METHODOLOGY FOR HISTORY
History is two things: first, a collection of data about what took place; and second, the study of that data. Rather than thinking about the data as a continuum, think about it as a ?white noise.? Thinking this way helps conceptually with the problems about causation and motivation.
The study of the data requires a methodology bounded by significance; this is the first philosophical notion that must be investigated. Attributing significance is the historian?s role. Significance is the first editing tool of the white noise, and the philosophical meaning of significance must be addressed.
我对历史研究中关于因果关系的局限性(或者更准确地说，是无法确定原因)的讨论印象深刻。面对历史学家的主体性，以及因果和动机的不确定性，兰克说:“尽你所能(我的话)写出发生了什么。”这太难理解了。过去事件的因果关系;所以客观地书写历史的唯一方式就是讲述发生了什么，要明白历史学家身上会有你所能容忍的所有主观性?S的显著性标准的应用。
I am surprised to hear the opinion from the experts that ?no serious school of historiography has come about in the last fifty years.? The criticism discipline ?Historicism,? started in Berkeley in the eighties, seeks to provide a methodology for understanding significance; and it does this very, very well. The main thrust is to investigate all documents and representations contemporaneous with the time and place under study, and to start by giving them all equal ?weight,? to reveal as much as possible about what was considered significant by those being studied.
A very good study of the place of causation in historiography, which reveals much about the methodology of the historian, is ?What If,? edited by Robert Cowley (Putnam 2001), in which very eminent historians ?imagine what might have been, if? something other than what happened, happened.

History has always fascinated me. It is an influence and it is influenced; it is both cause and effect; it can go one way or it can go another with little or no provocation. These brief statements are not meant to simplify something so complex. I am sure this post will generate many insights and have been expecting such a discussion on Philoso?hy Talk.

The only person who can truly tell the future is the same person who can truly tell the past, and that most truly is absolutely no One.
=
Happy New Year!

我被泰勒先生关于过去与代表过去的区别“解雇”和“激励”了。自从我认识到有些人赞同修正主义并利用一切可能的机会实践这个事实以来，这种区分就一直困扰着我。当戈尔创造“难以忽视的真相”这个短语时，他所谈论的就是这些人。在某些思想界，历史对意识形态的发展是不方便的、令人尴尬的，甚至完全是适得其反的。
A response to this has been orchestrated, implemented and refined over a number of years. Just how long this has been going on is hard to know because it began somewhat innocently---I think of it as beginning with things we should have learned in school, HAD WE THOUGHT OF AND ASKED THE RIGHT QUESTIONS.(The innocence of it is, of course, relative.)
Cowley's study may get to some of this in a round about way---I do not know because I am unfamiliar with his work. In any case, history is probably 70% of what we are today. Misrepresentation of it is the other 30%---these numbers are highly speculative. The X factor is the kicker, however. What is it? Well X represents what we DO NOT know about history because of its MISrepresentation. And all of those questions we did not think to ask.
We can learn some thing new every day. On a good day, we might learn several.

I think we can see the current US/obama drive toward empire, repression at home, and burgeoning militarism reflected in thousands of years of history. The technique of fear mongering to perpetuate war and war to perpetuate repression and repression to perpetuate and augment the concentration of personal power, has been around since at least the time of Pericles.
And I am amazed at how ignorant of this are most people, how forgotten it is and how people can't see how they are being manipulated politically propagandistically for the purposes of private profit and authoritarian ambition.
And I amazed at how alternatives to war are completely
ignored. In the 70's the radically violent red brigades and the baader meinhof gang bombed and machine gunned their way across Europe. They were finally apprehended by police work, not attacks on foreign countries.
We should have done the same thing----and could have but imperial ambition of the "war President"
dictated stupid war.
Greed for campaign money and greed for wealth brought our economy down---as has happened many times before--in the 1890's, the '29 crash,and the savings and loan/keating debacle in the 80's--to mention a few. But--lessons learned from history?
No, greed blind and ambition choked and brutality minded folk don't listen to history.
At the beginning of the Afgan war, many writers
pointed to the Vietnam debacle as the obvious parallel
and were shouted down by the jingo crowd. The writers listened to history and now----after billions of bucks and thousands in lives---those writers proved correct. History is all we have for a guide. Amazing
how many people think they invent the wheel and how history doesn't apply to them. Listening
Obama?

The role of secular history in religion was first underscored during the Enlightenment. It was then the realization first fully dawned that religious authority and validity depended fundamentally on the authenticity of history, and the fact that religious claim to historical accuracy on the basis of religious authority itself was overtly circular.
因此，所有声称被揭示的宗教哲学的来源必须依赖于“世俗”历史的准确性，无论是否由那些恰好在宗教机构内的人研究。
It's interesting to examine and contrast the historical bases claimed for ancient religions such as Judaism or Hinduism and relatively recent religions such as Mormonism.
Given the divergences of opinion among historians and historical authorities about a lot of things, not the least being religions, this once more raises the question of why the preternatural should choose to keep the natural world guessing. Come to think, the usual practice is to keep the children's gifts sequestered -- all of which hinges on what one assumes about one's parents.