Research Seminar November 25th: Christian Bachhiesl - The Perils of Fact Finding: Of Criminological Epistemology

Christian Bachhiesl

 The Perils of Fact Finding: Of Criminological Epistemology

When criminology was institutionalised in late 19th century, it attempted to meet the epistemological and methodological standards of natural sciences. The aim was to recognise and categorise facts – in criminalistics and forensic practice as well as in criminological-theoretical research. Finding facts was equated with discovering the truth. But facts and truth are something different, as Oswald Spengler among others, and recently Giorgio Agamben point out. So, by fixing on facts criminologists often did not find the truth, but rather produced it, which was contradictory to the positivistic concept of truth as it prevailed at the turn of the 19th century. This epistemological incongruity is not only a phenomenon in history of science, it persists even in postpostmodern times. We want to find out what really happened on a crime scene or when prosecuting a perpetrator, we seek the truth but and often reach a reflection of our selves in the mirror of the criminal object. Does this mean that truth cannot be recognised or, even more troubling, does not exist at all? And what do such problems mean for key scientific concepts like causation and objectivity? The talk will examine these questions regarding the example of Hans Gross and the Austrian School of Criminology.

ההרצאה מתקיימת בשיתוף עם מכון ברג להיסטוריה של המשפט, אוניברסיטת תל אביב