THE MEANING OF

HISTORY, SOURCES OF
HISTORICAL DATA, &
HISTORICAL
CRITICISMS
Chapter 1
History
● derived from the Greek word historia which means learning by inquiry
● referred usually for accounts of phenomena, especially human affairs in chronological order

I. Factual History - presents the basic and plain information to the reader with the emphasis
only of ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ of history
II. Speculative History - goes beyond dates, places, persons, events because it attempts to
explain the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of events. It discusses the causes and effects of such happenings
which resulted to another face of change

Historians - Individuals who write about history

Historiography - The practice of historical writing

- the traditional method in doing historical research that focus on gathering of documents
from different libraries and archives to form a pool of evidence needed in making a descriptive
or analytical narrative

- The modern historical writing does not only include examination of documents but also
the use of research methods from related areas of study such as archeology and geography
 Limitation of Historical Knowledge
● The incompleteness of records has limited man’s knowledge of history.

● Most human affairs happen without leaving any evidence or records of any
kind, no artifacts, or if there are, no further evidence of the human setting in
which to place surviving artifacts. Although it may have happened, but the
past has perished forever with only occasional traces.
● The whole history of the past (called history-as-actuality) can be known to a
historian only through the surviving records (history-as-record), and most
of history-as-record is only a tiny part the whole phenomenon. Even the
archeological and anthropological discoveries are only small parts
discovered from the total past.
 History as the Subjective Process of Re-creation
● Verisimilitude - historian’s aim about a perished past (the truth, authenticity, plausibility)
● the study of history is a subjective process as documents and relics are scattered and do not together comprise the
total object that the historian is studying.

Historical Method and Historiography

● Historical method - The process of critically examining and analyzing the records and survivals of the past
● Historiography - The imaginative reconstruction of the past from the data derived by that process
● Historical analysis - an important element of historical method

○ historians: (1) select the subject to investigate; (2) collect probable sources of information on the subject; (3)
examine the sources genuineness, in part of in whole; and (4) extract credible ‘particulars’ from the sources
(or parts of sources).