THE CONCEPT OF "IDIOGRAPHY" AND ITS COMPONENTS

Abstract. The ideographic method focuses on particular, unique features of more complex phenomena. The scientist faces the most important task: to consider the presented phenomenon through the prism of uniqueness. Among the identified particular cases, the historian can deduce some patterns that may contribute to the further study of this era.

Keywords: methodology, method, idiography.

Idiographic method (from Greek. idios - special, peculiar and grapho - I write) is a method introduced by V. Windelband, which is based on the study of the historical process within the framework of an individualistic approach. This approach assumes that since the world consists of certain unique phenomena, it is necessary to base on the study of the individual for a more holistic understanding [1].

G. Rickert, speaking against the universalization of natural science methods, believed that the boundary of the natural science education of concepts is just the concept of the individual. The task of any science is to overcome the extensive and intense diversity of the world. Unlike the natural sciences, where a single phenomenon is explained as a manifestation of a general law (generalization), in history, singularity is taken as an individual due to its inclusion in an encompassing whole, which also represents an individual connection of historical events. Neo-Kantianism, however, left open the question whether the difference between ideographic and nomotetic methods is a difference in epistemological positions or has ontological reasons, which fully corresponds to the spirit of Kantian philosophy [2, p. 38].

Initially, it is necessary to indicate that the idiographic method. historical cognition arises within the framework of the non-classical paradigm of the world, which was formed as a trend in Prussia in the second half of the XIX century. This model has become a response-a challenge to the classic model. The theoretical basis [2] consists of the following concepts:

1) neo-Kantianism (the main representatives of G. Rickert, V. Windelband, M. Weber),

2) the French School of Annals, intellectual history (A. Lovejoy).

3) The philosophy of A.S. Lappo-Danilevsky. In Russia, the founder of the modernist paradigm model was the Russian pre-revolutionary historian A. S. Lappo-Danilevsky. Within the framework of modernity, the object of research is not society, but a person who, with all his actions and thoughts, is regarded as a unique and inimitable being, therefore, a historical source and a historical fact are also considered unique. The methodology used, characteristic of modernity, is based on a value (axiological) approach, i.e., an assessment of the past in the light of timeless (philosophical) values. The value approach implies subjectivism in the interpretation of events. At the same time, historical research done with

using the classical methodology, modernist scientists criticized and characterized them as sociological [5, p. 197]

German philosopher and historian of philosophy Wilhelm Windelband. He was born in Potsdam and studied in Jena, Berlin and Göttingen. Almost all his life, Vindelband devoted himself to teaching philosophy in Zurich, Freiburg, Strasbourg and Heidelberg. It is important to note that his formation as a philosopher of science was influenced by his teachers: Rudolf Hermann Lotze and Kuno Fischer, who held the position of the Southwestern German (or Baden) [3] school of neo-Kantianism. V. Windelband became famous in the scientific world thanks to his work on the history of philosophy, to which he introduced a new way of presentation — the organization of the subject according to problems, and not according to the chronological sequence of individual thinkers. As a systematic philosopher, he is known for his attempt to extend the principles of Kantian criticism to the historical sciences, his desire to free philosophy from identification with any particular scientific discipline, and his sympathetic assessment of the philosophy of value at the end of the XIX century.

According to V. Windelband [3, p. 48], that various sciences (mathematical, natural and historical) have specific objects and limit their research to certain areas of general reality, philosophy is based on its unique object in the knowledge of reality provided by these various disciplines taken together as a whole. The main goal of philosophy [5, p.20] is to substantiate the a priori foundations of science as a whole, as well as to explain the existence of a huge number of diverse sciences, to explain how the relations between these various sciences arise; to find out the nature of the relationship between the critical intellect—the cognizing, willing and feeling subject—and consciousness in general [4, p. 58].

Developing the methodology of the sciences, Windelband divided the sciences into: nomotetic — dealing with laws and idiographic — studying individual phenomena in their uniqueness.

Thus, we can say that biography as a method of historical research arose not so long ago [6, p. 87]. This method responded not only to the representatives of the modernist paradigm, but also later became actively used in the philosophy of postmodernism. The author of this method is usually called [5, p. 65] V. Windelband, who first spoke about ideography as a method of historical research. Later, this idea was developed by G. Rickert, who recommended applying the method of an individual approach not only to historical science, but also to other social sciences in general, in particular to philosophy and jurisprudence.