What Is Reading in Philippine History
What Is Reading in Philippine History
What Is Reading in Philippine History
Readings in Philippine History aims to equip students with critical thinking and reading skills by
applying historical methodologies in the study of Philippine history. This book's emphasis on the
use of primary sources corresponds to the thrust of the new General Education Curriculum to
view the past in the lens of eyewitnesses. This book's approach is focused on the analysis of the
context, content, and perspective of selected primary sources, through which students of history
could be able to gain a better understanding of the past, deepening their sense of identity, and
locating themselves in the greater narrative of the nation.
What is History?
‘History is the study of people, actions, decisions, interactions, and behaviors
History is narratives. From chaos comes order. We seek to understand the past by determining
and ordering ‘facts’; and from these narratives, we hope to explain the decisions and processes
which shape our existence. Perhaps we might even distill patterns and lessons to guide – but
never to determine – our responses to the challenges faced today. History is the study of people,
actions, decisions, interactions, and behaviors. It is so compelling a subject because it
encapsulates themes that expose the human condition in all of its guises and that resonate
throughout time: power, weakness, corruption, tragedy, and triumph … Nowhere are these
themes clearer than in political history, still the necessary core of the field and the most
meaningful of the myriad approaches to the study of history. Yet political history has fallen out
of fashion and subsequently into disrepute, wrongly demonized as stale and irrelevant. The result
has been to significantly erode the utility of ordering, explaining, and distilling lessons from the
past.
History’s primary purpose is to stand at the center of a diverse, tolerant, intellectually rigorous
debate about our existence: our political systems, leadership, society, economy, and culture.
However, open and free debate – as in so many areas of life – is too often lacking and it is not
difficult to locate the cause of this intolerance.
The words story and history share much of their lineage, and in previous eras, the overlap
between them was much messier than it is today. “That working out of distinction,” says Durkin,
“has taken centuries and centuries.” Today, we might think of the dividing line as the one
between fact and fiction. Stories are fanciful tales woven at bedtime, the plots of melodramatic
soap operas. That word can even be used to describe an outright lie. Histories, on the other hand,
are records of events. That word refers to all time preceding this very moment and everything
that really happened up to now.
Herodotus's multi-volume account is filled with various informative digressions of the Greco-
Persian Wars. Herodotus was sometimes criticized for various outright discussions.
An external critique, on the other hand, does seek to criticize a view on matters of fact. External
critiques will, like the internal critiques, not be committed to the truth of the proposition or view
involved, but, unlike internal critiques, it will be committed to the falsity of those views. An
external critique may or may not grant a consistency aspect to the view involved; this is strictly
irrelevant.[2] An example of this might be: “The Bible has been revised so many times there’s no
possible way we know what is says!” The externalist’s claim, then, is that there is some truth
about the world that contradicts a particular claim or view.
So why does this matter? Because many times, skeptics and new atheists will oscillate between
an internal and external critique as if they were precisely the same critique. A recent example
concerns Lawrence Krauss and his recent dialogues with William Lane Craig. Krauss asked
Craig the question about the Canaanites, to which Craig responded in a way that showed such a
thing was consistent. Krauss, remarkably, granted that such an action would be consistent on
Craig’s view, but then demanded, “but is it true!?” Notice the switch? Such a switch is irrelevant;
an atheist and a Christian alike can discuss the question because precisely what is at stake is
whether or not the view is consistent! Knowing whether or not the proffered view of Craig is true
is going to be an external critique. But in that case, Krauss will have to do more than merely
raise the consistency issue. He will have to claim that, as a matter of fact, Craig’s solution is not
true—and that, I think, is not forthcoming.
When someone criticizes your view of something, it is vitally important that you identify
whether or not it is an internal or external critique. Doing so helps to focus the conversation. It
should also result in better dialogues between the Christian and the unbeliever.
newspapers
chronicles or historical accounts
essays and speeches
memoirs, diaries, and letters
philosophical treatises or manifestos
census records
obituaries
newspaper articles
biographies
Finding information about organizations: