PSYC 4008 Lecture : Orientation - Notes
Document Summary
A statement or theory that cannot, in principle, be tested is worthless. It should be possible, in principle, to discover historical laws (debatable: taking this to it"s logical conclusion, history is (or should be) science (debatable) Example candidates of historical laws: those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ( law of repetitive. History progresses predictably driven by class struggle (karl marx) Hitler?: the man makes the times (great man theory, the times make the man (naturalistic theory) Why is history important: enables us avoid mistakes of the past (possibly, helps to facilitate future progress (highly questionable; context is always different, helps to understand the present (the strongest argument) It creates cohesion among members of the profession by providing a sense of shared origin and community: more important: it provides a gestalt of psychology. What are the issues of histriography: practitioner vs academic historians.
