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ITS ALL ABOUT THE EVIDENCE…

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“The facts are like fish swimming a vast and murky ocean, and what the historian catches will depend partly on chance but mainly on what part of the ocean he chooses to fish in and what bait he chooses – these 2 facts of course being determined by the type of fish he wants to catch. By and large the historian will get the facts he wants.”

E.H.Carr

Where do we get the vast majority of sources about what is going on in the world?

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“the best journalism is the first draft of history” John Pilger

+So, perhaps the question should be: How truthful is journalism?

This depends on the subject matter, and what is at stake

When it is war (which is what history often deals with) the stakes are very high

Consequently, truth has often been described as ‘the first casualty of war’

+Phillip Knightley

Divided the way truth is manipulated into four stages

+Stage 1:

The reporting of a crisis which negotiations appear unable to resolve

+Stage 2:

The demonisation of the enemy's leader

+Stage 3:

The demonisation of the enemy as individuals

+Stage 4:

Atrocities

Committed by both sides. But the ones by ‘us’ are justified; the ones committed by ‘them’ are immoral and warrant punishment

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What does this tell us about truth in history?

+The three epistemological weaknesses of History.1. The historian’s sources - the raw material.The first thing that makes historical knowledge difficult to acquire is the inadequacy of the raw materials that the historian is forced to work with. Unlike a social scientist who can directly observe participants in a controlled experimental context, our inability to travel through time means that the historian relies on indirect and uncontrollable evidence that the past has left behind.

‘The Memory of the world is not a bright, shining crystal, but a heap of broken fragments, a few fine flashes of light that break through the darkness.’ Herbert Butterfield

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In a book of source skills for students produced in the early 1990s the historian Brian Brivati drew attention to the fact that the invention of the telephone had reduced the tendency for people to write letters. Therefore, he feared that future historians of the 20th century would be denied the rich resource that letter writing provided historians of previous generations. He concluded by hoping the recent invention of the fax machine might do much to reverse the situation.

Will the Internet revolution of the past 20 years make easier or more difficult the job of 22nd century historians of the early 21st century?

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All history can do is interpret; it constructs plausible meanings from the evidence that the past has left behind. What this means in reality is two levels of interpretation. In the first level of interpretation, historians depend entirely on the people who have interpreted the events they have lived through and who have left us a record to consider. The second level of interpretation is of course the interpretation of the past evidence by the historians themselves.

Social psychologists have explained through cognitive dissonance theory that individuals are prone to provide explanations for events that are at odds with their thinking at the time of the event.

How can we know what people in the past thought if we cannot be certain that people in the past knew themselves?

2. The historian’s method- interpretating the evidence

+3. The historian’s product - writing the text.

The final epistemological weakness of history stems from the simple inability to be able to compare like with like. History cannot be compared with the past and cannot be verified against the past, because the past and history are different things. The historical text, the narrative account can never correspond to the past as it was, because unlike history the past was not a text, it was a series of events, experiences, situations etc.

Historians Paradigm – mental model by which we organise our reasoning and classify our knowledge

‘We won’t understand a thing about human life if we persist in avoiding the most obvious fact: that a reality no longer is what it was; it cannot be reconstructed.’ Milan Kundera

The correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world, and whether it accurately describes (i.e., corresponds with) the world

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‘In battling against people who would subject historical studies to the dictates of literary critics we historians are, in a way fighting for our lives. Certainly, we are fighting for the lives of innocent young people beset by devilish tempters who claim to offer higher forms of thought and deeper truths and insights – the intellectual equivalent of crack’.

English historian Sir Geoffrey Elton. quoted in Richard J Evans – In Defence of History Granta Books (1997) p.7

One of criticisms levelled at post-modernism ( 21st century thinking) is that of ‘relativism’; that in the absence of absolute certainty, ‘anything goes’. How would you reassure Sir Geoffrey Elton that despite history’s epistemological weaknesses, history can be done and should be done by historians still using more-or-less the same methods as they have always used?

History as a way of knowing, not an area of knowledge We should see history as a process rather than a body of knowledge, as a way of knowing rather than an area of knowledge. Carr helps us to understand this, when he says that it is the job of the historian to be involved in a constant dialogue with the evidence. Truth may ultimately be an impossible goal, but by combining our efforts with others, we will travel further along the path towards it. History is therefore provisional, and remains so until the next layer of interpretation is applied to it.

Dunn, Michael. Can we say anything for sure in history? (10th May 2013). theoryofknowledge.net. http://www.theoryofknowledge.net/areas-of-knowledge/history/can-we-say-anything-for-sure-in-history/

Carr - the historian should serve the evidence, rather than the evidence the historian, evidence was like a bag: without anything in it, it lies flat on the floor. It is only by filling it with things do we make it stand upright.

The historian’s empirical knowledge is what makes the evidence stand upright.

+Can we say anything for sure in history? Can we access the truth about what happened in the past? We have to be careful here. It is too easy to give up, and answer ‘no’ to that question, taking a relativist position, and arguing that we will always be viewing history through our own eyes. It’s easy to say, in the best tradition of Nietzsche, that there is no truth. Carr ; Objectivity in history occurs when the historian has a capacity to rise above the limited vision of his own situation in society and history [and] project his vision into the future in such a way as to give him a more profound and more lasting insight into the past than can be attained by those historians whose outlook is entirely bounded by their own immediate situation.

• Look at History on its own terms not through the lens of the present ( which places a value judgment on it)

• Aim for objectivity

Dunn, Michael. Can we say anything for sure in history? (10th May 2013). theoryofknowledge.net. http://www.theoryofknowledge.net/areas-of-knowledge/history/can-we-say-anything-for-sure-in-history/

+HISTORY AND THE WAYS OF KNOWING

+ Thoughts on History

1. Read through the quotes on history on the theoryofknowledge.net website.

2. Pick out 2 or 3 quotes that you think best define the nature and purpose of history.

3. Based on the quotes:

Which other AOKs do you think resemble history in terms of the nature of knowledge they represent?

Which ways of knowing function as the key means of acquiring knowledge in history?

Which WOKs and AOKs does history seem to clash with?

Which quotes do you find surprising, or do you disagree strongly with?

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“The knowledge that we value the most is the knowledge for which we can provide the strongest justifications.” To what extent would you agree with this claim?

“We see and understand things not as they are but as we are.” Discuss this claim in relation to at least two ways of knowing.

As an IB student, how has your learning of literature and science contributed to your understanding of individuals and societies?