Historical method

( ) dubbed the "father of scientific history" (a copy of a copy of 4th Century BCE Greek work) Historical method is the collection of techniques and guidelines that historians use to research and write histories of the past. Secondary sources, primary sources and material evidence such as that derived from archaeology may all be drawn on. The historian's skill lies in identifying these sources, evaluating their relative authority, and combining their testimony appropriately in order to construct an accurate and reliable picture of past events and environments. In the philosophy of history, the question of the nature, and the possibility, of a sound historical method is raised within the sub-field of epistemology. The study of historical method and of different ways of writing history is known as historiography. Though historians agree in very general and basic principles, in practice "specific canons of historical proof are neither widely observed nor generally agreed upon" among professional historians. Some scholars of history have observed that there are no particular standards for historical fields such as religion, art, science, democracy, and social justice as these are by their nature 'essentially contested' fields, such that they require diverse tools particular to each field beforehand in order to interpret topics from those fields.

( ) dubbed the "father of scientific history" (a copy of a copy of 4th Century BCE Greek work)]] Historical method is the collection of techniques and guidelines that historians use to research and write histories of the past. Secondary sources, primary sources and material evidence such as that derived from archaeology may all be drawn on. The historian's skill lies in identifying these sources, evaluating their relative authority, and combining their testimony appropriately in order to construct an accurate and reliable picture of past events and environments. In the philosophy of history, the question of the nature, and the possibility, of a sound historical method is raised within the sub-field of epistemology. The study of historical method and of different ways of writing history is known as historiography. Though historians agree in very general and basic principles, in practice "specific canons of historical proof are neither widely observed nor generally agreed upon" among professional historians. Some scholars of history have observed that there are no particular standards for historical fields such as religion, art, science, democracy, and social justice as these are by their nature 'essentially contested' fields, such that they require diverse tools particular to each field beforehand in order to interpret topics from those fields.

Criteria of authenticity

Historians sometimes have to deal with deciding what is genuine and what is not in a source. For such circumstances, there are external and internal "criteria of authenticity" that are applicable. These are technical tools for evaluating sources and separating 'genuine' sources or content from forgeries or manipulation. External criteria involve issues relating to establishing authorship of a source or range of sources. It involves things like if an author wrote something themselves, if other sources attribute authorship to the source, agreement of independent manuscript copies on the content of a source. Internal criteria involve formalities, style, and language for an author; if a source varies from the environment it was produced, inconsistencies of time or chronology, textual transmission of a source, interpolations in a source, insertions or deletions in a source. Various recurring criteria of authenticity are used in diverse ancient historical fields.

Notes

References

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1364366867 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.