Republic of the Philippines

COMMISION ON HIGHER EDUCATION

GOV. MARIANO E. VILLAFUERTE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Potot, Libmanan, Camarines Sur

REFLECTION IN:
RIZAL LIFE & WORKS

Ma’am Almyra B. Balares

Instructor

Justine A. Pelareja
2A- BS Entrepreneurship

Reflection No. 3
 If this is true we cannot accept the meaning of the text where you specify it is written in the text.
Because if the text may not be clearly defined by the text, so can other things. Any written material can
have many interpretations, some misleading and some worthless. It is the responsibility of the writer to
remove the ambiguity. As written it is simply accurate in fact. It is perfectly possible to create vague text.
An obvious example is the source code in the computer program. Source code is text, written in one of
many computer programming languages. The source code is completely vague and has definitely a
meaning, otherwise it will not work. Another example close to natural language is legal documents.
While sometimes mistakes are made that lead to ambiguity that needs to be resolved in legal court
documents that are intended and for the most part, are not clear and not open to interpretation.

Taking historical perspective means understanding the social, cultural, intellectual, and emotional settings
that shaped people’s lives and actions in the past. At any one point, different historical actors may have
acted on the basis of conflicting beliefs and ideologies, so understanding diverse perspectives are also a
key to historical perspective-taking. Though it is sometimes called “historical empathy,” historical
perspective is very different from the common-sense notion of identification with another person. Indeed,
taking historical perspective demands comprehension of the vast differences between us in the present
and those in the past.

Today I used to wish I had a time machine, some device I could ride back into history so I could
see for myself what really happened and clear up all the idiotic controversies about who did what to
whom and when and why. These questions seemed like such a pointless waste of time to me back then,
when one simple snapshot of what really happened could end so many debates once and for all.

Now, after many years of studying history I realize that, even if I could go back in time and see
these things for myself, then return to my own age, I still could not necessarily convince the people to
whom I brought back my report that what I was telling them was the final word, that my portrait of the
past was the answer to "what-really-happened," or that I was even doing them much of a favour. As I've
grown older, I've come to see that even providing a video recording of some historical event and showing
it to people today probably would not resolve many of our debates about the past, either. The tape would
just become another point of acrimonious discussion in our on-going quarrels over the nature and
meaning of history.