Introduction to History

Definition, Issues, Sources

and methodology
Lesson 1

 introduces history as a discipline and as a

narrative. It discusses the limitation of
historical knowledge, history as the subjective
process of re-creation and historical method
and historiography.
The Meaning of History
 Historyis derived from the Greek word historia
which means learning by inquiry.
 The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, looked upon history
as the systematic accounting of a set of natural
phenomena, that is, taking into consideration the
chronological arrangement of the account.
 This explained that knowledge is derived through
conducting a process of scientific investigation of
past events.
 The word History is referred usually for accounts of phenomena, especially human
affairs in chronological order.
 These are theories constructed by historians in investigating history: the factual
history and the speculative history.
 Factual history presents readers the plain and basic information vis-à-vis the
events that took place (what), the time and date with which the events happened
(when), the place with which the events took place and the people that were
involved (who)
 Speculative history on the other hand, goes beyond
facts because it is concerned about the reasons for
which events happened (why), and the way they
happened (how). "It tries to speculate on the cause
and effect of an event." (Cantal, Cardinal, Espino &
Galindo, 2014)
 Historydeals with the study of past events.
Individuals who write about history are called
historians.
 They
seek to understand the present by
examining what went before.
 They undertake arduous historical research to
come up with a meaningful and organized
rebuilding of the past.
But whose past are we talking about?
 This is the basic questions that the historian needs to answer
because this sets the purpose and framework of a historical
account. Hence, a salient feature of historical writing is the
facility to give meaning and impact value to the group of
people about their past.
 The practice of historical writing is called historiography, 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.
THE LIMITATION OF HISTORICAL
KNOWLEDGE

 The incompleteness of record 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.

Historians study the records or evidences that
survived the time. They tell history from what they
understood a credible part of the record.
 However, their claims many remains variable
as there can be historical records that could
be discovered, which may affirm on refute
those that they have already presented. This
explains the “incompleteness” of the “object”
that the historians study.
HISTORICAL AS THE SUBJECTIVE PROCESS
OF RE-CREATION

 From the incomplete evidence, historians strive to restore the

total part of mankind. They do it from the point of view that
human beings live in different times and that their experiences
maybe somehow comparable, or that their experiences may
have significantly differed contingent on the place and time.
 For the historians, history becomes only that part of the human
past which can be meaningfully reconstructed from the
available records and from inference regarding their setting.
 In short, historian’s aim is verisimilitude (the truth, authenticity,
plausibility) about a past. Unlike the study of the natural science
that has objectively measurable phenomena, the study of
history is subjective process as documents and relics are
scattered and do not together comprise the total object that the
historian is studying.
 Some of the natural scientists, such as geologists and paleo-
zoologists who study fossils from the traces of a perished past,
greatly resemble historians in this regard, but they differ at
certain points since historians deal with human testimonies as
well as physical traces.
HISTORICAL METHOD AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

 The process of critically examining and analyzing the records

and survivals of the past is called historical method.
 The imaginative reconstruction of the past form the data
derived historiography. By means of historical and
historiography (both of which are frequently grouped together
simply as historical method), he historian endeavors to
reconstruct as much of the past of mankind as he/she can.
 Even in this limited effort, however, the historian
handicapped.
 He/she rarely can tell the story even of a part
of the past as it occurred. For the past
conceived of as something “actually occurred”
places obvious limits upon the kinds of record
and of imagination that the historians may use.
These limits distinguish history from fiction,
poetry, drama and fantasy
 Historical analysis is also an important element of historical
method. In historical analysis, historians:
(1) select the subject to investigate;
(2) collect the probable sources of information on the subject;
(3) examine the sources of genuineness, in part of in whole; and
(4) extract credible “particulars” from the sources (or parts of
sources).
The synthesis of the “particulars” thus derived is historiography.
 The synthesis of the “particulars” thus derived is
historiography.
 Synthesis and analysis cannot be entirely separated
since they have a common ground, which is the
ability to understand the past through some
meaningful, evocative and convincing historical or
cross-disciplinary connections between a given
historical issue and other historical contexts, periods,
or themes.