Dr. Darren Staloff, The Positivist Conception of Historical Knowledge 

I really enjoy these videos even though I can't claim to understand all of it. Hopefully the wisdom will rub off on me if I keep on watching.

2:08 Common Sense: Primitive Science, Knowledge which need no Reflection 3:36 Mentological Unity; 1 Scientific Form of Explanation 4:43 History is Knowledge, it’s not as rigorous, it’s soft, but it’s Science *General Laws* 16:30 Deductive 5:20 “All Valid Explanations require the use of General Laws” 5:28 General Laws are Universal Conditions; The Bridge Between Cause and Effect 7:40 Logically Deduced 7:46 Lets try to figure out Why Revolutions Happen 10:40 9:04 Ontology, Being of [Unconscious] Things 11:12 General Laws touch Properties of an event, not The Whole of the event. 13:09 No Complete Description, No Total Explanation 14:32 Giving an account in terms of Concepts; Grasping is never Total 15:24 No 2 Experiments are Identical *Pseudo, The Young Man’s Explanations, Wrongheaded* 17:00 Fate, Natural Maneuver is appeal to emotion through vagueness 19:10 19:29 Objective Test REQUIRED 1. Initial Conditions must be able to be certified as True 2. Some Test of the Hypothesis must be possible 3. Are the Inferences drawn Valid? (How do you check that?) 23:12 Explanation must be Simple and Valid. 24:08 We want experiments to have predictive certainty, “predictions are explanations of events which have not yet occurred.” *Incomplete* 28:25 “Because idk” When conditions are filled, what follows definitely follows 31:37 [it’s really probable] but doesn’t it seem like it’s Lawful? 32:49 I don’t want to lose what I have 33:56 Historians offer “Sketches” which can be followed up on, Historians do not offer Laws 35:38 This must have been part of the cause, 36:46 Common Sense, historians don’t state obvious common sense 38:45 There has to be a law-like cause that migrated a number of people to a new place 39:54 Unique Laws of History? [Marx, Weber, Toynbe?] [Physics, Economics, Psychology] 41:41 Evidence presupposes General Laws 43:35 Inside-Empathy 45:08 Nomathetic

The rich texture of this lecture really mirrors the complexity of the external world

Will there be an episode about Butterfield's "Whig interpretation of history"?

I think you, for voi very much for this vidhieo.

Very similar bodily mannerisms as Michael Sugrue, interesting

How close are the phrases explanation sketch and rough understanding semantically?

Don't do that, Mr. Staloff. If you don't present some counter-arguments you'll turn me into a positivist!

22:59 That's a wise, or should I say "knowledgeable" point to make

A.J. Ayers?

Donald W. McConnell? Found nothing on him

Did someone have to publish something pseudo original in order to get tenure? Sure sounds like it.

Just say why not reasons and this causal picture of the world falls apart. Not that it's all wrong, just inappropriate. Humans don't get married or write up constitutions out of cause. There are more appropriate words to explain which connote reasons. Mind-independent reality is mindless reality. This positivist way of thinking about the world is self-deceptive. It is not that we doubt the external world, but we get caught up in self-deception because we use misleading terms.

such a robust argumentation! it's like watching an art performance