포스트모던 시대의 ‘역사학’을 위하여

Recently, history has been such a hot subject of controversy, especially due to the so-called "the Postmodern Challenge." Because of postmodernism, which has been said to deny any form of knowledge, including history, no longer did people believe the possibility of objective method of inquiry, the progress in science, and even the very existence of truth itself. Hence a deep skepticism about the status of history and the validity of historical knowledge. In a word, history has been shaken right down to its scientific and philosophical foundations. As a result, there appears so many articles and books which, in unison, refute this postmodern 'nonsense', and thereby, firmly advocate the status of history as an objective knowledge. Telling the Troth about History by J. Appleby, L. Hunt, M. Jacob, The New Nature of History: Knowledge, Evidence, Language by A. Marwick are the good examples. Recently, a veteran Korean philosopher of history, Lee Han Gu, participated in this battle. By publishing a book named A Philosophy of Historiography: How will We Reproduce the Past?, he also tries to crush the postmodern skepticism and relativism to pieces, and thereby, to firmly secure the philosophical and scientific foundations of historical knowledge. But did he accomplish his aim? Did he succeed in advocating the validity of historical knowledge by his neo-realistic ideas heavily based on Karl Popper's theory? The main purpose of this article is to speculate on the proper status of history in the Postmodern Age by critically examining Lee's book on the philosophy of history. For this, his thoughts on key concepts such as historical objectivity will be thoroughly analyzed.