Finding Truth in History

_Elsa_

Early the next morning Jean-Luc is back to his googling. With lollipop in hand Philippe decides to head outdoors. He tells his brother that he’ll catch up with him later but Jean-Luc is so busy googling that he doesn’t notice that his brother has left. 

Aha! Maybe this is the article that he needs to read - Finding Truth in History.

‘If we are to learn from the past, does the account of it have to be true? One would like to think so. Otherwise you might be preparing for the wrong battle. There you are, geared up for mountains, and instead you find swamps. You’ve done a bunch of reading, trying to understand the terrain you are about to enter, only to find it useless. The books must have been written by crazy people. You are upset and confused. Surely there must be some reliable, objective account of the past. How are you supposed to prepare for the possibilities of the future if you can’t trust the accuracy of the reports on anything that has come before?

For why do we study history, anyway? Why keep a record of things that have happened? We fear that if we don’t, we are doomed to repeat history; but often that doesn’t seem to stop us from repeating it. And we have an annoying tendency to remember only the things which don’t really challenge or upset us. But still we try to capture what we can, through museums and ceremonies and study, because somehow we believe that eventually we will come to learn something about why things happen the way they do. And armed with this knowledge, we might even be able to shape our future.

Finding truth in history is about understanding that this truth is not absolute. In this sense, truth is based on perspective. The perspective of the person who captured it and the person interpreting it. And the perspective of the translators and editors and primary sources. We don’t get to be invisible observers of moments in the past, and we don’t get to go into other minds. The best we can do is keep our eyes open and keep our biases in check. And what history can teach us is found not just in the moments it tries to describe, but also in what we choose to look at and how we choose to represent it.’ (Source)

Based on perspective? So then that means two people can see the same thing happening but because they perceive it in a different way then it’s not the historical truth? But wouldn’t the person who captured it see the same thing as the person interpreting it? Jean-Luc is so confused! Just then his phone rings and it’s Tiffi reminding him that they are meeting today. 

Let’s continue - Theory of Knowledge

Start at the beginning – What is the historical truth?