Did the Early Middle Ages Really Exist?
regarding the
difficulties associated with bringing to the academic community an entirely
different-from-conventional chronological paradigm (and the AMAIC does not
necessarily accept all of the Phantom Time Hypothesis theories or explanations),
are highly applicable as well to the efforts by many to introduce a much-needed
revision of ancient history.
.... How is it
possible to do research work of this kind inside the scientific community? Is
it perhaps necessary to research outside the scientific community, because it would
demand a big change of paradigms, which means the end of certainty with regard
to chronology. Usually a program of research relies on given research problems,
which the general public defines. What will happen when the new research
program in regard with its thesis or approach is too far from general public
interest or too far from the academic society?
(Who shall give
financial support?) Then we don’t have the capability of joining ‘normal science’.
I am aware of standing on the shoulders of our predecessors and that we work
using
their results, I
can only emphasize again and again my respect for archaeologists and other
scientists who
are able to uncover artifacts and construct theories on them.
I would like to
repeat that our method consists in questioning specific research problems of
archaeology and
historiography. I must emphasize that the thesis of the phantom years is one
proposal for
solving those problems. It works surprisingly well and yields amazing results.
It
seems that
scientists today do not see the common pattern in all the problems, which repeatedly
appear, because there exists an unexpressed and unconscious prohibition against
questioning the chronology as if it were unimpeachable. My request therefore
is: where and
how could our
research work possibly join? What could we do together? Until today our research
work was done marginally, but from now on it enters an important stage. The
project
has become so
big that it cannot be worked out by a few people with small resources. Support
from official
institutions has become necessary so that we can continue our work at the edge
of specialty (“im
Rand des Faches”) as suggests Krohn and Küppers; papers in their book “The
self-organization of science(-society)”: “It is only through activities in the
margin of scientific institutions that outsiders can amplify the disturbances,
so that instabilities will appear, which in the end will restructure existing
research.” (Krohn, Küppers 1989,95).
If some
colleagues accuse us of unrealistic or even fantastic behavior, I wish to
express that it
could not be a
mortal sin in the business of science to question paradigms and slaughter holy
cows. In case we
are forced to turn to the general public in order to raise funds, this strategy
will do as well.
But: “One of the strongest but unwritten rules of scientific life is the interdiction
against appealing to statesmen or to the general public in matters of science” (Kuhn
1970). Kuhn supposes: “As the unity of the scientific performance is a solved
problem
and as the group
knows well which problems are already solved, only few scientists would be
willing to take
up a standpoint that reopens research on many already solved problems.”
(Kuhn 1970). Our
thesis produces new problems and questions – especially seemingly solved
ones. But it
promises to solve more problems than ever before in the historiography of the early
Middle Ages.
What can I
request from the historian, the archaeologist of the Middle Ages, the
philologist
and the
philosopher? What would I do in their place? Important is the need for
discussion and
sponsorship.
There exist two attitudes toward research: One of them is direct professional approach
(history, archaeology, and philology); the other is discussing the theory of knowledge
and science. Obviously our project is one of interdisciplinary research. Only
in this way we can produce the expected change of paradigms with the necessary
emotional distance. …
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