For a new cognitive model of the humanities – the Poznań methodological school (part II)

Abstract

After 1974, three research teams emerged from the Poznań school of methodology, each developing distinct areas of inquiry: (1) the idealizational theory of science and non-Marxist historical materialism, (2) historical epistemology,

cultural theory, and cultural studies, and (3) the methodology of historical research. Team (1), led by L. Nowak, conducted epistemological and methodological analyses in the field of Marxist categorical dialectics, adaptive interpretations of historical materialism, and non-Marxist social theory. The group centered around J. Kmita (2) focused on issues of scientific development within historical epistemology and the theoretical history of science, as well as studies on culture and science as a cultural domain, approached from the cognitive-social regulatory theory of culture, which shaped the “Poznań school of cultural studies”. Team (3), led by J. Topolski, reconstructed the research practices of historians and historiographers, investigating “how history is written and understood” by considering various theoretical-methodological positions in historical research, alongside modern and postmodern cultural trends and philosophical orientations that influence the “writing of history”.