Change, repetition and history

The paper is part of the discussion initiated by Olga Stoliarova's article "Historical Ontology as a Problem", where she points out some crucial issues considering the future development of both historical epistemology and historical ontology. Following Stoliarova's general claim on problematizing historical ontology, the author is trying to deduce some main tendencies from the vast variety of discussions on the theoretical basis and status of historical epistemology and ontology. In this context, an epistemologist, in the author's opinion, has to deal with two main problems. First, it is the epistemolo-gy-ontology (metaphysical) link within the history of philosophy. The widely understood "classic epistemology" presupposes a universal rationality and a scientific methodology, meanwhile historical epistemology offers a non-classic relativization of the basic epistemological principles. In this sense, historical epistemology (at least in its French version) finds itself in the trend of epistemological movements of the 19th and 20th centuries such as positivism and logical empiricism drifting towards the elimination of metaphysics as a theoretical platform for epistemology. The second main issue for both historical epistemology and its stepchild, historical ontology, covers the explanation of the changes within scientific practice. Paying attention to the process of change within scientific concepts, methodological approaches and the very principles of scientific investigation, the philosopher finds herself in a situation, where a set of epistemological principles B took the place of a set of epistemo-logical principles A, but the process of this change rests mysterious and unexplained. That is why it requires a different epistemological approach. Here the trend of the recent decades towards the return of ontology can be considered as a kind of a return of classical philosophy on a new theoretical level, where ontological principles often (though not always) become the theoretical basis for epistemologi-cal principles. Anyway, the next theoretical step in this debate belongs to epistemologists.

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