Muṭāli̒āt-i tārīkh-i farhangī(Cultural History Studies)

The Decline of Historiology as an Academic Discipline

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Hassan Hazrati

Associate Professor, Department of History & Civilization of Islamic Nations, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

https://doi.org/10.22034/chs.2026.582617.1174
Abstract
The pace of change in human societies has increased considerably. Some of these changes and transformations are a function of scientific developments resulting from the intellectual endeavors of scholars across various fields. People in the modern world perhaps regard themselves, more than anything else, as indebted to scientists whose inventions and discoveries have brought and continue to bring remarkable changes to their lives. Alongside the empirical, technical, and basic sciences, humanities have likewise undergone transformations in their subjects, questions, and methods in response to the changes and developments occurring in human societies from various perspectives. Historiology is no exception to this rule. The fundamental question, however, is to what extent historians and historical scholarship are keeping pace with these transformations. Do historians pay sufficient attention to the effects of social change on their field of knowledge? Do they take the necessary measures to prevent the discipline from falling behind scientifically in response to these changes? More fundamentally, what threats the discipline of history and historians currently face, and what threats are likely to emerge in the near future from the perspective of the issue under consideration? This article answers these questions in the negative. The author argues that historians, as practitioners and custodians of an academic discipline, may be facing a major and unexpected challenge. The crisis of epistemic inefficacy, together with the transfer of the skill of data verification to technological sciences, is depriving history of one of its oldest and most fundamental functions and transferring that function to technologists. This essay seeks to demonstrate the nature and extent of this major threat and, ultimately, propose a way out of the crisis.

Keywords

Historiology
crisis of epistemic inefficacy
data-driven sciences
verification of historical data
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Muṭāli̒āt-i tārīkh-i farhangī(Cultural History Studies)
Volume 18, Issue 68 - Serial Number 68
Summer 2026
Summer 2026
Pages 135-157

  • Receive Date 21 May 2026
  • Revise Date 15 July 2026
  • Accept Date 11 July 2026
  • Publish Date 23 July 2026

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