The paper considers the vision of the world and the person of Józef Kazimierz Plebański (1831–1897), the Warsaw historian, one of two Polish students of Leopold von Ranke. In my article, I analyse the essential categories and objects which structure his thinking about reality, such as liberty, Providence, moral laws, state, nation, and humanity. At the end, I try to compare the worldview of Plebański with the worldview of historicism.

The paper considers the idea of history as a science of Józef Kazimierz Plebański (1831–1897), the Warsaw historian and Polish student of Leopold von Ranke. In my article, I analyse assignments that Plebański set as history, the place of history in science in general, the problem of objectivity in history, and other major issues related to the study of the past in the thought of Plebański.