Metamethodology and Historiography: Towards a Consistent Empirical Genetic World View

Abstract

Are there many methodologies and many historiographies, or is there in principle just one science? Basically, there are only two sources of knowledge: empirical (sensual) experience and metaphysical assumptions. Unfortunately, the two are often difficult to distinguish, especially because all methodologies and historiographies make a different “frame” of assumptions, basic concepts with different empirical meanings, relations, etc. How can all this be reconciled? The following article will argue that the confusion has indeed very old roots, but that as soon as those roots are laid open, it is possible to use an alternative “metamethodology”, a worldview, which allows identifying arbitrary a priori assumptions and form a common basis for consistently combining different methods. As a result, the methods cannot only check and reduce the systematic errors necessarily included in each method by itself, but combine methods in a meaningful way in order to tackle scientific questions, which would be too speculative to pursue from the perspective of just one method. Applying an empirical genetic metamethodology additionally improves learning and applying science severalfold in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.