This presentation is based on the historical research phenomenon as How History as a science. Here i am compared History with the scientific methodology.

1. History as a
Science
Saurav Kishor
School of Historical Studies
Critical Reading in Historical studies Module 1

2. Biography – R.G.Collingwood
 A British Philosopher, Historian and archaeologist
 He is best known for his philosophical works including
The Principles of Art and the posthumously published The
Idea of History.
 Born February 22, 1889, Cartmel Fell, United Kingdom
 He Stated that the human must be examined historically
rather than psychologically.

3. As per the R.G.Collingwood’s Views….
• Collingwood held that history could not be studied in the same way as natural
science because the internal thought processes of historical persons could not be
perceived with the physical senses, and past historical events could not be
directly observed.
• He pointed out a fundamental difference between knowing things in the present
(or in the natural sciences) and knowing history.
• He maintained that historians must use their imaginations to reconstruct and
understand the past. Because human events that have already taken place cannot
be observed, he argued that they must be imagined.
• History can’t proceed without philosophical presuppositions of a highly complex
character. It deals with evidence, and therefore makes epistemological
assumption as to the value of evidence.

4. History is a narrative Text,
Written in the present, about
the Subject of the Past, using
evidence that the past has
left behind
What is
History
??

5. What is Science
??
Science doesn't yet "prove" much
about morality and ethics, but it
does provide a lot of useful
information, and is getting closer
all the time.

6. What is Science?
A better answer – science is a disciplined attempt to find out:
• what exists
E.g. people, fleas, clouds, rivers, atoms, sub-atomic particles, molecules, poverty,
wars, minds, emotions, computational processes in computers, genes,
species,
niches, ecosystems...
• how things work
E.g. how molecules of atoms and of hydrogen can be transformed into molecules of
water, how centripetal force produces circular or elliptical motion, how an egg
develops into a chicken, how humans generate grammatical sentences (sometimes).
• why they work as they do
This usually requires appeal to do a deeper theory. Usually mathematics is required to
derive precise consequences from a deep theory.

7. How are science and History related ??
• Science is the method of understanding the natural world and History part of the
natural world.
• Discoveries in science make history, and without history, you would have to start
things from scratch each time instead of picking it up where it was last left.
by An Anonymous

8. References
• https://www.quora.com/Is-history-a-science-Why
• http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2005-09-05-karlsson-en.html
• http://www.springer.com/in/book/9789400743113