Do Contexts Matter?

Abstract

The article intends to present the problem of context with specific examples from various fields to demonstrate that the problem is basic to all kinds of historical research, as well as to describe shortly the opinions of several authors on historical theory with regard to it. The uses of context in interpretation is connected with the problem of the questions that the historian asks, and of course the historian is entitled to ask questions not posed by his sources. It is argued that the author and his intentions is available only, and though the historian or interpreter is perfectly entitled to ask his own questions of the text, he must always keep in mind that if if he consider his own questions more important than the question of the author and his contemporaries, he is in danger of developing an arrogancy towards the past.