Historical Epistemology – the Trigger of the Reform of the Philosophy of Knowledge

Abstract

Historical epistemology has to become a basis for reconsideration of a concep­tual framework of the philosophy of knowledge. Such reform was about to happen because this framework meets difficulties, so far as it concerns the un­derstanding of historical processes, including сhanging of that conceptual framework itself. Reform will allow comprehending such concepts anew as “historical reality”, “a historical event”, “the subject of historical knowledge”, “rational reconstruction of historical knowledge”, etc. The principle of histori­cism has to be put in organic connection with the principle of objectivity, and this connection is a necessary basis for understanding “the truth of historical judgments”. Thus “historicism” joins a row the main epistemological concepts and stops being the “additive”, implemented to this row by a researcher’s dis­cretion. All elements of this row are interdependent values. Considered out of this interconditionality, they lose the sense and can turn into anti-values. The objectivity and the validity are historical in the same meaning in what his­toricism there is a necessary condition of objectivity and validity. These values exist only in the course of continuous change of historical knowledge. Such understanding of a backbone kernel of epistemological concepts conducts to a specification of the concept “subject of historical knowledge”, which gains contextual sense, and properly epistemological research is enriched with psy­chological, sociological, and existential characteristics. Their interrelation re­mains under the joint control of the principles of objectivity and historicism. The reform also affects the ontology of historical knowledge. The problem of the historical theory’s ontological bases is put and solved according to the principle of historicism.