Perspective in History

“History is our generation, our generation represents the past, present and future. Our generation writes our own History...” –Emmanuel J. Abraham Jr.-

Science as we all know is the systematical body of knowledge, comprehension that deals with truth and fact[1]. Together with science, a body of knowledge emerges. Pact with the truth behind the facts at the same time proves the facts by means of clear investigation or inquiry. History is a branch of social science that traces the progress and development of man’s civilization from the ancient to the modern. It is largely a continuous flow of events, each giving rise to the others, a latter one being the effect of an earlier one, an earlier one maybe giving rise to a later one.

The word History comes from the Greek word Historia[2] which means inquiry or knowledge acquired by investigation. History from the other books refers as a branch of knowledge which deals with the study of past human experience on earth[3]. This is the account of how the people lived, what they did and said how they solved their problems, and what ideas or idealism and customs they developed.

Hence, history is the effort to reconstruct the past to discover what people thoughts, people deeds, their beliefs and actions, which continue to influence human life. In order to appreciate the past fully, we must put it into perspective so that we can understand the factors that have helped to shape us as individuals, the society in which we live and the nature of other peoples’ societies.

Everyone and anyone can study history, even if you are the most unsophisticated person in the world. Learning history is like learning from ones mistake and taking it as inspiration by giving you a chance to change it. In the sense that history is for everyone who wants it. History is for everyone who needs it. But before you get the presence of history, we should first acknowledge the people behind it. Most especially, the Historians whom examine primary sources, the first hand accounts of people who lived through the events, they are the people in the best position to know what happened and what may be happening. Historians normally use a variety of evidences in their research for an accurate understanding of the past and present. Basically, the documents written is being analyzed and given their own interpretation and recorded. Historians are like detectives. He or she must have the remarkable ability to find clues from the mountain of data or information gathered. In the quest of truth, the historians must seek out people who can help him obtain specific information, and must be able to separate out fact from fiction. It is not easy on becoming a well-known historian; he or she must possess an adequate academic background, but also an inquiring mind and a firm commitment to the truth. You should have skills, knowledge, and capacity and preserver attitude to accomplish these difficulties in making researches.



Base on Cicero, a Roman Statesmen:
History is the witness of the times, the light of the truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, and the messenger of antiquity”

As what I have said before, History is the truth and fact, it is our generation, a generation that grows and demonstrate, moreover, studied the ways of people living over the years that deserve to have attention, in the case of point are the reigns of monarchs, the careers of the great political figures, mighty soldier, and people whom change and give a big participation in our local history and change our civilization.

Remember that the study of History does not make you smart for the next time; but wise forever. As you start your journey through history, keep in mind that a single history account cannot summarize the nations past. The recording and resurrection of history relies as many sources, both primary and secondary. Our place in history is still evolving in a personal and collective sense. What better way to make a history as a study is by developing it and improving it, by looking forward in a new millennium and by reading and learning about the highlights of what brought our generation at this point of time.

I for one believe that it is in the awareness of our past accomplishments that we can measure our capabilities as a person. As historian, it is very important to secure our foundation for our contemporary institution. That it is the responsibility of them to rely on other non literary evidences. In nearly all periods of early history, people inscribed laws, treaties with other states etc. That in the face of the evidence historians must determine what is accurate and what is false or biased. They do so by taking the earliest information first. They compare various versions of particular events or large trends with one another. Some people who have left with evidences of the past were more intelligent or better informed than the other. Therefore, their testimony is preferred and strengthened by other writers who independently reported the same thing when two or more historians conclude that they present an accurate account of events.

For most people, the study of history has traditionally meant the study of their own nationality, religion, and ethnic past. It fully appreciated the great differences among various societies and the complexity of the historical problems surrounding these cultures. I have wondered if the study of local or national history is sufficient for people who will spend most of their lives in a small barometer of time. I believe that studying history in a broad and comparative context is an exciting, important, and highly practical pursuit.

History has a wide range of parameter, but it focuses more precisely on past. People thought history as a memorization subject. Memorizing the dates, people behind history and places similarly, happenings dealing in past. What they really don’t know is that, history is not just about memorization of those things but rather focuses basically on Analyzing and interpreting facts or data gathered. Since history is about change in time, a historical statement is about a process. To represent something as a process, it must be defined as being part of a relation prior to a definition of empirical specifics. The empirical qualities are secondary and emerge as a result of the causal relation. The point is that, if you, as a researcher can analyze and interpret history then, you also have the capability to empiric[4] documents which you believe are questionable. History as an empirical subject matter is quite challenging. As an Historian, you shouldn’t just believe on the basic principles other authors are claiming. It is also your responsibility to assure for the sake of the next generation historian that, that document may be invalid or fallacious.

In the basic principles of history, philosophers are claiming that history has its logical interpretation. This I believe is true! For the fact that I for one acknowledge the importance of logical interpretation in every statement, arguments and issues in history. Base on Sextus Empiricus, a well known philosopher:

“This we do affirm—that if truth is to be sought in every division of philosophy we, must before all else, possess trustworthy principles and methods for the discernment of truth. The logical branch is that which includes the theory of criteria and of proofs; so it is with this that we ought to make our beginnings”

In this statement given by Empiricus like philosophy, history may be affirmed by possessing the right methods and principles that may use in conducting research. You should always remember that in every theory that we may come up to, we should always obtain proofs (evidences and sources) before arriving into conclusion. If a researcher is not careful on his research, he/she may just arise on a dull or pumpy-lumpy idealism in history. We should always remember that there is always logic in every argument or proposition in history, before argumentative statement may approach, critics should always be at the side of it. Just like logic- which perhaps the study of methods and principles use to distinguish correct from incorrect reasoning[5].

Correct reasoning is useful wherever knowledge is sought. Whether in science, politics, and most especially in history, we use logical reasoning in reaching defensible conclusion. Hence, in history there’s always a premise and conclusion. Thus, the proposition used in an argument should support other statement. With that, the premise should support the proposition to come up into a justifiable conclusion and to support the argument per se.

Moreover, History consequently makes ideas, concepts, and principles as easy to understand as possible. With this in stating history, aside from using simpler language, it is necessary to include very clear and practical illustrations and framework of this ideas, concepts and principles. History per se also tries to explain their long struggle to forge a just society and unified nation out of many distinct cultures. Remember that no single work can hope to tell the full story of any nation. History as a subject matter is almost unparalleled diversity, in which change has occurred at such constant and dizzying speed that historical time seems almost to have accelerated—to task is particularly difficult. Nevertheless, history attempts to present as full a picture as possible of the remarkable story of the nation and its people.

When I was still in my 2nd year college level, one of my professors defines history as: the study of man’s achievement or failures since the dawn of recorded time[6]. As I’ve thought about this description of history, I have just realized that without people, history is none sense, that every people behind their doing is part of history. That history embarks upon to human itself, and that every individual and their doings is the center of the study. We cannot deny the fact that human being makes achievements and failures, that without failures there’s no achievement attach to it. That in every success theirs always disappointment but this failures lead us to become invulnerable and if people recorded this type of doings and happenings, history subsist.

History is the chronological account of man, as we carry on to our explanation of history, every history should be categorized in a chronological order or else, your research would be a disaster and hard to understand by readers. It’s quite easy to make a research but it’s tough to classify it and provide it with necessary details. In writing history, you can either write it through timeline or aspects and areas of history. This is the basic but this is the most effective. If you’re going to use the timeline, you can execute it by era or by century, while using areas and aspects such as periodicities, geographical location, military history, sociological, economical, people’s history, moral aspect, and even spiritual (religious) aspect is an excellent way of writing it, that readers may and could understand. This may elaborate every single detail, even very basic knowledge.

The immense thing about history is that, people define it as boring subject matter. I for one agree to this testimony! History is boring but yet interesting, of course, in reading history, you should be ready to imagine the happenings that written in the books of history.
The purpose of writing this book is for the people appreciating the value of history and even people disregarding the importance of history. People say that we don’t need to come back from the past as this thing is already done. But, since this thing is already over, we shouldn’t just move forward without learning from these mistakes. History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided. Things that we made with mistakes and trying to learn from it. This is the key to our success.

Base on one of the movie I so just now: “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift, that’s the reason why we call it present”. Every day that passes-by is history. But in every day that we live we need to record down those memorable things that had happened. That in every depository of great action should be recognized. History is the witness of what past are, the example and instructor of the present and even the monitor of the future. That in every day we live is a gift and we should be thankful that we become the witness of this accomplishments and failures.

In Constantino’s perspective of history is having a proper understanding on past. In his statement, “a proper understanding of our history will serve to demonstrate how our present has been distorted by the faulty knowledge of our past”. In our history, there’s a need for a volume done from its theoretical perspective, yet possessing a local flavor. History that may give a high quality of information to those interested and informed public a glimpse of the nature of our world’s history and inform future generations historians, and researchers of the true and right character of our history.

As I have said before, Science deals with fact and truth and history is a science. But as we study history more carefully, we begin to challenge its qualification as science. Sometimes we claim that history is not basically science but rather just mere lies. Why?

The truth behind history is that, history is much of the guesswork. Every single piece of evidence that can be found could be interpreted into different aspect. Because historians base their conclusion and interpretation on little evidences that sometimes most of the historians conflict each other of what is truth and what’s just mere lies.

For instance: Some historians claim that Ferdinand Magellan is the first person to circumnavigate the world. But some of them contradict this information and have a different perspective about it. That it was Sebastian Del Cano whom to first to circumnavigate the world because of the fact that Ferdinand Magellan unfortunately didn’t finish his voyage and die in the Philippines before finishing his expedition.

This circumstances it what exactly I’m pointing out. That because of lack of evidences and data gathered historian tends to have different interpretation on history. Because of this, historians must carefully sift through data and draw conclusion only on what is generally agreed on. Whatever would come up, historians must, and obliged to base his opinion on factual primary sources. Because if not; then were not talking about history but rather just mere opinion.

Remember that knowledge arrived to a great deal of victory, and history is one of this knowledge that people may learn and grasp for his sake. One Philosopher said that: Those who do not remember the past must condemned to respect it. Indeed, that if you’re not willing to accept the essence of past, then take it and write it. That past actually happened that history is the one which took time to write down every single happening.

[1] Many people think that truth and fact are same, but the real meaning of the two is different, Fact is an observation that verifies the Truth.
[2] Other books refer it as “istoria”
[3] Crifford, McDonald: History and society
[4] Empirical- ability to be tested
[5] Copi, Logic: Language, deduction and inductions
[6] Definition of History by Prof. Carmencita Amon