Abstract

The aim of the paper is to discuss the account of the fact presented by Václav ?erník. First, the author outlines the views of the defenders of the naïve realism, constructivism , and critical realism in historiography. The leading proponents of narrativism hold, that what the historians construe is not single facts, but general narrative interpretations. The second part offers a critical analysis of some notions and distinctions introduced by ?erník in his theory of the social fact. The most questionable are his concept of observation statements and his way of differentiating between observational and theoretical statements. The author’s conclusion is that the most reliable is the middle ground between naïve realism and constructivism in their radical forms