Philosophical and methodological problems of geology of the 19th century as the prerequisite to development of narrative and hermeneutical researches of geological knowledge

The article discusses philosophical and methodological issues of the geological knowledge of the first and second half of the XIX century. Due to their specificity these issues were developed by geologists rather than philosophers. The first half of the XIX century was a formative period of Geology as an academic discipline. Some researchers offered their hypotheses in form of natural-science short novels. This in turn has led to the development of active discussions about possibility and the correctness of geological data systematization in form of narrative. The main criticism of such geological hypotheses submission among geologists consisted in the fact that such a form of submission may distract geologists from field studies. This way of hypotheses offering could focus geologists on writing scientific geological papers and writing "fiction", which is useless for science. However, despite the negative attitude towards “fiction” and narrative genre in Geology, there also were geologists who did not deny some elements of the narrative in Geology. According to A. Buckland English geologists studies have formal analogy with Sir Walter Scott works. She writes that these studies are rather "episodic and meandering narration, with poorly connected scenes and a lack of control over beginnings and endings" [A. Buckland, p. 6] Taking into account the opposing views of geologists on storytelling in Geology A. Buckland concludes that despite skepticism about the narrative of most geologists "Arguments about the form and structure of the earth and its history were always, in part, arguments about literary form and structure, too (geological hypotheses - V. M.)" [A. Buckland, p. 15]. In the second half of the XIX century the geology was attempted to form as STEM discipline. To solve this problem the boundaries of study were established, the requirements of accurate description and interpretation of geological objects and their history were offered. It is assumed that in the XIX century already Geology on the stage of its formation as an academic discipline was the narrative and the hermeneutic (interpretive) science. This fact indicates fundamental nature of humanitarian methods in this branch of science.

Keywords

Authors

References