Week 7: Historical Method

PP: Team 1-3: Georg HegelTeam 4-6: Michel Foucault

AIO: Just War Theory

TOK Ch. 6, p. 211-236

Team 1: 211-215Team 2: 216-220Team 3: 221-225Team 4: 226-230Team 5: 231-233Team 6: 233-236

Where are we Going?

• Activity: Telephone– Defining History through

transmission and reliability

• Core Principles– External and Internal

Criticism– Thesis, Anti-Thesis, Synthesis

• History of… History– Ancient– Western– Non-Western– Enlightenment

• People v. Events• Cyclical v. Linear• History as Propaganda• History and Education

Activity: History Telephone• Teams of four1. Each Student chooses an

important event from the week and writes a detailed account (dates, etc.)

2. With a partner, trade accounts verbally and from memory (do not read it). Do not show your writing.

3. Trade partners, tell your previous partner’s account.

4. Write down your second partner’s account.

5. Compare to original account. What was left out? Inserted? Errors?

He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future

Historical Method Vocabulary

• Historiography• Metacognition• Historical Method• Social Evolutionism• Cycle Theory• Criticism• Objectivity v.

Subjectivity• Synthesis• Revisionism• Teleology

Questions to Consider

• Can one have sufficient knowledge of an event without direct, sensory experience?

• Is all knowledge historical in nature (residing in the past)?

• How does history interact with the other areas of knowing?

Core Principles of History• Olden-Jørgensen (1998) and

Thurén (1997)1. Human Sources: Relics or

Narratives. Relics are more credible.

2. Any source may be corrupted. Originality increases reliability

3. Proximity in time/space to even increases accuracy.

4. Primary > Secondary Sources5. Number of independent

sources increase credibility6. Sources are created with bias.

Supplemented with opposite motivations.

7. Less direct interest of witness or source increases credibility

External and Internal Criticism

1. When was the source, written or unwritten, produced (date)?

2. Where was it produced (localization)?

3. By whom was it produced (authorship)?

4. From what pre-existing material was it produced (analysis)?

5. In what original form was it produced (integrity)?

6. What is the evidential value of its contents (credibility)?

Timeline of Historical Thought• Hellenic

– 5th c. : Herodotus writes on the actions and characters of men. Focus on Divine determination of historical events

– 4TH c. : Poleis histories from local historians, including lists (Olympics) and civic records. • Thucydides writes on Athenian/Spartan war using

rationalistic elements, as well as distinguishing cause and origin.

• Xenophon creates character narratives

• Roman– 3rd C.: Polybius on the rise of Rome

– 2nd c.: Latin replaces Greek tradition. Julius Caesar, Cicero, and Cato the Elder introduce political thought and autobiography

– 1st c.: Plutarch, Suetonius, and Tacitus introduce biography as branch of history

Timeline of Historical Thought

• Chinese–8th c.: Annals of

Confucius–7th-5th c.: Zuo

Zhuan as narrative history–3rd-1st c.: Zhan Guo

Ce as historical of war. Sima Qian and the Shiji

Timeline of Historical Thought

• Christendom– 1st c. : Luke-Acts and the

Apostolic Age– 2nd-3rd c.: NT canon,

Constantine I• Emphasis on written sources

over oral histories• Shift from initially from

politics to religion and society

• Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History

– 4th-10th c.: Middle Ages chronicles and annals

– 13th c.: Renaissance focus on states and nations

Timeline of Historical Thought

• Islamic

– 7th c.: Focus on Hadith and Muhammads life

– 9th – 13th c. : al-Tabari and Birujni development of comprehensive world history and Indology• Developed archeological methodology

to study ancient cultures

– 14th -15th c. : Ibn Khaldun developed first historiograhpical study• Rise and fall of nations• Observations of the roles of the state

in history• Rational principles governing

interpretation of past events

Timeline of Historical Thought

• Modern Era

– 18th c. : Enlightenment, Whig School• Voltaire: emphasis on spirit of nations and

local customs• “My chief object is not political or military

history, it is the history of the arts, of commerce, of civilization – in a word: of the human mind”

• Critical of theological, emphasizing economics, culture and political History

– 19th c. : Scientific Method, Annales School• Critical approach, focus on politics and

diplomacy (rejecting cultural themes of Voltaire)

• Hard sources, not speculation or rationalization.

• Hegel: focus on “dialectic clash” between thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

• Darwin and Social Evolutionism

Timeline of Historical Thought

• Modern Era

– 20th c.: Marxist school and class struggle to history• Materialist history

– Annales School: shift away from individual subjects to geography, climatology and demography.

– 21st c.: Nayef Al-Rodhan and “Sustainable History” as part of an analysis of geo-cultural global politics.

Cyclical or Linear?

• Is history an analysis of time paralleling the science of time?

• Is history an analysis of patterns throughout time that repeat towards understanding present/future?

People or Events?

• Is history a study of important people who influence events and cause change in society?

• Is history a study of important events. What defines “important”. What quality do these events take (positive or negative?)

History as Propaganda

• How is history effected by the dominance of one sub-culture to another?

• Is history always written by the victors? How does one determine history when competing accounts exist?

Originalism vs. Revisionism

• A form of cycle theory in histiography

• “today’s winners will be tomorrow’s losers”

• Consider American Indian, Slave tradition, and modern Ethnic, Feminist, and LGBTQ studies.

TOK Questions• Citing specific examples,

analyze the quote: “History tells us more about the person who wrote it than about the people being written about” . Reference at least two areas of knowing and two ways of knowing.

• How does one’s historical “lens” into the past affect both the educational use, and the political use, of history in the present?

• What teleology, if any, exists in the potential patterns of history? Reference two areas of knowing.

Reading Discussion• TOK Ch. 6, p. 211-236

– Give a brief overview of your section with reference to page numbers.

– Decide on the 5 specific and important TOK observations from your section. Avoid menial facts.

– Develop a Problem of Knowledge question from your section.

– Is it something you would want to research in the future? Does it affect your extended essay or TOK assessment focus?

History and Education

• Focus on Civic instruction: how is historical education important to the general polis, and how does it impact good citizenry?

• How are textbooks developed, revised, selected, and administered to students?

• How is the starkness of the past often filtered towards age appropriate or other goal-oriented approach?

TOK Questions• Citing specific examples,

analyze the quote: “History tells us more about the person who wrote it than about the people being written about” . Reference at least two areas of knowing and two ways of knowing.

• How does one’s historical “lens” into the past affect both the educational use, and the political use, of history in the present?

• What teleology, if any, exists in the potential patterns of history? Reference two areas of knowing.

TOK Questions• Citing specific examples,

analyze the quote: “History tells us more about the person who wrote it than about the people being written about” . Reference at least two areas of knowing and two ways of knowing.

• How does one’s historical “lens” into the past affect both the educational use, and the political use, of history in the present?

• What teleology, if any, exists in the potential patterns of history? Reference two areas of knowing.

History Socratic Seminar

• Using one of the three TOK questions, complete the following:– Select an appropriate

and controversial historical event.

– Select at least two areas of knowing beyond the historical.

– Present a peer-reviewed article on the topic for discussion from these areas of knowing.