Exilian

Art, Writing, and Learning: The Clerisy Quarter => Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza => Topic started by: Jubal on August 28, 2022, 02:03:04 PM

Title: Historical methods, politics, analogy and empiricism
Post by: Jubal on August 28, 2022, 02:03:04 PM
So, opinion writer/economicsy person Noah Smith recently wrote a piece (https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/on-the-wisdom-of-the-historians) in which he charges essentially that everyone is listening too much to historians who are using "personal judgement" rather than "empirical testing" to make claims and links to the present.

As such, I wrote a short response piece (which you can find at https://thoughtsofprogress.wordpress.com/2022/08/28/on-history-and-analogy/) detailing what I think some of the issues are with this, why arguing from historical context points isn't the same as arguing from random anecdotes, and some of the problems with trying to make history look more like social sciences which we've actually seen as it's something people keep failing to do.

Thoughts welcome :)