António Sérgio and the history and his idea about the writing of history

Abstract

António Sérgio's essays propose a History written by a citizen-philosopher, criticizing nationalist perspectives and the erudite history that sacralizes the facts and belittles the theoretical hypotheses. Being an opponent of the political regime, Sérgio´s project for a History of Portugal was aborted by the apprehension of volume 1 in 1941. Historian Alfredo Pimenta, with the support of Salazar, attacked this book and Sérgio responded with reflections on the epistemology of History, showing how interpretation is fundamental and how that connects history with other areas of knowledge, under a scientific and totalizing transdisciplinar ideal. In this article, we expose the contours of the controversy and analyze those reflections, by integrating them into the whole of the author's work and by studying the inspirations collected in the works of John Dewey (function of history), Henri Berr (scientific synthesis) and of some historians and philosophers at the turn of the century.