J. G. Droysen's didactics of history: constitution and currentness¹ 1 Almost all of the ideas contained in this paper were presented and discussed at a round table in the 7th Brazilian Seminar on the History of Historiography, in Mariana, Minas Gerais, on August 15th, 2013; in a lecture to the Research Group Espaços, Poder e Práticas Sociais, of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, on December 12th, 2012; and in a lecture to the Research Group in Lógica e Filosofia da Ciência, of the Universidade de Brasília, on December 3rd, 2010. I hereby give my thank you to the organizers and participants of these activities. I also thank Itamar Freitas de Oliveira and two anonymous reviewers of Tempo for the thorough readings of the manuscript and for the many and valuable suggestions for its improvement

The historical theory developed by Johann Gustav Droysen (1808-1884) stands out partly due to its consistent orientation towards didactical issues. Besides investigating the principles governing the historical method and the reasons that lead us to attribute the quality of being "historical" to certain portions of the past, it also devised answers to the question: "why should one write, study, and learn history?". In short, Droysen argues that the main goal of studying history should be neither the assimilation of practical examples nor the memorization of particular facts, but rather the learning of what he called "historical thinking". I believe that Droysen's argument set in motion a very significant redefinition of historiography's didactical function. This article characterizes and contextualizes such redefinition, underlining some of its current potentials and limits.

philosophy of history; historical education; German historiography - 19^th Century