Questions and answers
a general reconstruction of historical research
pp. 360-385
in: , Methodology of history, Berlin, Springer, 1976Abstract
We have so far been mainly concerned with historical cognition, and now we shall more and more concentrate on the concept of historical research, which does not want to say that the latter will be opposed to the former. The point is that when we speak about historical cognition we investigate more general issues, which by their very nature apply to all kinds of human cognition, whereas the examination of historical research brings us much closer to practical or even purely technical issues which a historian has to face when he is to answer a question which he has posed himself or which has been posed to him by others. Such a question might be termed a research question, not only because it must be distinguished from diagnostic questions (which include, for instance, examination questions), but mainly because we require such an answer to that question which is preceded by research conducted in accordance with the rules that are binding in the world of historians. This calls, above all, for a general reconstruction of the process that might be symbolized thus: "question → answer", and hence an explanation of the concepts of question and answer.