Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Note on the meanings of the word "history:" event, study, reflection


The word “history” is compounded of three distinct meanings; one, the course of human events, History itself, knowledge of which is only accessible through two; the study of those events by historians using documents and three, the combination of these two; that is, the human process of learning, or failing to learn from, History as mediated through that knowledge. These meanings, although dialectically intertwined, are distinct, and much confusion may be avoided if their distinctions are attended to.

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