The methodological structure of historical research

pp. 661-677

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

Abstract

We have presumably accumulated enough data to answer the question about the methodological structure of historical research, or, in other words, about the class or the family of sciences in which history is to be included. The most urgent of all is the answer to the question, whether (as it is claimed by representatives of the phenomenalist, i.e., inductionist concept of science) historical research is idiographic, that is, descriptive in nature and does not perform any theoretical and nomological functions.