On the Most Crucial Disciplinary Task of the Historians

No methodological polemic has taken shape among the advocates of history in Iran until now, for they have not had enough command of different methods, paradigms, and theories. After having command of different methods, it is necessary to engage gradually in methodological dialogues so that we will be able to move forward to test them in case studies to ascertain the weak and strong points of each methodological paradigm through the criteria of experience. Hence, this paper is an attempt to deal with the following methodological problem: What is the most crucial disciplinary task of the historians? The hypothesis of this research is as follows: The most crucial disciplinary task of historians is to provide a proper description of the past human events, for history’s power of knowledge lies in this very issue. Moreover, proper description follows answers to the questions on whatness (quiddity) and howness; questions in which the historians are keenly interested.