Historical Research: Methods and Theories

Means and Techniques of Historical Research

Scientific Theories

• Positivism: A philosophical system that supports only the experimental method and rejects any notion of a priori and all universal and absolute concepts.
• Hermeneutics: The study of the internal coherence of texts, philology, the exegesis of sacred texts, and the study of consistency of standards and principles.
• Dialectic: The way to get at the truth through discussion and conflict of opinion, trying to find contradictions in the arguments of the speaker.
• Critical Rationalism: Research that uses the method of trial and error removal and tests the hypothesis.

Methods of Knowledge

• Inductive-deductive: Reasoning that, based on individual cases, amounts to general knowledge. This method allows the formation of hypotheses, investigation of scientific laws, and demonstrations. Its part is to find unknown deductive principles from the known but also serves to uncover unknown consequences of known principles.
• Analysis-synthesis: Distinguishing between the elements of a phenomenon and reviewing each of them separately in an orderly manner.
• Experiment: Involves controlled alteration of natural conditions so that the researcher will create models, reproduce conditions, and abstract distinctive features of the object or problem.
• Explanation: A set of statements that explain something.
• Axioms: Traditionally, axioms are chosen from the other formulas as "self-evident truths" and they allow other desired formulas to be deduced.
• Dialectic: Proposes that all phenomena are studied in their relationships and in their state of continuous change, since nothing exists as an isolated object.
• Structuralism: In broad terms, basic structuralism seeks the structures through which meaning is produced within a culture (books, culture, customs).
• Phenomenology: The science that studies the relationship between facts (phenomena) and the context in which this reality is (psyche, consciousness).
• Mathematics: The method by which to demonstrate or explain axioms from mathematics.
• Mechanism: The doctrine that all natural reality has a structure comparable to that of a machine, so it can be explained in this way based on machine models and interpreted based on the notions of matter and motion.
• Functionalism: Characterized by an empirical approach that advocates the benefits of fieldwork.

Historical Materialism: Historical materialism wishes to be a scientific theory about the formation and development of society. Using an economic theory, it historically and philosophically attempts to discover the laws governing social change and presents a method for the interpretation of social conflict and transformation.