interdisciplinary studies

Methodology versus theory: historical approaches and the problematic field of the humanities in postmodernism

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Tetiana Vlasova1, Olha Vlasova2, Larysa Martseniuk3

1Doctor of Philosophic Sciences, Professor, Head of the Philology and Translation Department, Dnipro National University of Railway Transport named after Academician V. Lazaryan, Dnipro, Ukraine. Corresponding author. . ORCID: 0000-0001-5040-5733. E-mail: vasovat2@gmail.com

2Candidate of Philosophic Sciences, Associate Professor at Philosophy and Sociology Department, Dnipro National University of Railway Transport named after academician V. Lazaryan, Dnipro, Ukraine. E-mail: 358358olga@gmail.com. ORCID: 0000-0003-1755-0853

3Doctor of Economic Sciences, Associate Professor, Professor in the Economics and Management Department, Dnipro National University of Railway Transport named after Academician V. Lazaryan, Dnipro, Ukraine. E-mail: rwinform1@ukr.net. ORCID: 0000-0003-4121-8826

  Volume 13, Number 3, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n3.10

Abstract

Among the diverse methodological approaches that are currently represented in the postmodern studies, the one, which dominates nowadays, is the statement that there cannot be any methodology in postmodernism per se otherwise it would be a “relapse” into constructing one more “universalizing method”. Evidently, this assertion is stipulated by the highly pluralized context of the postmodern “normalization of change”, the transformations of the socio- cultural order in accordance with the postparadigmatic shift of the theory. Postmodern researchers both implicitly and explicitly state that the only way to “manage” the increasing pluralism and diversity is unmasking prior modernist ideas and ideals in the individual and general meanings of the human experience. On the other hand, the postmodern methodological “openness” encourages academic ambivalence, which results in the denial of the universal notions and absolute moral values. With the apparent postmodernist accent on the interdisciplinary approaches, the “scientific conditions” have become even more complicated: nowadays philosophy, history, theology, gender studies, arts are being connected with biology, genetics, cybernetics, economics, etc. As one of the main components of the postmodern intertextual analysis the historical method is vividly represented both in the western feminist theory and in the eastern post-colonial criticism, poetics of fiction and cultural studies. All mentioned above, appearing in the pluralized modes, occasion the turn into considering interdisciplinary techniques more scrupulously. The objective of this research is to reconstruct conceptually the comparative-historical methodology in the theoretical field of the postmodern humanities with the focus on the specific character of the interpretation of history in the cultural texts. The main thesis of the research reflects the reconstruction of the historical methods as an important systematic and meaning-conscious component in postmodern theoretical studies. The research proves that nowadays historical approaches are significant and valid because they locate certain techniques into the contemporary scholarly work in order to properly utilize the sources and pieces of evidence in writing “history”. The value of the comparative-historical method is also based on the fact that it proposes some models and patterns in dealing with the analysis of the particular theory in interdisciplinary studies. The historical narrative with its objective to tell the “truth” cannot be reflected according to some simple schemes, without taking into account the “hardcore” role of the context in the hermeneutic reading of history. Though there is a view that historiography is located “between” modernity and postmodernity, the articulated point of view is that postmodernism, being a theoretical cluster of historical disruption and “brokenness”, in fact, cannot reject the tradition of historicism in the humanitarian studies.

Keywords: postparadigmatic shift, interpretive approaches, interdisciplinary studies, historically-conscious analysis.

Editorial (Vol 1, No 2)

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The second issue of Rupkatha journal is ready for access. The gratitude due to contributors should be acknowledged not just as a matter of courtesy but because they have introduced interdisciplinary methods of study, making parts of this issue a good reflector of the transformation of disciplines. At least a couple of essays investigates the relationship between nature and the impulse of literature. The other essays raise issues of history and individualism in literature.

Indeed interdisciplinary studies is the need of the hour. The fundamental idea for interdisciplinarity derives from an evolutionary necessity; namely the need to confront and interpret complex systems. To put it simply this means that [a] the entities that we investigate within the environment of contemporary science are perceived to be more like organic or interrelated complexes. The entity that is studied [say like one from logistics, or psychiatry, or dietary cuisine, for examples] can no longer be analyzed in terms of an object of ‘biology’ or ‘chemistry’, but as a contending hierarchy of components which could be studied under the rubric of multiple or variable branches of knowledge. Thus for example a health insurance program involves a consideration of [economics] distribution of wealth, pharmacology, social behaviour, statistics, and probability. Any policy decision on implementation of a viable health care system will have to factor in knowledge from multiple disciplines. Human knowledge can no longer be classified in accordance with the academic compartmentalisations of even classical 19th century science.

Furthermore, processes of nature would have to be deciphered as a combinatorial operation of both scientific and emergent characteristic s. This is especially true of aesthetic reflexes which are a vital part of human behaviour. Singing, Darwin said, is an example of antiphonal harmony that originated in mating calls. A piece of communication—be it a dance performance or a visually textured painting—offers an entire range of acculturation.

Again the beauty of a piece –and frankly speaking – its complexity lies almost beyond the human capacity of reconstructive integration; any piece of art remains unique and unreduplicated in this sense.

The Humanities may be the only discipline outside the new ‘sciences’ that affords an opportunity for studying the most subtle or occluded forces that shape and retain stable forms of communal beliefs and rituals. The combined and orchestrated multi-functionalism of nature gives rise to such moments as those of memory, excitability, preference, suppression, and harmonization. The neuro- aesthetics of cultural expression are still unknown to us. First, there is hardly any consensus on the exact nature of human consciousness, let alone the entire range of deviant functions or multi-tasking that the brain is capable of. As far as aesthetics is concerned, we have to re-define the propensity for parallel perceptions, or what Aristotle unerringly called mimicry, which might help in explaining the capacity and /or competence in designing and short-routing experiences of ‘metaphor’ and allegorical images, or things like suggestivity and excitability [of emotions].

I am inclined to believe that the first steps in this direction could be taken through a fuller knowledge of pharmacological sciences and clinical anatomy, reflexology or discharge behaviour, learning, and sensitization through acts of communalisation.

Another interesting project that has to be undertaken is a study related to the conditions of experience we associate with such states as those of ‘god’ or ‘immortality’.

But there may be something irreducible in the components of experience, and therefore of knowledge itself which derives from the former. Either this, or the other position has to accepted. According to the anthropic principle there is no vantage point and that we are by nature not equipped to know, or gather total knowledge – however small or exclusive the domain may be. Perhaps the latter position is more modest and appropriate here. Unknowability is no safe haven—but a form of recognizing the complexity and paradigmatic failure of intuition.

Chief Editor

Tirtha Prasad Mukhopadhyay


Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities,
Volume I, Number 2, Autumn 2009, PDF URL of the editorial: www.rupkatha.com/0102editorial.pdf, © www.rupkatha.com