Chapter 3 History

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Chapter 3 History
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Lesson 1 Introduction History as a Puzzle
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Questions for Discussion

• Why do you know what the image on your puzzle is?
  
• Does it matter if all of the pieces are there or
  not? Why or why not?
• Will historians ever have all the pieces to the
  puzzles in history of, for example, the 14th
  century? How can they claim they know anything
  about the 14th century?

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Questions for Discussion (contd.)

• You most likely talked with your classmates when
  deciding how certain pieces of the puzzle fit
  together. If you agreed on an interpretation, you
  reached a consensus. How do you think consensus
  might work for real historians (just take a
  guess, consensus will be examined in more detail
  later in the chapter)?
• How did the scientific (or hypothetical) method
  work when you were doing the puzzle (hint did
  you make and test any hypothesis regarding what
  the image was or where the pieces fit in)?

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Lesson 2 Science and Historical Knowledge
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Homo floresiensis and knowledge about its
classification

• Homo floresiensis fossils of human-like
  creatures found on the Indonesian island of
  Flores in the Liang Bua Cave in 2004
• One metre high
• Had a brain about the size of a modern chimpanzee
  
• Had intelligence and it lived in a community

Skull of Homo floresiensis (left) next to a
modern human skull.
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Was it another human species?

• If it was, the history of the evolution of the
  human species will have to be rewritten
• It has been believed and taught, that Homo
  sapiens were the only human species on the planet
  from the time that the Neanderthal became extinct
  
• However The fossil of Homo floresiensis is only
  18,000 years old, this means it lived many
  millennia after anything like it was supposed to
  exist

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Or just a regular human being with Microcephaly
?

• Microcephaly is a rare disease in which the
  person inflicted has an abnormally small head,
  and therefore also a small brain
• This often leads to dwarfism
• Dan Lieberman and others (2005) says it is a
  human with Microcephaly
• Dean Falk and others (2005) says it is not

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Why is this important?

• Scientists from around the world are studying the
  fossil remains of Homo floresiensis and coming to
  conclusions about human history
• They are studying the same fossils, using the
  same scientific method, but they are coming to
  totally different conclusions
• Both sides claim to have knowledge about what
  they claim
• But their claims contradict one another
• Whom should we believe?

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Historical documents and archaeological artefacts
are silent

• This example of Homo floresiensis illustrates the
  importance of interpretation in making historical
  knowledge claims
• Documents, artifacts, and remains like fossils
  say nothing themselves
• Whatever it is artefacts and documents mean, it
  is we that say they mean it.
• We interpret a meaning onto them

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Anything that can affect our interpretation can
also affect our knowledge claims

• Religious conviction
• Political ideology
• Cultural heritage
• Educational background
• Likes or dislikes
• All sorts of biases

The Haerulf Runestone, Denmark
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The Egyptians in South America???

• As you walk down you hear the sound of the heavy
  stone door closing down behind you with a
  grinding thud
• Gold glimmers in the walls and from small images
  carved into the elaborate patterns on the floor
  and ceiling

Down Down Down into the depths of the temple
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Discovery

• You look, and see, it is a small strangely shaped
  figure with red eyes that seem to glare back at
  you like a little demon
• You hurry down the small flight of steps into a
  large circular room lit by sunlight coming from
  four channels evenly spaced around the room
• Each of the light channels has their beam focused
  on a golden box which is perfectly placed in the
  middle of the room

Not the box in the chamber. Charles the lumphead
forgot his camera.
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Inside the box. What is it?
How did these get there?
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Creating knowledge of history

• First step entails using the imagination to come
  upwith a hypothesis
• Deduction helps in the creation of the hypothesis
• However a hypothesis needs to be more than just
  reasonable if it is to be knowledge
• Often proof is needed

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Creating knowledge of history (contd).

• Science is often involved
• Science provides indisputable empirical data
• This data serves as premises from which logical,
  deductive conclusions can be made
• Knowledge often depends on having consesnus

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However interpretation is always present

• No data or artefact speaks for itself
• All information must be interpreted and given a
  meaning
• Interpretation is a subjective human process.
• Different people will interpret similar
  information differently and subsequently make
  different knowledge claims
• History is interpretation

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Lesson 3 Subjectivity
Now well really get some answers!
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Subjectivity

• There is subjective interpretation at every level
  of history
• The historian is not an objective observer, but
  plays an active role in the creation of the
  knowledge claims he makes
• The historians entire personality and all of his
  knowledge, all of his morals and values are
  interconnected with how he portrays history
• Subjectivity is a two edged sword. It helps the
  historian understand, but at the same time it
  masks him from fully understanding things from
  more perspectives than his own

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Three types of subjectivity

• Subjectivity of the historian writing today
• Subjectivity of the primary source
• Subjectivity of secondary sources

Why were the Dead Sea scrolls written?
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Bias affects

• Primary sources
• Secondary sources
• All historians who have written about history

The Siege of Antioch, from a medieval painting
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When accounts of history contridict one another
who do we believe?

• The answer depends very much upon the bias one
  has
• Subsequently any knowledge known depends also
  on this bias
• We can assume that the same has held true through
  the ages. This affects what we know about the
  past.
• Understanding of the truth is a subjective
  understanding. There are many truths.

The Massacre of Antioch. Gustav Doré.
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Lesson 4 Induction and Deduction
Machu Piccu
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Induction

• Induction is making predictions or assumptions
  about future events based on past experiences
• Induction is crucial in the development of a
  hypothesis that historians later try to develop
  support for

How do we know the slaves pictured in this
painting were not willingly enslaved?
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Induction (contd.)

• Induction is an invaluable tool for the
  historian, but at the same time induction carries
  with it a significant risk
• The historian runs the risk of basing her
  assumptions about one historical phenomenon on
  the causes of another which she is familiar with
• This will affect knowledge claims

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Deduction

• Deduction is making conclusions based on premises
  we know to be true
• Deduction is a very effective tool for knowing as
  long as premises are known to be true
• However, deduction can cause knowledge problems
  is conclusions are made using premises a
  historian only believes to be true

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Lesson 5 Faith and History
The Death of Harold. Image from the Bayeux
Tapastery.
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Knowledge in history is of a unique type

• Knowledge is gained even though no one has
  actually experienced the events and eras that we
  claim to know so much about
• In all the other areas of knowledge, the
  knowledge gained is by some sort of hands-on or
  minds-on experience
• History itself can not be tested in a scientific
  sense, and it takes more than simply pondering on
  it to know it
• There is no way to be 100 percent sure that the
  beliefs we have about historic events are correct
  or complete

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Much historical knowledge comes from putting
faith in the claims

• The word faith sould not be defined as meaning
  religious conviction
• Faith here is defined as a particularly
  unshakable form of belief, based upon ideas,
  teachings, and reported historical events which
  to the individual seems conclusive. David
  Fontana Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality.
  (2003).

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Faith in historical knowledge claims

• When we consider history how do we come up with
  our knowledge?
• If we can only rely on what other people have
  told us, or base our conclusions on documents
  other people have written then what else is there
  except for faith in claiming knowledge in
  history?

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Three types of faith

• Faith in the authenticity of the claims made by
  past documents and artefacts
• Faith in our own and previous interpretations of
  events or documents
• Faith in the authority of the history books and
  the ones making historical knowledge claims.

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Faith in authenticity

• Historians put faith in the authenticity of the
  documenats they read to make their knowledge
  claims
• Often there are only singular sources from which
  information is taken
• Even if there are collaborating documents, they
  make the assumption more feasible. It is
  impossible to be completely sure
• Faith is simply a necessary element on the part
  of the historian

Hadrians Wall. Great Britian
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Faith on ones own interpretations

• The historian needs to have faith in her
  hypothesis when doing research
• When making claims and presenting work to peers,
  the historian must have faith that the work she
  has done is reflective of reality
• However, even the greatest level of conviction
  does not make ones claims true
• Faith also brings with it the risk of fooling
  oneself into seeing things incorrectly

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Faith in the authority of the history books

• We put faith in the claims made by historians in
  history books
• Historians and history books are powerful
  authorities in our minds
• There is no practical way for us to know for sure
  if the claims made in the books are true or not.
  We must simply believe them.

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Lesson 6 Authority and Consensus
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Authority
Who controls the past, ran the Party slogan,
controls the future who controls the present
controls the past. George Orwell. 1984

• Knowledge in history is malleable and authority
  has the means to shape historical knowledge in
  any way that seems fit
• What reasons are there for learning the history
  we do learn and not any other?
• In many countries around the world, the portrayal
  of history is a highly political and very
  sensitive issue

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Consensus

• Knowledge in history is created via consensus
• To tackle the problem with subjective
  interpretations, a system of peer review has been
  developed in the field of history
• If a claim is to be considered knowledge, it must
  be accepted by the greater community of
  historians

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Consensus (contd).

• The information in history books is fact
  because enough people believe that the
  interpretations made are good interpretations
• A larger group is not at such risk for being
  blinded by subjectivity
• However, just because a group of people agrees
  upon an interpretation, it does not mean that the
  interpretation is correct.