Researchers and the discourse of their objects

Researchers in the humanities and social sciences never arrive in virgin territory. Their objects (actors, institutions) are named, described, and defined before they even take an interest in them. What, then, should they do? Consider these discourses as epistemological obstacles? This would imply that their own theory of scientific knowledge escapes history. Instead, I intend to take these discourses seriously, and, on the basis of previous research, I make three suggestions: to investigate the names given by actors to the knowledge they produce; to study the historiography produced by actors; and, finally, to examine the practice of historicization itself. These reflexive proposals do not claim to give rise to a founding and ahistorical ground upon which the humanities and social sciences could be established for eternity, but to recognize their historicity, which also applies to this particular article.