History

Historia – Greek word

– “knowledge acquire through investigation”
– became known as the account of the past of the
person or of a group of people through written
documents and historical evidence.

“Learning of past mistakes can help people to not repeat them.”

Positivism
- Emerged between eighteenth and nineteenth century.
- Requires empirical and observable evidence.
- Positivist historians are objective and impartial (conduct historical
research).

Example:
Ilustrados like Jose Rizal, Isabelo delos Reyes and Pedro Paterno
wrote history: wherein the Spaniards was made to realized that
Filipinos are people of their own intellect and culture.
Postcolonialism
- Emerged in the early twentieth century
- Idea of creating their identities against the shadow of their colonial
past.
- One of the problems confronted by history is the accusation that the
history is always written by the victors.

“Can you give an example of ideas written in history by

which such ideas create one’s identity?”
Question:
Is history written with agenda or is heavily influenced by historian, or
possible to come up with an historical truth?

- “Facts cannot speak for themselves.”

- Historians are influenced by his own context, environment,
ideology, education, and influences, among others.

Input:
Annales thinkers married history with other discipline like geography,
anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics.
Historical Sources:
Primary Sources are those sources produced at the same time as the event, period, or
subject being studied
Secondary Sources are those sources, which were produced by an author who used
primary sources to produce the material.

Criticism of Historian:
External criticism is the verification of the authenticity of evidence by examining its
physical characteristics, consistency with the historical characteristic of the time
when it was produced, and the materials used for the evidence.

Internal criticism is the examination of the truthfulness of the evidence.