Topic I: Historical method

Question 1

comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write histories in the form of accounts of the past. The question of the nature, and even the possibility, of a sound historical method is raised in the philosophy of history as a question of epistemology.

The study of ______ and writing is known as historiography.

Answer 1

Historical method

Question 2

can be defined as a method used in historical and textual analysis to evaluate and assess how reliable, how authentic (true/real), and how credible (trustworthy) the primary source is to be considered.

Answer 2

Source criticism

Question 3

The following core principles of source criticism were formulated by two Scandinavian historians, Olden-Jørgensen (1998) and Thurến (1997);

Answer 3

Core principles

Question 4

Bernheim (1889) and Langlois & Seignobos (1898) proposed a seven-step procedure for source criticism in history:[2]

Answer 4

Core principles

Question 5

External criticism:

Answer 5

authenticity and provenance

Question 6

Internal criticism:

Answer 6

historical reliability

Question 7

R. J. Shafer offers this checklist for evaluating eyewitness testimony:15)

Answer 7

Eyewitness evidence

Question 8

adds circumstantial evidence to a case.

Answer 8

Indirect witnesses

Question 9

Gilbert Garraghan maintains that oral tradition may be accepted if it satisfies either two “broad conditions” or six “particular conditions”, as follows:19]

Answer 9

Oral tradition

Question 10

The tradition should be supported by an unbroken series of witnesses, reaching from the immediate and first reporter of the fact to the living mediate witness from whom we take it up, or to the one who was the first to commit it to writing.

2. There should be several parallel and independent series of witnesses testifying to the fact in question.

Answer 10

1. Broad conditions stated.

Question 11

1. The tradition must report a public event of importance, such as would necessarily be known directly to a great number of persons.
2. The tradition must have been generally believed, at least for a definite period of time.
3. During that definite period it must have gone without protest, even from persons interested in denying it.
4. The tradition must be one of relatively limited duration. [Elsewhere, Garraghan suggests a maximum limit of

150 years, at least in cultures that excel in oral remembrance.]

5. The critical spirit must have been sufficiently developed while the tradition lasted, and the necessary means of

critical investigation must have been at hand.

6. Critical-minded persons who would surely have challenged the tradition had they considered it false

must have made no such challenge.

Answer 11

2. Particular conditions formulated,

Question 12

Once individual pieces of information have been assessed in context, hypotheses can be formed and established by historical reasoning.

Answer 12

Synthesis: historical reasoning

Question 13

C. Behan McCullagh lays down seven conditions for a successful argument to the best explanation:

Answer 13

Argument to the best explanation

Question 14

is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying distribution of probability. Inferential statistical analysis infers properties of a population, for example by testing hypotheses and deriving estimates.

Answer 14

Statistical inference