Leopold von Ranke

German historian (1795–1886), the founding figure of the modern historical school and of source-critical historiography ("how it actually was," wie es eigentlich gewesen). In Gadamer's Ch 3 he is the exemplar of the historical worldview whose anti-metaphysical self-image, Gadamer argues, silently reinstates idealist and theological content.

Key Points

• "Teleology without a telos." Gadamer reconstructs Ranke's structure of historical continuity as covertly teleological — its criterion is success / effect (Wirkung) — yet without a goal outside itself: "the ontological structure of history itself ... is teleological, although without a telos."
• Power (Macht) as the central category. In power "interiority and exteriority are held in a tense unity"; "freedom is combined with power"; history is "scenes of freedom."
• Covert idealism and theology. Ranke's self-extinction, "immediacy to God," and comparison of the historian to a priest betray that he "remained close to German idealism" — what Hegel called the religion of art. His confidence that empirical research alone (not speculation) yields "a universal view of history" runs into the dilemma of universal history.

Connections

• exemplifies the historical school, read by Gadamer as covertly Hegelian.
• is interpreted by Dilthey (who makes explicit the romantic whole-part schema Ranke uses implicitly).
• runs into the dilemma of universal history (see effective-history).

Sources

• gadamer-1960-truth-and-method — Ch 3, "Ranke's historical worldview" / "The dilemma involved in the ideal of universal history" (pp. 207–216). confidence: medium (single-source, Gadamer's reconstruction).