ANALYSIS

Is history objective or subjective? What are the measures and standards for writing
history for them to be objective? How can we ensure that writing history is objective?
• History should be objective
• Often written in a subjective point of view (interpretations of
historian)
• take all the sources into consideration
• good historians explain why their question is important, exactly what sources they
found, and how they analyzed those sources to reach a particular interpretation
(Marius, 2002)
• Facts are not to be collected haphazardly, but with careful, laborious, repeated
investigation (Lucian, 1710)

What must be the characteristics of a historian to guarantee that he has credibility in

writing a history?
• historian study the events, ideas, institutions and individuals of the past to
o unearth information,
o answer questions and
o uncover patterns that provide a historical context for understanding
modern issues
• Having found the documents:
o are they authentic, or which parts of them are authentic?
o how much of the authentic parts are credible and to what extent?
 After this two steps, he is only a specialist engaged in work
auxiliary to history
o must put it together to have a connected narrative or exposition
 When he has done those three things that is only the time that he
may become a historian (Gottschalk, 1969)
• Another set of criteria: (education-portal.com, n.d.)
o Have had courses and/or related courses to logic and historiography
(how to write history)
o Has an above average to superior command of your own language (in our
case, Filipino), English, and other majorly used languages; because he
must be able to write clearly and concisely utilizing all evidence he has
acquired to make and prove his point
o Must be able to acquire, handle, and organize large amounts of evidence
to make his point on history
o Must be able to write books, journals, and papers on certain periods of
history, which he specializes
How can the credibility of the history be ensured? (What are the rules or steps in writing
history?
• 3 major operations of historical method
o Heuristic - The search for material on which to work to acquire
sources of information.
o Criticism - The appraisement of the material or sources from the
viewpoint of evidential value.
o Synthesis and Exposition - It includes assembling a body of
historical data and the presentation (usually in writing) in terms
of objective truth and significance.
• Historical method – is within limits, scientific, its results are
subject to verification and to intelligent agreement or
disagreement among the experts.
o Choose a topic that a historian wants to study
o Find possible sources about the topic
o Synthesize authentic, reliable, and credible sources and evidences
o Get necessary information from the sources that were
proven to be reliable
o Systematize the data and information gathered and write an organized,
orderly, and substantial documentation or exposition about the topic
• Historical Criticism
o External Criticism
 deals with the authenticity and provenance of the document
 answers the
• date
• authorship
• localization
• analysis
• integrity
• credibility
o Internal Criticism
 focuses on the historical reliability
• eyewitness evidence
• indirect witnesses
• oral tradition