HISTORY AND OTHER DISCIPLINES:

HISTORY AND OTHER DISCIPLINES:

For a long time, it was debated whether history was a social science or not. In this debtye about the nature of history in the 1930s and 1940s, it was accepted that history is one of the social sciences. And when history vecame social science, its relationship with the other social science became relevasnt. History is a social science because it studies society in a scientific methodology. It is substantiated by the fact that history cannot be studied without taking recourse to other subject.

¢  History is intimately correlated to Geography, and in the 50s, the two subjects were taught together.

¢  They are twin subjects – one stress time and the other emphasis on space, i.e history studies people of different times and geography deals with the people of different places.

¢  “Immanuel Kant remarks, “Geography and history fill up the entire circumference of our perceptions, geography, that of space and history, that of time.”

¢  Both history and geography are concerned with the inter-play of human and physical factors.

¢  Geography is the stage on which drama of history is enacted and it is the geography which determines the historical events and offer explanation for historical actions of mankind.

¢  Similarly, historical facts can serve as a good basis for arousing interest in geographical studies while geographical facts are taken into consideration while explaining historical fact.

¢  Various factors taken into consideration are physical conditions of the life of man, climate, means of communication, etc.

¢  All these factors determine the direction of human life and history created by man and his activities.

¢  Truly speaking, historical study without geographical background would be inaccurate and unscientific.

¢  Man’s mode of living, dieting and dressing, etc. are all determined by his physical environment.

¢  The correlation between history and geography becomes quite evident if we look at the equipments/apparatus used for teaching of these subjects, like maps, pictures and atlas.

¢  The subject matter of history, sociology, civics, political science, etc. are all within the scope of sociology.

¢  Sociology studies the development of the human society at large. It aims at developing man into an ideal social being.

¢  History studies the development of society under various periods and under various conditions.

¢  The teaching of history should invariably be guided by the knowledge of sociology.

¢  Similarly, study and teaching of sociology also requires a lot of knowledge of history.

One of the major disciplines with which history has relationship is Geography. There are some histories like military, religion etc. which cannot be studied without the peculiarities of geography.

The first thing we have to do id we have to place the people (society) in a particular geographical area. People first have to be located geographically. It is difficult to study history without this. The climate, soin, physical features also affect the way of life of the people. It affects the entire social organization so the geographical location of people definitely determines the entire pattern of life of those people.

The Annales school of French historians which developed in the 1920s (two important historians of this school are Marc Bloch and Lucien Fevbre)..their early works are geographical works rather than historical works. Geographical setting has to be studied in order to understand the life and culture of the people. Hisatorians sought professional help from other social scientists in order to get the geographical settings of their historical works. One important fact was the area of geography study to the historical content. Both history and geography worked closely in the area/study of historical geography. Historians have laid a lot of stress on impact of climate, physical features which influence historical events. Geography thus have a close relationship with history and historians have to ground themselves with the geographical realities, Therefore, there can have no study of history without any geographical tools. Historians have alsys to make use of tools which geographers used- historical alas, etc.

Economics; History and economics have almost inherent relationship. Without any economic history, historian cannot write a sensible history. Men would still participate in economic activities – production, distribution and consumption. And people in a society get nto a definite relationship – How are the people in power ..distribution give rise to…the whole question of wars, conflict in society, etc. are all related to economic activities in the society. Historian would not understand various historical phenomenon without studying economic activities and economic decisions in  the society. No matter what kind of society he studies, he has to study who is producing what, what is given to whose share, etc. Without any understanding of the law of economics, it is impossible to study history.

There are two absolutely fundamental issues in which historians are concerned. If economists do not base themselves on history, their economic studies become irrelevant. For economists, it is very important that they have a good grounding of the history of a society – the model which he studies.

Sociology: It is a science of society with a special focus on interrelationship between individuals and groups. In trying to study these interrelationships, sociology examines the basic units of the society. And other more organized groups like professional groups and  the basic unit like family. Sociology, therefore obviously cannot ignore the importance of the process of institutions by which they evolved. For  sociology, certain things became very important – like the role of values, norms, role of conflict and consensus, development of different social units, etc. A historian Is also concerned with these because he studies the development of these social institutions. But a historian’s perspective is much wide and broarder than a sociologist because he has always to generalize in the context of the past, present and future. Sociologists began to realise that they have to base their work on history. Without a historical perspective, their work becomes limited and narrow.

Political Science: The most important thing is to understand what is political science. The most important thing that political scientist study is the science of government and the study of power relationship. Since all societies are governed and the most important phenomena in society is power relationship in various level. And therefore, it is not possible for historian to ignore political science because there is always power relationship in society- even among the nomads. Therefore, power relationship is as basic to history as the latter is to economy. Power relationship must come before studying history. Until and unless political sciencetist know the history of the people to be studied, Seeley says that political science must be rooted in history.

Historians have found many solutions to the problem of power relationship, especially political historians.

Philosophy: It is the study of the system of ideas. Philosophy studies how ideas are generated and how these ideas are influencing the society. Therefore, philosophy deals with a realm which is very often beyond the physical world, and that is why, it would appear that philosopjhy has nothing to do with history.

But, in any society, what has been most important is the dominant ideas. And th other factor whidh are important are challenges to dominate these ideas. Therefore, history is not really inconnected to philosophy. For instance, in any era of history, there are certain ideas which are dominant. These ideas in a way controlled the thinking of the people. And gradually, challenges to dominate these ideas develop, eg. Rousseau’s idea had an important impact on French revolution. In that development, the whole process to challenge feudalism was developing.

Historical development of any society had never been devoid of any philosophical ideas. In the historical development in any period of time gives rise to its own set of ideas. The ideas which are emanated from a society – ideas are always emerged from certain historians. The concrete situations in society.

Each kind of society gives rise to its own ideas or philosophy. No philosophy develops in…It comes out of very basic historical realities. Without historical realities, there cannot be an emergence of ideas. Historians have to be very concerned in the realm of philosophy. Gradually, historias realize there is a need of philosophy of history.

Anthropology: is an area which has contributed very largely to the study of human society. In brief, it is the study of man.

Physical and cultural anthropology (social anthropology in Britain): Physical anthropology concentrates on the physical evolution of man. Cultural anthropology studies the way of life of the people. Both therse are part if a historical area of study. Without knowledge of physical and cultural anthropology of man, no historians can write any work of history. Without depending on each other, there can be no meaningful work.

Some historians say that history is a central social science. Other social science have specific studies but history incorporates all these other social sciences. Therefore, without history or without other social science, social science would have no meaning.

The historian’s work is not only related to other social science but it is also related to the natural sciences.

Historians study the development of human civilization and human civilization is heavily indebted to the physical/natural science,. In fact, the organization of society would not have been p[possible if there were no technological advances and development. There has always been technological advancement – beginning from nomadic stage in any human civilization. The whole process of success and all other development come about. The process of production is very central in human development.

One….which Marx constantly remarks is the necessity of understanding history. While emphasizing this, Marx has drawn attention to the tole of history, each society had its own level of scientific knowledge. Therefore, in every stage of human development, thereis also a development of a particular kind ofn natural science, These branches of natural science have their independent development. So by understanding the history of development of mathematics, we can know the level of scientific development of any particular society to the advancement of society.

Therefore, it is necessary for the historians to know about the physical sciences. A historian have to have enough knowledge of these natural sciences and have these natural sciences affected human civilization., In this way, he can write a comprehensive history.

Marc Block emphasis that it is necessary to have an integrated kind of various development that have aken place. (An integrated history), the annals school talk in terms of this.

A historian’s perspective e is a very broad perspective. A historian cannot limit the scope of history. This is a holistic approach and hoe the relationship beteen history and other disciplines of social science have developed.

There have been questions raised whether history can be a science. There has been a argument tha history can be a science and there is a positive argument that history can be a science. Today, history is accepted as social science.Scientific attitudes in history goes back to the time of Thycydides. He was perhaps one of the earliest historians who tried to separate histry from poetics and history frtom narratives. He began to follw the model of the development of the science of medicine. Hippocrati school – school of physicists and doctors. This was the field of science that was quite developed in Thycidides’ time. He began to model his own approach in the pioneers of medical school. He emphacizes the need for maintaining regular records and making observations so that they would arrive at accurate diagnosis. In fact, from the time of Greek historians, the idea that ..ist? can be written by following a scientific model.

In the 19^th century, this argument, the argument that history can be scientific becomes even more emphatic because it was the age od sicene. From the time….historians began tomake this claim that history must follow a scientific model.

But history face a lot of opposition. The major question is that it is impossible for history to have a valid system analysis beause there is a continous relationship between the observer (historian) and the observed. It has been a phenomenon which is not present in the natural sciences.

A history can never be detached from the study of his study. And therefore, for all other social sciences also, it is very difficult to arrive at any validity. Therefore, it has been argued that because the diff.in the involvements between history and natura science.

It is impossible for history and other social scientists to arrive at objective conclusions whereas natural scientists can arrive at objective conclusions. This is a very comples argument. Can history be a science.

Science and the scientific method is characterized by a number of assumptions.

1)      Scientists assume some form of determinism or Law of universal causation.

2)      2) Its empirical base

3)      3) The objectives of science can be summarized in the 3^rd….its systematic nature..

If all these these things are present in history, history can be studied scientifically.

Scientists are expected to formulate and verify empirical generalizations, develop a systematic theory and finally explain and predict. It has been often argued that history does not or cannot have one or more of the characteristics mentioned above. One argument against the possibility of a science of history calims that the historical phenomena are so cmplex that no regularities can be discovered in them.there are too many variables and possible relationshisps between different historical phenomena for them to be any order in these relationship.

The natural scientists are able to discover relationship and construc theories because what they observe are less complex. The point that is sought to be emphasized in this is that if historical phenomena are so complex that they cannot be organized into discoverable relationhips, thenm, there can be no scientific explanations or productions of historical phenomena. It must, however, be pointed out that the degree of complexity of existing phenomena is an empirical problem and not a logical question, and this is also debatable whether the social sciences are more complex than the natural sciences. From the fact that is difficult to sought out historical factors and measure relationships one cannot logically conclude that the discovery of generalizations is impossible, It is not denied that regular relationships exist. Critis only deny th historian’s ability rti discover these relationships. It is true, every historian knows how difficult it is to find order in the world of history. But thi des not prevent the historian from attempting to find generalizations nd succeed in doing so. All scientists, natural or social, realize that no complete description or explanations of any empirical phenomena is possible. Thus, it is unfair to criticize history for something which is true even to the physical science.

Another argument against the possibility of a science of hstory is based upon the argument that human beings are very complex and there is scuh thing called ‘the freedom of will’. This means that those who hold up this argument and fit for freedom of the will are usually saying that people are able to act without external restrainsts. In other words, free choice is uncaused. But it is difficult to accep thtat what people do is not determined by the sort of people they are or certain motives. And without accepting that events have causes, he whole attempt to describe and explain the world of history may be given up. This position, therefore, strikes directly at the first assumption opf the model of science, and just as a natural scientist assume some form of determinism, the social scientist, including historians must also assume some form of determinism or law of Universal Causation.

The main diference between the natural and social sciencesis that the practitioners of the natural sciences do not have to deal with values at all phases of their work, but social scientist have to do so from the very observations becvasue hey are dealing with people. No historian can ignore the fact that values, opinions and ideologies hold a significant place in history,. But it is not necessary tht the personal values of a historian need influence the work of a historian. Bias research will not survive the criticism. For instance, the historian who personnaly believe in racism or communalism and therefore ignores certain facts and data, so that his finding will agree with what he personally believed in, ie, the existence of racism or communal feelings in every society, will definitely produce a work which will not be albe to survie criticism which is based on an objective analysis of all the existing data.

From such arguments, it is quite clear that there are no arguments which deny history a place in the world of science, but one must also not forget that a historian as well as all social scientist are facd with many difficulties in their  discipline, It is true that history is not a full blown science and neither can we draw the sama analogies between history and natural sciences. The critical point is simply that it is possible to have a scientific attitude and use scientific methods in history. This can be understood on the way in which E.H. CArrh has put it, by understanding he aim of scientist s and historians and it is in an attaempt to grasp this that the historians can adopt a scientific attitudes which will make the interpretation objective.

Even the natural scientists say that this is the ultimate truth. There is nothing like a truth for all time to come, so history and natural science…some kind of acceptable point may be arrived, and thern there will…each of these arguments can be demolosihshed, countered.

It is because ogf this that history has found its place in the social science. It is only if we accept in a scientific model the understanding ofd human civilization, the, it would be relevnt for further generations.