Methodology and History: the Horizon of Expectations, the Expanse of Experiences

Abstract

In this article I attempt to present an expanse which is drawn between the expectations of the historians towards methodology of history and the possibilities of their realization by the methodologists. The most characteristic attitude of the historians towards the methodologist was (and to some extent still is) distrust. Its sources were most of all placed in a deeply rooted belief in a traditional model of research and emerging from it conviction about the need of rejecting every reflexion on a “more general nature” and a problem of imposing a certain theoretical perspective together with a certain ideological and axiological baggage. Ignorance was a main reason- methodology was/still is considered as everything which appears as a more general form of reflecting upon a scholarly background of a historian, his work or histories. Some role was also played by the attitude of the methodologists themselves. It is enough to mention here at least a barrier associated with a language used by them, incongruent with the one used on every-day terms by the practicing historians. Additionally, regardless of the fact that the expectations of the historians and their practical approach do not always go along with the interests of the methodologists, it is not difficult to notice that the theoretically-methodological texts are often addressed to the group of methodologists, and read and evaluated by them. Perhaps a change in this dimension or meeting the expectations of historians- of course within a scope associated with the methodology of history research subject- could perhaps break the barriers which have been in existence in the mutual relationships between historians and methodologists since practically the very beginning.