To what extent is the knowledge we produce determined by the methods with reference to history and one other AOK?

Conflicts in produced knowledge occur in every AOK (are of knowledge), with their nature rooted in the contradicting methods used in its production. This essay will compare and contrast different methods of production for knowledge in relation to History and Medicine in The Natural Sciences.

Historical knowledge is the historian’s interpretation of how and why an event happened. The study of methods used to acquire historical knowledge is Historiography. In the scope of Western Society, methods can differentiate into three ideological categories of historiography, pre-modernism, modernism and postmodernism (Dalimore, 2016). This section will explain the three methods and use them to produce knowledge on the French Revolution.

Pre-modernism (before 1700 ±100)
The first work of history was named The Histories, by the ‘father of history’ Herodotus (484-426 BC). The Histories used a combination of anecdotes and eyewitness accounts to create a narrative regarding the period. Near simultaneously to Herodotus, Thucydides (460-400 BC) wrote The Peloponnesian War, a first-person account of the thirty year war between Athens and Sparta (431–404 BC) as an Athenian Soldier.

Thucydides and Herodotus both used the broad method of presenting and analysing evidence to communicate the events of their reality. Where they differed was in the sourcing of evidence. Herodotus often used unvalidated sources to create meta-narratives about society, while Thucydides refused to incorporate documents that he could not directly substantiate. Thucydides is thus dubbed by contemporary historians as the “father of scientific history”, while some consider Herodotus the “father of lies”. (CRF, 2009) Thucydidian tradition carried on to the Romans with works like The Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar (100 - 44 BC) and Cicero’s Letters (106-43 BC). While the Herodotian traditions continued with works such as The Travels Of Marco Polo (1300) and The Aberdeen Bestiary (1210) a Mediaeval manuscript.

Knowledge of the events of the French Revolution using the pre-modernist method presents itself in work such as the Procès de George by Moreau (1804), or The chroniques du parlement (1790-1820). These works would contain verbose descriptions of events, with little to no meta-analysis on the why of the event, fundamentally producing ‘less’ knowledge.

Modernism (before 1700 ±100-1950)
The modernist era brought about a ‘scientific’ interpretation of history and explosion of historiographical methods. Personified by its professionalisation, the historical profession began to centre around the new academic institutions in Europe and the US. Standards become instituted such as Thucydidian scrutinisation of sources with the “W’s” (Who, What, Where, When Why), as well as a revisionist (academic not political) approach to seeking and updating existing knowledge.

Given the influence of thinkers like Darwin, Hegel and Newton, events began to be analysed through larger historical laws called ‘meta-narratives’ that represent the teleology of history. Methods also expanded to interdisciplinary approaches including philosophy, sociology, economics and psychology to “prove” the model or ‘law’. In addition, scientific taxonomy inspired Modernists to focus on concepts like class, gender, race and nation states. This was at times damaging to the validity of knowledge produced, as some found selected evidence for the to support their narrative and conceived archetypes rather than coming up with independent knowledge.

Knowledge pertaining to the events of the French Revolution derived from modernist historiography can take many forms, an example being Marxist historiography. In Marx’s work The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, we see the application of marxian analysis of class through material dialectics. Showing how peasant class consciousness of their feudal oppression, led to a political uprising and redistribution of wealth in a different economic system. This combination of Sociology and Economics led him to derive that the oppressed peasants rose up against the monarchy, resulting in the Aristocrats becoming the new bourgeoisie and peasants descending into the proletariat (Marx, 1852). Marx uses this to provide evidence for his meta-narrative of history, Marxian Stage Theory, where history is broken into six economic stages: primitive communism, slave society, feudalism, capitalism, socialism (Stanford, 2008), and finally - through the ‘withering away of the state’ - stateless communism (Marx, 1886). In this Marx combines disciplines and taxonomic archetypes to fit a meta-narrative, representing the Modernist Historiographical tradition, representing how Modernist historians create knowledge through the use of social taxonomy (inspired by the scientific method and enlightenment) to examine interdisciplinary factors of history to prove a meta-narrative.

Postmodernism (1950 onwards)
Postmodernism can be seen as a localisation of truth and knowledge to the current self. While modernism would use tools to create a scientific proof and connect an event to a meta-narrative, postmodernism rejects it, instead suggesting that knowledge is inherently unstable. Knowers’ language, beliefs, experiences, society and physiology are in flux, meaning knowers’ interpretation of reality can change depending on the time and place. For historians, sociological taxonomies are reevaluated depending on the culture, power dynamics and language of an individual. Postmodern historians reject grand meta-narratives and focus on the micro and cultural history of an individual or aspect of a society. Often, these treaties are left unresolved and up to the reader to derive their own knowledge based on their connection to reality. If resolved, the general epistemological foundation would go beyond the economic and social structure foundations of modernism and towards an analysis of how language and culture affect the individual. (Dallimore, 2016)

These methods create a form of historiographical anarchy, fundamentally uprooting the nature of knowledge. In a way it could be understood as applying the professionalism of the Modernists with the methods of the Pre-modernists. of A particular example is The Smile Revolution by Colin Jones which analysed happiness in the French revolution and how it relates to language and exposed power. Different from all other methods of history, postmodernism focuses on individuals to analyse a specific aspect to draw or not draw inferences on how the dynamics of a time affect an individual. Postemodism provides unique insights while accepting the limitations of the discipline (Cypher, 2021).

In conclusion, through the different interpretations of the events of the French Revolutionary period, a myriad of historical knowledge can be produced. However, these methods often produce contradicting or completely different forms of knowledge such as in comparison the scientific proof for historical ‘laws’ in modernism versus the anarchy of microhistorical postmodern works. While both works study the same time, and share similar sources, the focus and analysis in explaining the why of history is contradictory. Contemporary historians still use methods from all time periods today, creating a diverse and varied AOK.

In contrast, for the Natural Sciences the scientific method is generally seen as the dominant method. In knowledge surrounding health care, however, this is at times disputed. For this section, I will use the medical condition of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) as an example of how different methods affect the production of knowledge in the natural sciences.

MDD, is an affective disorder that results in feelings of sadness, difficulties in decision-making, loss of motivation and suicidal ideation (Mayo, 2022). The knowledge of treatment in this sense presents itself as decreasing the symptoms of MDD. I will examine three methods for acquiring knowledge of MDD treatment, biological, cognitive and spiritual.

Following the scientific methods, psychologists analyse biology to produce knowledge of the Serotonin Hypothesis (SH) and Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI). SH assumes that MDD is caused by a malfunction in the reuptake of the neurotransmitter Serotonin, SSRIs are thus given as treatment. These have been shown to decrease depressive symptoms at a higher rate than a placebo (Cialprini et al, 2018). However, this reductionism towards seeing MDD as a chemical disease tends to cause a high relapse rate compared to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) (Hollon, 2005).

CBT, the cognitive method, was created by Arron Becker in 1921. CBT assumes that psychological problems are associated with maladaptive thinking patterns and unhealthy behaviours. The treatment can thus be derived as changing irrational automatic thoughts through talk therapy. This method of dialectical rhetoric goes back to ancient Greece thinkers such as Aristotle, who used the same method to solve “melancholia” (Schimelpfening, 2005). In the modern day, CBT is shown to be as effective at reducing depressive symptoms as biological methods, at roughly 50% (Elkin et al, 1989), with a lower relapse rate.

The spiritual method moves beyond western scientific analysis. The scientific method starts at the outcomes and tries to explain how to produce a treatment, whereas the spiritual method, common in eastern culture, already knows the answer and sees how those answers are reflected in real life. The Chinese word for Depression (憂鬱) is derived from the western world and is not historically understood to be a medical disease. Mental issues and symptoms similar to depression are simply understood to be matters of life and are associated with unbalanced qi (氣). Chinese doctors rely on inherited knowledge and phenomenology including acupuncture, allowing 氣 to flow, herbal medicines soothing the liver (associated with mental well-being) and general improvement of well-being through qigong 氣功 meaning stopping the use of drugs and alcohol and focusing on meditation, exercises and eating healthy.

Western scientists have applied their quantitative analysis in studies and found it to be an effective treatment for reducing the symptoms of depression at 34.9% (Zhou, 2009).

While all these methods come to the same outcome, of decreasing the symptoms of depression, showing how methods unexplainable by science can be just as effective in the production of medical knowledge. In the modern day some physiatrists combine all three methods, seeing the method of acquiring medical knowledge as not a competition between the body, brain and spirit but as a combined force for the most effective output.

In conclusion, while different forms of historiography produce different knowledge, different methods in the Natural Sciences can produce the same outcome. Thus the extent to which knowledge produced is determined by the method is dependent on the AOK.

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