What is history and

how it is written?
 History relies on
evidence which is the
backbone upon which
history stands.
 History rests on diligent research and by
careful inquiry, historians could reconstruct
the past and write them down in some
form, so that we today can read their
accounts, and at least know how these
events appeared to men of the time (David
Barrows, 1905).
 Learning objectives:
After reading the text, student will be able
to:
1. Define history, historiography, historical
method, subjectivity, objectivity, primary
sources, secondary sources, as well as
personal and human document;
2. Discuss why the reconstruction of the
total past is unattainable and that history is
a subjective process of re-creation of the
historian;
3. Determine the implications of historical
knowledge being limited by the
incompleteness of the records;
1. What are the various
meanings of history?
HISTORY
- “the past of mankind” which
derived from two German words
geschehen, meaning to happen
and geschichte is that which
has happened.
HISTORY
- The reconstruction of the
total past is unattainable.
WHAT IS THE FILIPINO
TERM OF HISTORY?
KASAYSAYAN
 Ang salitang kasaysayan o
history sa salitang Ingles ay
nagsimula sa salitang Greek na
historia na nangangahulugang
“impormasyon mula sa
pagsasaliksik.”
 Sinasabing ginamit ito ni
Herodotus, isang Griyego na
sumulat ng kasaysayan ng
isa sa mahabang digmaan na
naganap sa isang daigdig.
Tinagurian siyang “ama ng
kasaysayan” dahil sa
kanyang pagtala sa
kasaysayan ng digmaan na
naganap noon sa Greece.
Mula sa salitang
“saysay” at
“salaysay”
 2. Why is the
reconstruction of
the total past is
unattainable?
Because human
mind is limited
3. How do objectivity
and subjectivity
occur in historical
writing?
 - to be studied objectively (that
is, with the intention of acquiring
detached and truthful
knowledge independent of one’s
personal reactions), a thing must
be first be an object; It must
have an independent existence
outside the human mind.
While being subjective in a historical
writing sometimes occurs when facts
of history are derived from testimony
and therefore are facts of meaning.
They cannot be seen, felt, tasted,
heard, or smelled. They may be said
to be symbolic or representative of
something,
 that was once real, but they
have no objective reality of
their own. In other words,
they exist only in the
observer’s or historian’s mind
(and thus may be called
“subjective”).
4. What is the value of
placing human setting
or historical context in
describing and
interpreting artifacts?
 - historical truths can be
derived immediately from
such materials
(explaining why and how
things happened and were
interrelated)
5. What are the implications
of historical knowledge
being limited by the
incompleteness of the
records or markedly variable
as records are lost or
rediscovered?
- The whole history of the past (what
has been called history-as-actuality)
can be known to him only through
the surviving part of the record of it
(history-as-record), and most of
history-as-record is only the surviving
part of the recorded part of the
remembered part of the observed
past of that whole.
 Even when the record of the past is
derived directly from archaeological or
anthropological remains, they are yet
only the scholar’s selected parts of the
discovered parts of the chance survivals
from the total past.
- 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.
6. Why is history considered
a subjective process of re-
creation of the historian?
Why is history not
considered a fiction, poetry,
drama, and fantasy?
 - Historian must do what he can to
restore the total past of mankind. He
has no way of doing it but in terms
of his own experience.
That experience was taught him
(1)That yesterday was different from
today in some ways as well as the
same as today in others;
(2) that his own experience is both
like and unlike other men’s.
- Simply because it is based on truth
or facts
 7. What distinguishes
historiography from
historical method? Why is it
that a historian who knows
contemporary life best
understands past life best?
*Historical method – the process of
critically examining and analysing
the records and survivals of the past
*Historiography - the imaginative
reconstruction of the past from the
data derived by the process (the
writing of history).
- Simply because we have the
means and new ways to examine
the past.
 8. When did historical
method start? What are the
processes involved in
performing historical
analysis?
 - for over two thousand years the
historical method has been started
- Thucydides, wrote his famous
history of Peloponesian War,
conscientiously told his readers how
he gathered his materials and what
tests he used to separate truth from
fiction.
- He invented speeches to put into
the mouth of contemporaries, he
tried to make them as like the
originals as his sources of
knowledge permitted.
- Many historians have written,
briefly or at length, upon historical
method.
 Like Lucian, Ibn
Khaldun, Bodin, Mably,
Voltaire, and Ranke.
PROCESSES INVOLVED IN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS
For our purposes these methods will be considered
under four headings:
(1) the selection of a subject for investing ation ;
(2) collection of probable sources of information of
the subject;
(3) the examination of those sources for
genuineness (either in full or in part);
(4) The extraction of credible particulars from
sources (or parts of sources) proved genuine.
9. What is the difference
between primary and
secondary sources?
When is a document
considered “original”?
*Primary source - the testimony
of eyewitness, or of a witness by
any other senses, or of a
mechanical device like
 *Dictaphone – that is,
of one who or that
which was present at
the
events of which he or it
tells (hereafter called
simply eyewitness).
*A secondary source - testimony
of anyone who is not an
eyewitness – that is, of one who
was not present at the events of
which he tells.
“Original” is a word of so many different
meanings. A document may be called
“original”
(1)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 earliest, unpolished
stage
(4)because its text is the approved test,
unmodified and untampered
with, and
(5) Because it is the earliest
available source of the
information it provides
On the other hand, “Original sources”
means
(1)To describe a source, unpolished,
uncopied, untranslated, as it is issued
from the hands of the authors;
(2)A source that gives the earliest
available information (i.e. the origin)
regarding the question under
investigation because earlier sources
have been lost.
10. What is the meaning of a
document? Is there any
difference between personal
document from human
document?
 - the word document
(from docere, to teach)
has also been used by
historians in several
senses.
 *Document – any process of proof
based upon any kind of source
whether written, oral, pictorial, or
archaeological. Thus, document
becomes synonymous with source,
whether written or not, official or
not, primary or not.
*Human document – is “an account of
individual experience which reveals
the individual’s actions as a human
agent and as a participant in social
life.”
*Personal document – has been
defined as “any self-revealing record
that intentionally or unintentionally
yields information regarding
HUMAN OR PERSONAL?
LETTERS?
EMAILS?
DIARIES?
PHOTOGRAPHS?
DAILY PLANNERS?
 HUMAN OR PERSONAL?
COURT CASES?
LEGISLATIVE DOCUMENTS?
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES?
AUTOBIOGRAPHY?
 The structure, dynamics and functioning
of the author’s mental life.”
However, the term personal document is
to the historian synonymous with the
term human document. All documents are
both human and personal, since they are
the work of human beings and shed light
upon their authors as well as upon the
subjects the authors were trying to
expound.
 The structure, dynamics and functioning
of the author’s mental life.”
However, the term personal document is
to the historian synonymous with the
term human document. All documents are
both human and personal, since they are
the work of human beings and shed light
upon their authors as well as upon the
subjects the authors were trying to
expound.
 ISSUES
FOR
DISCOURSE
1. Do you agree or disagree with this
statement: “The word for “history” in
Tagalog does not refer to knowledge, to the
search for information or to what happened
in the past. The Kasaysayan comes from
saysay which means both “to relate in detail,
to explain,” and “value, worth, significance.”
In one sense, therefore, kasaysayan is “story”
(like German Geschichte or another Tagalog
term, salaysay, which is probably simply an
extended form of saysay). But kasaysayan is
also “explanation,” “significance.” or
“relevance”(may saysay “significant,
relevant; ”
walang saysay or walang kasaysayan
“irrelevant; senseless”). What was
then important to us was the story
and its significance” – Zeus A.
Salazar.
2. Explain the following statements:
a. “A version of the past that cannot
be supported by evidence is
worthless.”
– Conal Furay
b. “There can be history only when
there is change”
3. Prove this statement:
“History is not the lifeless study of a dead
past; it is not about the memorization of
dates, names, and places. History is a living
and evolving dialogue about the most
important subject of all – the human
experience. And all of us are capable in
taking part in that dialogue.” – Conal Furay
 4. George Santayana once said,
“A country without a memory is a country of
madmen.” Is this statement synonymous with
the statement, what we are is the product of
what we have been? Is this what Dr. Jose
Rizal also mean with his popular Tagalog
proved, “Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa
pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa
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Thank you 