Main > The Round Table

A philosophical question

(1/3) > >>

scott2978:
Please bear with me as I lay out the background for this question of philosophy, faith and perception.

Remember that thread about the guy who believed the middle ages were a time of enlightenment, honor and chivalry etc?

I've lately been thinking about how I would describe my own interest in historical arms and armor, medievalism, medieval living history and just medieval history in general to someone who knew nothing of such things. No, I'm not anticipating an awkward meeting with the potential in-laws, it's just a philosophical question.

If I were to say "I'm an enthusiastic armature living history aficionado interested in learning the truth of daily life in medieval times", that other guy could (for the sake of argument) say the same thing about himself. Yet our views of the medieval period are vastly different. I'm using that guy as an example, but really there are lots of people who view medieval time differently from most of us here.

So here is my question, worded in several ways: How can the two of us view the same evidence but arrive at such different conclusions? What makes my perceptions so different from his? What/how do I see the medieval period in a different light than he does?

Keep in mind this is purely a philosophical question and not a rant about how others see things differently. I mean only to provoke an introspection of our own perceptions. I'm just curious to know your thoughts.

Mike W.:
Welcome to the wonderful world of historiography, where Truth is evasive and nobody agrees.

Mike W.:
The only way to adequately answer that question is with a semester long 400 level course in historiography. However, I'll try to sum it up for you.

The ways in which history is interpreted by various people over time (a.k.a. Historiography) depends largely  on the individual who is doing the interpretation. Difference in interpretations result from differing ways in which sources were accessed, different ways in which they were researched, different contexts in which they were viewed, individual personal biases (everyone's got them), different thought patterns of the individual, and different life experiences of the individual. Historical research is a complex procedure that is more than just picking up a primary source and reading. A person inexperienced in historical research will come to erroneous conclusions. A heavily biased person will bend, obscure, and alter data to fit their biases.

Historical Truth is ever-evasive and impossible to know (any post-modernist historian will tell you it doesn't exist), but we can at least come close by studying and analyzing the evidence left behind. That being said, the evidence is often vague and missing context which makes it open to interpretations.

Sir James A:
Baron summed up my thoughts well, regarding differences of interpretations. Someone might say "the brutality of medieval warfare" and another might say "the chivalric combat in medieval times" and they are substantially different views of the same thing.

I think part of it is also that there is a nearly impossible chance that two people have read the exact same sources and only those sources. Some can infer things not explicitly spelled out by referencing things they've read on the same subject in other books, and others may fill those gray areas with their own thoughts or opinions without any factual evidence for it.

I get the feeling of back in high school days when you'd read an assignment for class. So you come to class to talk about To Kill A Mockingbird, and you talk about the great depression. The teacher says you don't understand, that what the book is very plainly about is just a bunch of symbolism for innocence, torment and racism; but those things are never explicitly stated in the book at all.

I think some people have the same thing with history. They can take some basic facts and extrapolate concepts and ideas from them, thinking their interpretation is clearly the correct one. I know I'm guilty of having done so before.

Sir Douglas:
That’s actually a question I ask myself a lot, and on a whole myriad of topics, not just historiography. It’s like when you “know” something that seems so clear and obvious to you, it’s hard to understand how someone could perceive it differently. Like they say, there are three sides to every story: Yours, mine, and what really happened.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page