 The question of the independence of the methods of the human sciences, prominently including history, from the physical sciences became the theme of heated debate over the 19th century. Wilhelm Dilthey (1883 [1989]) defended the independence of the methods of the human sciences, while Wilhelm Windelband (1980/1894) argued that only the natural, physical sciences are “nomothetic,” or law-governed, and thus genuinely scientific (see Beiser 2012 and Patton (forthcoming) for more detail on this debate and its history).