Meaning of History,

Sources of Historical
Data and Historical
Criticism
 Practice of
understanding the past
from lenses of
eyewitness.
Objectives:
￮ At the end of the lesson, students are expected to:

￮ 1. Appreciate the importance of studying History by

employing the Historical Method.
￮ 2. Distinguish between primary and secondary sources in
History.
￮ 3. Evaluate primary sources for their credibility,
authenticity and provenance.

3
HISTORY
 Source:
Video 1
https://www.face
book.com/kaladk
arendavila/videos
/1747737832381
91/
History
￮ The word “history” is derived from the Greek word istoria which means
learning.

￮ As defined by Aristotle, it was a systematic account of a set of natural

phenomena whether non-chronological (not in order) or not.

￮ Eventually, the Latin equivalent scientia was used more regularly to designate
non-chronological systematic accounts of natural phenomena. On the other hand,
the word history itself was now used exclusively to refer to accounts of
phenomena, especially of human affairs, in a chronological order

10
￮ History, which deals with the past, is primarily concerned with the reconstruction of
it.

￮ The complication here is that most events from the past are beyond recall, thus,
historical knowledge is limited due to incomplete records since humans do not
always record what is happening around them.

￮ In history, only a part of what you’ve observed will be remembered. Then, only a part
of what you remember will be recorded. And then only a part of what you’ve
recorded will survive after decades, and lastly, only a part of what survived will the
future historian talk about and some of it may not even be credible.

11
￮ We can say that there is no such thing as a complete
history or history-as-actuality.
￮ There is only a history-as-record since we all based
the past from the surviving records of it.

￮ History then, is only the expressed part (what was

written or said) of what was understood from the
credible part of the sources.

12
￮ There are ￮ A. Factual History
theories
constructed by
historians in
￮ B. Speculative
investigating History
history:

13
Factual History
￮ Events in history that happened with proof of the
event or thing taking place.
￮ This type of history can be backed up by writings
or even footage of the event that took place.

￮ (Answering questions: Who, What, Where, When)

14
Speculative History
￮ A field of historical inquiry that uses counterfactual
speculation of historical events to reflect upon our
present society and the social construct of memory.

￮ It tries to speculate on the cause and effect of an event –

(Cantal,Cardinal et.al.)

(Answering questions: Why, How)

15
Sources of
History
￮ Sources are ￮ Sources are
very items that
important in provide
history information or
proof.

17
￮ Historical Sources are generally divided into two:

￮ the Primary sources and the

Secondary sources.

18
Primary sources
￮ are simply sources that are created
during the time period in study.
￮ Creators of primary sources are
basically those who existed during
the moment of writing or creating.

19
Types of Primary Sources
￮ Documents
￮ Creative Works
￮ Relics or Artifacts

20
Documents
￮ Diaries
￮ Speeches
￮ Manuscripts
￮ Letters
￮ Interview
￮ Film Footage
￮ Autobiography
￮ Official records

21
Creative works
￮ Poetry
￮ Drama
￮ Novels
￮ Music
￮ Art

22
Relics or Artifacts
￮ Pottery
￮ Furniture
￮ Clothing
￮ Buildings

23
Secondary sources
￮ on the other hand, are sources
that are already interpreted
and analyzed data from
primary sources.

24
Secondary sources
￮ Publications:

￮ History textbooks
￮ Journal Articles interpreting previous research
￮ Criticisms
￮ Commentaries
￮ Annotations
￮ Encyclopedias

25
Historical
criticism.
26
￮ Before a source can be used for history,
matters about its form (where it is
written) and content (what is written)
must be settled first. There are two kinds
of historical criticism.
￮ EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL CRITICISM

27
External criticism
￮ these deals with the form and asks “Is this authentic?”
￮ Is the document forged? Fake? Fabricated?

￮ In order to determine a documents authenticity, the following are analyzed:

￮ A. Date
￮ B. Author’s handwriting, signature, and seal
￮ C. Inconsistencies in writing style
￮ D. Inconsistencies in reference to events
￮ E. Origin of the document
￮ F. Semantics
￮ G. Clearness in meaning

28
￮ Some examples of external criticism are the
following:
￮ 1. Identifying whether the paper used in a
document made in the 19th century has aged
according to the time period.
￮ 2. Identifying the origins of a historical artifact.
￮ 3. Identifying the previous owners of a historical
painting.

29
Internal criticism
￮ these deals with the content and asks “Is this credible? “Is what’s written credible?
Truthful?
￮ In order to determine a documents credibility, the following are analyzed:
￮ A. Identifying the author (what are his attitudes? Is he reliable? His mental
process?)
￮ B. The author’s willingness and ability to tell the truth (How near is he to the event?
Is he a competent witness? How’s his/her degree of attention? Is he/she telling
falsehoods consciously or not?
￮ C. Corroboration of historical facts (Let’s read the other accounts about the event.
Are they the same? What are the differences and similarities?

30
￮ Some examples of internal criticism are the following:
￮ 1. Understanding how an author’s background may have
affected his perspective towards an event he/she is writing about.
￮ 2. Comparing the information found in a historical document
with other pieces of evidence to see if the facts are substantiated.
￮ 3. Knowing an author’s reason or motivation for writing an
account about a particular event.

31
 ￮ Analyzing historical events
should be viewed from the
lenses of eyewitnesses and
“ sources of these event
should be critically
evaluated to prevent
people from being misled
away from the truth.
￮  
￮  
32

￮
“ ￮“History
repeat
itself”
33
 ￮ “Those who does not
“ learned from History
are bound to repeat
the same mistake”

34