Professional paper
The Development and Characteristic of the Historical Method
Miroslav Radovanović
; Sociološko odelenje, Filozofski fakultet Beograd, Studentski trg 1
Abstract
The author has tried to point at the idea of the historical method itself, at some historical sources of its beginning, and at its principal forms and functions. Speaking of the history of the studied subject, we take into consideration the real Changes of the subject that take place from its beginning to its disappearance or its transformation into some other subject. The historical method denotes the way of the mental reproduction of the development of the studied subject and its changes. The historical method means the method of solving the researching tasks and difficulties in the process of comprehending the phenomenon or the subject. There are two kinds of changes: those adaptively repeating or functionally renewing the subject, and those changing the subject in such a way that it is being transformed into a new, till then non-existing state. The former are the changes in the society and the latter are the changes of the society itself. The subject may be studied in a distilled or pure form (as has been done by Marx in »Capital« for instance), or it may be studied in the form of the mental reproduction of the concrete forms of its appearances (Lenin’s work »The Development of Capitalism in Russia«). By using the historical method we can comprehend more clearly the historical place, the historical role and the corresponding specifications of the studied subject. By means of the historical method we can give the answer to the question whether the studied subject appears as the result of a definite historical process, or whether it appears as its starting point. It tells us whether it represents the trace or the remnant of the past, or the beginning and the germ of the phenomenon or the future subject, whether it is found in a developed or underdeveloped form.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
156395
URI
Publication date:
30.6.1975.
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