mountainman

I wish to be informed here by posters in relation
to the scope and contemporary mechanisms used
to define the discipline of the historian.

Specifically, the term the most probable explanation
and its relationship to the disciplines of probability and logic.

Furthermore, if anyone can succinctly differentiate between the
term "history" as used within the specialised discipline of "BC&H"
and the generalised discipline of "history", I would be greatly
appreciative. Note, that I am not here claiming there to be
a difference between the treatment of "history" between these
two above disciplines, but I am leaving the possibility that
there in fact is a difference.

FInally, I view "HISTORY" as always a "Theory of History"
from the perspective of people's opinions in the 21st CE
in respect of this period of antiquity 0 to 400 CE.

In this sense, it is clear - to me anyway - that there can never
be any "right" or "wrong" (black or white), only different shades
and levels of consistency (grey), these being determined by
the relational integrity of the evidence(s) presented.

I am not a graduate of the discipline of "History".
Is this the practice? Please enlighten me.
Perhaps all this is "given". Perhaps it is wrong?

Thanks for any gems of wisdom.



Pete Brown
NAMASTE

EthnAlln

I also will be interested in the answers given here. I've done some historical research in my time, but I have no training as an historian in archaeology or in the careful reading of primary sources, which are the skills needed to establish what we can know about the past.

I think that history is scientific in a sense slightly broader than the sense in which physics, chemistry, and biology are scientific. Experiments are harder to arrange in history (but not impossible). And there are theories, that is, logically coherent narratives of what happened in the past that are given plausibility by their explanatory power and their mutual consistency. Those are the primary reasons for the acceptance of theories in the physical sciences as well, although of course the physical sciences find it easier to make testable predictions. Still, you can make testable predictions in history, that is, you can predict what archaeology may or may not find, and you can predict what kinds of things will be said in any new ancient documents that may come to light.

Ted Hoffman

First of all, history can be viewed as the past, or as an account of the past. It can describe what happened, or explain what happened in the past. Among other things, history can be aimed at finding out the truth about the past or to justify actions in the present. These actions could be interpretative in nature, as concerns the JM hypothesis.
History seeks to arrive at the truth regarding what happened. But Historical facts are elusive. According to Paul Newall, we must consider the following as we seek to arrive at historical fact:

• The records we have of the past are incomplete and must always be so.
• People in the past did not record everything, any more than we do today.
• The historian relies on the observation and memories of others in the past for the accuracy of these records.
• The past has gone and hence cannot be recalled to check the accuracy of our accounts of it.
• The past is studied from a modern view, using contemporary concepts and understandings.

Thus, a historian is faced by an epistemological conundrum: he can never reach the past - he can only access traces of the past. And these traces merely act as limits of his interpretation.
He cannot determine which of a multiplicity of possible histories within the boundary of traces is more accurate. Remember the saying that goes "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". The historian Johann Gustav Droysen differentiated between “Bericht”, that is story or interpretation, and “Überreste”, that is, what is left of historical information. Niels Peter Lemche says in The Israelites in History and Tradition (p.22-34) that this distinction makes it possible, while studying the historical narrative in the Old Testament, to "make a distinction between information that originates in the past, and additions and commentaries to this information from a later period". Typically, Überreste cannot function without Bericht. I assume you are aware about the maximalist/minimalist dispute.

Because of these epistemological problems, historians have been incapable of developing a standard historical method. What we have are historical methods. And these methods seek to "make sense" out of the traces or explain matters satisfactorily.
Thus the historian must be well acquainted with the ideologies of past writers in order to translate their meanings and gain an understanding from their perspective, i.e. empathize with their point of view. This way, a historian avoids anachronisms and potential bias.

As happens in any field, when there is no consensus on a subject, schools of thought emerge. Historical realists hold that the past exists independently of what we think of it - that is, it can be accessed and the truth regarding the past can be determined. This position has been very discredited in recent years though several people still espouse it. Historical Anti-representationalists, according to Newall, "contend that the correspondence theory of truth within history has to be given up and the constructs of historians understood as fictions, not closer and closer approximations of the past as it happened."
This view regards history as an attempt to organise the available traces of the past in a coherent way. Not an effort to arrive at the truth.

So, we talk about what is most coherent, or what is most probable. Hence my earlier statements on the OP.

Joel Ng interrogated this question sometime back at Ebla in this thread. You may find it useful. He notes:

Solo

Fascinating subject: but right off, I think we have a problem with the very basic definition: history is not advocacy, or an ideological tool. One can be skeptical about our ability to "recover" the past in a manner that gives us confidence that we understand the essential import of historical events and issues, but that is not the same thing as projecting, or reading beliefs into the past. That we all carry some cultural baggage, and predilections, does not really challenge the view that if we behave rationally, history can be fairly reliable.


The list should be considerably longer; e.g. the problem of "transmission" of historical records is a huge issue, expecially in the history of religions. Some of these points however are trite. For example what the historian relies on in a statement of a chronicler who says "the king arrived tro Bristol on the 14th of December", is not as much "memory" or "observation" but a reliable technique of recording. Also, I strongly disagree with the proposition that "the past" being "gone" impedes our access to it or can be used as an excuse for a a blanket view of our ability to present historical facts. Also, the fact that the past is studied by moderns does not immediately inculpate them of anachronism.

This I find a totally confused approach to historical methodology, one transparently misperceiving the role of the historical observer. If there were an "epistemological conundrum" of the sort advocated here, history would be impossible. Yes it wise, and in the historical study of religious movements something of a necessity, to inquire not just into facts, but beliefs informing those "facts". But again, there is nothing that can be made of the relation between the original report (Bericht) and what remains of it (Ueberrest) that would not be trite.


But you just said that the epistemological problems are such that they prevent the development of a historical method. How can you then say that a historian (evidently subject to the same epistemological constraints as his reporters) "must translate ...the meanings" ? On what basis ? And does "understanding of a perspective" connote "empathizing" with it ?

This looks suspicously like a return of bishop Berkeley. One cannot debate rationally a historical fact if it is not objectively verifiable, at least potentially. Saying that historical events emerge and fade in the personal matrices of their students, is not the same thing as saying that they are not extricable and transportable from those matrices.


...to which I would say that the method of historical deconstuctionists like Newall lies in the patently false proposition that since historians can evidently never be perfect they may as well be frauds.


This has obviously not been thought through.

mountainman

Here is a google for the phrase "What is history"
restricted to the .edu domain ....


http://www.google.com.au/search?as_q...s=&safe=images


Not to know what has been transacted in former times
is to continue always a child. (Cicero)

History is indeed the witness of the times,
the light of truth. (Cicero)

Science and Technology revolutionize our lives,
but memory, tradition and myth frame our response.
Expelled from individual consciousness by the rush of change,
history finds its revenge by stamping the collective unconscious
with habits, values, expectations, dreams.
The dialectic between past and future
will continue to form our lives.
Arthur M., Jr. Schlesinger (b. 1917),
U.S. historian. "The Challenge of Change,"
in New York Times Magazine (27 July 1986).

The principle office of history I take to be this:
to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten,
and that evil words and deeds should fear
an infamous reputation with posterity.
Tacitus (c. 55-c. 120 A.D.),
The Histories, bk. 3, sct. 65.

There is nothing new in the world
except the history you do not know.
Harry S Truman