Note: This is a provisional (unofficial) English translation of the Japanese announcement published on our Japanese site. The Japanese original takes precedence. The translation may be revised without notice.
Paper Published in La Généalogie Vol. 1, No. 8
A paper by Yuya Kinoshita, Director of our Institute, titled “A Preliminary Study on the Theoretical Framework for Genealogical Science (8): Supreme Norms,” has been published in La Généalogie (Keizu-Keifu Ronkyu), Volume 1, Number 8.
Abstract
Although Genealogical Research is inherently an independent academic field, a misconception has long taken root that it is a sub-area of history or documentary studies, and its independence has been infringed from two directions: an internal factor, the excessive dependence of traditional genealogists on history and documentary studies; and an external factor, the advance of historians and documentary scholars into Genealogical Research. The fundamental cause is that neither traditional genealogy nor the history and documentary studies on which it relies possesses a theoretical system or theoretical system-books themselves. As a result, the belief arises that the study of past facts belongs to history, and numerous harms follow: lack of stated reasons and of reviewability of validity, insufficient refinement of terms, mismatch between purpose and means, insufficient refinement of methodology, absence of means for asserting the discipline’s distinctiveness, and absence of means for education and learning for beginners. These harms form a vicious circle that has become chronic and fixed. In order to eliminate them and establish Genealogical Research as an independent academic field, this paper constructs Genealogical Science separately from traditional genealogy and presents the supreme norms that set the fundamental policy for constructing its theoretical system. The supreme norms, presupposing the fundamental norm of clarifying facts and truth on the basis of objective rationality, shared by academic disciplines and research practice in general, define facts in Genealogical Science as academic facts established on the basis of procedural justice. They adopt the principles of reviewability (logicism, evidentialism, burden-of-proof principle, explicitness principle, duty to state reasons, and review principle), refinement (rigorism, unambiguous single-meaning principle, strict-distinction principle, and hierarchical exposition principle), anti-authoritarianism, egalitarianism, and the principles of theory construction and development (interdisciplinary integrationism, alternating deductive-inductive construction, disclosure of the construction process, and theory-development principle). Furthermore, as principles for ordering the theoretical system, it adopts both the pandect system and the procedural-sequence arrangement, and it positions the supreme norms, together with the Disciplinary Purpose Theory, the Disciplinary Object Theory, and the field-system theory, as constituting the constitutional code of Genealogical Science.
Publication Details
- Title: A Preliminary Study on the Theoretical Framework for Genealogical Science (8): Supreme Norms
- Author: Yuya Kinoshita
- Journal: La Généalogie (Keizu-Keifu Ronkyu), Vol. 1, No. 8
- Publisher: Family Research Council (Kakenkyou)
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.69352/keiron.1.8_1
Access
The full text (in Japanese) is freely available at:
- J-STAGE: https://doi.org/10.69352/keiron.1.8_1
- Family Research Council: https://www.kakenkyou.org/keiron1-8/
Keywords
genealogical records, genealogies, Genealogical Science, supreme norms, theoretical system, traditional genealogy, procedural justice, reviewability principle, refinement principle, interdisciplinary integrationism, fundamental norm, theory of academic disciplines, constitution, academic facts
