Learning how to combine different kinds of evidence—public statements, private records, numerical data, visual materials—develops the ability to make coherent arguments based on a variety of data. This skill can also be applied to information encountered in everyday life. The Ability to Assess Conflicting Interpretations.
Learning history means gaining some skill in sorting through diverse, often conflicting interpretations. Understanding how societies work—the central goal of historical study—is inherently imprecise, and the same certainly holds true for understanding what is going on in the present day. Learning how to identify and evaluate conflicting interpretations is an essential citizenship skill for which history, as an often-contested laboratory of human experience, provides training. This is one area in which the full benefits of historical study sometimes clash with the narrower uses of the past to construct identity.
Experience in examining past situations provides a constructively critical sense that can be applied to partisan claims about the glories of national or group identity. The study of history in no sense undermines loyalty or commitment, but it does teach the need for assessing arguments, and it provides opportunities to engage in debate and achieve perspective. Experience in Assessing Past Examples of Change. Experience in assessing past examples of change is vital to understanding change in society today—it's an essential skill in what we are regularly told is our "ever-changing world.
Comparing particular changes to relevant examples from the past helps students of history develop this capacity. The ability to identify the continuities that always accompany even the most dramatic changes also comes from studying history, as does the skill to determine probable causes of change. Learning history helps one figure out, for example, if one main factor—such as a technological innovation or some deliberate new policy—accounts for a change or whether, as is more commonly the case, a number of factors combine to generate the actual change that occurs.
Historical study, in sum, is crucial to the promotion of that elusive creature, the well-informed citizen. It provides basic factual information about the background of our political institutions and about the values and problems that affect our social well-being.
It also contributes to our capacity to use evidence, assess interpretations, and analyze change and continuities. No one can ever quite deal with the present as the historian deals with the past—we lack the perspective for this feat; but we can move in this direction by applying historical habits of mind, and we will function as better citizens in the process.
History is useful for work. Its study helps create good businesspeople, professionals, and political leaders. The number of explicit professional jobs for historians is considerable, but most people who study history do not become professional historians. Professional historians teach at various levels, work in museums and media centers, do historical research for businesses or public agencies, or participate in the growing number of historical consultancies.
These categories are important—indeed vital—to keep the basic enterprise of history going, but most people who study history use their training for broader professional purposes. Students of history find their experience directly relevant to jobs in a variety of careers as well as to further study in fields like law and public administration. Employers often deliberately seek students with the kinds of capacities historical study promotes.
The reasons are not hard to identify: students of history acquire, by studying different phases of the past and different societies in the past, a broad perspective that gives them the range and flexibility required in many work situations.
They develop research skills, the ability to find and evaluate sources of information, and the means to identify and evaluate diverse interpretations. Work in history also improves basic writing and speaking skills and is directly relevant to many of the analytical requirements in the public and private sectors, where the capacity to identify, assess, and explain trends is essential. Historical study is unquestionably an asset for a variety of work and professional situations, even though it does not, for most students, lead as directly to a particular job slot, as do some technical fields.
But history particularly prepares students for the long haul in their careers, its qualities helping adaptation and advancement beyond entry-level employment. There is no denying that in our society many people who are drawn to historical study worry about relevance. In our changing economy, there is concern about job futures in most fields. Historical training is not, however, an indulgence; it applies directly to many careers and can clearly help us in our working lives.
Why study history? The answer is because we virtually must, to gain access to the laboratory of human experience. When we study it reasonably well, and so acquire some usable habits of mind, as well as some basic data about the forces that affect our own lives, we emerge with relevant skills and an enhanced capacity for informed citizenship, critical thinking, and simple awareness.
The uses of history are varied. Studying history can help us develop some literally "salable" skills, but its study must not be pinned down to the narrowest utilitarianism.
Some history—that confined to personal recollections about changes and continuities in the immediate environment—is essential to function beyond childhood. Some history depends on personal taste, where one finds beauty, the joy of discovery, or intellectual challenge. Between the inescapable minimum and the pleasure of deep commitment comes the history that, through cumulative skill in interpreting the unfolding human record, provides a real grasp of how the world works.
Through clear graphs and informal prose, readers will find hard data, practical advice, and answers to common questions about the study of history and the value it affords to individuals, their workplaces, and their communities in Careers for History Majors. You can purchase this pamphlet online at Oxford University Press. For questions about the pamphlet, please contact Karen Lou klou historians. For bulk orders contact OUP directly. May Prescribed Titles. Spiderweb Discussion Documents.
Student Tok sites. Application of the Think ToK Process. Human Science. Natural Science. The Arts. Emotion and History. Emotional Intelligence. Readings and Video. Rosseau and happiness. April Aug-Dec February HAL Rubric. Jan Jan-June Jan-May March May Mini Essay Exemplars. Random Activities and Assignments. ToK Nuts and Bolts. Knowledge Claims. Knowledge Issues. Readings and Activities.
Lang and Art. Lang and History. Bucket number two is organic systems, 3. And bucket number three is human history…. In some areas, it is necessary to accept that truth is subjective. For example, ethicists accept that it is difficult to establish absolute truths concerning whether something is right or wrong, as standards change over time and vary around the world.
When it comes to reasoning, a correctly phrased statement can be considered to have objective truth. Some statements have an objective truth that we cannot ascertain at present. For example, we do not have proof for the existence or non-existence of aliens, although proof does exist somewhere.
The fictional character Sherlock Holmes is a master of induction. He is a careful observer who processes what he sees to reach the most likely conclusion in the given set of circumstances. It is true induction, coming up with the strongest possible explanation for the phenomena he observes.
Consider his description of how, upon first meeting Watson, he reasoned that Watson had just come from Afghanistan:. I knew you came from Afghanistan. From long habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind, that I arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps. There were such steps, however. Clearly an army doctor, then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly.
His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan. I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished. Inductive reasoning involves drawing conclusions from facts, using logic. We draw these kinds of conclusions all the time. If someone we know to have good literary taste recommends a book, we may assume that means we will enjoy the book.
Induction can be strong or weak. If an inductive argument is strong, the truth of the premise would mean the conclusion is likely. If an inductive argument is weak, the logic connecting the premise and conclusion is incorrect. The entire legal system is designed to be based on sound reasoning, which in turn must be based on evidence. Lawyers often use inductive reasoning to draw a relationship between facts for which they have evidence and a conclusion. The initial facts are often based on generalizations and statistics, with the implication that a conclusion is most likely to be true, even if that is not certain.
For that reason, evidence can rarely be considered certain. Inductive reasoning also involves Bayesian updating. A conclusion can seem to be true at one point until further evidence emerges and a hypothesis must be adjusted. If we imagine a simplified, hypothetical criminal case, we can picture the utility of Bayesian inference combined with inductive reasoning. One of them is the primary suspect, and there is no evidence of anyone else entering the house. Other evidence will then adjust that probability.
Reality is more complex than this, of course. The conclusion is never certain, only highly probable. One key distinction between deductive and inductive reasoning is that the latter accepts that a conclusion is uncertain and may change in the future. A conclusion is either strong or weak, not right or wrong.
We tend to use this type of reasoning in everyday life, drawing conclusions from experiences and then updating our beliefs. Everyday inductive reasoning is not always correct, but it is often useful. For example, superstitious beliefs often originate from inductive reasoning. If an athlete performed well on a day when they wore their socks inside out, they may conclude that the inside-out socks brought them luck.
If future successes happen when they again wear their socks inside out, the belief may strengthen. Should that not be the case, they may update their belief and recognize that it is incorrect. Only when Thanksgiving rolls around does that assumption prove incorrect.
The issue with overusing inductive reasoning is that cognitive shortcuts and biases can warp the conclusions we draw. Our world is not always as predictable as inductive reasoning suggests, and we may selectively draw upon past experiences to confirm a belief.
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