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History

History. Everything in this subject already happened. Does immutability suggest accuracy?. Because the subjects studied in history are unalterable, does that ensure that our knowledge of those events will be the most accurate, relative to other areas of knowledge (math, science, art, ethics…)?.

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History

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  1. History Everything in this subject already happened

  2. Does immutability suggest accuracy? • Because the subjects studied in history are unalterable, does that ensure that our knowledge of those events will be the most accurate, relative to other areas of knowledge (math, science, art, ethics…)?

  3. Words • History: the past • History: the study of the past • Historiography: the study of the writings of historians, or the study of the past

  4. More liability than asset? • Because the past is gone, it may be very difficult to find out – our knowledge could be incomplete, inaccurate, or even completely wrong – and yet there may be no way to amend our difficulties – short of a time machine!

  5. The importance of studying history • In some way, it is everything that has led to now – perhaps it is the cause of our present conditions? • Can you name a few?

  6. The practice of history • Collecting facts, analyzing them • But mere facts can analyze themselves not – we need people to speak for them. An understood history is not a list of unbiased bullet points – or that is not, anyway, what historians are interested in understanding. • An uneven distribution of facts (like the fossil record that doesn’t show if dinosaurs picked their noses); an unwillingness to pick certain kinds?

  7. Recent History • TMI: Too Much Information • Too much paper to sort through – How would you write the history of a recent event? – let’s try! • Discussion question: Think of some part of history for which the information is totally overwhelming. Will historians ever be able to sort through the information to arrive at the ‘truth’ about what happened?

  8. Bias and Selection • After all, a human needs to choose what to write about, and the events of history have to choose the human that survives to write about those cherry-picked facts. • Bias: bad • Selection: necessary

  9. History by who?Victors and losers • Anecdote on page 193 • Importance of language and euphemisms

  10. Write your own history • Write a history of today – you have five minutes • This activity is meant to highlight the differences in the act of selection across different people

  11. Write your own history -- evaluation • What did you leave out? • How do you knew which details were important to include?

  12. Be a historian! • Now write one for a particular audience; this time, a week, and for someone who lived 1000 years ago

  13. How do we know that the past exists? • Old sunlight – old everything

  14. Problems of information • Not enough • Too much • Play in supp p.71

  15. Time Capsule • For them, • What they think we would put in them, • Exchange, • Misinterpet

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