History: Theories and Methods

Abstract

Since the institutionalization of history as a distinct academic discipline in the nineteenth century, the truth claim of history has basically been founded on some idea of the historical method. What was considered to constitute this ‘method’ of history, however, has varied considerably over competing conceptions of history and over time. The various conceptions have been connected to different theories about what constituted history itself (as an object) and what was considered as reliable knowledge of this object (if possible at all). Therefore, the debates about the methods of history have always been embedded in debates about theories of history – and vice versa. As natural science was often considered to be the methodological opposite of history, images of natural science have also influenced the debate about historical method and theory. This article traces the main course of these debates since the nineteenth century and offers some ways to classify them.