Theory of non-source-based knowledge
pp. 401-417
in: , Methodology of history, Berlin, Springer, 1976Abstract
We have so far found it necessary, on many occasions, to resort to the concept of that initial knowledge with which the historian starts his research (incessantly adding to that initial knowledge of his in the process), formulates research problems and seeks answers to them. That initial knowledge has proved to consist of information that cannot be found in the sources, and also that system which the historian uses to confront with it new statements about the past in order to accept or to reject them. He has pointed to it as the principal indirect criterion of accepting statements. In a word, most analyses of the procedures used by historians cannot be carried out without reference to the set of statements and guidelines he accepts and uses when studying the past. That set of statements and guidelines, indispensable and important in all scientific research, has been termed-when it comes to history-non-source-based knowledge. The various interpretations of the methodology of history have so far paid practically no attention to it, being mainly concerned with source-based data as those which are the most characteristic of historical research. Yet, as we have tried to demonstrate, at the present the main condition of progress in historical research is not so much a further improvement of the techniques of decoding source-based data and of source criticism, as changes in, and expansion of, non-source-based knowledge. Progress in those abilities which are traditionally expected of a good historian also depends on the said changes. The dialectical pattern of historical research, that is, research which takes into account both structure and development, cannot be put into effect without all-round high-standard knowledge. This requirement implies an incessant study of the achievements of other disciplines so as to be able, following the recommendation of integration of science, to use it fully in historical research.