Entscheiden als Problem der Geschichtswissenschaft.

Abstract

Decision-Making and History From antiquity on, decisions have been a central topic of historiography. On a conceptual level, historians have rarely thought about the questions what a decision is, how decisions are made, and if deciding has a history. Instead, the terms have been used in amore or less every day manner. After shortly presenting how decisions and decision making have been understood and discussed in historiography, we attempt to identify deciding as a specific type of social action. Deciding is orientated towards producing a decision. As trite as that sounds, it emerges that an explication of this definition could be away to outline deciding/decisions as an object of historical research. We argue that deciding is not as self-evident as it seems but that it is a processual activity based on a number of specific, culturally shaped conditions. The way how decisions are made and the conditions under which they are made are different according to social and cultural contexts. Thus, they have a historical dimension. At the same time, deciding is multidimensional and complex. In order to show this complexity, we present several dimensions that have to be taken into account: the framing of decision-making, its performance, its mediality, materiality, and resources. Finally, we discuss the historicity of decision-making with regard to the distinction between modernity and premodernity.

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