An intellectual historian aims to fully understand

Concept: A comprehension item of the form “X aims to …” is settled by finding the one sentence in the passage that states an aim for X, and then reading off the complement that follows the aim word. Two kinds of noun sit close to such a statement and are easy to mistake for that complement: the noun naming the activity to which the aim is attributed, and the nouns naming what other people pursue. Align the wording of the stem with the wording of the passage before settling on a value.

Application: The stem asks what an intellectual historian aims to fully understand. The passage states his aim once, in the sentence that contrasts him with most kinds of historians: “whereas for the intellectual historian, a full understanding of his chosen texts is itself the aim of his enquiries.” Aligning the stem with that clause word for word gives “aims to” ↔ “is itself the aim of his enquiries” and “fully understand” ↔ “a full understanding of”; the complement left over is “his chosen texts”. What he aims to fully understand is therefore the texts he has himself chosen.

Contrast: Setting each offered value against that same clause:

• the chosen texts of his own — this is precisely the complement of “a full understanding of” in the clause that states the aim, so it is what the aim is directed at.

• political actions — the passage gives this as an instance of “something other than the texts themselves”, that is, of what most kinds of historians reach by using texts as a means; it is the side of the contrast the intellectual historian is set against.

• historical trends — this is the companion instance in that same pair, and it belongs to the same side of the contrast rather than to the intellectual historian’s own end.

• his enquiries — this names the historian’s activity of investigation, the very activity to which the passage attributes the aim; it is what has the aim, not what the aim is directed at.

Cross-check: The same line is drawn twice more. Earlier in the sentence the passage says that for most kinds of historians the texts are “only the necessary means to understanding something other than the texts themselves”, so for the intellectual historian understanding the texts is the end and not the means. The next paragraph agrees that his distinctiveness lies “in which aspect of the past he is trying to illuminate”, not in owning a special method, corpus of evidence or body of techniques.

The intellectual historian therefore aims to fully understand the chosen texts of his own.