Article ID: CBB001551247

Gedankenexperimente in historiographischer Funktion: Max Weber über Eduard Meyer und die Frage der Kontrafaktizität (2015)

unapi

Ernst, Florian (Author)


Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Volume: 38, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 77-91


Publication Date: 2015
Edition Details: Part of a Series: Ernst Mach und das Gedankenexperiment um 1900
Language: German

Thought Experiments in Historiographic Function: Max Weber on Eduard Meyer and the Question of Counterfactuality. Max Weber's remarks on his colleague Eduard Meyer regarding counterfactual reasoning in history reflects a significant shift during the Methodenstreit around 1900. The question of attributing historical change strictly to either individual causes or abstract general laws has been tackled in a new way: By counterfactual reasoning a historian should be able to detect the most significant (and therefore meaningful) cause, event, or action for a certain historical outcome. Following Fritz Ringer, this paper argues that given the predominating methods of the natural sciences, scholars of the humanities conducted historical research by counterfactual thought experiments. This way, Weber pried open contemporary narratives (e.g. historicism), and by employing a unique historical causal analysis he made way for refined concepts to offer a model of interpretation that gave hope for a more feasible, practice-oriented approach to historical research than the epistemological discussions had hitherto offered.

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Article Kleeberg, Bernhard (2015) Einleitung: Gedankenexperimente, Kontrafaktizität und das Selbstverständnis der Wissenschaften um 1900. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (pp. 7-14). unapi

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Authors & Contributors
Gori, Pietro
Zellini, Susanna
Brecevic, Char
ten Hagen, Sjang L.
Guidetti, Luca
Waal, Elske de
Concepts
Philosophy of science
Philosophy
Physics
History of philosophy of science
Epistemology
Thought experiments
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
Places
Germany
Europe
Prague (Czechia)
Austria
Austro-hungary
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