HISTORY AND SCIENCE

BY LOUIS GOTTSCHALK
 HISTORICAL CRITICISM

External Internal
Authenticity Credibility
HISTORICAL CRITICISM
External = Authenticity
§ Fabricated, forged, fake
§ Hoax, misrepresentation
 HISTORICAL CRITICISM
External = Authenticity
Tests:
§ Date
§ Author’s handwriting, signature
§ Anachronistic style (idiom, orthography,
punctuation...)
§ Anachronistic reference to
events (too early, too late, too remote)
§ Provenance
§ Semantics
 HISTORICAL CRITICISM
Internal = Credibility
Tests:
§ Verisimilitude
§ Author’s mental processes
§ Approximate date
§ Ability to tell the truth
§ Willingness to tell the truth
§ Corroboration
 TESTIMONY

As has already been pointed out, every

historical subject has four aspects _ the
biographical, the geographical, the
chronological, and the occupational or
functional. With a set of names, dates, and
key-words in mind for each of these aspects,
the historical investigator combs his document
for relevant particulars.
 TESTIMONY

General rule: for each particular of a

document the process of establishing
credibility should be separately
undertaken regardless of the general
credibility of the author.
 HISTORICAL FACT
A historical “fact” thus may be defined as a
particular derived directly or indirectly from
historical documents and regarded as credible
after careful testing in accordance with the
canons of historical method. An infinity and a
multiple variety of facts of this kind are
accepted by all historians: e.g. that Socrates
really existed; that Alexander invaded India…
 HISTORICAL FACT
In the process of analysis the historian should
constantly keep in mind the relevant particulars
within the document rather than the document
as a whole. Regarding each particular he asks:
Is it credible? It might be well to point out again
that what is meant by calling particular credible
is not that it is actually what happened, but that
is as close to what actually happened as we
can learn from a critical examination of the best
available sources.
 HISTORICAL FACT
This means verisimilar at a high level. It
connotes something more than merely not
being preposterous in itself or even than
plausible and yet is short of meaning
accurately descriptive of past actuality. In other
words, the historian establishes verisimilitude
rather than objective truth. Though there is
high correlation between the two, they are not
necessarily identical.

DBDumo