Conference | Paper

Aspects of ‘time and mode of being' from a historiographical point of view

Friedrich von Petersdorff

Wednesday 6 September 2023

14:00 - 14:30

 

Roman Ingarden analysed in ‘Controversy over the Existence of the World’ three distinct aspects of time, namely ‘events’, ‘processes’ and ‘objects persisting in time’. Having these distinctions in mind I shall turn to epistemological and theoretical aspects of historical research and writing. In other words, I intend to discuss Ingarden’s approach from the point of view of historians, thereby referring to their steps throughout the processes of research and writing. To address these questions I shall turn to epistemological studies as presented by Danto, Fleck, Popper and Ricœur. – Danto analysed in his 1962 article ‘Narrative Sentences’ a significant aspect of any historian’s research and writing, namely that such sentences (as used by historians) ‘refer to at least two time-separated events though they only describe (are only about) the earliest event to which they refer’. Any event at time A is, therefore, analysed in view of some later event at time B, which of course was unknown to the contemporaries experiencing the events at time A. Danto, accordingly. underlines in his discussion of narrative sentences as used by historians [at time C] the significant aspect that historians view the gone-by events and developments by referring at the same time to additional occurrences of historical significance without being immediately related to the analysed topic. – Ricœur, on the other hand, distinguished the various phases of historical research, thereby – nonetheless – underlining the intertwinement of these phases. – Fleck and Popper studied the process of how knowledge is being gained and achieved. – By referring to the results of these theoretical discussions I shall then turn to a renewed look at Ingarden’s distinctions – having, thereby, especially in mind the possible contribution of these towards history and its research, i.e. history as a knowledge of the past understood in a general way, not limited to history of philosophy.