In defense of a critical-presentist historiography: the fact-theory relationship and Marx's epistemology.

It is argued that mainstream social scientists made an "error" during the crucial formative years of the 1920s and 1930s. This historical error involved relinquishing, or at the very least ignoring, some of the epistemological views within the social sciences concerning the fact-theory relationship as developed by Marx and others in his tradition. The contemporary nature of some of Mark's epistemic views is demonstrated, where the case is made that some recent developments in the philosophy of science are converging with some of his original insights. The methodological approach of the article--judging the past in the context of the present--is defended on the basis of Marxian historiography, especially as developed by those noe-Marxists of the Frankfurt School. In the latter discussion "justificationist presentism" is criticized from the perspective of a "critical presentism."