Carl Hempel and the Analytical Tradition

Abstract

This article brings into debate two contemporary traditions – one of French origin, dominant in the historiographical scenario of the mid-twentieth century, the Annales, and another of German-English tradition, represented above all by the works of the philosopher Carl Hempel. The dialogue between them and, eventually, the symptomatic lack of communication, gives rise to a discussion about the scientificity of history, an important theme to both positions and widely debated in the 1940s and 1950s. The hypothesis is that disciplinary contacts, academic hierarchies and the theoretical borders observed from this debate help to understand fundamental elements of the dynamics of academic consecration in that context, beyond the agreement or disagreement that can be observed at the level of the theory of history.