The Meaning of History - 0

“The more you know about the
past, the better prepared you are

for the future.”
- Theodore Roosevelt
Lesson 1
The Meaning of History
HISTORY: DEFINED
History: Greek word “historia” – learning by inquiry
According to Aristotle, history – systematic accounting of a set of
natural phenomena, that is taking into consideration the chronological
arrangement of account.
Knowledge is derived through conducting a process of scientific
investigation of past events.
History: study of past events
Two theories in Investigating History
1. Factual History: presents readers the plain and basic
information.
- WHAT: the events that took place
- WHEN: the time and date with which the events happened
- WHERE: the place with which the events took place
- WHO: people that were involved.
Two theories in Investigating History
2. Speculative History: goes beyond facts because it 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)
HISTORIANS
• Historians: individuals who write about history
• 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.
WHOSE PAST ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
• This is the basic question that the historian needs to answer because this sets the purpose and
framework of a historical account.
• Salient Feature of historical writing: facility to give meaning and impact value to a group of people
about their past.
HISTORIOGRAPHY
• The practice of historical writing

• 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.
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
• Incompleteness of records
• Most human affairs happen without leaving any
evidence or records, no artifacts
The whole history of the past (History –as- actuality):
can be known to a historian only through the surviving
records (History-as- record).
The Limitation of Historical Knowledge
• Historians study the records or evidences that survived the time.

• They tell history from what they understood as a credible part of
the record.
• However, their claims may remain variable as there can be
historical records that could be discovered which may affirm or
refute those they have already presented.
Historical as the Subjective Process of
Re-creation
• From the incomplete evidence, historians strive to restore the total past 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
be significantly different 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
inferences regarding their setting.
For example: Tabon Cave
Historical as the Subjective Process of
Re-creation
Historian’s Aim:
VERISIMILITUDE
(The truth, authenticity, plausibility about the past)
The study of history, unlike natural sciences, is a subjective process as
documents and relics are scattered and do not together comprise the total object that
the historian is studying.
Historical Method and Historiography
Historical Method: the process of critically examining and
analyzing the records and survivals of the past.
Historiography: the imaginative reconstruction of the past from
the data derived by that process.
Historical analysis: an important element of historical method.
Historical Analysis
(One of the Elements of Historical Method)
Historians:
1. Select the subject to investigate
2. Collect probable sources of information on the subject.
3. Examine the sources genuineness, in part or in whole
4. Extract credible “particulars” from the sources (or parts of sources)
The synthesis of the particulars thus derived is historiography.

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“The more you know about the

past, the better prepared you are

“It tries to speculate on the cause and effect of an event.” (Cantal,

• The practice of historical writing

• Does not only include examination of documents

• Historians study the records or evidences that survived the time.

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