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RPHIS

This document defines history and discusses its evolution as an academic discipline. It explores what counts as valid historical evidence, moving beyond only written documents to include oral traditions, artifacts, architecture, and more. The document also examines different schools of historical thought like positivism and post-colonialism. It discusses problems in history like bias and subjectivity. Historians aim for objectivity through rigorous methodology and use of primary and secondary sources, but interpretation is still subjective.

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Ricky Baluat
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181 views22 pages

RPHIS

This document defines history and discusses its evolution as an academic discipline. It explores what counts as valid historical evidence, moving beyond only written documents to include oral traditions, artifacts, architecture, and more. The document also examines different schools of historical thought like positivism and post-colonialism. It discusses problems in history like bias and subjectivity. Historians aim for objectivity through rigorous methodology and use of primary and secondary sources, but interpretation is still subjective.

Uploaded by

Ricky Baluat
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CHAPTER 1

READINGS IN PHILIPPINE
HISTORY
Introduction to History:
Definition, Issues, Sources and Methodology
WHAT IS HISTORY?
 Study of the past
 Often dread as a subject for its notoriety in requiring them to
memorize dates, places, names, and events from distant
eras.
 Derived from the Greek word “historia” which means
“knowledge acquired through inquiry or investigation”.
 a discipline as old as philosophy and mathematic.
HISTORIA
 Historia became known as the account of the past of a person
or a group of people through written documents and historical
evidences. That meaning stuck until the early parts of the
twentieth century.
 History became an important academic discipline. It became
the historian’s duty to write about the lives of important
individuals ike monarchs, heroes, saints, and nobilities. History
was also focused on writing about wars, revolutions and other
important breakthroughs. It is thus important to ask: WHAT
COUNTS AS HISTORY?
“ NO DOCUMENT, NO HISTORY”

 Traditional historians lived with the mantra of “no


document, no history.”
 It means that unless a written document can prove a
certain historical event, then it cannot be considered as a
historical fact.
• but as any other academic disciplines, history progressed and opened up
to the possibility of valid historical sources, which were not limited to
written documents, like government records chronicler’s account or
personal letters.

• Others got their historical documents burned or destroyed in the events


of war or colonization.

• Restricting historical evidence as exclusively written is also discrimination


against other social classes who were not recorded in paper. Nobilities,
monarchs, the elite and even the middle class would have their birth,
education, marriage, and death as matters of government and historical
record.
• But what of peasant families or indigenous groups who were
not given much thought about being registered to government
records? Does the absence of written documents about them
mean that they were people of no history or past? Did they
even exist?

• This loophole was recognized by historians who started using


other kinds of historical sources, which may not be in written
form but were just as valid.
• A few of these examples are:
 oral traditions in forms of epic and songs
Artifacts
Architectures and;
Memory

• With the aid of archaeologists historians can use artifacts


from a bygone era to study ancient civilizations that were
formerly ignored in history because of lack of documents.
• Linguists can also be helpful in tracing historical evolutions,
and flow of cultural influence by studying language and the
changes that it has undergone. Even scientist like biologists
and biochemists can help with the study of the past through
analyzing genetic an DNA patterns of human societies.
QUESTIONS AND ISSUES IN
HISTORY
• History as a discipline has turned into a complex and
dynamic inquiry.

What is history?
Why study history?
And history for whom?

this can be answered by HISTORIOGAPHY


HISTOGRIOGRAPHY
• is the history of history.
History and historiography should not be confused with each
other.
How was a certain historical text written?
Who wrote it?
What was the context of its publication?
What particular historical method was employed?
What were the sources used?
HISTORY PLAYED A VITAL ROLE IN THE PAST

• Lesson from the past can be used to make sense of the


present.
• Learning of the past mistakes can help people to not repeat
them.
• Being reminded of a great past can inspire people to keep
their good practices to move forward.
POSITIVISM
• is the school of though that emerged between the eighteenth and
nineteenth (18-19th) century.
• This thought requires empirical and observable evidence before one can
claim that a particular knowledge is true.
• Positivism also entails an objective means of arriving at a conclusion. In
the discipline of history, the mantra “no documents, no history” stems
from this very same truth, where historians were required to show
written primary documents in order to write a particular historical
narrative.
• Positivist historians are also expected to be objective and impartial not
just in their arguments but also on their conduct of historical research.
POST COLONIALISM
• is a school of though that emerged in the early twentieth
century colonized nations grappled with the idea of creating
their identities and understanding their societies against the
shadows of their colonial past.
• Postcolonial History looks at the two things in writing
history:
To tell the history of their nation that will highlight their
identity, free from that of colonial discourse and knowledge.
To criticize the methods, effects and idea of colonialism.
PROBLEMS CONFRONTED BY
HISTORY
• History is always written by victors.
• This connotes that the narrative of the past is always written
from the the bias of the powerful and the more dominant
player.

• Example:
 the history of the second world war in the Philippines always depicts the
United States as the hero and the Imperial Japanese Army as the
oppresors.
HISTORY AND THE HISTORIANS
 If History is written with agenda or is heavily influenced by
the historians, is it possible to come up with an absolute
historical truth?

Is History an objective discipline? If it is not, is it still


worthwhile to study history?
• Therefore, it is the historians job not just to seek historical evidences
and facts but also to INTERPRET these facts.
• It is the job of historians to give meaning to these facts and organize
them into a timeline, establish causes, and write history.
• Meanwhile, the historian is analyzes present historical fact. He is a
person of his own who is influenced by his own context, environment,
ideology, education, influences, among others.
• Thus, in one way of another, history is always subjective.
HISTORICAL METHODOLOGY
• Historical research requires rigor.
• Despite the fact that historians cannot ascertain absolute
objectivity, the study of history remains scientific because of
the rigor of research and methodology that historians
employ.
• Comprises certain techniques and rules that historians follow
in order to properly utilize sources and historical evidences in
writing history.
HISTORICAL SOURCES
Primary Sources
-Sources produced at the same time as the event, period, or subject being
studied.

Example:
If the historian wishes to study the commonwealth constitution convention
of 1935, his primary sources can include the minutes of the convention,
newspaper, clippings, Philippine Commission reports of the U.S
Commissioners, even photographs of the event. Eyewitness accounts of
convention delegates and their memoirs can also be used as primary sources.
• The same goes with other subjects of historical study.
• Archival documents, artifacts, memorabilia, letters, census and government
records, among others are the common examples of primary sources.
Secondary Sources- are those sources, which were produced by an author
who used primary sources to produce the material.

Example:
On the subject of the Philippine Revolution of 1896, students can read
Teodoro Agoncillo’s Revolt of the Masses: The Story of Bonifacio and the
Katipunan published originally in 1956. The Philippine Revolution happened
• in the last years of the nineteenth century while Agoncillo published
his work in 1956, which makes the Revolt of the Masses a secondary
source.
Secondary Sources
• Sources, which were produced by an author who used primary sources to
produce the materials.
• In other words, secondary sources are historical sources, which studied a certain
historical subjects.

Example:
On the subject of the Philippine Revolution of 1896, students can read Teodoro
Agoncillo’s Revolt of the Masses: The story of Bonifacio and the Katipunan
published originally I 1956. The Philippine Revolution happened in the last years of
the nineteenth century. While Agoncillo published his works in 1956,which makes
the revolt of the masses a secondary source. More than this, his research like
documents of Katipunan, interview with the veterans of the Revolution, and
correspondence between and among Katipuneros.

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