The Droysenian outline for the methodology of history

This article analyses the most mature exposition of the theory of history of the classical (or „traditional“) historiography in the 19th century by the German historian Droysen in his posthumously published lectures on the theory of history („Historik“). His theory consists of three parts: systematics of history (philosophy of history), methodology of history and the topic (the theory of literary exposition). The main part is methodology, consisting of the theory of heuristics, the theory of historical criticism and the theory of historical interpretation. We want to show that the different parts of Droyseifs theory of history are united by the application of the Aristotelian theory of four causes. This theory is the common ground both for the Droysen’s classification of the forms of interpretation of the historian’s factual material and for his classification of the forms of the narrative exposition of the results of the investigation. The psychological interpretation and the biographical narrative correspond to efficient causes, the interpretation by historical ideas and monographic narrative correspond to formal causes, the pragmatic narrative and pragmatic interpretation correspond to final causes, the interpretation by conditions and catastrophic narrative correspond to material causes. The theory of history of Droysen is unsurpassed in its encyclopaedism synthetically embracing all problems of the historical methodology. The Post-Droysenian methodology of history differentiates in two branches. The first one is the philosophical methodology of history represented by the critical philosophy of history' and analytical philosophy of history'. Its main problem is the objectivity of the historical interpretation. The second one is represented by textbooks on historical method, discussing the questions of the criticism of the historical sources. This second branch begins with the textbook of Bernheim, who was a pupil of Droysen. It is shown that the famous classification of the historical sources by Bernheim, that distinguishing tradition, monuments and survivals, is an adaptation of the Droysen’s classification of the historian’s material exposed in his theory of heuristics