Asian Development Foundation College

Lesson 1
GE 112 - READINGS IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY
Karl Jones O. Niego
Instructor
 History
Derived from the Greek word HISTORIA
 Historia
Greek - Acquired knowledge through
inquiry or investigation.
Classical Latin - The account of the past
of a person or of a group of people
through written documents and historical
evidences.
 Traditional
Historian's
Mantra:
No document, no history.
 What
about other
Civilization?
Giving premium to written
documents invalidates the history
of other Civilizations that do not
keep records.
Restricting historical evidence as
exclusively written is a
discrimination against other
social classes.
As history progressed and
opened up to the
possibility of historical
sources, which we're not
limited to written
documents only.
 Historians started using
other kinds of historical
sources, which may not
be in written form but
were just as valid.

Oral Tradition, Epic, Songs,

Artifacts, and Architecture.

Historians also collaborated with

other discipline like science.
Annales School of History
Is a school of history born in France
that challenge the cannons of
history. Annales scholars were
concerned with social history and
advocated for other classes to be
reflected in history.
 Historiography
The history of history.
Historiography is the study of how history was written,
by whom, and why it was recorded as such. Moreover, it
is a look at if and how historical events have been
reinterpreted by historians over time and why.
 What is the
importance of
history?
 Positivism
Vs.
Postcolonialism
 Positivism
An objective means of arriving
at a conclusion
Positivist Historians are expected to
be objective and impartial, not just
in their arguments but also in their
conduct of historical research.
 History
History that has been taught and written is
always intended for a certain group of people.

When American historians depicted the Filipino

people as uncivilized in their publications they
intended that narrative for their fellow Americans
to justify their colonization of the island.
Postcolonialism
Creating identities and understanding societies
against the shadows of their colonial past.

1. Tell the history a nation that will highlight it's

identity free from the colonial discourse.
2. Critisize the methods effects, and idea of
colonialism.
 History
One of the problems confronted by history is the
accusation that the history is always written by
victors. This connotes that the narrative of the past
is always written from the bias of powerful players.

For example: 2ndWW in the country always depicts

the U.S s heroes and Japanese as the oppressors.
 History
and the
Historians
 Historian
It is the historians job not just seek historical
evidences and facts but also interpret these facts.

Facts cannot speak for

themselves
Historians give meaning to facts and
organize it into timeline, establish causes,
and write history.
 Historian
Is a person of his own who is influenced by his own
context, environment, ideology, education and
among others.
In one way or another, history is subjective. If the so,

can history still be considered as

an academic scientific inquiry?
 can history still be considered as
an academic scientific inquiry?
Yes. The study of history remains scientific
because of the rigor of research and
methodology that historians employ.
Historical methodology compromises certain
techniques and rules that historians follow in
order to properly utilizes sources and
historical evidences in writing history.
 Validating
If a historian chooses to use an oral
account as his data in studying the ethnic
history of the ifugaos in the American
occupation, he needs to validate the
claims of his informant through comparing
and corroborating it with written sources.
 Historical Sources
1. Primary Source
Primary sources are documents,
images or artifacts that provide
firsthand testimony or direct
evidence concerning an historical
topic under research investigation.
 Historical Sources
2. Secondary Source
Secondary sources analyze, interpret, and
describe the firsthand accounts to give context
to an event. If a historian translates an ancient
Egyptian diary and writes a book about what
they discovered, the actual diary is an example
of a primary source, and the historian’s book is
an example of a secondary source.
 Historical Sources
The classification of sources between
primary and secondary depends NOT
on the period when the sources was
produced or the type of the source
BUT ON THE SUBJECT OF HISTORICAL
RESEARCH.
 Historical Truth
The Historian should be able to
conduct an external and internal
criticism of the source.
External Criticism
The practice of verifying the
authenticity of evidence by
examining it's physical
characteristic. Materials used,
Quality of the paper, and the
Type of paper.
 Internal Criticism
The examination of the truthfulness
of the evidence. It looks at the
content of the source and examines
the circumstance of its production.
Author of the source, Context,
Agenda, and It's intended purpose
Thank
You!