The Epistemology of Ancient Historical Knowledge: A Philosophical Investigation into Thucydides, Herodotus, and Oral African Historiography

The epistemological foundations of ancient historical knowledge, how Thucydides and Herodotus conceived of historical evidence, causation, and the reliability of human testimony, have been extensively debated in Classical Studies, but their comparison with the epistemological frameworks of oral African historiography represents an underexplored and potentially illuminating inquiry. This study develops an original philosophical investigation of the epistemology of ancient historical knowledge in Thucydides and Herodotus alongside the epistemology of oral African historiography, using Northern Nigerian traditions as a case. A philosophical-historical methodology was adopted, drawing on close textual analysis of Thucydides' methodological statements (Book I, chapters 20 to 23) and Herodotus's epistemological asides, current philosophy of history scholarship from 2018 to 2023, and field interviews with 25 oral historians, traditional griots, and court historians in Kano, Sokoto, and Borno States. The analysis examines concepts of source reliability, the role of eyewitness testimony, the management of uncertainty and conjecture, the function of narrative convention in historical meaning-making, and the relationship between history and political legitimation across all three traditions. Findings generate an original Comparative Historical Epistemology Model that maps the degrees of convergence and divergence across the three frameworks, revealing that all three engage analogous epistemological challenges while developing culturally specific strategies for managing historical uncertainty. The model constitutes an original contribution to the philosophy of history.

Keywords: historical epistemology, Thucydides, Herodotus, oral African historiography, philosophical investigation