Historical sources and traces of the past: classification problems

The problem of historical source, its nature and place in the structure of historical knowledge is always topical issue of philosophy of history. Important for understanding the historical source of the problem is to classify it in terms of cognitive values and meaning. But, as historical sources do not exist by themselves, but are the products of interaction traces of the past and historical thinking, we distinguish two aspects: the classification of the actual historical sources and the classification of the traces of the past. We offer to share in the real traces of the past (historical monuments) and immaterial (the historical tradition). At the same time, the analysis shows that the philosophical basis for the classification of historical sources do not exist.

traces of the past, historical tradition, a historical source, a historical document