Understanding History from a Philosophical Perspective
THIS ESSAY IS BASED ON A THEME, MORE PHILOSOPHICAL THAN FACTUAL THE THEME: what is history? This means: what is essential for history to exist; is there a relationship between history and civilization? Who writes history and what is its purpose (if you think it has one); In other words, why bother recording, writing and studying history? Can history be useful and in what ways? Think about these questions a bit and weave an essay around them based on your own understanding of the readings and what you think about history and civilization from other studies you have had. 2 Sources: Allowed to use first two chapters of both books 1) Sources of the West, Kishlansky Reader: (vol. I) 2) Western Civilizations, Lerner, Meacham, Coffin, Stacey, (vol. I)
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Understanding History from a Philosophical Perspective
The notion of history plays a major role in human thought. In implores the concepts of change, human agency, the supposed meaning of historical events, as well as the role of material circumstances in human affairs.History is basically what took place in the past, and it entails factually describing circumstances and events of the past. This necessitates historians to ask themselves: what occurred? What and how was it like? What were some of the happenings and circumstances that occurred in this period in the past? (Kishlansky 21). At times this means reconstructing an intricate story from scattered historical sources, for instance in reconstructing anaccount of the Spanish Civil War.For history to exist, the actual past events and circumstances which are presently gone and will never be re-created or recovered, are essential. History is related to civilization considering that history helps to describe the development of various civilizations over the years. For instance, the history of western civilization describes what is western civilization, when it occurred, what it pertains, what actually happened, who were involved and what they did.A lot of dissimilar elements have to come together before a human community evolves to the level of sophistication understood as civilization (Stacey et al. 19).
History is essentially written by historians and they are usually interested in giving conceptualizations as well as accurate, truthful descriptions of circumstances and events in the past. Historians also typically want to answer the why questions, for instance why did this event take place, and what were the forces and conditions that caused it?These kinds of questions entreat historians to offer an explanation of the pattern or occurrence that she/he is describing, for instance the noteworthy global financial crisis of the year 2008, or the rise of fascism in Spain. Moreover, in writing history, historians are also interested responding to a how question (Kishlansky 24). How did this outcome happen, for instance:...