About the author

BORN: FEBRUARY 21, 1899 IN NEW YORK, UNITED STATES

DIED: JUNE 23, 1975

OCCUPATION: EDUCATOR, HISTORIAN

EDUCATION: CORNELL UNIVERSITY (BA, MA, AND PH.D)

The meaning of History

- derived from the Greek noun ιστορία or historia, meaning
learning. As used by the Greek philosopher Aristotle.
- a systematic account of a set natural phenomena,
whether or not it is chronological ordering was a factor
in the account.

Science or Scientia

- Came to be used more regularly to designate non- chronological systematic accounts of natural
phenomena; and word history was reserved usually for accounts of phenomena in chronological
order

Compare to the German word for History

– Geschichte, which is derived from geschehen, meaning
to happen. Geschichte is that which has happened.

Fortiori

- The experience of generation long dead, most of who left no records or whose records, if they
exist, have never been distributed by the historian’s touch, is beyond the possibility of total
recollection. The reconstruction of the total past is unattainable.

“Objectivity” and “Subjectivity”

Objects like ruins, parchments, and coins sometimes survive from the past. Otherwise, the facts
of history are derived from testimony and therefore are facts of meaning. They cannot be seen,
felt, tasted, heard, or smelled.
Subjective is not used to imply disparagement of any sort, but it does imply the necessity for the
application of special kinds of safeguards against error.
 Artifacts as Sources of History
- Where relics of human happenings can be found (e.g. a potsherd, a coin, a ruin, a manuscript, a
book, stamp etch,.) these objects are never the happenings or the events themselves.

A Historian deals with:

• Dynamic or genetic (the becoming)
• Static (the being or the become)
• Aims at being interpretative (explaining why or how things happened and were interrelated)
• 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 human setting.

Historical Knowledge Limited by Incompleteness of the Records

• Only a small part of what happened in the past was ever observed;
• Only a part of what was observed in the past was remembered by those who observed;
• 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.

Whole history of the past (history-as-actuality)

– Can be known to him only through the surviving record of it.
Surviving record (history-as-record)
– Surviving records of what happened.

Before the past is set forth by the historian, it is likely to have gone through eight separate
steps at each of which some of it has been lost; and there is no guarantee that what remains
is the most important, the largest, the most valuable, the most representative, or the most
enduring part. In other words the “object” that the historian studies is not only incomplete;
it is markedly variable as records are lost or rediscovered

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 from the data derived by that process.
By means of historical method and historiography (both of which are frequently grouped together
simply as historical method) the historian endeavors to reconstruct as much of the past of mankind as
he can.

Methods of historical analysis

1) the selection of subject for investigation;

2) the collection of probable sources of information on that subject;

3) the examination of those for genuineness (either in whole or in part);

4) the extraction of credible particulars from the sources (or parts of sources) proved genuine.

The Distinction between Primary and Other Original Sources

Primary source

The testimony of anyone who is no an eyewitness, or anyone who was not present at the event of which
it tells.

Secondary source

The testimony of an eyewitness, or of a witness by any other of the senses, or of a mechanical device
like the Dictaphone. Simply an eyewitness.

A primary source does not need to be original in the legal sense of the word original.

The meaning of (“original”)

1. fresh + creative)
2. Not translated)
3. Unpolished stage)
4. Approved text)
5. Earliest available source of information

These five meaning of the word may overlap, but they are not synonymous .

The phrase “original source” has become common among historians, and it is desirable to define its
usage accurately.

1) Unpolished, uncopied, untranslated. (e.g. the original draft of the Magna Carta)

2) Earliest available information

Don’t be confused between the term original source and primary source.
It should be remembered that the historian when analyzing sources is interested chiefly in particulars
and that he asks of each particular whether it is based on first-hand or second-hand testimony.

Primary Particulars Rather than Whole Primary Sources Sought

• Historian is less concerned with a source as a whole than with the particular data within that source.

• Sources, whether primary or secondary, are important to the historian because they contain primary
particulars.

• The particulars they furnish are trustworthy not because of the book or article or report they are in,
but because of the reliability of the narrator as a witness of the source.

Document

- Came from the Latin word docere meaning to teach. It is a written source of historical
information as contrasted with oral testimony, artifacts, pictorial survivals, and archeological
remains. Most of time the term is use for official agreements and state papers such as treaties,
laws, grants, deeds and so on.

Documentation

- Is the process of proof based upon any kind of source whether written, oral, pictorial or
archeologic

Document is classified into two kinds: Human Document

– defined by a sociologist wherein it is an account of individual experience that reveals the

individual’s actions as a human agent and a participant in social life.

Personal document

- defined by a psychologist where it is a self-revealing record that yields information either

intentionally or unintentionally about the author’s mental life.

• To both Sociologist and Psychologist, the two kinds of document differ on the degree of subjectivity,
where human document is a third-person while personal document is first person.

• But for Historians, the difference of both documents is not of major significance.

• For them, 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.

• They betray the author’s personality, private thoughts and social life. The Historians may learn more
about the author than the author intended that he should.
The procedure for Source Criticism are:

1. If the sources all agree about an event, historians can consider the event proved.

2. However, majority does not rule; even if most sources relate events in one way, that version will not
prevail unless it passes the test of critical textual analysis.

3. The source whose account can be confirmed by reference to outside authorities in some of its parts
can be trusted in its entirety if it is impossible similarly to confirm the entire text.

4. When two sources disagree on a particular point, the historian will prefer the source with most
“authority”—that is the source created by the expert or by the eyewitness.

5. Eyewitnesses are, in general, to be preferred especially in circumstances where the ordinary observer
could have accurately reported what transpired and, more specifically, when they deal with facts known
by most contemporaries.

6. If two independently created sources agree on a matter, the reliability of each is measurably
enhanced.

7. When two sources disagree and there is no other means of evaluation, then historians take the
source which seems to accord best with common sense.

External Criticism is inquiring about the evidences’ authenticity and origin.

1. When was the source, written or unwritten, produced (date)?

2. Where was it produced (localization)?

3. By whom was it produced (authorship)?

4. From what pre-existing material was it produced (analysis)?

5. In what original form was it produced (integrity)?

6. What is the evidential value of its contents (credibility)?

Internal Criticism is mostly talking about historical credibility.

Eyewitness evidence

1. Is the real meaning of the statement different from its literal meaning? Are words used in senses not
employed today? Is the statement meant to be ironic (i.e., mean other than it says)?

2. How well could the author observe the thing he reports? Were his senses equal to the observation?
Was his physical location suitable to sight, hearing, touch? Did he have the proper social ability to
observe: did he understand the language, have other expertise required (e.g., law, military); was he not
being intimidated by his wife or the secret police?

3. How did the author report?, and what was his ability to do so?

I. Regarding his ability to report, was he biased? Did he have proper time for reporting? Proper place for
reporting? Adequate recording instruments?

II. When did he report in relation to his observation? Soon? Much later? Fifty years is much later as most
eyewitnesses are dead and those who remain may have forgotten relevant material.

III. What was the author’s intention in reporting? For whom did he report? Would that audience be
likely to require or suggest distortion to the author?

IV. Are there additional clues to intended veracity? Was he indifferent on the subject reported, thus
probably not intending distortion? Did he make statements damaging to himself, thus probably not
seeking to distort? Did he give incidental or casual information, almost certainly not intended to
mislead?

4. Do his statements seem inherently improbable: e.g., contrary to human nature, or in conflict with
what we know?

5. Remember that some types of information are easier to observe and report on than others.

6. Are there inner contradictions in the document? Louis Gottschalk adds an additional consideration:
“Even

Indirect witnesses

1. On whose primary testimony does the secondary witness base his statements?

2. Did the secondary witness accurately report the primary testimony as a whole?

3. If not, in what details did he accurately report the primary testimony?

Argument to the best explanation by McCullagh

The following are supposed characteristics of a hypothesis to be considered a best explanation

1. Must imply other statements

2. Must be of greater explanatory scope = more general

3. Must be of greater explanatory power = more probable

4. Must be more plausible = more implied

5. Must be less ad hoc = contain less unproved data

6. Must be disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs = oppose only few beliefs

7. Must exceed other hypotheses in these characteristics

Statistical Inference

1. P1 = A is B

2. P2 = This is A.

3. This is B.

Example:

A= dog, B= animals

Argument from Analogy

1. P1 ….. Pn & Pn+1

EXAMPLE:

P1 = Jose Rizal is a Filipino who lived in the 1800s.

2. P1 ….. Pn

EXAMPLE:

Pn = Filipinos who lived in the 1800s were patriotic.

3. Pn+1

EXAMPLE:

Pn+1 = Jose Rizal, a filipino who lived in the 1800s, was patriotic.