The method is not related to historical research methods. General scientific methods in historical research

History is knowable, but in order to reveal the process of development, to comprehend the characteristics of each period, to overcome one-sidedness and subjectivism, it is necessary to have a perfect scientific methodology and possess precise tools. In the study of historical reality in history, as in any other science, scientists are guided both by the general criteria of scientific research and by their own methods of historical research.

The scientific method is understood as a set of various techniques and processes of scientific knowledge, with the help of which one comes to the knowledge of truths. The basis for developing methods is scientific theory. In turn, the methods provide new knowledge, develop and enrich the theory. Often, the establishment of certain facts or the introduction of new research methods is the reason for the abandonment of an old theory.

Most often in historical science two groups of methods are used:

general scientific;

specifically historical.

General scientific methods

General scientific methods are divided into two subgroups:

empirical research methods: observation, measurement, experiment;

theoretical research methods: typology, idealization, method

thought experiment, formalization, modeling, induction, deduction, systems approach, as well as mathematical, axiomatic, historical, logical and other methods. Methods of theoretical research also include a number of modern methods, such as: system-structural and functional analysis, information-entropy method, algorithmization and etc.

In cognitive activity, methods are in dialectical unity, interconnected, complement one another, which makes it possible to ensure the objectivity and truth of the cognitive process.

So, for example, methods classification and typology make it possible to identify classes and groups of similar historical objects, as well as their various types. This selection, as a rule, occurs on the basis of one or several characteristics and therefore does not cover their entire diversity. The exception is classifications carried out by multivariate statistical analysis , in which historical objects are included in a certain group based on the use of a whole set of their characteristics.

In the process of scientific research, the need arises to apply idealization, a special form of mental activity, when in the process of studying a problem, objects with certain ideal properties are mentally formed. This absoluteness of the properties of an ideal object is transferred to reality, and on this basis the patterns of functioning and development of historical objects are determined, their qualitative and formal-quantitative models are built.

Induction is a logical technique for deriving general judgments based on a number of particular observations. It serves as a means of obtaining presumptive judgments-hypotheses, which are then tested and justified. During induction, when in a number of special cases the repeatability of the properties or relationships of historical objects appears, a chain of individual judgments is built, which is confirmed by this repeatability. If there are no facts contradicting the scheme, then such a chain becomes the basis for a more general conclusion (inductive hypothesis).

Induction is closely related to deductive method . They are usually used in combination. The basis of deduction is the transition from general provisions to particular ones and the derivation of the particular and individual from the general. It is constantly resorted to in the process of cognitive activity. Through deduction, any general provision (law) is applied to a particular fact. It is actively used to substantiate hypotheses. Single historical facts can be considered explained if they are included in a certain system of concepts from which they can be obtained deductively. The deductive method underlies the formation of scientific theories. With its help, schematization and idealization of the structure of practical activity is carried out.

If the inductive method is necessary when accumulating material, then the deductive method is necessary in the cognitive process of a theoretical nature. By applying the deduction method to accumulated material, one can obtain new knowledge that goes beyond the boundaries of established empirical facts.

Method is important in historical science modeling - the study of objects of knowledge based on their models that reproduce or reflect these objects. The foundation of the method is the theory of similarity. The nature of the models distinguishes between subject and sign (information) modeling.

Subject modeling is the study of models that reproduce the geometric, physical, dynamic or functional characteristics of the original object. The basis for this operation is an analogy.

At iconic modeling The models are diagrams, formulas, tables, etc. Its most important type is considered to be mathematical modeling, reproduced by expressive and deductive means of mathematics and logic.

Model- this is a system created or chosen by the researcher that reproduces with a certain accuracy the ascent from the abstract to the concrete, and then the transition from the concrete to the abstract occurs. In this case, the specification can be as detailed as desired. As a result, the general and special things that are inherent in the objects, phenomena and processes being studied are deeply revealed.

This approach is possible when the theoretical level of knowledge of historical objects allows us to construct their abstract, essentially meaningful model. This possibility is not always available. But the study of many historical phenomena has quite reached this level. And then it may be most effective math modeling.

Mathematical methods at the modeling level can also be used in the formation of a system of quantitative indicators. This is important both for checking the reliability and accuracy of quantitative and descriptive information from historical sources and assessing their representativeness, and for solving other information and source studies problems.

The general scientific method has become widely used in historical research. systematic approach. It is based on the study of objects as systems, which makes it possible to reveal their essential nature and principles of functioning and development. The method involves the creation of a number of simplified models that imitate or replace (to a certain extent) the original system. Such models must allow an adequate return transition to the original modeled object without loss of information essential for its understanding.

The systems approach does not exist in the form of a strict methodological concept: it performs heuristic functions, remaining a set of cognitive principles, the main meaning of which is the appropriate orientation of specific studies. Therefore, this approach requires the use of various general scientific methods, including such as ascent from the abstract to the concrete, logical, deductive, as well as quantitative methods.

Specific methods of systems research are structural and functional analyzes aimed at studying the structure of systems and identifying their functions. Comprehensive knowledge of any system requires consideration of its structure and functions in organic unity, i.e. structural and functional analysis.

General scientific methods as such are necessary at the theoretical level of historical science. In relation to specific historical situations, they are used to develop special historical methods, for which they serve as a logical basis.

Methods of other sciences, such as psychology, demography, sociology, geography, mathematics, statistics, are also widely used in history.

Special historical methods.

Special historical methods are a different combination of general scientific methods adapted to the characteristics of the historical objects being studied. Special historical methods include:

Ideographic- description of historical events and phenomena;

Retrospective -consistent penetration into the past in order to identify the cause of an event;

Historical-comparative- comparison of historical objects in space and time;

Historical-typological - classification of historical phenomena, events and objects;

Historical-systemic - disclosure of internal mechanisms of development and

functioning of historical phenomena and objects;

Historical-genetic - analysis of the dynamics of historical processes.

Through historical-genetic The method studies historical phenomena in the process of their development - from origin to destruction or current state. By its logical nature, this method is analytical-inductive (ascending from specific phenomena and facts to general conclusions), and by its form of expressing information it is descriptive. It gives a “biography” of a historical object (state, nation, etc.). The historical-genetic method is aimed at analyzing the dynamics of historical processes. Allows you to identify their cause-and-effect relationships and patterns of historical development. This method is used at the first stage of historical research, when information is extracted from sources, systematized and processed.

Weaknesses of the historical-genetic method: reduced role of theoretical analysis of collected historical facts, lack of a clear logical basis and developed categorical apparatus. This means that the research carried out with its help cannot be brought together and created on their basis a complete picture of historical reality. Consequently, the method is actually not suitable for studying a number of historical phenomena and processes, for example mass ones. It must be used in combination with other special historical methods.

Historical-comparative method consists of comparing historical objects in space and time and identifying similarities and differences between them. The method is focused on the consideration of historical objects in certain time slices and involves the use of various techniques to compare the essence of heterogeneous historical phenomena. Therefore, when applying it, the main attention is concentrated on the statistical position of objects in space and time and in identifying the similarities and differences between them. Through the historical-comparative method, the researcher obtains additional information about little-studied historical objects.

By using historical-typological method identify common features in spatial groups of historical events and phenomena and identify homogeneous stages in their continuous-time development. Typology has the goal of systematizing and ordering objects according to their inherent common characteristics, dividing their aggregates into qualitatively defined types (stages). Typology in form is a type of classification, but in essence it is one of the methods of qualitative analysis.

Currently, the practice of scientific-historical research is becoming increasingly widespread. historical-systemic method. This is due to attempts to uncover the internal mechanisms of their functioning and development. The fact is that all historical events have their own cause and are functionally interconnected, i.e. are systemic in nature. Even simple historical systems have diverse functions, determined both by the structure of the system and its place in the hierarchy of systems. To carry out a system analysis, it is necessary to isolate the system that interests us from the hierarchy of historical realities. This complex process is called decomposition(separation) of the system. When it is implemented, system-forming (systemic) features are identified, usually several of them. These features are interconnected, determine the structure of the system, express its integrity and stability. Having carried out the system decomposition procedure, the researcher performs its structural analysis, which consists of determining the connections of the system elements, as well as their main features. Its result is direct knowledge of the historical system itself.

Diachronic method is typical for structural-diachronic research, when the problem of discovering the features of the construction of processes of various natures over time is solved. Its specificity is revealed through comparison with the synchronistic approach. Terms "diachrony"(multitemporality) and “synchrony” (simultaneity) characterize the sequence of development of historical phenomena in a certain area of ​​reality (diachrony) and the state of these phenomena at a certain point in time (synchrony). Diachronic (multi-temporal) analysis is aimed at studying essentially-temporal changes in historical reality.

Reception retrospective cognition consists of consistent penetration into the past in order to identify the cause of an event.

A significant role in historical research is played by psychological motives, which manifest themselves in two cases: on the one hand, the subject of research (historian) inevitably enters into an emotional relationship with his object, on the other hand, the characters of history with their feelings, emotions, passions participate in economic social political , religious and other relationships, subject to certain psychological laws. Therefore, the emergence of a whole trend in historiography that considers the psychological aspects of the historical process and uses psychological methods for historical explanation turned out to be completely natural. This direction is called psychohistory , traditionally associated with its publication in the first half of the 20th century. works of the Austrian doctor, neurologist and psychiatrist Z. Freud.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND YOUTH POLICY

KHANTY-MANSI AUTONOMOUS DISTRICT - YUGRA

State educational institution

higher professional education

Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Ugra

"Surgut State Pedagogical University"

BASIC METHODS OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH

Essay

Completed by: Vorobyova E.V. group B-3071,IVGFS course Checked by: Medvedev V.V.

Surgut

2017

CONTENT

INTRODUCTION

A modern historian faces the difficult task of developing a research methodology, which should be based on knowledge and understanding of the capabilities of existing methods in historical science, as well as a balanced assessment of their usefulness, effectiveness, and reliability.

In Russian philosophy, there are three levels of scientific methods: general, general, and particular. The division is based on the degree of regulation of cognitive processes.

Universal methods include philosophical methods that are used as the basis for all cognitive procedures and allow one to explain all processes and phenomena in nature, society and thinking.

General methods are used at all stages of the cognitive process (empirical and theoretical) and by all sciences. At the same time, they are focused on understanding individual aspects of the phenomenon being studied.

The third group is private methods. These include methods of a specific science - for example, physical or biological experiment, observation, mathematical programming, descriptive and genetic methods in geology, comparative analysis in linguistics, measurement methods in chemistry, physics, etc.

Particular methods are directly related to the subject of science and reflect its specificity. Each science develops its own system of methods, which develops and is supplemented by related disciplines along with the development of science. This is also characteristic of history, where, along with the traditionally established methods of source study and historiographic analysis based on logical operations, methods of statistics, mathematical modeling, mapping, observation, survey, etc. began to be used.

Within the framework of a particular science, the main methods are also identified - basic for this science (in history these are historical-genetic, historical-comparative, historical-typological, historical-systemic, historical-dynamic) and auxiliary methods with the help of which its individual, particular problems are solved .

In the process of scientific research, general, general and particular methods interact and form a single whole - a methodology. The universal method used reveals the most general principles of human thinking. General methods make it possible to accumulate and analyze the necessary material, as well as give the obtained scientific results - knowledge and facts - a logically consistent form. Particular methods are designed to solve specific issues that reveal individual aspects of a cognizable subject.

1. GENERAL SCIENTIFIC METHODS OF KNOWLEDGE

General scientific methods include observation and experiment, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, analogy and hypothesis, logical and historical, modeling, etc.

Observation and experiment belong to the general scientific methods of cognition, especially widely used in natural sciences. By observation we mean perception, living contemplation, directed by a specific task without direct interference with the natural course in natural conditions. An essential condition for scientific observation is the promotion of one or another hypothesis, idea, proposal .

An experiment is a study of an object when the researcher actively influences it by creating artificial conditions necessary to identify certain properties, or by changing the course of the process in a given direction.

Human cognitive activity, aimed at revealing the essential properties, relationships and connections of objects, first of all selects from the totality of observed facts those that are involved in his practical activity. A person mentally, as it were, dismembers an object into its constituent aspects, properties, parts. Studying, for example, a tree, a person identifies different parts and sides in it; trunk, roots, branches, leaves, color, shape, size, etc. Understanding a phenomenon by breaking it down into its components is called analysis. In other words, analysis as a method of thinking is the mental decomposition of an object into its constituent parts and sides, which gives a person the opportunity to separate objects or any of their aspects from those random and transitory connections in which they are given to him in perception. Without analysis, no knowledge is possible, although analysis does not yet highlight the connections between the parties and properties of phenomena. The latter are established by synthesis. Synthesis is a mental unification of elements dissected by analysis .

A person mentally decomposes an object into its component parts in order to discover these parts themselves, in order to find out what the whole consists of, and then considers it as composed of these parts, but already examined separately.

Only gradually comprehending what happens to objects when performing practical actions with them, did a person begin to mentally analyze and synthesize the thing. Analysis and synthesis are the main methods of thinking, because the processes of connection and separation, creation and destruction form the basis of all processes in the world and practical human activity.

Induction and deduction. As a research method, induction can be defined as the process of deriving a general proposition from the observation of a number of individual facts. On the contrary, deduction is a process of analytical reasoning from the general to the specific. The inductive method of cognition, which requires going from facts to laws, is dictated by the very nature of the cognizable object: in it the general exists in unity with the individual, the particular. Therefore, in order to comprehend the general pattern, it is necessary to study individual things and processes.

Induction is only a moment of movement of thought. It is closely related to deduction: any single object can be comprehended only by being included in the system of concepts already existing in your consciousness .

The objective basis of the historical and logical methods of cognition is the real history of the development of the cognizable object in all its concrete diversity and the main, leading tendency, pattern of this development. Thus, the history of human development represents the dynamics of life of all peoples of our planet. Each of them has its own unique history, its own characteristics, which are expressed in everyday life, morals, psychology, language, culture, etc. World history is an endlessly motley picture of the life of mankind in different eras and countries. Here we have the necessary, the accidental, the essential, the secondary, the unique, the similar, the individual, and the general. . But, despite this endless variety of life paths of different peoples, their history has something in common. All peoples, as a rule, went through the same socio-economic formations. The commonality of human life is manifested in all areas: economic, social, and spiritual. It is this commonality that expresses the objective logic of history. The historical method involves the study of a specific development process, and the logical method is the study of the general patterns of movement of the object of knowledge. The logical method is nothing more than the same historical method, only freed from its historical form and from the accidents that violate it.

The essence of the modeling method is to reproduce the properties of an object on a specially designed analogue of it - a model. A model is a conventional image of an object. Although any modeling coarsens and simplifies the object of knowledge, it serves as an important auxiliary means of research. It makes it possible to study processes characteristic of the original in the absence of the original itself, which is often necessary due to the inconvenience or impossibility of studying the object itself .

General scientific methods of cognition do not replace specific scientific methods of research; on the contrary, they are refracted in the latter and are in dialectical unity with them. Together with them, they perform a common task - the reflection of the objective world in the human mind. General scientific methods significantly deepen knowledge and make it possible to reveal more general properties and patterns of reality.

2. SPECIAL METHODS OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH

Special historical, or general historical, research methods are one or another combination of general scientific methods aimed at studying the object of historical knowledge, i.e. taking into account the features of this object, expressed in the general theory of historical knowledge .

The following special historical methods have been developed: genetic, comparative, typological, systemic, retrospective, reconstructive, actualization, periodization, synchronous, diachronic, biographical. Methods related to auxiliary historical disciplines are also used - archaeology, genealogy, heraldry, historical geography, historical onomastics, metrology, numismatics, paleography, sphragistics, phaleristics, chronology, etc.

The main general historical methods of scientific research include: historical-genetic, historical-comparative, historical-typological and historical-systemic.

Historical-genetic method is one of the most common in historical research. Its essence lies in the consistent disclosure of the properties, functions and changes of the reality being studied in the process of its historical movement, which makes it possible to come closest to reproducing the real history of the object. This object is reflected in the most concrete form. Cognition proceeds sequentially from the individual to the particular, and then to the general and universal. By its logical nature, the historical-genetic method is analytical-inductive, and by its form of expressing information about the reality under study, it is descriptive .

The specificity of this method is not in the construction of ideal images of an object, but in the generalization of factual historical data towards the reconstruction of a general scientific picture of the social process. Its application allows us to understand not only the sequence of events in time, but also the general dynamics of the social process.

The limitations of this method are the lack of attention to statics, i.e. to fix a certain temporal reality of historical phenomena and processes, the danger of relativism may arise. In addition, he “gravitates towards descriptiveness, factualism and empiricism. Finally, the historical-genetic method, despite its long history and breadth of application, does not have a developed and clear logic and conceptual apparatus. Therefore, its methodology, and therefore the technique, is vague and uncertain, which makes it difficult to compare and bring together the results of individual studies .

Idiographic method was proposed by G. Rickert as the main method of history . G. Rickert reduced the essence of the idiographic method to the description of individual characteristics, unique and exceptional features of historical facts, which are formed by a scientist-historian on the basis of their “attribution to value.” In his opinion, history individualizes events, distinguishing them from the infinite variety of so-called. “historical individual”, which meant both the nation and the state, a separate historical personality .

Based on the idiographic method, it is appliedideographic method - a method of unambiguously recording concepts and their connections using signs, or a descriptive method. The idea of ​​the ideographic method goes back to Lullio and Leibniz .

Historical-genetic method is close to the ideographic method, especially when used at the first stage of historical research, when information is extracted from sources, systematized and processed. Then the researcher’s attention is focused on individual historical facts and phenomena, on their description as opposed to identifying developmental features .

Cognitive functionscomparative historical method :

Identification of features in phenomena of different order, their comparison, juxtaposition;

Clarification of the historical sequence of the genetic connection of phenomena, establishment of their generic connections and relationships in the process of development, establishment of differences in phenomena;

Generalization, construction of a typology of social processes and phenomena. Thus, this method is broader and more meaningful than comparisons and analogies. The latter do not act as a special method of historical science. They can be used in history, as in other areas of knowledge, and regardless of the comparative historical method.

In general, the historical-comparative method has broad cognitive capabilities .

Firstly, it allows us to reveal the essence of the phenomena under study in cases where it is not obvious, based on the available facts; to identify the general and repetitive, the necessary and natural, on the one hand, and qualitatively different, on the other. Thus, the gaps are filled and the research is brought to a complete form.

Secondly, the historical-comparative method makes it possible to go beyond the phenomena being studied and, on the basis of analogies, to arrive at broad historical generalizations and parallels.

Thirdly, it allows the use of all other general historical methods and is less descriptive than the historical-genetic method.

The successful application of the historical-comparative method, like any other, requires compliance with a number of methodological requirements. First of all, comparison should be based on specific facts that reflect the essential features of phenomena, and not their formal similarity.

You can compare objects and phenomena, both of the same type and of different types, located at the same and at different stages of development. But in one case the essence will be revealed on the basis of identifying similarities, in the other - differences. Compliance with the specified conditions for historical comparisons essentially means consistent application of the principle of historicism.

Identifying the significance of the features on the basis of which a historical-comparative analysis should be carried out, as well as the typology and stage nature of the phenomena being compared, most often requires special research efforts and the use of other general historical methods, primarily historical-typological and historical-systemic. Combined with these methods, the historical-comparative method is a powerful tool in historical research. But this method, naturally, has a certain range of the most effective action. This is, first of all, the study of socio-historical development in broad spatial and temporal aspects, as well as those less broad phenomena and processes, the essence of which cannot be revealed through direct analysis due to their complexity, inconsistency and incompleteness, as well as gaps in specific historical data .

The historical-comparative method has certain limitations, and the difficulties of its application should also be taken into account. This method is not generally aimed at revealing the reality in question. Through it, one learns, first of all, the fundamental essence of reality in all its diversity, and not its specific specificity. It is difficult to use the historical-comparative method when studying the dynamics of social processes. The formal application of the historical-comparative method is fraught with erroneous conclusions and observations .

Historical-typological method. Both the identification of the general in the spatially individual and the identification of the stage-homogeneous in the continuous-temporal require special cognitive means. Such a tool is the method of historical-typological analysis. Typology as a method of scientific knowledge has as its goal the division (ordering) of a set of objects or phenomena into qualitatively defined types (classes) based on their common essential features. Typologization, being a type of classification in form, is a method of essential analysis .

Identification of the qualitative certainty of the considered set of objects and phenomena is necessary for identifying the types that form this set, and knowledge of the essential-substantive nature of the types is an indispensable condition for determining those basic features that are inherent in these types and which can be the basis for a specific typological analysis, i.e. to reveal the typological structure of the reality under study.

The principles of the typological method can only be effectively applied based on a deductive approach . It consists in the fact that the corresponding types are identified on the basis of a theoretical essential-substantive analysis of the considered set of objects. The result of the analysis should be not only the definition of qualitatively different types, but also the identification of those specific features that characterize their qualitative certainty. This creates the opportunity to assign each individual object to one type or another.

The selection of specific features for typology can be multivariate. This dictates the need to use both a combined deductive-inductive and the inductive approach when typologizing. The essence of the deductive-inductive approach is that the types of objects are determined on the basis of an essential-substantive analysis of the phenomena under consideration, and those essential features that are inherent in them are determined by analyzing empirical data about these objects .

The inductive approach differs in that here both the identification of types and the identification of their most characteristic features are based on the analysis of empirical data. This path has to be followed in cases where the manifestations of the individual in the particular and the particular in general are diverse and unstable.

In cognitive terms, the most effective typification is that it allows not only to identify the corresponding types, but also to establish both the degree to which objects belong to these types and the degree of their similarity to other types. This requires methods of multidimensional typology.

Its use brings the greatest scientific effect when studying homogeneous phenomena and processes, although the scope of the method is not limited to them. In the study of both homogeneous and heterogeneous types, it is equally important that the objects being studied are comparable in terms of the main fact for this typification, in terms of the most characteristic features underlying the historical typology .

Historical-systemic method is based on a systems approach. The objective basis of the systematic approach and method of scientific knowledge is the unity in the socio-historical development of the individual (individual), the special and the general. This unity is real and concrete and appears in socio-historical systems of different levels. .

Individual events have certain features unique to them that are not repeated in other events. But these events form certain types and kinds of human activity and relationships, and, therefore, along with individual ones, they also have common features and thereby create certain aggregates with properties that go beyond the individual, i.e. certain systems.

Individual events are included in social systems and through historical situations. A historical situation is a spatio-temporal set of events that form a qualitatively defined state of activity and relationships, i.e. it is the same social system.

Finally, the historical process in its temporal extent has qualitatively different stages or stages, which include a certain set of events and situations that make up subsystems in the overall dynamic system of social development .

The systemic nature of socio-historical development means that all events, situations and processes of this development are not only causally determined and have a cause-and-effect relationship, but are also functionally connected. Functional connections seem to overlap cause-and-effect relationships, on the one hand, and are complex in nature, on the other. On this basis, it is believed that in scientific knowledge, the decisive significance should be not a causal, but a structural-functional explanation .

The systems approach and system methods of analysis, which include structural and functional analyses, are characterized by integrity and complexity. The system being studied is considered not from the perspective of its individual aspects and properties, but as an integral qualitative certainty with a comprehensive account of both its own main features and its place and role in the hierarchy of systems. However, for the practical implementation of this analysis, it is initially necessary to isolate the system under study from an organically unified hierarchy of systems. This procedure is called systems decomposition. It represents a complex cognitive process, because it is often very difficult to isolate a specific system from the unity of systems .

The identification of a system should be carried out on the basis of identifying a set of objects (elements) that have qualitative certainty, expressed not simply in certain properties of these elements, but also, first of all, in their inherent relationships, in their characteristic system of interrelations. The isolation of the system under study from the hierarchy of systems must be justified. In this case, methods of historical and typological analysis can be widely used.

From a specific content point of view, the solution to this problem comes down to identifying the system-forming (system) features inherent in the components of the selected system.

After identifying the corresponding system, its analysis as such follows. Central here is structural analysis, i.e. identifying the nature of the relationship between the components of the system and their properties, the result of the structural-system analysis will be knowledge about the system as such. This knowledge is empirical in nature, because it in itself does not reveal the essential nature of the identified structure. Translating the acquired knowledge to the theoretical level requires identifying the functions of a given system in the hierarchy of systems, where it appears as a subsystem. This problem is solved by functional analysis, revealing the interaction of the system under study with higher-level systems .

Only a combination of structural and functional analysis allows us to understand the essential nature of the system in all its depth. System-functional analysis makes it possible to identify which properties of the environment, i.e. systems of a higher level, including the system under study as one of the subsystems, determine the essential and meaningful nature of this system .

The disadvantage of this method is its use only in synchronous analysis, which risks not revealing the development process. Another disadvantage is the danger of excessive abstraction - formalization of the reality being studied.

Retrospective method . A distinctive feature of this method is its focus from the present to the past, from effect to cause. In its content, the retrospective method acts, first of all, as a reconstruction technique that allows one to synthesize and correct knowledge about the general nature of the development of phenomena .

The method of retrospective cognition consists in sequential penetration into the past in order to identify the cause of a given event. In this case, we are talking about the root cause directly related to this event, and not about its distant historical roots. Retro-analysis shows, for example, that the root cause of domestic bureaucracy lies in the Soviet party-state system, although they tried to find it in Nicholas’s Russia, and in Peter’s transformations, and in the administrative red tape of the Muscovite kingdom. If during retrospection the path of knowledge is a movement from the present to the past, then when constructing a historical explanation - from the past to the present in accordance with the principle of diachrony .

A number of special historical methods are associated with the category of historical time.These are methods of actualization, periodization, synchronous and diachronic (or problem-chronological).

The first step in the work of a historian is to compile a chronology. The second step is periodization. The historian cuts history into periods, replacing the elusive continuity of time with some kind of signifying structure. The relationships of discontinuity and continuity are revealed: continuity occurs within periods, discontinuity occurs between periods.

To periodize means, therefore, to identify discontinuities, violations of continuity, to indicate what exactly is changing, to date these changes and to give them a preliminary definition. Periodization deals with the identification of continuity and its disruptions. It opens the way to interpretation. It makes history, if not entirely understandable, then at least already conceivable.

The historian does not reconstruct time in its entirety for each new study: he takes the time on which other historians have already worked, the periodization of which is available. Since the question asked acquires legitimacy only as a result of its inclusion in the research field, the historian cannot abstract from previous periodizations: after all, they constitute the language of the profession.

The diachronic method is characteristic of structural-diachronic research, which is a special type of research activity when the problem of identifying the features of the construction of processes of various natures over time is solved. Its specificity is revealed through comparison with the synchronistic approach. The terms “diachrony” (multi-temporality) and “synchrony” (simultaneity), introduced into linguistics by the Swiss linguist F. de Saussure, characterize the sequence of development of historical phenomena in a certain area of ​​reality (diachrony) and the state of these phenomena at a certain point in time (synchrony) .

Diachronic (multi-temporal) analysis is aimed at studying the essential-temporal changes in historical reality. With its help, you can answer questions about when this or that state may occur during the process being studied, how long it will persist, how long it will take this or that historical event, phenomenon, process .

CONCLUSION

Methods of scientific knowledge are a set of techniques, norms, rules and procedures that regulate scientific research and ensure the solution of a research problem. The scientific method is a way of searching for answers to scientifically posed questions and at the same time a way of posing such questions, formulated in the form of scientific problems. Thus, the scientific method is a way of obtaining new information to solve scientific problems.

History as a subject and science is based on historical methodology. If in many other scientific disciplines there are two main methods of knowledge, namely observation and experiment, then for history only the first method is available. Even though every true scientist tries to minimize the impact on the object of observation, he still interprets what he sees in his own way. Depending on the methodological approaches used by scientists, the world receives different interpretations of the same event, various teachings, schools, and so on.

The use of scientific methods of cognition distinguishes historical science in such areas as historical memory, historical consciousness and historical knowledge, of course, provided that the use of these methods is correct.

LIST OF SOURCES USED

Barg M.A. Categories and methods of historical science. - M., 1984

Bocharov A.V. Basic methods of historical research: Textbook. - Tomsk: Tomsk State University, 2006. 190 p.

Grushin B.A. Essays on the logic of historical research.-M., 1961

Ivanov V.V. Methodology of historical science. - M., 1985

Bocharov A.V. Basic methods of historical research: Textbook. - Tomsk: Tomsk State University, 2006. 190 p.

Ranke recognizes this method as key in historical research. Description is one of many research procedures. Essentially, research begins with a description; it answers the question “what is this?” The better the description, the better the research. The uniqueness of the object of historical knowledge requires appropriate linguistic means of expression. The natural language method of presentation is the most adequate for the perception of the general reader. The language of historical description is not the language of formalized structures (see the topic The Language of the Historian).

The description expresses the following points:

Individual qualitative originality of phenomena;

Dynamics of development of phenomena;

Development of phenomena in connection with others;

The role of the human factor in history;

The image of the subject of historical reality (the image of the era).

Thus, description is a necessary link (CONDITION) in the picture of historical reality, the initial stage of historical research, an important condition and prerequisite for understanding the essence of the phenomenon. This is the quintessence of this method. But the description itself does not provide an understanding of the essence, since it is the internal essence of the phenomenon. Description is like an external factor. The description is complemented by a higher degree of cognition - analysis.

Description is not a random listing of information about what is depicted. A scientific description has its own logic, its own meaning, which are determined by the methodological principles (of the author). For example, chronicles. Their goal is the exaltation of the monarch. Chronicles - chronological principle + recognition, showing the dynasty's chosenness by God, a certain moralizing. In research, the proportion of description, as a rule, prevails over conclusions and generalizations.

Description and generalization within the framework of historical research are interconnected (description without generalization is simply factuality. Generalization without description is schematization).

The descriptive-narrative method is one of the most common in historical research.

2. Biographical method.

It is one of the oldest methods of historical research. We find the beginning of the biographical method in antiquity, I-II centuries. AD in Plutarch's work "Comparative Lives". In this work, Plutarch tries to perceive human activity as history. Moreover, the main idea proposed by Plutarch is the idea of ​​providentialism. At the same time, the role of the individual in history is insignificant. However, the biographical method raises an important question - about the role of the individual in history. He doesn’t just stage, he either indirectly or directly defines this role as significant. During the Age of Enlightenment, an important rethinking of the role of the individual in history took place.

In fact, Carrel is the most famous adherent of the biographical method in history. In the 20th century we also meet in the biographical method. Lewis Namer said that the essence of history is in personal connections, at the center of the study is an ordinary person. But for him, a simple person is a deputy. He explored the history of English parliamentarism in the form of biographies of deputies of different convocations. The essence of the story is the essential points in the biographies of deputies.

The most important things in history are the dates of their lives, origin, position, education, all kinds of connections, possession of wealth. Namer's approach assumes the perception of a person as a social unit. Through biographies, the personal interests of an individual transform public interests. The activity of parliament is a struggle for personal well-being, power, and career. In the 20th century There is some narrowing of the possibilities of the biographical method.

This is due to the fact that political history is losing its previous role and new branches of historical research are emerging: social, structural, gender history, etc. A surge of interest in the biographical method was observed in the 60-70s, especially manifested in the work of Fest, the work “Adolf Hitler”. Fest tried to unite the fate of the little corporal, who became the Fuhrer, with the fate of Germany. Hitler is the flesh and blood of the German people with all their fears, successes, decisions, etc. Hitler's biography is a mirror reflection of the fate of the German people.

Modern methodological foundations for the application of the biographical method. At the center of the possibility of using this method is the solution of an important methodological problem - the role of the individual and the masses in history. This is one of the key problems, so the biographical method cannot be abandoned. Any historical fact has personal and collective features. it is necessary to determine the combination of these factors in specific conditions. The question of the emergence of great personalities.

Historical science is trying to answer this question from a broad perspective - to what extent this or that figure can correspond to the concept of “great personality” + assessment of the results of the activities of this person. As a result, answering this question, the researcher is one way or another faced with the problem of an inexplicable event in history. There is no definite answer to this question. At the same time, one must keep in mind the external conditions for the emergence of a great personality. Based on external factors, the relationship between the role of the individual and the conditions is adjusted.

3. Comparative historical method.

This is one of the most widely used methods. The focus of this study is the technique of comparison. In antiquity, various cycles in history were compared. Comparison is used as a means of creating an understanding of historical cycles. There is no qualitative certainty social phenomena. In modern times, the comparative method was defined by the search for similar features in phenomena. The use of comparison led to insufficient emphasis on individual traits, therefore there is no criterion for evaluation.

In the era of enlightenment, a criterion for comparison appears - this is human nature - reasonable, kind, of an unchanging nature (comparison with the golden age, i.e. with the past). widespread use of the comparative method during the Age of Enlightenment. The characteristic of versatility has been assigned to it. The comparison method was used so widely that even non-comparable quantities were compared. When comparing, the emphasis was still on finding similarities. But it was still impossible to completely solve this problem - to search for something similar, because the criterion is in the distant past, outside of time.

As a result, it turned out to be difficult to understand the uniqueness of the phenomenon. It is difficult to understand the uniqueness of a phenomenon located in the time stream. XIX century: the comparative method is subjected to serious analysis, problems of the cognitive capabilities of the comparative method are identified, scientists are trying to find the framework for using the comparative historical method. It was recognized that homogeneous structures and repeating types could be compared. the so-called “typology of phenomena” (Mommsen). Opportunities for identifying the individual and the general are identified. Gerhard emphasized the individual.

The use of the comparative historical method made it possible to compare and draw analogies with phenomena at different times.

Methodological foundations of the comparative historical method.

The methodological basis is the need to recognize the inextricable connection similar, repeating and individual in historical events. This is a condition for the rational application of the comparative historical method. The essence of the approach is that the comparison shows both similar and repeating. We can raise the question of comparing phenomena of the same order (to what extent is it possible to compare the uprising of Spartacus and the Jacquerie).

Conditions for productive comparison:

The most detailed description of the phenomena being studied

The degree of knowledge of the compared phenomena should be approximately the same.

Thus, the descriptive-narrative method precedes the comparative-historical one.

Stages of the comparative historical method:

1. Analogy. There is no definition of the essence of phenomena here. An analogy is used to illustrate something. This is not analysis, but a simple transfer of the representation of an object to an object. Raises the question of the quality of analogies: how similar one object is to another. Analogies were widely used by Arnold Toynbee.

2. Identification of essential and meaningful characteristics, comparison of one-order phenomena. The main thing here is to determine to what extent the phenomena are of the same order. This is the task of methodology. The criterion of one-order is a natural repeatability both “vertically” (in time) and “horizontally” (in space). An example is the revolutions in Europe in the mid-19th century.

3. Typology. Within the typology, types of single-order phenomena are distinguished. selection of classification features. For example, the Prussian and American paths of development of capitalism. The main principle is noble land ownership. The development of feudal relations in Europe: which relations predominate - Germanic or Romanesque? What do Romanesque beginnings mean? The Romanesques are the Pyrenees and Apennines. The Germanic type is England and Scandinavia. Mixed type - Frankish state (Michael de Coulanges approach).

Thus, the use of the comparative historical method involves identifying a set of phenomena of the same order, the same degree of study of them, identifying the differences and similarities between them in order to achieve generalizing ideas.

4. Retrospective.

The very word “retrospect” is the essence of historical knowledge (looking back). Within the framework of the retrospective method, the course of the historian’s search is, as it were, the opposite of standard study. The essence of the retrospective method is reliance on a higher stage of development. The goal is to understand and evaluate previous phenomena.

Reasons for using the retrospective method:

Lack of factual source data;

The need to trace the development of an event from beginning to end;

The need to obtain data of a new order.

There are phenomena that manifest themselves over time on a new essential basis and have consequences that were not initially expected. For example, the campaigns of Alexander the Great (planned to avenge the hardships during the Greco-Persian wars, but as a result the Hellenistic era was launched), the FBI (the original goal was to free the Bastille prisoners), the February revolution in Russia, etc.

Morgan's research, which studies family and marital relations from group forms to individual ones. He studied contemporary Indian tribes and compared them with the Greek family. He came to the conclusion that family and marital relations develop in the same way, regardless of the era. Kovalchenko studied agrarian relations in Russia in the 19th century. He brings the idea of ​​a rural community of the 19th century back to earlier stages. The retrospective method is related to the survival method.

This is a method of reconstructing objects that have passed into the past based on the remains that have survived to the present day. This is the method Taylor used. He studied customs, rituals, and views based on ethnographic material. By studying the beliefs of modern primitive tribes, one can understand the ancient beliefs of Europeans. Or a study of German history of the 19th century. Such a study allows us to examine certain features of the agrarian history of the Middle Ages. In order to understand medieval processes, non-living documents, plans, and maps of the 19th century are studied. (Meitzen).

The retrospective method cannot always be applied individually enough (what is suitable for studying Germany may not be suitable for studying France, etc.). The study of French boundary maps was carried out by Marc Bloch. He immediately highlighted the difference between the boundary maps of France and Germany. A study of barbaric truths. These truths are the source where many survivals are preserved.

A necessary condition for the use of the retrospective method is proof of the relict nature of the evidence on the basis of which the reconstruction will be carried out. Those. you need to understand that modern relics are indeed such. Within the framework of applying the retrospective method, the most important assistant is the principle of historicism.

5. Method of terminological analysis.

The main tool of information for a historian is the word. The linguistic problem is very acute. The meaning of this problem is that there are difficulties in determining the meaning of the word, i.e. how the meaning of a word relates to the reality it reflects.

We are faced with a terminological analysis of the source. As part of this analysis, the terminological apparatus borrows its content from real life. Although the meaning of the word is not entirely adequate to reality . The word must correspond to what it expresses. Therefore, in conducting many studies, the problem of concepts is posed. Carl Linnaeus said that if you do not know words, then it is impossible to study things.

Nowadays, in modern historical research, terminological analysis is becoming increasingly important, and in some cases it is absolutely necessary. Moreover, over time, the meaning of words changes. The meaning of words in the past may not coincide with the meaning of the same words in the present. Since the 19th century language began to be perceived as a source of historical knowledge. Historians Mommsen and Niebuhr drew attention to the importance of language when they studied ancient subjects.

Features of the use of terminological analysis:

The development of the content of the terms of historical sources lags behind the real content of the historical event hidden behind it. the term is always archaic in relation to the event. learned historians can take this lag into account + this makes it possible to study an earlier historical reality (for example, barbaric truths, which in their vocabulary can reflect the reality of the 4th-5th centuries, they can be used to study the events of the 6th-7th centuries. The term “villa” = single-yard settlement or village or territory of settlement);

Terminological analysis is productive in cases where the source is written in the native language of the people being studied. possibilities of terminological parallels (for example, Russian truth and chronicles; Salic truth and chronicles) - internal and external (Russian truth and Scandinavian truths; chronicles and European chronicles);

Dependence of terminological analysis on the nature of the source. the relationship between the methodological position of the historian and the analysis of the source. relevant conclusions;

Toponymic analysis as a type of terminological analysis. An important point is the dependence of geographical names from time (for example, Khlynov and Vyatka). Toponyms provide an opportunity to study the process of settlement of the territory, occupations of the population, etc. Place names have special significance for non-literate cultures;

Anthroponymic analysis - study of names and surnames;

Opportunities for researching social issues, preferences, qualities of people.

Thus, a word can be considered as the key to understanding a phenomenon only when the terms are clear. Solving various aspects of the problem of language and history is a necessary condition for searching for the true meaning of historical events.

The condition for the successful use of terminological analysis:

It is necessary to take into account the polysemy of the term (including a set of terms)

Approach to the analysis of a term historically (take into account time, place, consider the term as a changing structure)

Comparison of new terms with old ones (identification of the content).

6. Method of mathematical statistics.

There are methods that reveal qualities, there are methods that reveal quantity. Quantity is a very important sign of reality.

For a historian, a very important point is the correlation between the quantitative and qualitative aspects of reality. This is the measure that reveals the unity of quantity and quality. In addition, quantity as a category reflects the essence of phenomena to varying degrees.

The perception and use of quantitative research methods varies and varies. For example, how much did the number of soldiers in Genghis Khan’s army influence how quickly China was captured, how much can they be correlated with the talent of these soldiers, Genghis Khan himself, the talent of his enemies, etc. The conquest of China by Genghis Khan can be considered in the correlation of categories that cannot be counted (the talent of commanders and soldiers), the number of troops.

The laws of Hammurabi - a clear gradation is given for the crime: for example, killing a bull - one payment, a bull - another, a free person - a third, i.e. different actions are reduced to one denominator - a monetary unit. Based on this, one can draw conclusions about the quality of society (the importance of a slave, a bull, a free person).

On the other hand, quantitative analysis cannot provide new knowledge in isolation from qualitative analysis. Kovalchenko: “Quantitative mathematical methods allow the researcher to obtain certain characteristics of the characteristics being studied, but by themselves they do not explain anything.” As a result, the quantitative moment is, as it were, neutral.

Mathematical methods are more of an applied nature. It is impossible to explain events using only these data. Quantitative methods are dependent on substantive methods. But there are moments in history in which quantitative characteristics are an essential feature. This applies, as a rule, to the field of economics. Another area is mass phenomena (wars, revolutionary movements). This is where we intersect with statistical methods.

The original form of the quantitative method in history is the statistical method. The main thing in statistics, which is used in historical science, is the statistics of social phenomena related to economics, politics, demography, cultural aspects, etc. Statistics began to be involved in historical phenomena in the second half of the 17th century.

The next stage in the development of the statistical method is associated with the 19th century. and named after Thomas Buckle. In addition to Buckle, the statistical method is actively used to study agrarian history as such (how much was grown, when, what crops, what is their ratio, etc.). In the 20th century actively used the Druzhinin statistical method. Kosminsky, Barg, Kovalchenko, Mironov.

Conditions for the qualitative application of the statistical method:

1) recognition of the priority of qualitative analysis in relation to quantitative;

2) the study of qualitative and quantitative characteristics - in unity;

3) identifying the qualitative homogeneity of events for statistical processing;

4) taking into account the principle of using homogeneous data of “considerable numbers” (it is correct to operate with statistics from thousands of homogeneous quantities);

5) involvement of mass sources (censuses, chronicle data, etc.).

Types of statistical analysis:

1) the simplest type of statistics is descriptive (for example, census data without analysis, VTsIOM data). Descriptive data is used for illustration purposes.

2) selective. This is a method of probabilistic conclusion about the unknown based on the known (for example, the situation of the peasant economy in Russia in the first half of the 19th century is analyzed using household inventories. But only a part of these inventories has reached historians. On their basis, a conclusion is made about the general state of the economy)

This approach does not reflect exact characteristics, but nevertheless it can show an important thing in the study - a trend.

7. Correlation method.

Associated with the quantitative method. The task is to determine the dependence of the size of duties and their dynamics on the state of the peasant economy. What type of peasant farm and how does it respond to various duties? This task involves deriving the correlation coefficient. The correlation coefficient may be the ratio between the size of the duty and the number of livestock. Another coefficient is the ratio between the number of employees and the level of duties.

In studying this problem, you can look at the ratio of the coefficients.

8. Regression method.

Within the framework of the regression method, we must determine the comparative role of various causes in a particular process. For example, the decline of the noble household. In order to assess the reasons for its decline, regression coefficients are derived: the ratio of the quantitative composition of families and their wealth, the ratio of households below a certain level of income and above it. The regression method is a type of correlation method.

Thus, quantitative analysis helps to identify and characterize important features and symptoms of phenomena, making understanding more accurate (moving away from “better-worse” formulations).

When, in ancient times, a Hellenic writer named Herodotus began to compose his famous book about the bloody Greek wars, in which he described the customs and traditions of the countries surrounding him and their inhabitants, even in his wildest dreams he could not imagine that his descendants would give him his father’s famous name great and incredibly interesting science - history. As one of the most ancient and famous disciplines, it has its own subject, methods, and sources for studying history.

What discipline is called history?

What is history? This is a fascinating science that studies the past of both an individual and the entire human society. By examining the various sources available to it, this discipline tries to establish the real sequence of certain events that occurred in the distant or near past, as well as to comprehensively study the causes of their occurrence and consequences.
Having emerged, like many other sciences, in Ancient Greece, history initially studied the lives of prominent individuals, as well as crowned families, rulers and wars. However, over time, the subject and method of studying history have changed and expanded. More precisely, over the years, history began to study the past not only of individual people who distinguished themselves in some way, but also of entire nations, various sciences, buildings, religions and much more.

Basic methods of studying history as a science

The method of historical research is a way of studying historical processes through a diverse analysis of facts, as well as acquiring new information based on these same facts.
There are two huge categories into which methods of studying history are divided. These are specific methods as well as general methods for most of the humanities.

Specific methods for studying history

1. General scientific methods.
2. Private scientific methods.
3. Methods borrowed from other sciences.

General scientific methods are of the following types:

• Theoretical, which include the famous deduction, induction, synthesis and analysis, the construction of hypotheses, modeling, generalization, inversion, abstraction, analogy and the system-structural approach.
• Practical methods for studying history: experiment, observation, measurement, comparison, description. Often this type of method is also called empirical.

Private scientific historical methods of studying history:

• Chronological method - historical data is presented in their chronological sequence, from past to present.
• The retrospective method is the study of historical facts by gradually penetrating into the past in order to discover the reasons for the event that happened.
• The concrete historical method is the recording of all events and facts.
• Comparative-historical - an event is studied in the context of similar incidents that took place earlier or later. This research method makes it possible to study a particular event in more depth from different angles.
• Historical-genetic - the study of the emergence and development of a certain event.
• Historical-typological - classification of events or objects according to their type or characteristic.

In addition to the above, quite often scientists use other methods to study history, borrowed from other related and not so related sciences, for example from statistics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, archeology and others.

General methods of research and study of history

For most humanities disciplines and history in particular, the general methods are:

1. Logical method - examines the phenomena under study at the peak of their development, since during this period their form becomes most mature, and this gives the keys to understanding the previous stages of historical development.
2. Historical method - with its help, processes and certain historical phenomena are reproduced in chronological development, taking into account unique features, patterns and details. By observing them, you can track certain patterns.

Historical sources

When researching history, scientists have to work with objects or phenomena that they most often cannot see with their own eyes, since they took place many years, centuries or even millennia ago.
Between the research of historians and the fact that actually happened in the past, there is an intermediate link - this is a historical source. The science of source studies deals with research and classification of sources for the study of history.

Types of historical sources

There are different types of classifications of historical sources. The most popular is the classification by type. According to it, 7 groups of sources are distinguished:

1. Oral (folk tales, songs, rituals).
2. Written (chronicles, books, diaries, newspapers, magazines and others).
3. Material (remains of weapons on the battlefield, ancient burials, preserved items of clothing, household items, and so on).
4. Ethnographic (materials related to the culture of a particular ethnic group, most often provided by ethnography).
5. Linguistic (names of cities, rivers, areas, food products, concepts, etc.).
6. Phonodocuments.
7. Photo and film documents.

The last two types of sources of historical research have become available to historians relatively recently, but thanks to them, conducting research has become much easier. Although, thanks to the achievements of modern technology, it has become very easy to falsify photographs, videos and audio recordings, so it will be difficult for historians of the near future to use these historical sources.

The science of history, like the history of mankind itself, interacts with a whole range of other disciplines, often using them as sources of information, as well as using their methods, principles and achievements. In turn, history also helps other disciplines. Therefore, there are a number of historical sciences that concentrate their attention on the subject of a particular discipline. Such, for example, as the history of philosophy, politics, culture, literature, music and many others. In this regard, correctly chosen methods and sources for studying history are very important, because it is on their choice and use that the establishment of facts of objective reality depends, which affects not only the “brainchild of Herodotus”, but also all other sciences related to it.

Any scientific research is a systematic process. The set of procedures performed in historical research breaks down into the following main stages: selection of an object and formulation of a research problem; identifying the source and information basis for its solution and developing research methods; reconstruction of the historical reality under study and its empirical knowledge; explanation and theoretical knowledge; determination of the truth and value of the acquired knowledge and its evaluation. All these stages, firstly, are consistently and closely interrelated and, secondly, consist of a whole set of research procedures that require appropriate methods. Therefore, with a more detailed disclosure of the logical structure of historical research, it is possible to identify a significantly larger number of its internal stages\ In this case, we limit ourselves to only the indicated main ones, because this does not mean disclosing the entire sequence of procedures that make up historical research, but only a statement of the most significant methodological problems solved in it.

1. Statement of the research problem

Each historical scientific study (like any other) has its own object of knowledge. It is some part of objective historical reality, taken in one or another of its spatio-temporal manifestations. The scale of this reality can be very different, from individual events to complex social systems and processes.

• See: Grishin B. A. Logic of historical research. M., 1961; Gerasimov I. G. Scientific research. M., 1972; It's him. Structure of scientific research (philosophical analysis of cognitive activity). M., 1985.

Objective historical reality, which has many inherent properties and connections, cannot be reflected in all its diversity. only a single study, but even a series of them. Because of this, in any study not only an object of knowledge is selected, but also a research task aimed at solving a specific scientific problem is consciously set or implied. Scientific problem 2 is a question or set of questions that has arisen in the process of scientific knowledge, the solution of which has practical or scientific-cognitive significance. False problems, i.e., artificially posed questions that have neither scientific nor practical significance, should be distinguished from truly scientific problems that objectively arose and are of significant interest. The problem highlights the unknown in the object of knowledge in the form of questions, which form the basis for setting specific research tasks. The research task not only reveals the range of reality phenomena to be studied, but also determines specific aspects and goals of their study, because these aspects and goals can be diverse. Of course, all this does not exclude “free” research search, which can lead to very significant results and even unexpected discoveries.

When choosing an object to study and setting a research problem, the historian must proceed, firstly, from taking into account the practical needs of our time and, secondly, from the state of knowledge of the reality under study, the degree of its scientific knowledge. In this regard, both the object of knowledge and the problem being solved must be relevant, i.e. be of practical and scientific-educational interest.

To actively meet social needs, historians must have a good knowledge of modernity and the demand it places on historical knowledge in various temporal and substantive aspects. Moreover, the historian must not only satisfy one or another already defined need for historical knowledge, but also show, as was indicated when characterizing the social functions of historical science, activity and persistence in translating the results of historical research into social practice.

• 2 See: Berkov V.F. Scientific problem. Minsk, 1979; Karpovich V.N. Problem. Hypothesis. Law. Novosibirsk, 1980.

As for the modern era in the development of Soviet society, among the many problems to which historians can contribute, attention should be paid to two. First of all, this is the role of the human factor in all manifestations and at all levels in accelerating social progress. Therefore, along with revealing the internal conditionality and patterns of socio-historical development, it is necessary to increase attention to identifying the subjective-historical factors of this development, to showing their interaction with objective factors, to analyzing the mechanisms of this interaction. In addition, the study of the past should serve to improve the ways and methods of predicting the subsequent course of modern development. History opens up great opportunities here that are not only not used, but are not even properly realized. They consist in the fact that, as indicated, by studying the “past present” and predicting the “past future” that follows it, the historian has the opportunity to compare these forecasts with the real course of development and on this basis to develop effective principles, paths and methods making forecasts. Historians must solve this problem together with forecasting specialists - economists, sociologists, mathematicians, etc.

In light of the above, it is also obvious that the practical relevance of historical research is not determined by its temporal proximity to modernity alone, although, naturally, the recent past in many aspects contains more that is practically significant for solving the problems of current development than distant eras . But this is only in general. In general, only with a broad, comprehensive and deep knowledge of the past can historical science fully meet the needs of our time.

A justified choice of an object of historical research and especially the formulation of a research problem and the choice of ways and methods for solving it require indispensable consideration of the degree of knowledge of the phenomena and processes of historical reality under consideration. Historical knowledge, like any other scientific knowledge based on Marxist theory and methodology, is a continuous and progressive process, the continuation of which can be successful only on the basis of taking into account its previous progress and the results achieved. In historical science, the solution to this problem, as is known, is dealt with by a special historical discipline - historiography. The importance of knowledge of the previous development of historical science for the practice of current historical research was responsible for its emergence.

The concept of “historiography” is used in different senses. Most often, historiography means one or another set of scientific works on socio-historical development. In this sense, they talk about historiography on the history of the Middle Ages, modern history, national history or the historiography of the Decembrist movement, the peasant reform of 1861, etc., meaning all historical literature on these subjects that has arisen throughout history of their study. In another version of this approach, historiography means the totality of historical works created in a particular historical era, i.e. at one or another stage of development of historical science, regardless of their thematic content (for example, French historiography of the restoration era, Russian historiography of the period of imperialism, Soviet historiography of the Great Patriotic War, etc.).

The study of the history of historical science has two aspects. The first is the general state and development of historical science in a particular country (or a number of countries) throughout its history or in certain historical periods. It is aimed at identifying the patterns and features of the development of historical science, its main stages and directions, their inherent theoretical and methodological foundations and specific historical concepts, as well as the social conditions for the functioning of historical science and its influence on public life etc. The second aspect comes down to studying the history of the development of individual problems, that is, historiographic analysis covers the entire set of historical studies devoted to the study of certain phenomena of socio-historical development. In the conditions of an acute ideological struggle between Marxist and bourgeois ideologies and in the field of historical science, a special branch of Marxist problematic historiographic research has become work on the criticism of non-Marxist research on certain subjects of the past, primarily on the history of our country.

Finally, the works themselves on the history of historical science (in their indicated variants) become the object of special study, and a type of work arose that is called the historiography of historiography.

Thus, in the practice of historical research, the term “historiography” has acquired the character of a generic concept, including a number of its types. To avoid confusion in the use of concepts, it would be advisable for each of them to be designated by a specific term. Over time, this will probably happen. At the moment, there is a tendency to mean by historiography research on the history of historical science, both in general and in relation to the history of the development of its individual problems. In this regard, the totality of historical works created in a particular era or devoted to the study of certain eras or individual phenomena of the past is better called not historiography, but historical works of such and such an era or works about such and such an era. then historical eras and historical phenomena.

The purpose of the historiographic substantiation of the research task is to reveal the main stages and directions that took place in the study of the relevant phenomena or processes, the theoretical and methodological approaches from which representatives of different directions proceeded, the source information base and methods of study, the results obtained and their scientific significance in the history of the study of the historical reality in question. On this basis, those aspects of it can be identified. realities that either did not receive proper coverage or were completely outside the research field of view. The formulation of the research problem should be aimed at their study. Its implementation is aimed at obtaining new knowledge about the phenomena and processes being studied.

The historiographic substantiation of the research problem is the most important stage in any historical research. A successful solution to the issues that arise here requires adherence to the principles common to historical science - historicism, partisanship and objectivity. It is clear that in historiographic research these principles have their own specific manifestation and are associated with the solution of a number of specific methodological problems.

One of them is the definition of those criteria on the basis of which significantly different areas of historical science should be distinguished, engaged in the study of the historical reality under consideration (and the historical past in general). The basis here should be the identification of the social and class positions of historians, for it is these positions that primarily determine the degree of objectivity of research, as well as their target specification. At the same time, within the framework of unified social-class trends in historical science, there may be internal movements that differ both in the degree of scientific objectivity and in the content of specific historical concepts. These differences are determined by the theoretical and methodological premises underlying these concepts. Thus, the historical concepts of bourgeois historical science in the field of theory are based on idealism, and on vulgar materialism, and on pluralism, and in methodology - on subjectivism, objectivism and relativism. But different theoretical and methodological approaches do not take the internal currents of bourgeois historical science beyond the boundaries of their single bourgeois class essence.

Thus, the directions of historical science should be distinguished by party-class essence, and their internal currents - by differences in the theory and methodology of historical knowledge. The main stages in the development of both historical science as a whole and in the study of individual phenomena and processes of the past are characterized by a certain combination of directions inherent in a particular period of history. Significant changes in the relationship between these directions (for example, the transition of a leading role from one direction to another) mean a transition from one stage to another.

Different stages in the study of the past and certain of its phenomena and processes also take place in Soviet historical science. But these stages after the establishment of Marxist theory and methodology of historical knowledge in Soviet historical science in the mid-30s differ not in ideological-class orientation and theoretical-methodological equipment, as bourgeois historiographers sometimes try to portray, but in the relationship between differentiation and integration in the development of historical science, the nature of its source basis and methods of historical research, and thereby the theoretical, methodological and specific scientific level of these studies and their social and scientific significance.

An important place in the historiographic substantiation of the research task is the assessment of scientific results obtained by individual researchers, schools, movements and directions of historical science. Obviously, this assessment must be objective and historical. Objectivity requires the exclusion of any givenness, freedom from both nihilism and conservatism, that is, from both underestimation and overestimation of the results obtained. Historicism obliges us to judge the scientific merits of historians, as well as all scientists, not by what they did not give in comparison with the current state of science, but by what they gave that was new in comparison with their predecessors 3 . When identifying this new thing, it is necessary to take into account the nature of the approach to the object of knowledge, the specific factual basis of its study, the theoretical and methodological principles and methods of this study, the specific scientific results obtained, their novelty and contribution to the coverage of the problem and to the general development. the development of historical science, the practical and applied orientation and significance of the research and its role in social practice.

In general, historiographic analysis makes it possible to identify the degree of previous knowledge of the object of study, identify existing gaps, unresolved and controversial problems, the validity of the approaches taken and the methods used, etc., and on this basis put forward a research problem.

When setting up a research problem, there should be no intention to confirm or refute any previously obtained results. This may lead along the wrong and, in any case, limited path. Something can only be objectively refuted or confirmed based on the results of the research being conducted.

In order for a research task not only to fill existing gaps or to continue the planned lines of research based on already developed approaches and methods, but also to allow the possibility of obtaining significantly new results, it must be oriented towards attracting new sources or extracting new information from known sources and the use of other approaches and methods for studying the reality under consideration. Of course, this in no way means the illegality of research conducted on the basis of already tested and proven sources, approaches and methods used to analyze the same or similar phenomena considered in a different spatial or temporal expression. Moreover, such studies, covering massive historical phenomena and processes, the study of which requires collective efforts, must certainly be carried out on the basis of unified approaches and methods, because only in this way can comparable and reducible results be obtained. But such research develops science in breadth, which is extremely important, but does not remove the task of developing it in depth, for which new approaches are needed.

Naturally, a non-standard formulation of a research problem requires not a simple summing up of the results of the previous study of the object under consideration, but also a deep theoretical and methodological analysis of these results and possible other directions and approaches for its further research.

This is the main range of specific methodological problems solved when choosing an object and setting a research problem.

A research problem in historical science can be solved only if there are sources containing the necessary information about the object of knowledge. Therefore, the most important stage in the structure of historical research is the formation of its source and information basis. Here the historian can use both already known and attract new sources, the search for which, especially in archives, requires certain knowledge and skills. In particular, it is necessary to know both the system of accumulation and storage of social information in the historical era under study, and the structure of modern archival and library collections. The study of related issues is carried out by such disciplines auxiliary to historical science as archeography, archival studies, documentary studies, etc.

The problems of selecting, establishing the authenticity, reliability and accuracy of historical sources, as well as methods of processing and analyzing the information they contain, are developed by source studies, which, like historiography, is a special historical discipline. Historians have accumulated extensive experience working with sources, and there is a huge amount of both general and specialized literature on source studies. Let us note only some of the most significant specific methodological aspects related to providing the source and information basis for historical research.

Identification, selection and critical analysis of sources should be focused on ensuring the qualitative and quantitative representativeness of specific historical data necessary to solve the problem. This depends not only, and often not so much, on the number of sources involved, but also, first of all, on their information value. Therefore, the often manifested desire to use as many sources as possible not only does not produce results in itself, but can also lead to cluttering the research with facts that are of little significance or are completely unnecessary for solving the task at hand. At the same time, determining the optimal amount of information necessary for research is often very difficult, and, as a rule, historical studies contain some kind of redundant information. This in itself is not a disadvantage, because this information can further serve as the basis for new approaches to the object of knowledge and for setting new research tasks. It is only important that it does not complicate the achievement of the desired goal. All this determines the need to select from sources such specific historical data that have high-quality representativeness.

The qualitative representativeness of information about the object of knowledge included in the analysis is determined by the extent to which it reveals the features, properties and connections inherent in this object that are essential in terms of the task at hand. The practical provision of this representativeness can be complicated by a number of circumstances.

Firstly, it may not be easy, as already noted, to determine the very composition of even direct features that express the essential properties of an object. This situation arises in cases where we are talking about complex historical phenomena and processes, especially in the stage of formation or transition from one state to another. Here, it is possible to establish the necessary signs only when a relatively high level of previous study of the phenomena under study has already been achieved, that is, when the available knowledge is specific theoretical and reveals the basic patterns of the functioning and development of the corresponding historical reality.

Secondly, even more difficult is the preliminary determination of those essential relationships that may be inherent in the elements and properties of a particular social system. This makes it difficult to select features included in the analysis.

Thirdly, the sources may not contain directly expressed essential features of the object necessary to solve the problem.

In the first two situations, the difficulties that arise can be overcome by increasing the number of features introduced into the analysis. With a large number of indicators contained in sources, it may be necessary to select and analyze several of their options. In cases where data on mass phenomena and processes characterized by a large number of characteristics are used, it may be advisable to preliminarily experimentally process a sample of these data.

When the sources do not contain the necessary direct data, this data can be obtained by extracting hidden information, i.e. increasing the information output of sources. However, despite the fact that, in principle, sources contain an unlimited amount of hidden information, this does not mean that it can be obtained in each specific study. If, due to the content poverty of the available sources or the unclear ways and methods of extracting hidden information from them, it is not possible to form a qualitatively representative set of features, adjustments should be made to the formulation of the research problem, since its solution on the basis of an unrepresentative system of indicators can lead to erroneous results.

As for the quantitative representativeness of the data involved, it is associated with the study of mass historical phenomena and processes based on sample data, covering only a part of the objects from the totality being studied. The formation of quantitatively representative sample data will be discussed in the second part of this work. It is obvious that if the data available in the sources are not quantitatively representative for the study of the task at hand, this task, as well as in the case of non-representativeness of qualitative characteristics, must undergo appropriate adjustment or its solution must be postponed until the data necessary for this are identified .

In general, as we see, the solution to a particular research problem does not simply require a representative source and information basis: the formulation of the problem itself must be linked to these foundations. This is one of the most important specific methodological principles and a normative requirement that must be observed in any historical research.

The next link in the logical structure of historical research is the choice or development of a system of research methods. In any historical research, it is a complex of methods that is used. The very formulation of the research problem requires, as indicated, certain approaches and methods both in establishing the needs for a given historical knowledge and in assessing the state of knowledge of the problem. A special range of methods is used to solve source study problems. These are methods for identifying the necessary sources, and critically checking the reliability and accuracy of the data used, and determining their qualitative and quantitative representativeness, etc. A specific set of methods is necessary for systematization, processing and analysis of specific data at the stage of reconstruction of the reality being studied and at the empirical level of its cognition, as well as at the stage of explanation of facts, their categorical-essential synthesis and final generalization, i.e. at the theoretical level of cognition.

It is obvious that the set of methods used will always have its own specificity, determined by the content and target nature of the research problem, i.e. properties of the reality being studied and the purposes of its study, as well as the source and information capabilities of its solution. That is why there are a huge number of specific problem-solving (or, in other words, specific scientific) methods.

Despite the fact that specific problem-solving methods are various combinations of general scientific methods and are based on one or another special scientific (in this case general historical) method or a combination of these methods, each of them has qualitative certainty and integrity, and is not just a simple combination of general scientific methods applied to the study of one or another specific reality, as is sometimes believed. The effectiveness and efficiency of general scientific methods is manifested only in specific scientific methods, through which only the interaction of the cognizing subject with the cognizable object can be carried out, i.e. a cognitive process takes place. In this regard, it is legitimate to believe that general scientific and special scientific methods, figuratively speaking, are unified intellectual means developed in the process of long-term cognitive experience, certain “details” and “assemblies” from which various specific and specialized methods can be constructed, acting as a “machine” that produces scientific knowledge.

From what has been said, it is obvious that any general characteristic of the process of developing methods for solving specific research problems can only consist in revealing those methodological approaches and principles that should be followed in this case. First of all, you need to pay attention to the following points.

The starting point when developing methods for solving a given research problem should be taking into account (within the framework of this task) the objective meaningful nature of the object under study, expressed by its inherent features and properties, as well as its spatial and temporal extent. It is obvious that the study of, say, economic and ideological phenomena requires different approaches and methods, because the main essence of the former depended primarily on those general patterns that determined the functioning and development of certain specific economic phenomena, and the essence of the latter determined by their social and class nature. Therefore, the methods used should make it possible, in the first case, to reveal the manifestation of the general in the particular, and in the second case, to reduce the ideal to the social. It is clear that the methods for studying individual (single) and mass phenomena, as well as phenomena considered in statics and dynamics, etc., will also be different.

The nature of the reality being studied, considered in the light of the task at hand, first of all makes it possible to determine those general historical methods that can be applied to solve this problem. If, for example, the task is to reveal the essence of socio-political and other views of individual representatives of one or another direction of social thought, then in this case the most effective will be either the historical-genetic or historical-comparative method, or both at the same time. When studying the decomposition of the peasantry or when studying the social structure of the working class, the historical-typological method in combination with the historical-systemic one will be an adequate method.

Further, the nature of the reality being studied and the achieved level of its knowledge make it possible to determine those basic general scientific methods through which the chosen general historical method will be implemented. In this case, first of all, it is necessary to establish the possibility of using the most effective of these methods - the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete, which allows us to understand the essence of the reality being studied in organic unity with the diversity of phenomena expressing it. To apply this method, it is required that the existing knowledge about this reality allows either the isolation of its original cell or the construction of an ideal object expressing it. If such an approach turns out to be possible, then the possibility of using methods of deduction, synthesis and modeling will thereby be predetermined. Otherwise, you will have to initially limit yourself to the methods of ascending from the concrete to the abstract and inductive analysis.

Along with the nature of the reality being studied and the achieved level of its knowledge, the design of the method is largely determined by the state of the source-information base of the problem being solved. The choice of both general historical and general scientific methods depends on it. It is clear, for example, that mass phenomena of socio-historical development can be most deeply studied when using quantitative methods. But it may turn out that the sources do not contain quantitative indicators about these phenomena and give them only a generalized descriptive characteristic. Then, despite the feasibility of using quantitative methods, we will have to limit ourselves to descriptive methods.

The nature of the source-information basis of the study determines, in particular, the possibility of using the historical approach and method itself, that is, revealing the essence of the reality being studied by identifying its history. If the sources contain information about this reality only in relation to any one time moment, then its history cannot be revealed directly. It can be judged only by the results obtained by the logical method.

Thus, adequate and effective research methods can be developed only with careful consideration of, firstly, the nature of the reality being studied, revealed on the basis of existing, primarily theoretical, knowledge about it, and, secondly, the source and information base for her decisions. This makes it possible to identify the main general historical and general scientific research methods, which in their totality form the basis of the specific scientific (specific problem-based) method.

However, the development of a specific scientific method is not limited to defining the set of necessary general historical and general scientific methods. Actually, their selection exhausts only one side of the development of a specific scientific method - the ways and principles are identified, as well as the associated regulatory requirements for successful research, i.e. The theoretical and methodological foundations of a specific scientific method are being developed. But the method also includes certain rules and procedures (methodology) and requires the necessary tools and instruments (research technique).

Specific scientific methods, on the one hand, are determined by the principles and regulatory requirements of the method, and on the other hand, they also depend on the nature of the data used. The form in which the information is recorded (descriptive, quantitative, pictorial) and its type (primary or aggregated summary, continuous or selective) are especially important here. Ultimately, any concrete scientific method represents an organic and unique unity of theoretical and methodological premises, methodology and research technology. It is in concrete scientific methods that the unity of materialist dialectics as a theory, methodology and logic of scientific (in this case scientific-historical) knowledge appears in a concretely expressed form.

All non-Marxist approaches to the development of specific methods of historical research do not provide such unity, and therefore do not ensure consistent objectivity of the cognitive process.

It is obvious that the most effective method should be chosen to solve the research problem. This is a method that allows one to adequately reveal the essence of the reality being studied using the simplest available cognitive tools. Unjustified complication of the method leads to unnecessary expenditure of funds and research efforts. But, on the other hand, it is impossible to simplify the methods, because this can lead to erroneous results. The power of the method must correspond to the research problem. Thus, already at the initial At the stage of any research, a historian must solve a number of important specific methodological problems related to setting a research problem, providing a source and information basis and developing methods for solving it.

2. Reconstruction of historical reality and the empirical level of its knowledge

Setting up a research problem, identifying source and information possibilities for solving it, and developing methods for solving it open the way to conducting your own research. It has stages that differ in the level of knowledge gained. These stages and levels are expressed in empirical and theoretical knowledge.

It should be noted that the similarities and differences between empirical and theoretical knowledge, the internal mechanism and methods of obtaining them, the relationship between empirical knowledge and sensory-figurative knowledge and other issues have not only been and are being discussed by representatives of different philosophical directions, but are also interpreted differently by Soviet specialists in philosophical problems of scientific knowledge 4. Of course, in this case there is no need to consider the existing discrepancies. Let us dwell only on the approach to these problems that seems most convincing from the standpoint of historical research. Its main essence is the following 5.

• 4 See: Shvyrev V.S. Theoretical and empirical in scientific knowledge. M., 1978; Materialistic dialectics. T. 2. Ch. III; Theoretical and empirical in modern scientific knowledge: Sat. articles. M., 1984; as well as the above-mentioned works of N.K. Vakhtomin, P.V. Kopnin, V.A. Lektorsky, A.V. Slavin and others. Problems of empirical and theoretical in historical knowledge are considered in the works of G.M. Ivanov , A. M. Korshunova, V. V. Kosolapova, A. I. Rakitova, Yu. V. Petrova, etc.
• 5 This approach is most clearly stated in the indicated work of N.K. Vakhtomin (Chapter IV) and in the second volume of the work “Materialistic Dialectics” (Chapter III).
• 6 See: Zviglyanich V.A. Logical-epistemological and social aspects of the categories of appearance and essence. Kyiv, 1980; Velik A.P. Social form of movement: phenomenon and essence. M., 1982.

The diverse features and properties, relationships and contradictions of objective reality lead to the fact that in it the phenomenon and essence do not coincide. A concrete expression of the essence is a phenomenon. Moreover, the phenomenon is diverse, but the essence is one. In the process of sensory perception of reality, its images are formed. The content of sensory images, based on the human experience of perception of reality, does not depend on “the methodological and other settings of the subject, on the categorical structure of his thinking... on the contrary, the latter is forced to adapt to this content”\ i.e. this content draws an objective picture of reality.

Of course, individual sensations of people may be different, but the transformation of sensations into a complete sensory image occurs on the basis of ideas developed by long-term social practice of perceiving the world. Individual variations in sensations seem to cancel each other out 8 .

Further, the objective nature of sensory images, their independence from thinking does not mean a gap between the sensory and the rational. The sensual and rational are closely interconnected. Already the choice of an object for perception and its purpose are determined by thinking, not to mention the fact that the process of cognition represents the organic unity of a sensory and rational approach to reality. It is also obvious that the objectivity of a sensory image does not guarantee the truth of the final result of cognition obtained at the stage of analyzing sensory images by thinking. There may be errors in cognition, but they do not arise at the stage of sensory perception (in its natural-normal conditions), but at the stage of rational cognition, that is, they are generated by thinking.

Another important feature of sensory perception is that the sensory image “always contains more information about reality than we are aware of” 9 . This makes it possible to “transition beyond sensory perceptions to the existence of things outside of us” 10, that is, to the knowledge of reality as the unity of appearance and essence. But, since the phenomenon and the essence do not coincide and the essence cannot be perceived directly, “the task of science,” K. Marx pointed out, “is to reduce the visible movement, which only appears in the phenomenon, to the real one.” internal movement" 11. Knowledge comes, V.I. Lenin emphasized, “from phenomenon to essence, from essence of the first, so to speak, order, to essence of the second order, etc. without end” 12 . Therefore, in the process of the emergence of knowledge, two stages, or levels, are distinguished. In the first of them, the phenomenon is cognized and empirical knowledge arises, and in the second, the essence is revealed and theoretical knowledge is formed.

• 7 Materialistic dialectics. T. 2. P. 107.
• 8 See: Dubinin I. I., Guslyakova L. G. Dynamics of everyday consciousness. Minsk, 1985; Gubanov N.I. Sensory reflection: analysis of the problem in the light of modern science. M., 1986.
• 9 Materialistic dialectics. T. 2. P. 103.
• 10 Lenin V.I. Poli. collection op. T. 18. P. 121.
• 11 Marx K., Engels F. Soch. 2nd ed. T. 25. Part I. P. 343.
• 12 Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 29. P. 227.

In the light of this approach, the illegitimateness of the current identification of empirical knowledge with the sensory component in cognition, and the theoretical one with the rational one, is obvious. Scientific knowledge is explanatory knowledge, and therefore, in both empirical and theoretical forms, it is based on thinking. Sensory perception characterizes reality in the form of images, which are a set of certain data about the external features and properties of this reality. These data are explained in empirical knowledge.

There are different opinions about what knowledge is empirical and what is theoretical. There is a widespread idea: since a phenomenon supposedly reflects only the external in an object, then empirical knowledge as knowledge about a phenomenon also reflects only the external features and properties of the object. Theoretical knowledge is a reflection of the internal properties of an object. Based on this, knowledge obtained in experimental sciences is primarily classified as empirical. This opinion is also shared by some specialists in theoretical and methodological problems of historical science. Thus, one of the works states that “empirical cognition aims to obtain direct experimental knowledge. The subject directly interacts with the object of knowledge (source), which results in scientific facts.” Theoretical knowledge “emerges as a result of further transformation of empirical data using logical means” 13. The unjustified transformation of a source into an object of knowledge, which has already been discussed, is, in fact, due to the desire to prove the possibility of direct contact between the historian and the object and obtaining experimental knowledge that characterizes the external features of phenomena.

Another and, it seems, quite reasonable understanding of the content and relationship between empirical and theoretical knowledge comes down to the following. A phenomenon is understood primarily as individual features and relationships of an object, which can be both external and internal. Therefore, empirical knowledge is knowledge not only about the external in an object, but also about the internal. The specificity of this knowledge “lies in the fact that it is knowledge about a separate relation or separate relations, taken separately, and theoretical knowledge is about the essence, about such a relation that forms the basis of individual relations” 14, reflects the reality being studied as an integrity , possessing essential-substantive, qualitative certainty. This understanding of the essence of empirical knowledge excludes the view, widely spread among researchers, including historians, that empirical knowledge provides only facts that can only be explained in theoretical knowledge 15 .

• 13 Petrov Yu. V. Practice and historical science. pp. 313, 317.
• 14 Vakhtomin N. K - Decree. op. P. 167.
• 15 See: Rakitov A.I. Decree. op. P. 270.

In historical science, where the empirical is associated primarily with descriptiveness, the traditional interpretation of the nature of this knowledge suggests its kinship with pure ideographicism. This is not true. Empirical knowledge is also explanatory knowledge. Another thing is that this explanation covers reality only in the form of a phenomenon. Therefore, empirical knowledge is only the initial stage, one of the stages and levels of knowledge of reality.

Empirical knowledge explains data obtained by sensory perception. This explanation leads to the knowledge of reality as a phenomenon. Theoretical knowledge explains the phenomenon, that is, there is a transition to understanding reality as an essence. The transition from sensory perception to empirical knowledge, and from it to theoretical knowledge, represents a generalization, a reduction to a certain unity in the first case of sensory data, and in the second - of empirical facts. The means of such generalization both at the stage of obtaining empirical knowledge and at the stage of forming theoretical knowledge is categorical synthesis. Therefore, it is quite justified to assert that it is unlawful to reduce the methods of obtaining empirical knowledge only to experiments, observations, descriptions, measurements, i.e., to the totality of what is considered as experience, and theoretical knowledge - only to formal logical processes. procedures. Firstly, thinking with its inherent substantive approach and formal logical procedures appears in experience. How, for example, can one carry out a measurement without first defining its goals, without identifying the characteristics to be measured, without establishing units and methods of measurement, etc.? Secondly, even in theoretical analysis it is impossible to make do with only those data characterizing the object that were obtained experimentally. Other data that lie outside the scope of experience are also needed. In historical science, such data are called “extra-source knowledge.” It represents the totality of all the knowledge that the historian possesses in addition to what he extracts from the source.

The main thing is that neither the data of experience nor formal logical procedures by themselves can provide knowledge about either the phenomenon or the essence. This knowledge, as correctly emphasized by a number of researchers, can only be obtained as a result of categorical synthesis. It is clear that categorical synthesis at the level of empirical and theoretical knowledge has significant differences. Firstly, its substantive basis is different. At the empirical level, data from sensory perception are synthesized, and at the theoretical level, empirical facts are synthesized. Secondly, synthesis is carried out by subsuming data under categories of different nature and content.

These are the main most general points related to the empirical and theoretical levels of scientific knowledge that must be taken into account in any research.

Let's look more specifically at what the internal mechanism for obtaining empirical knowledge is 16.

The initial basis for obtaining empirical knowledge is sensory data. They reflect individual visible diverse features and relationships of reality. These features and relationships objectively represent facts that act as a manifestation of the hidden true essence of the subject. In this sense, a phenomenon is a fact of reality. But in this meaning the phenomenon is not perceived sensually. For sensibility, only individual features of an object are real. It is possible to reveal phenomena as objective facts characterizing an object only in thinking, which is what happens in empirical knowledge. The essence of empirical knowledge, therefore, is that the facts of reality are reflected by consciousness and act as facts of knowledge about phenomena. Speaking about fact-reality and fact-knowledge, it should be recalled that among philosophers there is a widespread opinion that fact is an epistemological-cognitive category that appears in knowledge. In relation to objective reality, we must talk not about facts, but about the phenomena that the fact reflects. However, the rejection of fact as a phenomenon of reality is unjustified, especially in the light of widespread subjective-idealistic ideas about scientific facts as purely mental constructions. The authors of the general work “Materialistic Dialectics” proceed from the fact that a fact acts both as reality and as knowledge about it. “The totality of these facts constitutes the content of empirical knowledge; they reflect individual phenomena, i.e. features , relationships and dependencies of reality. They do not provide a holistic understanding of the subject and characterize it, as they say, “on the one hand” and “on the other hand.” Therefore, empirical knowledge, despite all its concreteness, is inherently one-sided and it abstracts something from the reality being studied. a variety of facts and phenomena, without revealing their interrelationships and without presenting this diversity as a certain integrity.

• 16 See: Saiko S.P. Dialectics of empirical and theoretical in historical knowledge. Alma-Ata, 1975; Zviglyanzh V. A. Logical-epistemological and social aspects of the category of appearance and essence. Kyiv, 1980; Elsukov A. N. Empirical knowledge and facts of science. Minsk, 1981; Abdullaeva M.N. Problems of adequacy of reflection at the empirical level of scientific knowledge. Tashkent, 1982.
• 17 Materialistic dialectics. T. 2. pp. 115-116.

Facts-knowledge about facts-reality, i.e., about phenomena, are created in experience, which must be considered, as noted, broadly (experiments, observations, descriptions, measurements, etc.). Experience can be the result of a purposeful research approach to the reality being studied. Then, based on the set goal, the range of phenomena to be studied, ways and specific methods of identifying and systematizing data are determined. But empirical knowledge can also be obtained in the process of ordinary practical activity. It differs from the scientific-empirical one in that its occurrence, as a rule, is not associated with a specific cognitive goal and it is acquired to solve certain practical problems. Therefore, special methods for obtaining knowledge are not developed 18.

Empirical scientific knowledge can be used in practical activities. Certain consequences of an empirical nature can be deduced from it. It can be the basis for identifying individual patterns. In short, empirical knowledge in itself has significant cognitive value 19, which is especially great in the social sciences and humanities. This is due to the specifics of their object of knowledge. The combination of the objective and the subjective, the natural-lawful and the consciously-purposeful in it leads to the fact that socio-historical facts carry a directly detectable socio-political and emotional load. They can “speak for themselves,” that is, be the basis for practical conclusions and actions.

Now about the main thing - about how, at the stage of empirical knowledge, categorical synthesis is carried out, which makes this knowledge explanatory.

• 18 See: Dubinin I.I., Guslyakova L.G. Decree. op.
• 19 See: Oizerman T.N. Empirical and theoretical: difference, opposition, unity // Issue. philosophy. 1985. No. 12; 1986. No. 1.

Categorical synthesis of sensory data, which leads to the discovery of facts and phenomena, is carried out in experience. In experience, these data are categorized. Since empirical knowledge reflects a separate relationship (a relationship is understood as a separate side, feature, connection, etc., inherent in reality), then sensory data is subsumed under categories that reflect such relationships. In general, these categories are: “phenomenon”, “similarity”, “difference”, “individual”, “general”, “space”, “time”, “quality”, “quantity”, “measure” and etc., because objectively every relationship appears as a phenomenon, can be individual and general, flows in space and time, has quality, quantity and measure, etc. In relation to specific areas of reality, categories that reflect the properties of the corresponding reality are used in categorical synthesis at the stage of empirical cognition. As a result, facts characterizing the phenomena are established. These facts constitute the content of empirical knowledge. Empirical facts can be systematized, classified, generalized, compared and subjected to other types of processing. For a comprehensive coverage of the object of knowledge, what is needed is not individual facts, but a system or even systems of facts when this object is complex.

Very important in general, and at the present stage of development of science in particular, is the identification of the quantitative characteristics of the corresponding phenomena, which requires their measurement. Only knowledge of the quantitative measure of phenomena allows us to establish the limits of their qualitative certainty. In this way, the most complete knowledge of reality is achieved.

This is the basic essence of empirical knowledge. It has its own specifics in historical research. This specificity lies in the fact that knowledge facts about the facts of the historical reality being studied are revealed on the basis of the facts of the historical source, i.e., in the process of cognition, a doubly subjectivized reflective reconstruction of the object under study occurs. It has already been noted that since historical sources, despite all the limitlessness of the explicit and hidden information they contain, characterize historical reality selectively, the problem arises of the possibility of an adequate unambiguous reconstruction of the object of knowledge in the light of the posed research problem. Everything that happened in the past has already happened and is therefore invariant. Knowledge of the past in its invariance is the task of historical science. In his polemics with P. Struve, defending an objective Marxist approach to the study of social reality, V.I. Lenin considered it obligatory for a Marxist to “reduce the whole matter to clarifying what exists and why it exists exactly this way and not otherwise” 20 .

• 20 Lenin V.I. Poli. collection op. T. 1. P. 457.
• 21 Lappo-Danilevsky A. S. Methodology of history. St. Petersburg, 1910. Issue. I. P. 287 (emphasis added by us. - I.K.)..
• 22 Ibid. P. 290.

Before moving on to consider the extent to which an invariant reconstruction of the historical past is possible, let us recall that the dialectical-materialist reconstruction of historical reality is fundamentally different from the subjectivist reproduction of the past. Subjective idealism, as is known, denies the possibility of objective knowledge of the past, considering the source of knowledge about the past to be the consciousness of the historian and that this “knowledge” itself is carried out through the construction (construction) of the reality being studied by the historian. For example, A. S. Lappo-Danilevsky, the most prominent representative of the subjective-idealistic trend in Russian bourgeois historiography, pointed out that the historian, relying on sensory empathy for the events of the past, “is primarily concerned with the scientific construction of concrete reality, and not its “image,” i.e., reflection 21. Lacking the necessary scientific concepts for this, he “develops them himself in relation to the objects he studies and depending on the cognitive goals that he pursues” 22 . This is the position of all representatives of the subjectivist methodology of historical knowledge.

Subjectivism is also inherent in those representatives of modern non-Marxist historical science who, although they do not deny the reality of the past as an object of knowledge, consider it possible to construct various kinds of counterfactual historical situations when studying it. Such situations are arbitrary constructions of the historian and depict the past not as it really was, but as the historian would like to see it.

As a rule, representatives of bourgeois objectivism are also far from a real reconstruction of the past. They are characterized by focusing attention on those phenomena and aspects of the historical past, the coverage of which corresponds to the class interests of the bourgeoisie, and by keeping silent and obscuring those phenomena that contradict them. The failure of bourgeois objectivism as a methodology of historical knowledge is deeply revealed by V.I. Lenin in his polemic with P. Struve. Characterizing the development of capitalism in post-reform Russia, Struve emphasized its progressive sides in every possible way and kept silent about its inherent antagonistic contradictions 23 .

The Marxist methodology of historical knowledge requires a comprehensive reconstruction and knowledge of historical reality in its objective invariance. But such a reconstruction does not cause difficulties only if the historical sources contain in directly expressed form the information necessary to solve the research problem. All that is required is to ensure the representativeness of the formed system of facts. However, when solving very many, one might even say the absolute majority of research problems, the sources do not provide the necessary directly expressed information, and it is necessary to extract hidden, structural information from them. The way to extract it has been known for a long time. This is identifying relationships. Historians have also developed many specific methods for such extraction. Not only logical methods play an important role, but also other factors: sensory experience, intuition, scientific imagination 24 . When reconstructing the past based on extracting hidden information from sources, the historian uses not only the images of the past that he has accumulated, but also the images stored in the public memory of mankind, being recorded in linguistic and sign systems 25.

• 23 See: Lenin V.I. The economic content of populism and its criticism in Struve’s book // Complete. collection op. T. 1. P. 455-457, 492-493, etc.
• 24 See: Ivanov G.M., Korshunov A.M., Petrov Yu.V. Methodological problems of historical knowledge. pp. 65 et seq.; Petrov Yu. V. Practice and historical science. P. 283 et seq.
• 25 Ivanov G.M., Korshunov A.M., Petrov Yu.V. Decree. op. P. 69.

Just like intuition and imagination, these images help to establish connections and thereby reveal hidden information from sources. It is clear that the historian’s “reserve” of historical images and his inclination towards intuition and imagination largely depend on his scientific erudition, i.e. on the amount of knowledge he possesses.

In general, historians have made significant progress in reconstructing historical reality by widely identifying hidden information from sources (the experience accumulated to date requires special study and generalization). Archaeologists are more active in this regard, although the task of reconstruction is especially difficult for them due to its multifaceted nature. First of all, it is necessary to reconstruct them as a whole from fragments of objects. Then, using selected sets of these objects, reconstruct them as an integral complex, and on the basis of these complexes, reconstruct the manifestations of historical reality itself. Of primary importance in this matter is the spatial and temporal localization of the discovered monuments. When reconstructing historical reality, archaeologists, along with material sources, widely use written sources, sphragistic materials, etc., as well as natural scientific methods 26 .

Historians extract especially large volumes of hidden information from written sources that characterize mass historical phenomena and processes and contain a large number of different indicators. The increasingly widespread use of mathematical methods and computers when working with these sources opens up virtually limitless possibilities for historians to extract hidden information and reconstruct mass phenomena and processes on its basis. Soviet historians achieved the most significant results in this regard in the study of socio-economic development.

There are many striking examples of successful reconstruction and important individual historical phenomena. Let us point out, for example, the reconstruction by the Soviet historian V.I. Koretsky of the decree of 1592/1593. on the introduction of reserved years, which is of significant importance in revealing the progress of the enslavement of peasants in Russia 27 .

• 26 See: Yanin V.L. Essays on integrated source study. Medieval Novgorod. M.. 1977; Problems of reconstructions in archaeology. Novosibirsk, 1985.
• 27 See: Koretsky V.I. Enslavement of peasants and class struggle in Russia in the second half of the 16th century. M., 1970.

At the same time, extracting hidden information in cases where there are few sources or they are poor in content or their information is contradictory may not allow obtaining a representative system of facts that unambiguously reconstructs the reality being studied. In practice, this is most often expressed in the fact that there are significant gaps in the system of facts reflecting this reality. It was indicated above that in such cases one should either adjust the research problem or generally refrain from solving it until the necessary facts are identified. But this, naturally, does not exclude the legitimacy of searching for ways or solving a problem in the presence of gaps in specific factual information, or filling these gaps on the basis of indirect or calculated data. Historians encounter this situation very often, and methodological development of the problems that arise here is necessary. In this regard, we note the following.

First of all, in many cases it is quite possible to solve a research problem even if there are gaps in empirical facts, because their incompleteness, as is well known, can be compensated in the process of abstract logical analysis at the theoretical level of knowledge as a result of categorical synthesis. Consequently, the final assessment of the extent to which the empirical system of facts that reconstructs the reality under study is representative for solving the task at hand can only be given as a result of their analysis and synthesis at the theoretical level of knowledge. An assessment of the representativeness of information from sources in the process of reconstructing the reality under study by describing it, i.e., at the empirical level of knowledge, in general can only be preliminary. This, of course, does not exclude the fact that the test of representativeness should be carried out at this (empirical) level, and the insufficiency of the available information may well be discovered.

Further, in historical science, as in other sciences, various methods are used to fill gaps in the data used. In itself, such replenishment is quite acceptable. In practice, it is carried out by temporal or spatial extrapolation of known properties and states of similar phenomena to the phenomena under study 28 . But since spatial and temporal variations in the properties of even similar phenomena and objects can be very significant, filling in the gaps by analogy is at best approximate or may not be justified at all. This kind of danger is especially great when, to characterize certain phenomena of a certain era, they use the properties and meanings inherent in these phenomena in a much later period up to the present. Therefore, some general principle is required on the basis of which the correctness of filling gaps in the available information can be assessed.

• 28 About extrapolation as a means of scientific knowledge. See: Popova N. L. Extrapolation as a means of scientific knowledge and an integrative factor in science. Kyiv, 1985.

It is usually assumed that the completed data does not contradict the existing facts about the event or process being studied. This important requirement can indeed in many cases be an essential criterion for the correctness of the gap filling being carried out or its admissibility in general.

But such an approach is possible only in cases where the nature of the connection of the feature being replenished with other features inherent in the reality being studied as a specific system is known. And this requires certain knowledge about the structure of a given system, which is achieved at a relatively high level of knowledge of the reality in question. It should also be borne in mind that any system, along with a certain stability and harmony, also has internal contradictions. Therefore, the consistency of the replenished data with the existing ones can have both a direct and inverse relationship, or there may be no such relationship at all.

Therefore, if there is no clear idea of ​​the nature of the relationship between the characteristics of the system, then filling in the gaps, and consequently the entire reconstruction, based on the principle of data consistency, cannot be unambiguous. They will inevitably have a number of options and will be hypothetical in nature. True, in practice, even in these cases, researchers stop only at one reconstruction option, the most probable from their point of view, although, strictly speaking, a number of possible options, or at least polar ones, should be considered here. Of course, even in this form, the reconstruction should be based on objective factual data and the consequences arising from them, and not on the arbitrary constructions of the historian. He only identifies reconstruction options allowed by these data and conducts a comparative assessment of them.

• 29 See: Guseinova A. S., Pavlovsky Yu. P., Ustinov V. A. Experience in simulation modeling of the historical process. M., 1984.

An even more complex situation arises in cases where the data from sources that can be used for reconstruction turn out to be scattered, ambiguous and contradictory. Here, it is most advisable to refrain from a detailed reconstruction of the phenomena and processes being studied by filling in the gaps in the sources and limit ourselves to a general description of their essence based on a theoretical generalization of the available facts, because an attempt to specify, given the limited and ambiguous source data, can give so many options that the choice of one of these will be entirely subjective. This point has to be emphasized because the use of mathematical methods and computers in historical research has given rise to the erroneous idea among some mathematicians about the possibility of concretizing historical phenomena and processes through simulation modeling on the basis of extremely limited and scattered initial data down to detailed “ reconstruction” of the dynamics of historical phenomena, based on fragmentary static information. The practical purpose of imitation is seen here in creating a whole set of “states” of the object of study, to enable the historian to choose one of the options 29 .

However, as a method of reconstructing the past, imitation can be used with great caution and within very limited limits. Based on taking into account the objective possibilities contained in the reality under study, simulation should not just provide a set of options, but reveal those objective limits within which the invariant was contained, in which this or that historical event or process was realized. Using mathematical methods, these limits can be expressed quantitatively.

Thus, the reconstruction of the historical reality under study, the formation of a representative system of scientific facts reflecting the facts of reality, is an extremely responsible and complex process at the empirical stage of historical research.

A system (or systems) of scientific facts identified at the empirical stage of historical research represents a scientific description of the reality being studied within the framework of the research task. Historical scientific description is not equivalent to simple descriptiveness (ideographism), as is often believed 30 . It is a reflection of the properties, relationships and interactions recorded in a certain sign system that are inherent in objective historical reality and necessary for the specific disclosure at the theoretical stage of cognition of general patterns and spatio-temporal features of its functioning and development.

• 30 For historical descriptions, see: Rakitov A.I. Historical knowledge. Ch. 5

Historical descriptions can be recorded in natural language form, which is most often the case, as well as in the form of systems of quantitative indicators, in graphical form, or as encoded machine-readable data. Descriptions can be either primary information or various types of generalized summaries. As indicated, at the empirical level of knowledge, scientific facts that reconstruct the reality being studied can be subject to various types of processing (systematization, classification, mathematical processing of quantitative indicators, etc.). In this regard, it should be noted that the current attempts to consider primary information about mass phenomena and processes as more valuable than aggregated (consolidated) information are illegal. Historical reality is an organic combination of the individual, the particular, the general and the universal, and it is in this unity that it must be cognized. Therefore, for a historian, primary data characterizing historical reality at the individual level, and aggregated information at different levels, without which it is impossible to know the particular, the general and the universal, are equally necessary and valuable. For a historian, the practical value of primary and summary data is always specific. It depends on the content of the research problem.

This is the main range of general and specific methodological problems solved at the empirical level of historical research.

3. Explanation and theoretical level in historical knowledge

At the empirical level of knowledge, the prerequisites for the transition to theoretical knowledge are formed. The result of empirical knowledge is knowledge of phenomena, but since “a phenomenon is... a manifestation of essence” 31, prerequisites are created for the transition to theoretical knowledge. In theoretical knowledge, the deep essential nature of objective reality is comprehended, and therefore the transition from empirical knowledge to theoretical knowledge is necessary 32.

Theoretical knowledge differs from empirical knowledge in its initial foundations, target orientation, the nature of the categories used in it, the form of expression of knowledge and methods of studying it.

The basis of empirical knowledge is data from sensory perception, theoretical knowledge is based on empirical facts. The goal of empirical knowledge is to reveal the phenomenon, while theoretical knowledge is to reveal the essence. In empirical knowledge, categories appear that characterize individual features of an object, since phenomena as such appear on their own. The categories of theoretical knowledge reflect, first of all, relationships, because the essence is manifested in relationships and connections. The main general categories of theoretical knowledge are such philosophical categories as “essence”, “connection”, “interconnection”, “interaction”, “opposite”, “unity”, “contradiction”, “development”, etc. In combination with general scientific and special scientific categories, in the process of categorical synthesis they make it possible to reveal the essence of the studied objects of reality. The main form of expression of knowledge at the empirical stage is scientific facts, at the theoretical stage - hypotheses, concepts and theories.

• 31 Lenin V.I. Poli. collection op. T. 29. P. 154.
• 32 On general problems of theoretical knowledge, see: Fofanov V.P. Social activity and theoretical reflection. Novosibirsk, 1986; Petrov Yu. A. Methodological problems of theoretical knowledge. M., 1986.

At the empirical stage, the reality under study is known through its description (in historical research based on information from sources), and at the theoretical stage, through its explanation. If a description, as indicated, is a reflection of individual properties, relationships and interconnections, that is, it reveals reality as a set of phenomena that express it, then a scientific explanation is “the revelation of the essence of the object being explained” 33 . It is carried out by identifying the most significant features and connections, trends and patterns of genesis, functioning and development of an object. An explanation gives a synthesized idea of ​​the cognizable reality; it reveals the understanding of this reality by the cognizing subject, which consists in understanding the internal nature of the reality being studied, the causes and trends of development, etc. To understand and scientifically explain this reality, movement is necessary knowledge from phenomenon to essence. “To understand,” V.I. Lenin pointed out, “one must empirically begin to understand, study, and rise from the empiric to the general. To learn to swim, you need to get into the water" 34 .

A large literature is devoted to the problems of understanding and explanation in science in general and in historical science in particular 35 . The central questions are about the principles and types of historical explanation. As a scientific procedure aimed at revealing the inner essential nature of the historical reality being studied, explanation is subject to the general dialectical-materialistic principles of scientific knowledge. As is known, they are objectivity, partisanship and historicism. In addition, concreteness is an important principle of historical explanation.

In any explanation as a logical procedure, two components are combined: explandum - a set of provisions that describe the phenomenon being explained, and explansum - a set of explanatory sentences. Historical explanations are usually presented in natural language form and can include both explicit (explicitly expressed) and implicit (implicitly expressed) parts. For a clear and unambiguous perception and understanding of the historical explanation by the reader of a historical work, it must be explicit. Unfortunately, historians do not always take this into account.

• 33 Nikitin E. P. Explanation is the function of science. M., 1970. P. 14.
• 34 Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 29. P. 187.
• 35 See: Kon I.S. On disputes about the logic of historical explanation//Philosophical problems of historical science. M., 1969; Doroshenko M.N. “Understanding” and its role in historical knowledge // The role of scientific principles and concepts in social research. L., 1976; Pork A. A. Historical explanation. Tallinn, 1981; Yudin B.G. Explanation and understanding in historical research // Issue. philosophy. 1981. No. 9; Nikitin E.P. The nature of justification. M., 1981; Problems of explanation and understanding in scientific knowledge. M., 1982; Egorova V. S. The problem of explanation in research on civil history // Philosophy. Sciences. 1983. No. 1; Gorsky D.P. Generalization and cognition. M., 1985; Bystritsky E. K. Scientific knowledge and the problem of understanding. Kyiv, 1986, as well as the indicated works by G. M. Ivanov, A. M. Korshunov, Yu. Petrov (chap. IV), A. M. Rakitov (chap. 8), A. I. Uvarov (chap. II) etc.

Any scientific explanation uses two types of knowledge. Firstly, this is knowledge about objective reality, which is obtained at the empirical stage of its study and is expressed in its description. In historical research, this is the so-called “source” knowledge. Secondly, this is all other knowledge both about this reality and about the scientific picture of the world in general. In historical science, this knowledge is called “extra-source”. Without knowledge of the second kind, it is impossible to scientifically explain and understand the object of knowledge. The possibility of deep penetration into the inner essence of the phenomena being studied largely depends on the “stock” of extra-source knowledge.

A number of options for classifying historical explanations have been proposed. The following types are distinguished: explanation through law, explanations causal (causal), genetic, structural and functional. This division is conditional, because most often the explanation is complex, that is, it uses various types.

The most fundamental type of historical explanation is explanation through law. It is the laws of genesis, functioning and development of socio-historical reality that most deeply express its essential nature. Emphasizing this, V.I. Lenin, as indicated, noted that “the law is something durable (remaining) in the phenomenon”, “the law and the essence of the concept are homogeneous (one-order) or rather, one-degree” 36, “the law is a reflection of the essential in movement of the universe" 37 . Laws explain, first of all, phenomena and processes that are objective and by their nature mass.

Cause-and-effect explanations arising from the universality of relationships objectively inherent in historical reality are widespread in historical science. They are primarily used in revealing certain results of human activity, historical events and situations in which the active role of the human, i.e. subjective, factor is clearly expressed. Of course, behind this factor lie certain objective circumstances, but they are manifested in the nature of subjective actions. So, for example, when we say that one of the most important reasons for the collapse of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 was the high morale of the Russian army, we explain Napoleon’s defeat by one of the subjective historical factors. We highlight this factor explicitly (explicitly). But implicitly (implicitly) in this explanation it is also meant that the high morale of the Russian army was due to the fair nature of the war for Russia, to the fact that the struggle was waged to preserve the country’s independence. And this is already an objective circumstance and expresses a certain historical pattern - the struggle of peoples for their independence gives rise to moral and spiritual uplift. Ultimately, the explanation given is not only causal, but also an explanation through law.

• 36 Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 29. P. 136.
• 37 Ibid. P. 137.

Genetic explanations are necessary in cases where the task is to explain the essence of historical phenomena or processes in their specific temporal expression. Let's say we want to understand the essential content of the raznochinsky stage in the liberation movement in Russia, which, as we know, began after the fall of serfdom. To fully understand this essence, in particular the fact that at the head of the liberation movement were raznochintsy and objectively the struggle was waged for bourgeois-democratic transformations carried out through a popular, peasant revolution, is only possible taking into account the fact that the raznochinsky stage was preceded by the nobility stage, when at the head of the liberation, revolutionary movement were advanced representatives of the nobility who were terribly far from the people, were afraid of the people and therefore fought for the interests of the people without the people. But here, too, the genetic explanation, i.e., revealing the essence of the raznochinsky stage of the liberation movement as the stage that replaced the noble one, is combined with a causal explanation (the change in the social composition of the participants in the revolutionary movement led to the radicalization of its program, strategy and tactics) and explanation through the law (radical changes in the socio-economic system, expressed in the elimination of serfdom and the transition to capitalism, naturally and inevitably led to changes in the social structure of society and in the alignment of class and socio-political forces). Thus, in this case, the explanation is complex and its genetic variety acts only as a leading approach and method.

Structural explanation, i.e., revealing the essence through analysis of the structure of the corresponding socio-historical systems, can be used in the study of any of these systems. The main task of explanation here is to identify the main, system-forming features inherent in the elements of the system, and to establish the nature of their relationship. The identification of system-forming features is associated with the analysis of the meaningful, substantial nature of the system.

Analysis of the structural relationships of system-forming features reveals those basic patterns that are characteristic of the system under study, because “a law is a relationship”™ and “if one or another type of connection of elements is essential and necessary for a given system, then it has the character of a law of its structure.” ry" ze. Thus, a structural explanation, “identifying the essence through a structural analysis of systems, is the most effective, because it leads to the direct disclosure of the laws inherent in historical reality.

• Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 29. P. 138.
• Gancharuk S.I. Laws of development and functioning of society. M., 1977. P. 103.

A functional explanation is a variation of a structural explanation. As indicated, in functional analysis the characterized system is considered as a subsystem or even an element of a social system of a higher level. Analysis of the structure of the latter makes it possible to identify the relationships of the system under study with the environment in which it is located, and thereby reveal the patterns of its functioning. Functional explanation is an effective means of identifying the essence of various social systems at various levels of their functioning.

Until now, we have been talking about explaining the genesis, functioning and development of various mass or collective phenomena and processes. But in historical development, individual, single events also play an important role, although this role is not as significant as the supporters of the subjectivist methodology of historical knowledge imagine. But these events also have a certain essence that requires clarification and explanation.

There are several types of explanations for single acts of activity 40 . The main one is the motivational explanation. It consists in the fact that the essence of the action is explained by an incentive motive, which usually expresses a certain interest and pursues a corresponding goal. Another type is an explanation through normativity. The nature of the subject’s actions here is determined by the norms and traditions of behavior generally accepted in the relevant social environment. one type is a psychological-emotional explanation. The nature of the action here depends on the psychological-emotional traits of the historical personality (hardness, gentleness, timidity, compassion, respect, love, hatred, etc.).

Thus, there is a whole set of historical explanations. All of them have the goal of revealing the essence of the historical reality being studied. However, the types of historical explanations themselves do not reveal the entire complex mechanism of cognition of the internal essence of the historical reality being studied, which is the prerogative of the theoretical level of cognition. The disclosure of this mechanism is all the more important because it represents a complex creative process in which various scientific methods are used, and not a simple logical transformation of knowledge obtained at the empirical stage.

• 40 See: Pork A. A. Historical explanation. pp. 189 et seq.

The process of obtaining theoretical knowledge is much more complex than the process of obtaining empirical knowledge. The process of obtaining theoretical knowledge has its own internal stages. In objective reality, the essence is a single internal basis of objects, a system of internal connections inherent to them, which are actually expressed in phenomena that reveal individual features, connections, trends in the functioning and development of these objects. This means that in reality the essence appears in organic unity with the phenomenon.

However, for its cognition, the essence must initially be abstracted from the phenomenon and understood as such. In this regard, theoretical knowledge, like empirical knowledge, is abstract at a certain stage. But the nature of this abstraction is different. Empirical knowledge is abstract in the sense that in it individual features of an object appear on their own, without connection with its other properties. In theoretical knowledge, the essence initially appears as something general without connection with the specific.

Since the basis for knowledge of the essence are phenomena expressed in empirical knowledge as concrete scientific facts, in theoretical knowledge it is necessary to ascend from the concrete to the abstract. F. Engels wrote about this: “In our thoughts we raise the individual from singularity to particularity, and from this latter to universality... we find and state the infinite in the finite, the eternal in the transitory” 41. The transition from the concrete to the abstract is one of the stages in theoretical knowledge.

The movement from empirical knowledge to theoretical knowledge begins with the question of how to explain the empirical facts identified to solve the scientific problem posed at the beginning of the study. The search for an answer to the question that has arisen consists of putting forward a certain idea, based on which one can reveal the unified internal meaning of the facts. This disclosure is carried out through categorical synthesis. It consists in the fact that facts are subsumed under philosophical, general scientific and specially scientific categories corresponding to the original idea. The result of such a synthesis will be the formation of a scientific concept that reveals the general internal meaning of empirical facts. Such a synthesis may have several levels, or stages, leading to the final result.

The idea is the main core of theoretical knowledge, its leading principle, which characterizes the object as a whole, and thereby reveals its essence, in contrast to empirical concepts - facts that reflect only phenomena. V.I. Lenin emphasized Hegel’s thought that “Begriff (concept - I.K.) is not yet the highest concept: even higher is the deed = the unity of Begriff with reality” 42.

• 41 Marx K., Engels F. Op. 2nd ed. T. 20. P. 548.
• 42 Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 29. P. 151.

Proposing an idea, which in general comes down to identifying or forming those categories on the basis of which a synthesis of facts can be carried out, is a complex creative search, and by no means only a formal logical process, although this search also includes such logical procedures such as comparison, generalization, abstraction. The most important role here is played by intuition and imagination and other subjective aspects in cognition, which will be discussed in the next chapter.

An explanation of the essence of phenomena on the basis of a put forward idea and a categorical synthesis of empirical facts is initially hypothetical, i.e. probabilistic, in nature. Explaining the essence of facts through hypotheses that have one or another probability of truth is a completely natural way in the process of theoretical knowledge of reality, and a hypothesis is one of the important forms of scientific-theoretical knowledge and a method of obtaining it 43 . It appears in this form at the initial stage of essential cognition of phenomena. In those areas of knowledge where proving the truth of scientific hypotheses is hampered by the difficulty of obtaining the facts necessary for this, scientific knowledge can remain in a hypothetical form for a long time. There are many such areas in historical science. These are, first of all, the most ancient periods of history, and even phenomena of other eras, poorly reflected in historical sources. It is in their interpretation that different points of view about the essence of historical phenomena and processes are most widespread.

But in general, in the process of historical knowledge of reality, a hypothetical approach to revealing the essence of the phenomena being studied is only one of the stages. The truth of the hypothesis must be verified by new empirically observable facts. If new facts confirm the proposed explanation of the essence of phenomena, hypothetical theoretical knowledge becomes true theoretical knowledge. If new facts refute the proposed explanation of the essence of the phenomena, then the hypothesis must be rejected and the analysis must return to its original basis. We need to search for a new idea, synthesize facts based on other categories and put forward a new hypothesis, which must again be tested, and so on until its truth is proven.

• 43 See: Karpovich V.N. Problem. Hypothesis. Law; Merkulov I.P. Method of hypotheses in the history of scientific knowledge. M., 1984.
• 44 Lenin V.I. Poli. collection op. T. 26. P. 241.
• 45 Ibid. T. 29. P. 252.

However, achieving true theoretical knowledge about the essence of the phenomena being studied does not complete the process of their knowledge. Being the result of abstraction from the concrete, this knowledge characterizes the essence as such, abstractly. But, as V.I. Lenin pointed out, “the concept of purity is a certain narrowness, one-sidedness of human knowledge, which does not fully embrace the subject in all its complexity” 4\ At the same time, an initial abstraction from the concreteness of the phenomenon is necessary in order to - having clarified the general, then return to the specific and thereby cognize reality as the unity of phenomenon and essence. “The movement of knowledge towards an object,” emphasized V.I. Lenin, “can always proceed only dialectically: to move away in order to get more accurately” 45. “An infinite sum of general concepts, laws, etc. gives the concrete in its completeness” 46 Therefore, the final stage of theoretical knowledge is the reverse ascent from the abstract to the concrete. The essence of this ascent is that it removes abstractness, on the one hand, from a phenomenon that at the empirical stage appears as individually isolated, and on the other hand. from the essence, which at the theoretical stage is initially considered in isolation from the phenomenon. Now they appear as a unity in which the phenomenon, without losing its individuality, acquires the features of a certain universality, that is, from formal singularity it turns into meaningful concreteness, and the essence, remaining universal, acquires a certain range of individual concreteness. Thus, reality appears in consciousness in unity and opposition, as a synthesis of the individual and the general, the random and the natural, form and content, and if measurements are made, then quantity. and quality.

In the process of the reverse ascent from the abstract to the concrete, concrete theoretical knowledge arises and the highest level in scientific knowledge is achieved. Therefore, the ascent from the abstract to the concrete belongs to the most basic and effective methods of scientific research. The completed form of concrete theoretical knowledge is scientific theories. In relation to the study of certain specific phenomena and processes, these are concrete scientific theories.

• 46 Ibid.
• 47 Ivanov G. M., Korshunov N. M., Petrov Yu. V. Decree. op. P. 215.
• 48 Ibid. P. 216.

“Historical theory is the most complete and concentrated expression of knowledge in historical science; it generalizes and synthesizes the facts obtained by the historian at the empirical level of research; with its help, the functions of explaining and predicting the phenomena of historical reality are carried out, natural relationships are revealed within an integral social organization.” An integral social organization in relation to the specific scientific (or specific problem) level of historical theory is various kinds of social systems and processes. In this form, historical knowledge “is characterized by an abstract nature, and the reality represented in it is given in a conceptual model,” which is “an idealized scheme of reality obtained through abstraction” 48 . Such essentially meaningful models serve as the basis for deductive knowledge of historical reality by ascending from the abstract to the concrete, including with the help of mathematical modeling. The unifying principle of the components of the theory (the concepts, categories, laws included in it) is, as indicated, the idea underlying it. A concrete scientific theory, like any scientific theory, has the properties of systematicity, universality and logical consistency 49 .

In the literature on the theory and methodology of historical knowledge, the opinion is expressed that historical science, along with concrete scientific theories that reflect the knowledge of individual phenomena, aspects and processes of socio-historical development, “should have its own level of theory, i.e. . i.e. the level of categorical knowledge corresponding to its cognitive function” 50. In other words, there must be a level of theory inherent in historical science as a whole. They also express the idea that in general theoretical history should be developed as a branch of historical science 51 .

The opinion about the need for a level of theory inherent in historical science as a whole is beyond doubt. It should only be noted that Marxist historical science has such a theory. This is historical materialism. It is a theory about the most general laws of socio-historical development as an integral dynamic system. In this regard, the opinion of those philosophers who distinguish three aspects in historical materialism - philosophical, sociological and historical 52 - seems completely justified.

In the historical aspect, historical materialism represents that general theoretical historical knowledge, that “theoretical history”, the necessity of which is spoken by philosophers and historians. The fulfillment by historical materialism of the functions of a general theory of historical science in no way detracts from its role as an integral part of Marxist philosophy and as a general sociological theory.

• See: Karpovich V.N. Systematicity of theoretical knowledge (Logical aspect). Novosibirsk, 1984.
• Varg M. A. Categories and methods of historical science. P. 15.
• Uvarov A. N. Epistemological aspect of theory in historical science. pp. 12-13.
• See, for example: Bagaturia G. A. Marx’s first great discovery. Formation and development of a materialistic understanding of history//Marx the historian. M., 1968; Zhelenina I. A. On three aspects of the Maoxist theory of historical knowledge // Vestn. Moscow State University. Ser. 7. Philosophy. 1985. No. 2.

The unawareness of many philosophers and historians of the undoubted fact that historical materialism, being a sociological theory and method of cognition, at the same time represents a general historical theory, leads to certain costs in both historical and philosophical research. - Dovaniyah. For historians, this often leads to the transformation of historical research into an illustration of the provisions of historical materialism, on the one hand, and to the search for answers to specific questions in these provisions, on the other. Thus, the methodological role of historical materialism is underestimated. Philosophers, proceeding from the fact that historical materialism is the science of the most general laws of social development, do not turn to historical material and do not properly generalize even the fundamental results of historical research. As a result, many of their works on historical materialism turn out to be too abstract and therefore of little use for the practice of historical research.

Eliminating these shortcomings is an important task of historical and philosophical research and one of the ways to improve their scientific level.