On the relation of history to history : Quebec historians about the historicity of their knowledge
Historicity, understood as the rootedness of history in successive « presents », comprises the core of the discipline of history. Historicity also structures the discourse held by historians on their body of knowledge. By documenting the stances taken by Quebec historians on the historicity of their knowledge, this article sheds light on the epistemology of history currently cultivated by accomplished professionals from the field. In this way, the article dovetails recent efforts to debunk the empiricist myth of the historian as craftsman. It illustrates the importance of Fernand Dumont for the formalization of the question of the historicity of history in Quebec, and how his historical discourse was shaped by two conceptual frameworks : relativism and the field of history. These refer respectively to the determination of the present through the apprehension of the past and to the mediation of that determination.