Cognitive Approaches to Historical Past /last part/
In order to avoid these two dangers, some researchers advocate the other approach to historical research, namely retrospectivism.
Retrospectivism - history should be written not from the positions of the present, but from the positions of the past. A pioneer of this approach is Johann Hoisigga, who devotes one of his research to the analysis of the social psyche of Europeans in the Middle Ages. Such an approach implies penetration, insight into the spiritual attitudes of the respective age, and explanations of what is happening only from the point of view of these attitudes. In our advocate of this approach is Alexander Fol, who states that in order to understand the life of the Thracians in his authenticity one should think as a Thracian rather than to embody the meanings. The historian's task is not to judge, but to understand, to abstain from the present, and to think with the categories of the relevant historical period that investigates.
Perspective - history is written from the position of the future, ie from the perspective of the forthcoming tasks of mankind. It is precisely these tasks that provoke his interest in some or other aspects of the development, respectively of the past lives of our ancestors. This is what Edward Carter points out when the main tasks of mankind were the conquest of constitutional and political rights and freedom, history was written in constitutional and political terms. When these tasks were accomplished and new social and economic tasks emerged in their place, history began to be written from a social-economic point of view. The old interpretation was not completely rejected, it entered the new as a necessary moment. Similar is the position of Edward Meyer. Ie. the writing of the story is not accidental, it is in the position of certain tasks, purposes, motives, etc.