history; historiography; anti-realism; philosophy of science; explanation; evidence; epistemology

Autonomy of history and historiography may rest on a claim that their method is substantially different from methods of other historical sciences and science itself. History, therefore, becomes subject of specific kind of research. But that does not mean that we cannot use terms of philosophy of science to describe actual practice of historians. The aim of philosophy of historiography, according to its proponents, should be explanation of how historians of different kinds reach their conclusions. In doing so we may discover that line which separates history from science is rather blurry. This paper is trying to argue that anti-realist model of inquiry from philosophy of science may be the best way to explain methods of history and their development, although it may pose some new difficulties.