There are three distinct
epistemological problems that relate to each of three stages
inherent in the study of history: the weaknesses of the raw
material (sources), the process of historical research (method)
and the textual presentation (product).
Epistemological problem 2 -The
historian’s method - interpreting the evidence
One of the key features of the
scientific method depends on an ability to test theories by
predictive experimentation. We can examine the importance of
light as a cause of plant growth by examining parallel plants,
one in the light and one in the dark. But history lacks this
ability to control the variables so essential to the scientific
method. We cannot stop the car from making a wrong turning on
the 28th June 1914 to see if the First World War
would have happened without the assassination of Franz
Ferdinand.
‘I am beginning to believe
that nothing can ever be proved... slow, lazy, sulky, the facts
adapt themselves at a pinch to the order I wish to give them’.
Antoine Roquetin the historian in
Jean-Paul Sartre’s
Nausea
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 process of making sense of
the world, of committing thoughts to paper or a photograph to
posterity is itself an interpretation.
TOK
Prescribed Essay Title
When
mathematicians, historians and scientists
say that they have explained something, are
they using the word 'explain' in the same
way?
November 2007 - May 2007
One of the best
illustrations of this first level of interpretation is made by
E.H. Carr in the classic introduction to the philosophy of
history: What is History? Carr describes the archive of
‘primary documents’ left by the Weimar Germany’s Foreign
Minister Gustav Stresemann and the hundreds of diplomatic
conversations he conducted. What do the documents tell us, asks
Carr?
‘They depict Stresemann as
having the lion’s share of the conversations and reveal his
arguments as invariably well put and cogent, while those of his
partner are for the most part scanty, confused and unconvincing.
This is a familiar characteristic of all diplomatic
conversations. The documents do not tell us what happened, but
only what Stresemann thought had happened, or what he wanted
others to think, or perhaps what he wanted himself to think,
had happened.’ More
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Social psychologists have
explained through
cognitive dissonance
theorythat
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?
How can we
trust the eyes and ears of those who lack the detachment and
objectivity that can only come with the passage of time and cool
reflective hindsight?
A classical example
of this idea (and the origin of the expression "sour
grapes") is expressed in the fable The Fox and the
Grapes by Aesop (ca. 620–564 BCE). In the story, a fox
sees some high-hanging grapes and wishes to eat them.
When the fox is unable to think of a way to reach them,
he surmises that the grapes are probably not worth
eating, as they must not be ripe or that they are sour.
The second level of
interpretation is of course the interpretation of the past
evidence by the historians themselves. The historian gives the
past meaning that the past itself cannot have had for those who
lived through it. As Sir Herbert Butterfield once put it, the
role of the historian is to understand the people of the past
‘better than they understood themselves’. Historians
look back on the past seeing connections between events, the
significance, and the patterns of cause and effect that were
impossible for those living through the events to see for
themselves. As Margaret MacMillan has recently argued ‘The idea
that those who actually took part in great events or lived
through particular times have a superior understanding to those
who came later is a deeply held yet wrong-headed one.’
Nobody in 1917 could know how significant the Bolshevik
Revolution was. Few expected Lenin’s party to hold on to power
for long and had the Bolsheviks lost the Civil War then the
relative significance of the Revolution would have been
different to what it became at the height of the Cold War in the
1950s. And now 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the study
of 1917 no longer seems to have the same urgency it once did,
with the study of the history of China and the Middle East now
seeming much more pertinent
This is one of those odd features of
history that people often struggle to understand, that history
continues to change and evolve even though it’s the same old
past that is being described.
Each generation writes its own
history of the French Revolution or of the First World War, why
is this? Part of the explanation for the continual need to
produce new histories of old subjects is to be found in the
uncovering of new evidence in the archives. For example, the
periodic declassification of once secret government documents
provides a regular supply of new materials that inevitably
changes our earlier perspectives. But a much more profound
explanation for our need for new histories is to be found in the
Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce’s famous observation that
‘All history is contemporary history’. History is made by historians
and what they write will therefore reflect both their
personality and more importantly the times they are living in.
Take this extract from the Oxford historian A L Rowse’s
introductory text The Use of Historypublished in 1927
where he considers the role of history in the school curriculum:
AL Rowse on the
purpose of school history
'I think the royal road to
appealing to the interest of the schoolboy...is the
biographical: lives of great men, especially men of action, like
the great English seamen or soldiers and adventurers and their
exciting stories...Schoolboys respond immediately to the appeal
of patriotism, to the spirit of self-devotion in such lives as
Wolfe, Sir John Moore, Nelson, Livingstone, General Gordon,
Scott of the Antarctic, Lawrence of Arabia. They feel the thrill
of achievement in such careers as Clive’s or Drake’s or
Rhodes...'
TOK
Prescribed Essay Title
“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.
November 2009 - May 2010
School history as patriotic storytelling of the lives of great
white English, empire building men seems strangely archaic
today. But it is his appeal to the schoolboy and not girl that does most to date Rowse to
the early 20th century. Is he deliberately excluding
girls in his choice of the word schoolboy? On the role of
science in school he is unambiguous: ‘...I deeply doubt whether
physics and chemistry have any educational value in girls’
schools at all. I should have thought that in these their place
might be more profitably taken, for obvious reasons, by biology,
hygiene and natural history – sciences of life rather than of
matter.’
What is ‘obvious’ - that which needs no explanation - are the
unconscious, hidden assumptions that makes Rowse a man of his
age, nationality and social class. History changed in the 20th
century because historians stopped being exclusively men like
Rouse. The success of socialism, feminism and decolonisation in
the 20th century, broadened social and educational
opportunities, so that history today reflects the wider agenda of
those the 20th century emancipated and empowered.
During the 20th century history became concerned with
the working classes, women and ethnic minorities; groups that
had literally been hidden from history and neglected to exist
only in the past.
Women’s’ History Month has taken place in March every
year since its foundation in the 1970s, timed to
correspond with International Women’s Day on the 8th
of March. It is an event that highlights contributions
of women to events in history and contemporary society.
TOK
Prescribed Essay Title
“History is
always on the move, slowly eroding today’s
orthodoxy and making space for yesterday’s
heresy.” Discuss the extent to which this
claim applies to history and at least one
other area of knowledge.
Nov 2007 - May 2008
In
conclusion, the
epistemological problem is profound. Knowledge of the past is
never fixed and always mediated though two levels of
interpretation. History is never complete; it is always a work
in progress
Student activity – Writing your own ‘histories’.
For homework each member of your class should
produce their own individual history of today.
Other than a word limit, of say 500 words, no
other requirements should be specified. When
completed you should compare and contrast your
‘history’ with the work of other students. In
your analysis consider both the form and content
of the ‘histories’ produced.
Form - How many of the ‘histories’ were written
accounts? How many used approximately 500 words?
How many were chronological? How were sentences
and paragraphs structured? Was there an
introduction and conclusion?
Content - How many were just descriptive? How
many students included how they felt? How many
included opinions and judgements? How many
included supporting factual evidence? How many
included a description of today’s history
lesson? How many included events outside their
personal experience e.g. international events?
• Why were there so many accounts similar in
both form and content?
• How and why did the accounts differ?
• Why did the history lesson feature in so many
of the ‘histories’?
• What problems would you face if you tried to
write a history of the same day a year earlier?
• Were any of the ‘histories’ more truthful than
others?
• Were any of the ‘histories’ better than the
others?
