Practice question · True or false
Because every historian selects and interprets, all historical accounts are equally valid.
Hints
- Selection does not make all accounts equally supported.
- Some claims are refuted by evidence and others are not.
Show the answer
False
Why
This does not survive one minute of practice. Some claims are refuted by the evidence and others are not; no amount of standpoint-talk makes a forged document genuine. Selection is unavoidable, which is an argument for explicit criteria, not for surrender.
Practise The Epistemology of History
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
More questions on The Epistemology of History
- A manuscript claiming to be a fifth-century charter mentions a fortress built in the ninth. What kind of…
- Sort each practice: does it belong to objectivity as procedure or to the impossible mirror?
- Why is incidental detail, a bill of lading listing the price of pepper, such strong evidence?
- Why does the archive tilt toward the wealthy, literate, and metropolitan?
- Complete the account of historical evidence.
- Put the three filters in the order they act on the past.