History as a Science

Unquestionably, history doesn’t always provide us with undeniable truths. Rather, the past’s chronicles offer us conclusions from available outliving evidence that will assist us in reconstructing historical events into actual facts. Consequently, this presents the historical ’truths’ nonfactual because it determines information based on documented references and not real-life perceptions of historical events.

Considering history requires examining original sources of information, analyzing their origins, understanding the historical setting, and obtaining evidence to back your claims, it is unquestionably a debate about the past.

Historians’ position in the history-making process is portrayed in their historical examination of possible information to come up with logical stories of the past events. Our individual practices affect our works of history in that the parts of the past that one chooses to reconstruct often have some bearing on their current circumstances. Historians should strive to be objective in their work to avert the moral entanglement as well as dangerous preconceptions that would result from absolute subjectivity where each historian is granted their perspective. However, it might be impossible for complete lack of bias in works of history because the time that the past events took is beyond the historian’s own time. As such, historians cannot judge rival interpretations. Besides, it would be impossible for the historian to dissociate their consciousness completely while interpreting the information.

History is more of science because verification of the primary sources of information applies critical scientific methods. Besides, to create a coherent narrative, historians interpret the facts using both rational thinking and scientific reasoning skills. Moreover, the positivist’s view is also supported by the existence of laws in history as in science. History also supports social sciences. Consequently, the significance of history in contemporary issues is enhanced by social scientific research.

Bibliography

Beard, Charles A. “That noble dream.” The American historical review 41, no. 1 (1935): 74-87.

Tosh, John. The pursuit of history: Aims, methods and new directions in the study of history. Routledge, 2015.