The article is about analysis of problems connected to applying “historical” and “retrospective” methods used in political science research. Levels of such problems are indicated. On the first level, these problems appear in the wake of political scientists’ attempts to use intuition while using those methods. The second level problems imply using definitions of “historical” and “retrospective” methods which are the most comprehensible for young scholars and relate to ambiguity and inaccuracy of the terms.