Karl Marx, Carl G. Hempel and Robin G. Collingwood on the Empirical Nature of History (ePub)

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Philosophy - Philosophy of the 19th Century, grade: 0.8, University of Nairobi, course: Philosophy, language: English, abstract: If history investigates the causes of events, comes up with evidence for the truth, then surely it must be connected to science and scientific inquiry. This paper will define what science is, the conceptions of history by different scholars in order to come up with a position of the extent to which history is a science.

History has been described variously. History is the study of past events especially the political, social and economic developments of a country, a continent or the world. It is also past events especially when considered as a whole. It is also the systematic description of past events, for example, the writing of a new history of Europe. History is also a series of past events or experiences connected with an object, a person or a place. History as a term comes from the Greek word historie. This word was used by Herodotus, meaning to research or to investigate.

In our study of history therefore, it means to investigate the human past, for example, activities of man during a time period. In history, we investigate the causes of events to come up with evidence to bring up the truth. The question 'why?' is important in human investigation so as to know about how and when. This simple explanation of what history is will guide us in exploring the extent to which history is a science.