ABSTRACT
In this paper we wish to raise in a limited way some problems involved in the relation between history and theory. We consider three marxist ‘tendencies’ principally because it is above all in the marxist tradition that such questions are raised, and because they are hotly contested within marxism itself. If our focus is relatively narrow, the repercussions of the discussion are, hopefully, of quite general significance. This is because issues, posed within marxism, confront historians and social theorists alike: for example, the question of a ‘science’ of history or of a ‘humanist’ alternative; the problem of the ‘subject’ or motor of history; the nature of historical causality; and the relation between ‘concreteness’ and abstraction. This is so even – perhaps especially – when historians or others choose to ignore or dispute the relevance of such issues. The refusal to see the problem of ‘theory’ and ‘research’ is itself one position with respect to the problem, but one whose strength lies only in its silence. It should be possible to substantiate the need for a theoretical history by taking examples across the whole range of historiography. But it is even more interesting to consider whether the internal claims of marxist historiographies and the consequent challenge of marxism to other problematics, could amount to the theory (or science) of history.
