Abstract
This article analyzes a recent dispute over the dating of Widsið in order to discuss the epistemological and methodological issues involved. Its first half concerns the protocols of hypotheticism, which researchers employ in order to explain anomalies and generate insights into their objects of study. Its second half concerns obscurantist argumentation, which is employed to generate unreasonable doubt and leave explicable phenomena unexplained. Throughout these discussions, the hypothesis that Widsið is an archaic composition is shown to merit credence from reasonable observers.
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Neidorf, L. On the Epistemology of Old English Scholarship. Neophilologus 99, 631–646 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-015-9430-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-015-9430-z