No discipline has been more praised or more criticized than the writing of history. Cioero claimed that history teaches men how to live. Aris­ totle denied it the very name of science and regwded poetry as the higher wisdom. At various times history has been assigned a command­ ing or a demeaning statIUs in the hierarchy of sciences. Today one can admire the increasing precision and sophistication of the methods used by historia:ns. On the other hand, Thucydides' History of the PeZo­ ponesian War still serves as the ideal model of how to reconstruct the historical past. Even those who deny the possibility of an objective reconstruction of the past would themselves likie to be recorded by historians, "objectively" or not. Dislike of history and fear of its verdict are not incompatible with reverence and awe for its practitioners, the historians. So man's attitude to history is ambiguous. The controversy about history continues. Widely differing issues are at stake. Historians themselves, however, are the least engaged in the struggle. Rarely does a historian decide to open the door of his study and join in the melee about the meaning of history. More often he slams it shut and returns to his studies, oblivious of the fact that with the passage of thne the gap between his scientific work and its audience might widen. The historian does not shun the battle, he merely chooses his own battleground.

Inhalt

One Methodology and History.- I. The Subject Matter of the Methodology of Sciences.- 1. The main branches and aspects of the methodology of sciences.- 2. The methodology of sciences and semiotics.- 3. The methodology of sciences and the history of science.- 4. The methodology of sciences and the theory of games and of decision-making.- 5. The methodology of sciences and information theory.- 6. The methodology of sciences and epistemology.- 7. The methodology of sciences and ontological and psychological investigations.- 8. Conclusions for use in specialized methodologies.- II. The Subject Matter of the Methodology of History.- 1. Branches of the methodology of history.- 2. The pragmatic methodology of history.- 3. The apragmatic methodology of history.- 4. The objective methodology of history.- 5. The general methodology of history versus the methodologies of the various historical disciplines.- 6. The general methodology of history in relation to heuristics and source criticism. The place of the auxiliary historical disciplines.- III. The Scope of the Subject Matter (Domain) of Historical Research.- 1. Preliminary remarks.- 2. The etymology and the semantic evolution of the term history.- 3. General definitions of the subject matter of history (as a science).- 4. History as res gestae and history as historia rerum gestarum.- Two Patterns of Historical Research.- Grounds for Classification.- IV. Pragmatic Reflection.- 1. Antiquity.- 2. The Middle Ages.- V. Critical Reflection.- 1. The development of the critical pattern of research and early eruditionism.- 2. The philosophical variant of the critical pattern of historical research. Further development of instruments of historical (criticism in the 18th century.- VI. Erudite and Genetic Reflection.- 1. The grounds for singling out this pattern of reflection. The third phase of historical narration.- 2. Methodological reflection under Romanticism.- 3. The peculiarities of positivist reflections on history.- VII. Structural Reflection.- 1. The rise of a structural pattern of historical research.- 2. Philosophical inspirations of anti-positivist history.- 3. The anti-positivist philosophy of history.- 4. The characteristics of structural reflection in historical research.- 5. H. Berr and the Annales school. Other trends in France.- 6. Methodological reflection in Britain and in America.- 7. Methodological trends in German historiography.- 8. Structural historiography in other countries. Concluding remarks.- VIII. Logical Reflection.- 1. The rise of the logical reflection on science.- 2. The problem of the logical-positivist demarcation of science and metaphysics.- 3. Methodological issues in analytic philosophy.- 4. Misunderstandings over the struggle of analytic philosophy against metaphysics in history. K. Popper and I. Berlin.- 5. Trends in the logical analysis of history.- IX. Dialectical Reflection.- 1. A review of the earlier types of reflection on history.- 2. The rise of dialectical reflection on history.- 3. The novel ontological and epistemological elements in materialistic dialectic.- 4. The rise of historical materialism.- Three the Objective Methodology of History.- X. Historical Facts.- 1. Preliminary remarks.- 2. The controversy over the concept of historical fact.- 3. The main characteristics of the dialectical interpretation of historical fact. A fact as a system.- 4. Spatio-temporal determinants of historical facts.- XI. The Process of History (Causality and Determinism).- 1. The principle of causality as the basis of the statement on the regularity of historical facts.- 2. Determinism and indeterminism in history.- 3. Regularity and chance in history.- 4. The problem of an individual's free will.- 5. The role of prominent individuals in history.- 6. Fatalism and teleologism. The problem of determinism in the explanation of past events.- XII. The Process of History (Historical Regularities).- 1. The concept of historical regularities and their tentative classification.- 2. Historical regularities and principal causes.- 3. Synchronic regularities.- 4. Diachronie regularities.- 5. The regularities of historical development (synchronic-dia-chronic regularities).- 6. Stages in the process of history (social formations).- Four the Pragmatic Methodology of History. Theory of Source-Based and Non-Source-Based Knowledge.- XIII. The Nature of Historical Cognition.- 1. General description of the process of cognition.- 2. Characteristics of scientific cognition.- 3. The controversy over the nature of historical cognition.- 4. Arguments against scepticism. The characteristic traits of historical cognition.- 5. Epistemological relativism and the problem of objectivity in historical cognition.- 6. Truth in history.- 7. The concept of probability in historical research.- XIV. Questions and Answers. a General Reconstruction of Historical Research.- 1. The problem of decisions.- 2. Basic concepts in the theory of historical questions and answers.- 3. The concept of hypothesis in historical research.- 4. The structure of historical theories and methodological models.- 5. Schemata of hypothetical procedure in historical research.- XV. Theory of Source-Based Knowledge.- 1. The general concept of historical source.- 2. Earlier classifications of historical sources.- 3. A tentative solution of the problem of the classification of sources.- 4. The reading of source information (decoding).- 5. The concept of source-based knowledge and source-based data.- XVI. Theory of Non-Source-Based Knowledge.- 1. A tentative explanation of the concept of non-source-based knowledge.- 2. The structure of non-source-based knowledge. Non-source-based data.- 3. The origin of non-source-based knowledge.- 4. Current knowledge and common sense.- 5. Non-source-based scientific knowledge.- 6. Theoretical issues of the integration of science.- XVII. The Functions of Source-Based and Non-Source-Based Knowledge.- 1. An analysis of the historian's procedure from the point of view of the role of source-based and non-source-based knowledge.- 2. The functions of non-source-based knowledge!. The problem of the nominal model of questions.- 3. The functions of non-source-based knowledge2. The problem, of methodological model (selection).- 4. The functions of non-source-based data.- Five the Pragmatic Methodology of History: the Methods of Reconstruction of the Process of History.- XVIII. The Authenticity of Sources and the Reliability of Informants.- 1. The general concept of source criticism.- 2. The authenticity of sources.- 3…