Historical source and secondary knowledge in historical science

The period from the end of the 20th century is usually characterized as an epistemological crisis which the science of history did not escape as well. One aspect of this crisis is an attempt to restate the role of the historical source. As a result, more attention has been paid to "secondary knowledge" which claims to take the lead in historical research. But for all shortcomings and weaknesses the historical source has it is the principle channel of communication which allows historical science to get self-identical information, i.e. the information defining its essence. Therefore, two problems have to be currently solved: an in-depth study of the historical source and definition of the boundaries of the concept "secondary knowledge". In this paper, we intend to use the method of identifying a topos based on the Aristotelian Topeka which involves consideration of both the historical source and secondary knowledge as domains of distribution and overlapping of meanings. The basis of this method is to find similarities and differences of things occurring in generic or proper names. The study of similarities and differences between historical source and those referring to natural sciences, philology and jurisprudence allowed us to reveal the peculiarities of the historical source. Unlike sources of natural sciences, historical source is a text (as well as other sources of social-humanitarian sphere). But this is a text relating to history and it is transferred to here and now through various channels including a physical medium. Therefore, historical source is a source that has two sides, objective and informative ones, which are combined in different ways. The objective side does not matter much for philological or legal sources. The purposes of the informative side study are different: from historical sources historians get information concerning the past of human society; therefore, their study is based on authenticity of the source media, veracity of the content and the ratio between these two grounds. We can say that the topos (concentration of meanings) of the historical source is its belonging to history, its objectivity expressed by various manifestations. The way of its cognition is source criticism which includes methods of both social-humanitarian and natural sciences. The topos of secondary knowledge is information possessed by a historian or available information they can use or gain during the study by methods other than method of criticism of the sources relevant to the topic. They are mainly "foreknowledge" and experiment. Foreknowledge refers to the information gained from other historical sources before; certain facts and information code; studies in other fields of science; intuition and the ability of the researcher to analyze and understand the era. Secondary knowledge can neither come before a historical source nor exist by itself without sources. Penetration into the historical past by means of secondary knowledge is only possible through historical sources and the environment of secondary knowledge is in most cases the source.

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