READINGS IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY:

HISTORICAL METHODS
AND RELIABLE SOURCES
DIEGO A. ODCHIMAR III
 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What is a reliable source in historical research?
2. Why is it important to use reliable sources
in understanding history?
3. How should sources be chosen
and interpreted?
4. Does objectivity matter in understanding
history?
5. Must we be objective about our interpretations
of the past?
 1. WHAT IS A RELIABLE SOURCE
IN HISTORICAL RESEARCH?
The English word history is derived from the
Greek noun istoría, meaning inquiry or learning.

As used by the Greek philosopher Aristotle,

history meant a systematic account of a set
of natural phenomena, whether or not
chronological ordering was a factor in the
account.
Eventually, the Latín word scientia (science)
came to be used more regularly to designate
non-chronological systematic accounts natural
phenomena.

The Latin word historía (history) was reserved

usually for accounts of phenomena (human
affairs) in chronological order.
Charles Seignobos (1901) said, “History is not
a science; it is a method.”

By that he meant that the historical method

may be applied to the subject matter of any
discipline whatsoever as a means of ascertaining
fact.
In Understanding History (1969), Louis
Gottschalk claimed that the historian deals with
the dynamic or genetic (becoming) as well as
the static (being), and he aims at being
interpretative (explaining why and how things
happened and were interrelated) as well as
descriptive (telling what happened, when and
where, and who took part).
The historian applies the historical method
to evidence that has survived from the past
and from it accumulates whatever credible
data he can.

The historian uses historical data to

construct descriptions of past personalities
and places, narratives of past events,
expositions of past ideas, or syntheses
of past periods and cultures.
Historical data may be used by the philosopher,
the political scientist, the sociologist, the literary
critic, or the physicist to construct a history
of thought, of political institutions, of social
customs, of literature, or of physics.

History is the recorded experience

of the human race, and man can profit
from experience in any field of knowledge.
Traditionally, there exists a vulgar prejudice
against “subjective” knowledge as inferior to
“objective” knowledge, largely because the
word “subjective” has also come to mean
“illusory” or “based upon personal
considerations,” and hence either “untrue”
or “biased.”

“Objective knowledge” may be acquired

by an impartial and judicially detached
investigation of mental images, processes,
concepts, and precepts.
“Subjective knowledge” is not necessarily
inferior to “objective knowledge”.

But it is necessary to apply of special kinds

of safeguards against error.
To be studied objectively, with the intention
of acquiring detached and truthful knowledge
independent of one’s personal reactions,
a thing must first be an object; it must have
an independent existence outside the human
mind.
Most of history is based upon recollections,
written or spoken testimony.

Recollections do not have existence outside

the human mind.

Impartiality and objectivity may be more

difficult to obtain from such data, and hence
conclusions based upon them may be more
debatable.
Only where relics of human happenings
can be found — a potsherd, a coin, a ruin,
a manuscript, a book, a portrait, a stamp,
a piece of wreckage, a strand of hair,
or other archeological or anthropological
remains — do we have objects other than words
that the historian can study.
Artifacts are the results of events.

Written documents are the results

or the records of events.

Whether artifacts or documents, they are raw

materials out of which history may be written.
Although certain historical truths can be derived
immediately from direct observation of artifacts
and documents surviving from the past,
such facts, important though they are,
are not the essence of the study of history.
Descriptive data that can be derived directly
and immediately from surviving artifacts
and documents are only a small part of the
periods to which they belong.

A historical context can be given to them

only if they can be placed in a human setting,
which should be supported by evidence.
Unfortunately, most human affairs happened
without leaving vestiges or records of any kind
behind them.

The past, having happened, has perished

forever with only occasional traces.
Gottschalk (1969) pointed out that the whole
history of the past, what has been called
history-as-actuality, can be known to a historian
only through the surviving record of it,
history-as-record.

Most of history-as-record is only the surviving

part of the recorded part of the remembered
part of the observed part of that whole.
In so far as the historian has an external object
to study it is not the perished history
that actually happened (history-as-actuality)
but the surviving records of what happened
(history-as-record).

History can be told only from history-as-record;

and history as told (spoken-or-written-history)
is only the historians’ expressed part
of the understood part of the credible part
of the discovered part of history-as-record.
Gottschalk (1969) emphasized the problem
of the historian in interpreting the past.

The “object” that the historian studies

is not only incomplete. It is markedly
variable as records are lost or rediscovered.
“The utmost the historian can grasp
of history-as-actuality, no matter how real
it may have seemed while it was happening,
can be nothing more than a mental image
or a series of mental images based upon
an application of his own experience, real and
vicarious, to part of a part of a part of a part
of a part of a part of a part of a part of a
vanished whole” (Gottschalk, 1989: 47).
For Gottschalk (1969: 47), “the historian’s aim
is verisimilitude (truthlikeness) with regard to a
perished past —a subjective process— rather than
experimental certainty with regard to an objective
reality.”

The historian tries to get as close an approximation

to the truth about the past as constant correction
of his mental images will allow, at the same time
recognizing that that truth has in fact eluded him
forever.
To simplify the task of the historian,
his responsibility shifts from the obligation
to acquire a complete knowledge of the
irrecoverable past by means of the surviving
evidence to that of re-creating a verisimilar
image of as much of the past as the evidence
makes recoverable.
Historical method is the process of critically
examining and analyzing the records and
survivals of the past.

Historiography (the writing of history)

is the imaginative reconstruction of the past
from the data derived by that process.
By means of historical method and
historiography, although severely handicapped
and limited, the task of a historian
is to reconstruct as much of the past of mankind
as he can.

A historian must endeavor to approach the

actual past “as a limit.”
Gottschalk underscored that since the past
“actually occurred”, it places obvious limits
upon the kinds of records and imagination that
a historian may use.

A historian “must be sure that his records really

come from the past and are in fact what they
seem to be and that his imagination is directed
toward re-creation and not creation”
(Gottschalk, 1969: 49).
Unlike fiction, poetry, drama, and fantasy,
history places limits on the imagination of the
historian.

The historian is not permitted to imagine things

that could not reasonably have happened.
Historiography, the synthesizing of historical
data into narrative or expositions by writing
history books and articles or delivering history
lectures, is not easily made the subject of rules
and regulations.

However, as regards the methods of historical

analysis, historians agree that there is degree
of unanimity.
Four methods of historical analysis:

1. the selection of a subject for investigation;

2. the collection of probable sources
of information on that subject;
3. the examination of those sources for
genuineness (either in whole or in part); and,
4. the extraction of credible particulars from
the sources (or parts of sources) proved
genuine.
As regards the sources, where these are
archeological, epigraphical, or numismatical
materials, the historian has to depend largely
on museums.

Where they are official records, the historian

may have to search for them in archives,
courthouses, governmental libraries, etc.
Where they are private papers not available in
official collections, he may have to hunt among
the papers of business houses, the muniment
rooms of ancient castles, the prized possessions
of autograph collectors, the records of parish
churches, etc.
As regards the distinction between primary
and secondary sources, a primary source
is the testimony of an eyewitness, one who
or that which was present at the events of which
he or it tells, while a secondary source is the
testimony of anyone who is not an eyewitness,
one who was not present at the events of which
he tells.
A document may be called “original” (i) because
it contains fresh and creative ideas, (2) because
it is not translated from the language in which it
was first written, (3) because it is in its earliest,
unpolished stage, (4) because its text is the
approved text, unmodified and untampered
with, and (5) because it is the earliest available
source of the information it provides.
Historians loosely use the term “original
sources” in only two senses:

1. to describe a source, unpolished, uncopied,

untranslated, as it issued from the hands of the
authors.

2. a source that gives the earliest available

information regarding the question under
investigation because earlier sources have been
lost.
For historians, primary sources need to be
“original” only in the sense of underived
or first-hand as to their testimony.

Originality matters to a historian in so far as

such originality may aid him to determine its
author and therefore whether it is primary or,
if secondary, from what more independent
testimony it is derived.
As regards primary particulars and whole
primary sources, the historian is less concerned
with a source as a whole than with the
particular data within that source.

Sources, in other words, whether primary

or secondary, are important to the historian
because they contain primary particulars
(or at least suggest leads to primary particulars).
Gottschalk (1969) clarified that the particulars
that primary and secondary sources 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 those particulars.
As regard the document, it is sometimes used
to mean a written source of historical
information as contrasted with oral testimony
or with artifacts, pictorial survivals,
and archeological remains.

Document is sometimes reserved for only

official and State papers such as treaties, laws,
grants, deeds, etc.
Documentation, as used by the historian among
others, signifies any process of proof based
upon any kind of source whether written, oral,
pictorial, or archeological.

Document is synonymous with source,

whether written or not, official or not, primary
or not.
According to sociologist Herbert Blumer (1939),
the human document is “an account
of individual experience which reveals
the individual’s actions as a human agent
and as a participant.”

Human document emphasizes “experience . . .

in social life.”
According to psychologist Gordon W. Alport,
the personal document is “any self-revealing
record that intentionally or unintentionally
yields Information regarding the structure,
dynamics and functioning of the author’s mental
life.”

Personal document emphasizes “the author’s

mental life.”
To the historian, the term personal document is
synonymous and interchangeable with the term
human document.

To the historian, they appear tautalogous.

All documents are both human and personal,

since they are the work of human beings
and shed light upon the subjects the authors
were trying to expound.
 2. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT
TO USE RELIABLE SOURCES
IN UNDERSTANDING HISTORY?
In From Reliable Sources (2001: 2),
Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier argued,
“The historian’s basic task is to choose reliable
sources, to read them reliably, and to put them
together in ways that provide reliable narratives
about the past.”
“Sources are thus those materials from which
historians construct meanings. Put another way,
a source is an object from the past or testimony
concerning the past on which historians
depend in order to create their own depiction
of that past. A historical work or interpretation
is thus the result of this depiction
(Howell and Prevenier, 2001: 19).”
Howell and Preventer (2001) warned that no
source, and no interpretation of it, is perfectly
reliable, if by that one means that it provides
certain knowledge about the past.
Sources are artifacts that have been left
by the past. They exist either as relics,
or as the testimonies of witnesses to the past.

Relics or remains offer the researcher a clue

about the past simply by virtue of their
existence.

Testimonies are the oral or written reports

that describe an event.
Testimonies and artifacts, whether oral
or written, may have been intentionally created,
perhaps to serve as records, or they might have
been created for some other purpose entirely.
Historians must always consider the conditions
under which a source was produced—
the intentions that motivated it—but they must
not assume that such knowledge tells them
all they need to know about its “reliability.”
Howell and Preventer (2001) reminded that
historians must consider the historical context
in which it was produced—the events that
preceded it, and those that followed,
for the significance of any event recorded
depends as much on what comes after
as it does on what comes before.
The archive is often considered the historian’s
principal source of information.

In the most general sense, an archive is the

collection of documents held by a natural
or a legal person, and possibly also the copies
of documents sent by these bodies to others.

In a more technical sense, the term “archive”

means the place or the institution itself
that holds and manages the collection.
Sources of other kinds, most of them unwritten,
are typically held in other depositories.

Museums, for example, are the usual

repositories for archaeological finds, artworks,
and similar objects; libraries often house
coin and medal collections; film and record
libraries have been established for special
collections.
 3. HOW SHOULD SOURCES
BE CHOSEN AND INTERPRETED?
Howell and Preventer (2001: 43) pointed out
that in order for a source to be used as evidence
in a historical argument, certain basic matters
about its form and content must be settled.
First, it must be (or must be made)
comprehensible at the most basic level
of language, handwriting, and vocabulary.
Second, the source must be carefully located
in place and time: when was it composed,
where, in what country or city, in what social
setting, by which individual?

Third, the source must be checked for

authenticity. Is it what it purports to be.
Although historians make choices among the
materials left by the past, treating one object
or text as a source and rejecting another
or relegating it to secondary status in the
hierarchy of evidence, they must choose
from what is available.
Historians must thus consider the ways
a given source was created, why and how
it was preserved, and why it has been
stored in an archive, museum, library,
or any such research site.
Herodotus and Thucydides, for example,
each of whom provided accounts of events
in their own days, can be considered both
historians of their ages—creators of historical
interpretations—and authors of sources
in that they provide modern-day historians
evidence both about these events and about
the intellectual culture of the ages in which
they wrote.
 4. DOES OBJECTIVITY MATTER
IN UNDERSTANDING HISTORY?
As regards the problem of objectivity, many
historians would concede that “objectivity”
is not possible, but they would insist that
historical study can, nevertheless, yield useful
knowledge (Howell and Preventer, 2001: 148) .
Howell and Preventer (2001: 148) concluded that
a good historian not only never can but never
should achieve the perfectly indifferent stance
implied by the word “objectivity.”

Historians choose historical topics out of interest.

They pursue stories deep into archives because
they are fascinated by the event or the people
being studied. They privilege some facts over
others because they care.
For Howell and Preventer (2001: 148),
history is more art than science,
more an act of interpretation than a discovery.

They suggested, “The trick, then, is to construct

our interpretations responsibly, with care,
and with a high degree of self-consciousness
about our disabilities and the disabilities
of our sources.”
First, historians must analyze and read their
documents meticulously, learning to recognize
the kinds of knowledge they produce,
learning to see their limits, learning to exploit
their possibilities and make use of their biases.

Second, historians must learn to recognize

that they can read sources only from the
standpoint of their position, a position
that is determined as much by individual
attributes as it is by more structural factors.
Since historians can read sources only from the
standpoint of their position, a position
determined by as much by individual as it is by
more structural structures, historians must at
least acknowledge their biases, prejudices,
ideological position, and write histories
that self-consciously display those
limitations to their readers by making them see
how they see as well as what they see (Howell
and Prevenier, 2001: 148).
Howell and Preventer (2001: 140) conceded,
“any reality that lay behind the sources is,
finally, inaccessible to us, no matter how skilled
we are—and that we have to settle for studying
the reality that sources construct rather than
‘reality’ itself.”
 5. MUST WE BE OBJECTIVE ABOUT
OUR INTERPRETATIONS OF THE PAST?
In A Past Revisited (1975: 1), Renato Constantino
called out as apocryphal the foreign sources
which used to be the staple of history books
on Philippine history.

He criticized the sources for their doubtful

authenticity, although widely circulated as being
true.
Constantino (1975: 1) lamented that Filipino
historians were captives of Spanish and
American historiography, both of which
inevitably viewed Philippine history through the
prism of their own prejudices.
For Constantino (1975), the task at hand is to
advance to the writing of a truly Filipino history,
the history of the Filipino people.

He argued that it is only within the context of a

people’s history that individuals, events and
institutions can be correctly appraised.
Constantino (1975: 7) emphasized, “The need
for a real people’s history becomes more urgent
a we Filipinos search for a truly Filipino
solutions to Filipino problems.”

He pointed out the defect in “objective” history

that appears as a segmented documentation
of events that occurred in the past, without any
unifying thread, without continuity save that
of chronology, without clear interaction
with the present.
For Constantino (1975: 7), “A people’s history
must rediscover the past in order to make it
reusable.”

He argued that the task of a historian is to

weave particular events into a total view that
can be analyzed to serve as a guide to the
present and succeeding generations.
Constantino (1975) underscored that history
must deal not only with objective developments
but also bring the discussion to the realm of
value judgments.

A people’s history must serve the people’s

aspirations that will give us the proper
perspective that will enable us to formulate the
correct policies for the future.
Constantino (1975) recommended that
historians must deal with the past with a view
to explaining the present.

History must not only be descriptive but also

analytical, one that unifies past with present
experience.
Constantino (1975) concluded, “The only way a
history of the Philippines can be Filipino is to
write on the basis of the struggles of the people.
For in these struggles the Filipino emerges. . . .
Filipino resistance to colonial oppression is the
unifying thread of Philippine history.”
Constantino (1975) made the call to action
to rewrite Philippine history from the point
of view of the Filipino.

Philippine historians must revisit the Philippine

past to eliminate the distortions imposed by
colonial scholarship and to redress the
imbalance inherent in conventional
historiography by projecting the role of the
people.
 REFERENCES
Constantino, Renato. 1974. Towards a People's
History (An Introduction), A Past Revisited, 1-9.

Herbert Blumer. 1939. “An Appraisal of Thomas

and Znaniecki’s ‘The Polish Peasant in Europe
and America’.” Critiques of Research in the Social
Sciences 1, 29.
Gordon W. Allport. 1941. The Use of Personal
Documents in Psychological Science. New York,
Social Science Research Council, xii.

Gottschalk, Louis. 1969. Understanding History:

A Primer of Historical Method, 2nd edition, 41-
61.
Howell, Martha and Prevenier, Walter. 2001.
From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to
Historical Methods, 17-42.

Seignobos, Charles. 1901. Méthode historique

appliquée aux Sciences sociales, 3.