Resumo

OLVERA SERRANO, Margarita. Sociología e historia: la distancia temporal en la reconstrucción histórica. Sociológica (Méx.) [online]. 2005, vol.20, n.58, pp.77-103. ISSN 2007-8358.

This paper deals with the problem of time in research into the past, understood as a re-constructive practice that also implies the present and the future. Based mainly on the contributions of Wilhelm Dilthey, Max Weber and Arthur Coleman Danto, the study of what no longer is can be dealt with as a tendentially reflexive task, capable of identifying the temporal distance that separates the observer from the observed not as an obstacle, but as a condition that makes it possible to know the past. This implies methodologically accepting and controlling the selections, cuts, questions and subjectivity involved in research, as well as recognizing the constructed, relative nature of socio-historical knowledge, without renouncing either its validity or the possibility of establishing rational limits to interpretation.

Palavras-chave : Dilthey; Weber; Danto; historic reconstruction; relativism; temporality.