The idea that historicans can and should approach their craft without the assistance of any preconceived notions, ideas, questions, paradigms, etc.
“The pursuit of an impossible object, by an impractical method.”

-Framing a question in such a way that two or more questions are asked at once, and a single answer is demanded.
-Framing a question in such a way as to beg another one.
-Framing a question with a false or unproven assumption (Joe, have you stopped beating your wife?)
-Framing a complex question and demanding a simple answer.
-Often set up a false dichotomy.

Historians do this all the time.
-Was Reconstruction shamefully harsh or surprisingly lenient?
-Did Lee lose Gettysburg at Little Round Top or in the Wheat Field?
-When did racial segregation harden into it’s elaborate mold
-How bad were the carpetbag movements?

-When someone writes a declarative statement, but disguises it as a question.
-Questions have to be open-ended, to some extent, before they can be answered honestly.
-If you go looking for something, and you look hard enough, you’ll always “find” it.
-The essence of agenda given history, and a weakness of “Great School” historians.

What happens when someone frames a question that is merely the opposite of someone else.
-The obvious problem here is that you are dominated by the other person’s interpretation. In a sense, you aren’t really controlling what you say, the first person is.
-a tautological question involves stating something that is true by definition, and cannot be contradicted.
-Did Stalin’s upbringing influence his character?

Framing a question in such a way as to artificially increase the drama inherent to the piece and to bring attention to the historian’s brilliance

A proper historical question must be operational.
A proper historical question must be genuinely interrogative.
A proper historical question must be flexible.
A proper historical question must be analytical.
A proper historical question must be explicit and precise.

Occurs when seemingly clear, concise, detailed evidence, turns out to be unconnected or cannot be taken literally.

Consists of asking one question, and answering another, completely different one. This switcheroo diverts attention from the real answer to the first question.

- Involves trying to an absence of evidence to prove something.
“I have read all 900 pgs of … report and found NO evidence of …”
Evidence must always be affirmative.

- When a historian makes a claim, then leaves it for someone else to prove, or promises that it will be proved later.
One of Darwin’s most serious errors.

Occurs when an author assumes part of the answer he is trying to prove, and then uses it as evidence to prove his answer.

Using mass opinion as a method of fact verification. X must be true, everyone thinks so.
Often used by individuals who want to bully their readers or opponents into submission by making them feel like they are the only person who disagrees, or that disagreeing would mean you were stupid or radical.

Trying to prove something did happen, by proving it could happen.
It is simply not enough to know that something had the potential to be. Potentiality and reality are two different things.

- A contextual fallacy, where the author takes something that was meant to be metaphorical or hyperbolic, and reads it literally.