Talk:Historical method

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On 15 January 2025, it was proposed that this article be moved to Historical methods. The result of the discussion was not moved.

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Sadly, I have no formal training as a historian. So I'm posting a question here for anyone who does. As a historical-method layperson, I would ask up front whether historiography and historical method are topics that overlap enough, in terms of their content of ideas, that their encyclopedia articles should mention each other in a more integrated, cross-referenced way, fairly early toward the tops of the articles (even in the ledes, probably)? As I write this, ctrl-f finds that historiography isn't mentioned on the page any earlier than the "See also" section. I bring this up not as a whine whose solution would be "Well, OK, fix it yourself then". I'm not knowledgeable enough to fix it myself in this case, so I'm just raising this question as something to consider for the future development of this article. Maybe someone can beat me to fixing it (someone with a degree in this field). Thanks, — ¾-10 21:41, 29 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

I'm not really into history, but Ernst Troeltsch and his three principles of critical history and seems to be relevant [1]. --TimSC (talk) 15:48, 19 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

tous hesteric Rachid el meziati (talk) 23:32, 27 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

I'm not a historian, but citing Gilbert Garraghan (a Catholic) arguing that oral tradition should be acceptable if it has an unbroken series of witnesses, seems like it could be biased; as unbroken oral traditions is a common Catholic apologetic. Could a professional historian weigh in on whether Garraghan's approach is accepted in secular history, and/or for other religious histories?

Related: If the tradition is oral, how would a historian known that it has an unbroken series of witnesses? This seems like it would have to rely on the oral tradition, and thus be circular. Khilker15 (talk) 21:49, 28 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

My understanding is that the majority of historians have adopted methodological naturalism. If so, an overview of that that seems relevant to this article. If not, I'd like to see some content specific to how historians evaluate supernatural/paranormal/religious claims in history. ie; can the historical method weigh in on whether any miracles of history are historical facts? If so, what are the criteria? Khilker15 (talk) 21:55, 28 March 2024 (UTC)Reply