Axiological History, a Relevant Way to Reconcile Historians and Accountants

Year 2012, Issue: 2 - Issue: 2, 22 - 38, 01.01.2012

Jean-guy Degos

Abstract

To write accounting history, or to write on the history of accounting, implies, or would imply two types of skills: skills in accounting and competences in history. Historians, especially French historians, or those who consider themselves historians, think that only historians are able to write accounting history. Since, to write this history it is necessary, at the same time, to be - or pretend to imply be - an accountant and a historian, i.e. to have a position resembling that of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the famous novel of Stevenson, one is bound to have questions. These questions are the essence of our problems today. Are the accountants as inefficient as the historians claim it, have they the right to write on the history of accounting or must they leave this privilege to the historians? Do the historians have a real competence to write the history of accounting? Are there forms of history, apart from classical history, which accountants could adapt to? We will outline some brief replies to these questions.

Keywords

Axiological history, Public Accountant, Epistemology, Historical causality, Historical evidence, Historical method, Historical utility, Memory, Professional historians.