Module 2: Historical Criticism Flashcards
Authenticity
External
Credibility
Internal
Tests to say that it’s authentic:
- Date
- Author’s Handwriting, signature
- Anachronistic Style (idiom, ortography, punctuation…)
- Anachronistic reference to eventts (too early, too late, too remote)
- Provenance
- Semantics
Tests to say it’s credible:
- Verisimilitude
- Author’s mental processes
- Approximate Date
- Ability to tell the Truth
- Willingness to tell the truth
It is the likeliness of the actual event
Verisimilitude
It is the reliability of the eyewitness / document.
Credibility
cross-referencing
Corroboration
Psychological problems
Author’s mental processes
Four aspects of a historical subject:
- Biographical
- Geographical
- Chronological
- Occupational/ Functional
What is the general rule in establishing credibility?
for each particular
of a document the process of establishing credibility should be separately undertaken regardless of the general credibility of the author.
Defined as a particular derived directly or indirectly from historical documents and regarded as credible after careful testing in accordance with the canons of historical method.
Historical fact
In the process of analysis, what should the historian
should constantly keep in mind?
the relevant particulars within the document rather than
the document as a whole.
what is meant
by calling particular credible?
Is not that it is actually what happened, but that is as close to what actually happened as we can learn from a critical examination of the best available sources..
It connotes something more than merely not being preposterous in itself or even
than plausible and yet is short of
meaning accurately descriptive of past
actuality.
verisimilar
