HS101NU

CHAPTER III
WHAT ARE “HISTORY” AND “HISTORICAL SOURCES”?

• The English word history is derived from the Greek word historia, meaning learning.
• (Aristotle)- History meant a systematic account of a set of natural phenomena, whether or not
chronological ordering was a factor in the account; and that usage, though rare, still prevails in English in
the phrase natural history.
• Scientia (English, science)- used to designate non-chronological systematic accounts of natural phenomena
• (most common definition) past of mankind
• “The reconstruction of the total past of mankind, although it is the goal of historians, thus becomes a goal
they know full well is unattainable.”

Subjective objective

The facts of history are derived

These are detached and truthful
from testimony and therefore are facts
knowledge independent of one’s
of meaning. They cannot be seen, felt,
personal reactions. A thing must first be
tasted, heard or smelled. They may be
an object; it must have an independent
said to be symbolic or representative of
existence outside the human mind.
something that once was real, but they
have no objective reality of their own.
They exist only in the observer’s or
historian’s mind.

• If artifacts, they are the results of events; if written documents, they may be the results of the records of events.
Whether artifacts or documents, they are raw materials out of which history may be written.
• The historian deals with the dynamic or genetic (the becoming) as well as the static (the being or the become)
and he aims at being interpretative (explaining why and how things happened and were interrelated) as well as
descriptive (telling what happened, when and where, and who took part).
• A historical context can be given to them only if they can be placed in a human setting.
 • Only a part of what was observed in the past was remembered by those who observed it; only a part of
what was remembered was recorded; only a part of what was recorded has survived; only a part of what
has survived has come to the historian’s attention; only a part of what has come to their attention is
credible; only a part of what is credible has been grasped; and only a part of what has been grasped can
be expounded or narrated by the historian.
• The whole history of the past (what has been called history-as-actuality) can be known to him only
through the surviving record of it (history-as-record), and most of history-as-record is only the surviving
part of the recorded part of the remembered part of the observed part of that whole
• The historian has an external history not of what actually happened (history-as-actuality), but the
surviving records of what happened (history-as-record).

• Historian must restore the total past of mankind and does it so in terms of experience. That experience,
however, has taught him:
1. that yesterday was different from today in some ways as well as the same today in others, and
2. that his own experience is both like and unlike other men’s.
• He tries to get as close an approximation to the truth about the past as constant correction of his mental images
will allow, at the same time recognizing that that truth in fact eluded him forever.
• Historians have to deal with human testimony as well as physical traces which differs them from geologists and
paleozoologists who also studies trace oof the perished past.
• Historians’ responsibility shifts from trying to relate into trying to recreate.

• HISTORICAL METHOD- the process of critically examining and analyzing the records and survivals of the past.
• HISTORIOGRAPHY (the writing of history)- the imaginative reconstruction of the past derived from historical
method
• Leoopol von Ranke must be sure that his records really come from the past and are in fact what they seem to be
and that his imagination is directed towards re-creation and not creation.

• Historians who know contemporary life best will understand past life best since the human mentality has not
changed noticeably in historic times.
 Methods Of Historical Analysis:
 Father of "scientific history" by 1. The selection of a subject for
those who accept his claims: investigation;
1. Strict standards of impartiality 2. The collection of probable
2. Evidence-gathering sources of information on that
 Writer of the famous history of the subject;
Peloponnesian War 3. The examination of those
 He conscientiously told his reader sources for genuineness (either
how he gathered his materials and in whole or in part);
what tests he used to separate the 4. The extraction of credible
Thucydides c 460 – 400 BC truth from fiction. particulars from the sources (or
 parts of sources) proved
genuine

PRIMARY SOURCE SECONDARY SOURCE

those sources produced at the
same time as the event, period or
subject being studied.
1. Photographs
2. Old sketches and drawings
3. Old maps
4. Cartoons for political
expression or propaganda
5. Material evidence of
prehistoric past
6. Oral history or recordings
by electronic means
testimony of anyone who is
not an eyewitness—that is,
of one who was not present
at the events of which he
tells.
1. Books
2. Articles
3. Scholarly journals
that interpret
primary sources
A document may be called “ORIGINAL”
1. Because it contains fresh and creative
ideas,
2. Because it is not translated from the
language which it was first written,
3. Because it is in its earliest, unpolished
stage,
4. Because its text is the approved text,
unmodified and untampered with, and
5. Because it is the earliest available source
of the information it provides

“ORIGINAL SOURCES”- best used by the historians in only two senses:

1. To describe a source, unpolished, uncopied, untranslated, as it issued from the hands of the authors (e.g., the
original draft of the Magna Carta) or
2. A source that gives the earliest available information (i.e., the origin) regarding the question under investigation
because earlier sources have been lost (in the sense that Livy is an “original source” for some of our knowledge
of the kings of Rome).

Sources, primary or secondary, are important to the historian because they contain primary particulars (or at
least suggest leads to primary particulars). The particulars they furnish are trustworthy not because of the
book or article they are in, but because of the reliability of the narrator as a witness of those particulars.
 HISTORICAL FACT
A historical fact is a particular derived Perspective
directly or indirectly from historical Perspective refers to the point of view

documents and regarded as credible of the writer who was a witness to the

after careful testing in accordance with event

the canons of historical method.

• Document- from docere (to teach)

• Documentation- signifies any process of proof based upon any kind of source whether written, oral, pictorial,
or archeological

“ ” “ ”
• HUMAN DOCUMENT- “an account of individual experience which reveals the individual’s actions as a human
agent and as a participant in social life.”
• PERSONAL DOCUMENT- “any self-revealing record that intentionally or unintentionally yields information
regarding the structure, dynamics and functioning of the author’s mental life.”
• For the historian, all documents are both human and personal, since they are the work of human beings and
shed light upon their authors as well as upon the subjects the authors were trying to expound. They betray the
author’s personality, private thoughts, and social life more revealingly than they describe the things he had
under observation.
• Sometimes the historian may learn more about the author than the author intended that he should.

CHAPTER VI
THE PROBLEM OF AUTHENTICITY, OF EXTERNAL CRITICISM

• To distinguish a hoax or a misrepresentation from a genuine document, the historian has to use tests that are
common also in police and legal detection.
• Historians make the best guess he can of the date of the document. He examines the materials to see whether
they are not anachronistic:
o Paper was rare in Europe before the fifteenth century, and printing was unknown;
o Pencils did not exist there before the sixteenth century;
o Typewriting was not invented until the nineteenth century;
o India paper came only at the end of nineteenth century
• Historians also guess the possible author of the document. He sees if he can identify the handwriting, signature,
seal, letterhead, or watermark.

CRITIQUING – EXTERNAL CRITICISM CRITIQUING –INTERNAL CRITICISM

AUTHENTIC CREDIBLE

Practice of verifying the authenticity of evidence by
examining its physical characteristics with the
historical characteristic of the time when it was
produced and the materials used for the evidence.
To check:
1. quality of paper
2. type of ink
3. language and words used in the materials
Examination of truthfulness of the evidence. It looks at
the content of the source and examines the
circumstance of its production. It looks at the author
of the source, its context, the agenda behind its
creation, the knowledge which informed it, and its
intended purpose, among others