On the Essence of History

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to consider the specificity, or essence of history in its relation to the other sciences, both to the Humanities and natural science. History studies society and human being in the past and in the process of development. It exists on the joint of the past and the present; it connects ontological reality of a fact with the interpretative potential of contemporariness. History gives the opportunity to find sense in the sequence of facts and in the kaleidoscope of events. However, the past is mediated with a historical source, which is always loaded with sense, i.e. preinterpreted. History constitutes the new senses on this basis and by means of interpretation. Thus, the result of the historical research consists in the senses and meanings expressed in a specific way – in the narrative.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s5p223