ABSTRACT
Organizing, explanatory and orientative principles are generated in a world-view, in other words, in a ‘higher’ theory. As applied theory has to make use of these principles in order to arrange (or rearrange) testimonies in a coherent way, so has the ‘higher’ theory in order to arrange (and rearrange) the different principles themselves, in an equally coherent way. Historians who accept different ‘higher’ theories may occasionally apply similar principles (for example, the same periodization or certain generalized sentences in common or the same explanatory principles), but their arrangement has to be different. Should the arrangement of principles be basically the same, the ‘higher’ theories are basically identical too, irrespective of the ‘range’ of their application. It is obvious that the same historian usually also applies his or her ‘higher’ theory to quite different historical events or structures. Thus all applied theories are distinct and non-recurrent, even if ‘higher’ theories are the same. ‘Higher’ theories which do not express the imputed consciousness of our historicity any longer will not produce good theories when applied, even though they can produce new ones.
