the historical method
Understanding the past
Selecting evidence
Examining evidence
Assessing significanse
Explaining the past
The problem of bias
Historians are interested in patterns that consist of different legitimate interpretations. Interpretations can be opposite to each other.
Primary and secondary cources are used to explain the causes of events
Imagination and language have a big part in understanding
synthesis of evidence
hypothesis, evidence, pattern and interpretation
Evidences of historians are limited because all primary cannot survive
Historians only need to select the relevant evidence
Bias can influence the evidence we select
Every second-handed source is occurred by a first-handed source. Primary sources describe as the "bedrock of history"
we know as much as our proof
History is concerned with only the significant events in the past, not everything.
The problem is how to decide whether or not an event is significant.
Significant will change through time
it explains why events happened
Long-term, intermediate and short-term causes
what if...?
the historical method is more prone to bias than the natural sciences
There are arguments and counter-arguments. When we think about bias, we can talk about: a primary source may be biased, a historian picks something related to their society (topic choice bias), a historian ignore counter-evidence to prove his claim (confirmation bias), a historian can have a perspective limited by his culture and political prejudices. Nevertheless, there is still historical knowledge.