METHODOLOGICAL CONCEPTS OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH

Abstract. Methodology of science is the teaching of methods and technology of scientific activity, as well as a section of the general theory of knowledge, including epistemology and philosophy of science. This article talks about the emergence of an alternative situation that has objective and subjective prerequisites. The article is devoted to methodological concepts.

Keywords: positivism, determinism, alternative.

In the era of positivism, the word determinism became synonymous with science.

The same laws were transferred to the social sciences. In almost all major explanatory sociological systems of that time (in Marxism, in particular) the course of history was considered as a natural process, it is impossible to change the course and direction of which. Fate leads the willing, drags the unwilling, and freedom is a conscious necessity [2, p. 178].

The twentieth century has shaken faith in rigid determinism. The modern concept of determinism organically combines necessity and randomness, therefore, the world and the events in it are neither fatalistically predetermined, nor purely random, not conditioned by anything. In the middle of the twentieth century, the famous philosopher, logician and sociologist K. Popper criticized deterministic doctrines in the social and historical sciences.

In his opinion, belief in certain "iron laws of history" is prejudice. He called it historicism. For the most part, historians dealing with a specific topic do not really like to consider schemes where complex social laws operate.Of course, no serious researcher will deny the existence of certain patterns in historical development, but when a specific historical study is written into a sociological or historiosophical scheme, then a lot of stretch marks and simplifications are found in the latter. So, for example, in Soviet (and not only) historiography, feudalism was considered as a kind of a universal phenomenon, an obligatory stage of the development of human society.It was found not only in Europe, but also in Byzantium, in the East, in Mesoamerica and other places. Meanwhile, if we compare the social and political structure of medieval France and Byzantium, we will find a lot of inconsistencies. Therefore, not all historians agree to drive a specific historical epoch into a sufficiently abstract

formation or civilization. The problem of historical necessity and chance has been discussed an infinite number of times. Randomness acts as an unstable connection between events, as something that allows you to fill in the gaps in the explanation that cannot be filled with a deterministic approach. Often the attribution of the cause to random or natural depends not only on the ideological

attitudes of the researcher, but also on time. "The significance of events is determined by the significance of their consequences," Talleyrand said. In this regard, some events that were considered important or even fateful have lost this significance after a while. Others that seemed random and secondary, had far-reaching consequences.

Alternativeness is considered not in a philosophical, but in a methodological sense, that is, what role the assumption of the development of events along a different path plays in historical knowledge. Here it is appropriate to refer again to the work of I.D. Kovalchenko, since in this part it has not lost its relevance. He notes that "an alternative is such a historical situation, which is characterized by the struggle of social forces for the realization of significantly different opportunities for social development.

The result of the discussion about "Railways" was, in particular, that R. Vogel himself abruptly changed the direction of his research, switching from the problems of the transport revolution to the issues of the economy of slavery and ceasing to focus on the "alternative history". In his next work, "The Time of the Cross," written jointly with S. Engerman, he tried to prove that the slave economy in the South of the United States was not at all as unprofitable as they are trying to imagine, but on the contrary, he had prospects. Based on some economic and mathematical models, they formulated the conclusion that the cause of the Civil War in the United States was not the economic inefficiency of slavery, but the moral rejection by freedom - loving Americans of the institution of slavery as a system of oppressment. And in the first case and in the second. Vogel tried to build a scientific model based on a strict mathematical calculation, but divorced from historical reality. From the point of view of the historian, to talk about what would have happened if there had been no railways, while they were, is nonsense, as well as to calculate the economic profitability of what did not exist.

The existing reality can represent either an already realized possibility of the past, or a struggle that is being waged for realization significantly different, alternative opportunities for subsequent development. The future is a natural and inevitable continuation of the present. It grows out of the present. But it cannot be an alternative to the present, because how can something that does not exist yet be an alternative to the real? [1, p. 422]