From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Historical actuality of persons or events
This article is about the use of the term in the context of historical accuracy or actuality. For the use of the term in the broader philosophical context, see
Historicity (philosophy)
. For the 2009 album by Vijay Iyer, see
Historicity (album)
.
Historicity
is the historical actuality of persons and events, meaning the quality of being part of
history
instead of being a historical
myth
,
legend
, or
fiction
. The historicity of a claim about the past is its factual status.
[1]
Historicity denotes historical actuality, authenticity, factuality and focuses on the true value of knowledge claims about the past.
[2]
[3]
Some theoreticians characterize historicity as a dimension of all natural phenomena that take place in space and time. Other scholars characterize it as an attribute reserved to certain human occurrences, in agreement with the practice of
historiography
.
[4]
Herbert Marcuse
explained historicity as that which "defines history and thus distinguishes it from 'nature' or the 'economy'" and "signifies the meaning we intend when we say of something that is 'historical'."
[5]
The
Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy
defines historicity as "denoting the feature of our human situation by which we are located in specific concrete temporal and historical circumstances".
[6]
For
Wilhelm Dilthey
, historicity identifies human beings as unique and concrete historical beings.
[6]
Questions regarding historicity concern not just the issue of "what really happened", but also how modern observers can come to know "what really happened".
[7]
This second issue is closely tied to historical research practices and methodologies for analyzing the reliability of
primary sources
and other evidence. Because various methodologies thematize historicity differently, it is not possible to reduce historicity to a single structure to be represented. Some methodologies like
historicism
can make historicity subject to constructions of history based on submerged value commitments.
[8]
[9]
The historiographer
Francois Hartog
introduced the notion of regimes of historicity to describe a society that considers its past and attempts to deal with it, a process that is also cited as "a method of self-awareness in a human community".
[10]
The historicity of a reported event may be distinct from the historicity of persons involved in the event. For example, a popular story says that as a child,
George Washington
chopped down a cherry tree, and when confronted about it, honestly took responsibility for the act. Although there is no doubt that Washington existed as an historical figure, the historicity of this specific account has been found lacking.
[11]
Questions of historicity are particularly relevant to
partisan
or
poetic
accounts of past events. For example, the
historicity of the
Iliad
has become a topic of debate because later archaeological finds suggest that the work was based on some true event.
[12]
Questions of historicity frequently arise in relation to historical
studies of religion
. In these cases, value commitments can influence the choice of research
methodology
.
[9]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Margolis, Joseph (2016).
History, Historicity and Science
. Oxon: Routledge.
ISBN
978-1-351-93058-1
.
- ^
Wandersee, J. H. (1992). "The historicality of cognition: Implications for science education research".
J. Res. Sci. Teach
.
29
(4): 423?434.
Bibcode
:
1992JRScT..29..423W
.
doi
:
10.1002/tea.3660290409
.
- ^
Harre, R., & Moghaddam, F.M. (2006). Historicity, social psychology, and change. In Rockmore, T. & Margolis, J. (Eds.), History, historicity, and science (pp. 94?120). London: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
[1]
- ^
Jones, Michael S., "
Lucian Blaga, The Historical Phenomenon: An Excerpt from The Historical Being
" (2012). Faculty Publications and Presentations. Paper 1.
- ^
Herbert Marcuse,
Hegel’s Ontology and the Theory of Historicity
, trans. by Seyla Benhabib (Cambridge, MA; London: The MIT Press, 1987), 1.
- ^
a
b
Bunnin, Nicholas; Yu, Jiyuan (2004).
The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy
. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons. p. 308.
ISBN
1405106794
.
- ^
William J. Hamblin
, professor of history at Brigham Young University. Two part article on historicity,
[2]
and
[3]
- ^
Hall, J. (2007).
Historicity and Sociohistorical Research.
In W. Outhwaite, & S. Turner (Eds.),
The Sage Handbook of Social Science Methodology.
(pp. 82?102). London: Sage Publications Ltd.
doi
:
10.4135/9781848607958.n5
- ^
a
b
Hall, J. (2007).
History, Methodologies, and the Study of Religion.
In J. Beckford, & N. Demerath (Eds.),
The SAGE Handbook of the Sociology of Religion
(pp. 167?189). London: Sage Publications Ltd.
doi
:
10.4135/9781848607965.n9
- ^
Allred, Mason Kamana (2017).
Weimar Cinema, Embodiment, and Historicity: Cultural Memory and the Historical Films of Ernst Lubitsch
. New York: Taylor & Francis. p. 3.
ISBN
9780415349185
.
- ^
D.R. Woolf,
A Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing - Volume 2
(2014), p. 642-43.
- ^
Haywood, Jan; Sweeney, Naoise Mac (2018).
Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War: Dialogues on Tradition
. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 108.
ISBN
978-1-350-01270-7
.
External links
[
edit
]
Look up
historicity
in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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