Methods of establishing historical facts

pp. 454-482

in: Jerzy Topolski, Methodology of history, Berlin, Springer, 1976

Abstract

The problems of establishing historical facts are treated as side issues in the best known text-books of the historical method, despite the fact that establishing facts is one of the basic operations carried out by historians. Attention has traditionally been focused almost solely on source criticism, and hence the presentation of the principles of that criticism was followed immediately by descriptions of the methods of working out the data (formulation of syntheses). Some attention was paid to the process of establishing facts in those sections which are concerned with source criticism, the establishing of facts being treated there as the conclusion of the work on the "interpretation"of sources (cf. M. Handels-man), which was usually made to include what was termed comprehension of sources. Other comments on the issues now under consideration were discussed in sections on syntheses, thus confusing problems of the construction of historical descriptions with those of methods of establishing facts.