), 2007, T. 14. No 1, P. 1 – 48.
Savelieva I. M., Poletayev A. V. Formation of Historical Method: Ranke, Marx, Droysen
Stanovlenie istoricheskogo metoda: Ranke, Marks, Drojzen // «Dialog so vremenem. Al'manah intellektual'noj istorii». Vyp. 18. M.: URSS, 2007, s. 68–96.