what is internal criticism in historical research

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Tuesday 19 May 2020

Internal criticism.

Internal criticism or higher criticism is the technique of testing the reliability of the information found in a document. It is concerned with the authenticity of the information and its purpose is to establish the trustworthiness of the contents of the document. Internal criticism is used to detect and determine whether the document contains errors or lies. It is the fundamental and significant task in which the historical narratives are reconstructed. Moreover, internal criticism is concerned with the interpretation of the sources and is also known as interpretative criticism. Hence it is also called Hermeneutics – the science of interpretation. If heuristic deals with the external aspects of a document, hermeneutics deal with the internal aspects of the document.

Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics, or ‘the theory of interpretation,’ is a field in contemporary Western Philosophy. It deals with principles and processes instrumental in the course of interpretation, especially the interpretation of texts. Thus, hermeneutics is an art of discovering meaning. Etymologically, the word, ‘hermeneutics’ is derived from the Greek verb hermeneuein and the noun hermeneia, to mean ‘to interpret’ or ‘interpretation’. Mythologically, it is related to Hermes, the Greek winged god, whose chief function was to interpret the messages of the Gods for human beings. Traditionally, it is linked to the rules for the interpretation of texts, especially the sacred and legal ones. The important hermeneutical thinkers are Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm Dilthey, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur.

Key Themes in Hermeneutics

Explanation : The focus of the explanation is on the validity of textual meaning. In explanation, a text can be treated like a window or like a mirror. In window reading, one sees through a text in order to explore its nature and origins, without any influences. In mirror reading, one stands before a text in order to understand it from within a particular context and is guided by personal and social interests. Both methods have positive and negative aspects.

Understanding : In order to understand the whole text, it is essential to understand the individual parts of the text. Similarly, in order to understand the parts, it is important to understand the whole idea of the text. Thus, for a better understanding of the text, the connected thinking between the whole and the parts of the text is necessary.

Trust and Suspicion : While interpreting a text, the hermeneutical trust operates from an understanding standpoint. On the other hand, the hermeneutical suspicion operates from a critical perspective. The blend of these two is necessary.

Method of Internal Criticism

More than anything else, the process of internal criticism requires a healthy doubt and a critical and analytical mind. While approaching a historical source, doubt is an inevitable thing. This doubt helps the historian to find out the most reliable account of the past. The critical approach guards the researcher against errors. The content of the document should be critically analyzed. The document should be divided into several parts. Each trace is separately analyzed and tested. The critical method should be applied to know the nature of historical facts and to test their authenticity.

In order to establish the credibility of the content of a document, the researcher has to investigate several aspects like:

The character of the document

The literal and real meaning of the text

The knowledge of the author

Competence and reliability of the author

Author’s personal connection with the event, which he explains

Author’s source of information in producing the document

The influences prevalent at the time of writing

• The elements of personal bias

The elements of deliberate and intentional errors

Corroborating evidence

Positive and Negative Interpretative Criticism

Internal criticism involves two operations:

1.    Positive interpretative criticism

The aim of positive interpretative criticism is to understand the literal and real meaning of the document. Words have two senses: literal and real. The literal is the grammatical meaning of the word i.e. "according to the letter". But words are not always used in the literal sense alone. The word may be used in a figurative or metaphorical sense also. The real sense of the word is the significance attached to it by the author or witness. Therefore, one should read the meaning of the word in letter and spirit. Again the language of a people never remains static. It changes from generation to generation and so an understanding of the idioms of the time of the document's origin is quite essential.

Familiarity with the language, linguistic usage, manner of writing and style, changes in expression, etc. are necessary to understand the literal meaning of the text. Similarly, the real meaning concealed in the text must be detected. The real meaning must be separated from the hidden meaning, as grain from the chaff. The researcher should determine the literal sense and the real or the inner meaning of the contents of the document under scrutiny. In short, internal criticism is intended to extract the real meaning of the text from the literal meaning. Its purpose is to know what the author really means by making a particular statement.

2.    Negative interpretative criticism

The aim of the negative interpretative criticism is to determine the element of truth contained in the text. Historian sometimes comes across documents that contradict each other. Hence the need for eliminating statements and facts which are obviously wrong and false is necessary. Negative criticism is concerned with the process of eliminating statements that are obviously false, fabricated, or forged. It is possible that a single statement is a mixture of true and false ideas, and accurate and inaccurate narration.

Errors may be deliberate or intentional. It may be due to several reasons. The author might be the victim of circumstances. Social obligations, religious practices, or political pressures would have led the author to write contrary to his personal convictions. Further, personal preferences, prejudices, and preferences towards events or persons might have influenced the author to deviate from the truth. Similarly, errors of accuracy occur when the source of information is defective. The researchers may be sincere, honest, and faithful but the information he gets may be wrong or defective due to reasons beyond his control. He may pass on the information in good faith without knowing that it is not true. These are committed because the historian is not the observer of events and has to necessarily depend on second-hand accounts.

Hence, negative interpretative criticism also deals with the truthfulness of the author. It examines the circumstances under which the document was written. It deals with the author's official status and his place in society. It investigates the degree of subjectivity and bias of the author. It also examines the sources of the author and his relation to the event that he narrates. Thus, negative criticism inquires not only about the good faith of the author but also the accuracy of the statement he makes.

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Historical method

The historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write histories in form of accounts of the past. The question of the nature, and indeed the possibility, of sound historical method is raised in the philosophy of history , as a question of epistemology .

[ edit ] Source criticism

[ edit ] core principles.

The following core principles of source criticism were formulated by two Scandinavian historians, Olden-Jørgensen (1998) and Thurén (1997): [ 1 ]

• Human sources may be relics (e.g. a fingerprint ) or narratives (e.g. a statement or a letter). Relics are more credible sources than narratives.
• A given source may be forged or corrupted; strong indications of the originality of the source increases its reliability.
• The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate description of what really happened.
• A primary source is more reliable than a secondary source , that is more reliable than a tertiary source and so on.
• If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased.
• The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations.
• If it can be demonstrated that the witness (or source) has no direct interest in creating bias, the credibility of the message is increased.

[ edit ] Procedures

Bernheim (1889) and Langlois & Seignobos (1898) proposed a seven-step procedure for source criticism in history: [ 2 ]

• If the sources all agree about an event, historians can consider the event proved.
• However, majority does not rule; even if most sources relate events in one way, that version will not prevail unless it passes the test of critical textual analysis .
• The source whose account can be confirmed by reference to outside authorities in some of its parts can be trusted in its entirety if it is impossible similarly to confirm the entire text.
• When two sources disagree on a particular point, the historian will prefer the source with most "authority" - - i.e. the source created by the expert or by the eyewitness.
• Eyewitnesses are, in general, to be preferred, especially in circumstances where the ordinary observer could have accurately reported what transpired and, more specifically, when they deal with facts known by most contemporaries.
• If two independently created sources agree on a matter, the reliability of each is measureably enhanced.
• When two sources disagree (and there is no other means of evaluation), then historians take the source which seems to accord best with common sense.

[ edit ] External criticism: authenticity and provenance

Garraghan divides criticism into six inquiries [ 3 ]

• When was the source, written or unwritten, produced (date)?
• Where was it produced (localization)?
• By whom was it produced (authorship)?
• From what pre-existing material was it produced (analysis)?
• In what original form was it produced (integrity)?
• What is the evidential value of its contents (credibility)?

The first four are known as higher criticism ; the fifth, lower criticism ; and, together, external criticism. The sixth and final inquiry about a source is called internal criticism.

R. J. Shafer on external criticism: "It sometimes is said that its function is negative, merely saving us from using false evidence; whereas internal criticism has the positive function of telling us how to use authenticated evidence." [ 4 ]

[ edit ] Internal criticism: historical reliability

Noting that few documents are accepted as completely reliable, Louis Gottschalk sets down the general rule, "for each particular of a document the process of establishing credibility should be separately undertaken regardless of the general credibility of the author." An author's trustworthiness in the main may establish a background probability for the consideration of each statement, but each piece of evidence extracted must be weighed individually.

[ edit ] Eyewitness evidence

R. J. Shafer offers this checklist for evaluating eyewitness testimony : [ 5 ]

• Is the real meaning of the statement different from its literal meaning? Are words used in senses not employed today? Is the statement meant to be ironic (i.e., mean other than it says)?
• How well could the author observe the thing he reports? Were his senses equal to the observation? Was his physical location suitable to sight, hearing, touch? Did he have the proper social ability to observe: did he understand the language, have other expertise required (e.g., law , military ); was he not being intimidated by his wife or the secret police ?
• Regarding his ability to report, was he biased? Did he have proper time for reporting? Proper place for reporting? Adequate recording instruments?
• When did he report in relation to his observation? Soon? Much later? Fifty years is much later as most eyewitnesses are dead and those who remain may have forgotten relevant material.
• What was the author's intention in reporting? For whom did he report? Would that audience be likely to require or suggest distortion to the author?
• Are there additional clues to intended veracity? Was he indifferent on the subject reported, thus probably not intending distortion? Did he make statements damaging to himself, thus probably not seeking to distort? Did he give incidental or casual information, almost certainly not intended to mislead?
• Do his statements seem inherently improbable: e.g., contrary to human nature , or in conflict with what we know?
• Remember that some types of information are easier to observe and report on than others.
• Are there inner contradictions in the document?

Louis Gottschalk adds an additional consideration: "Even when the fact in question may not be well-known, certain kinds of statements are both incidental and probable to such a degree that error or falsehood seems unlikely. If an ancient inscription on a road tells us that a certain proconsul built that road while Augustus was princeps , it may be doubted without further corroboration that that proconsul really built the road, but would be harder to doubt that the road was built during the principate of Augusutus. If an advertisement informs readers that 'A and B Coffee may be bought at any reliable grocer's at the unusual price of fifty cents a pound,' all the inferences of the advertisement may well be doubted without corroboration except that there is a brand of coffee on the market called 'A and B Coffee.'" [ 6 ]

[ edit ] Indirect witnesses

Garraghan says that most information comes from "indirect witnesses," people who were not present on the scene but heard of the events from someone else. [ 7 ] Gottschalk says that a historian may sometimes use hearsay evidence. He writes, "In cases where he uses secondary witnesses, however, he does not rely upon them fully. On the contrary, he asks: (1) On whose primary testimony does the secondary witness base his statements? (2) Did the secondary witness accurately report the primary testimony as a whole? (3) If not, in what details did he accurately report the primary testimony? Satisfactory answers to the second and third questions may provide the historian with the whole or the gist of the primary testimony upon which the secondary witness may be his only means of knowledge. In such cases the secondary source is the historian's 'original' source, in the sense of being the 'origin' of his knowledge. Insofar as this 'original' source is an accurate report of primary testimony, he tests its credibility as he would that of the primary testimony itself." [ 8 ]

[ edit ] Oral tradition

Gilbert Garraghan maintains that oral tradition may be accepted if it satisfies either two "broad conditions" or six "particular conditions", as follows: [ 9 ]

• The tradition should be supported by an unbroken series of witnesses, reaching from the immediate and first reporter of the fact to the living mediate witness from whom we take it up, or to the one who was the first to commit it to writing.
• There should be several parallel and independent series of witnesses testifying to the fact in question.
• The tradition must report a public event of importance, such as would necessarily be known directly to a great number of persons.
• The tradition must have been generally believed, at least for a definite period of time.
• During that definite period it must have gone without protest, even from persons interested in denying it.
• The tradition must be one of relatively limited duration. [Elsewhere, Garraghan suggests a maximum limit of 150 years, at least in cultures that excel in oral remembrance.]
• The critical spirit must have been sufficiently developed while the tradition lasted, and the necessary means of critical investigation must have been at hand.
• Critical-minded persons who would surely have challenged the tradition ' had they considered it false ' must have made no such challenge.

Other methods of verifying oral tradition may exist, such as comparison with the evidence of archaeological remains.

More recent evidence concerning the potential reliability or unreliability of oral tradition has come out of fieldwork in West Africa and Eastern Europe . [ 10 ]

[ edit ] Synthesis: historical reasoning

Once individual pieces of information have been assessed in context, hypotheses can be formed and established by historical reasoning.

[ edit ] Argument to the best explanation

C. Behan McCullagh lays down seven conditions for a successful argument to the best explanation: [ 11 ]

• The statement, together with other statements already held to be true, must imply yet other statements describing present, observable data. (We will henceforth call the first statement 'the hypothesis ', and the statements describing observable data, 'observation statements'.)
• The hypothesis must be of greater explanatory scope than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must imply a greater variety of observation statements.
• The hypothesis must be of greater explanatory power than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must make the observation statements it implies more probable than any other.
• The hypothesis must be more plausible than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must be implied to some degree by a greater variety of accepted truths than any other, and be implied more strongly than any other; and its probable negation must be implied by fewer beliefs, and implied less strongly than any other.
• The hypothesis must be less ad hoc than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must include fewer new suppositions about the past which are not already implied to some extent by existing beliefs.
• It must be disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, when conjoined with accepted truths it must imply fewer observation statements and other statements which are believed to be false.
• It must exceed other incompatible hypotheses about the same subject by so much, in characteristics 2 to 6, that there is little chance of an incompatible hypothesis, after further investigation, soon exceeding it in these respects.

McCullagh sums up, "if the scope and strength of an explanation are very great, so that it explains a large number and variety of facts, many more than any competing explanation, then it is likely to be true." [ 12 ]

[ edit ] Statistical inference

McCullagh states this form of argument as follows: [ 13 ]

• There is probability (of the degree p 1 ) that whatever is an A is a B.
• It is probable (to the degree p 2 ) that this is an A.
• Therefore (relative to these premises) it is probable (to the degree p 1  ×  p 2 ) that this is a B.

McCullagh gives this example: [ 14 ]

• In thousands of cases, the letters V.S.L.M. appearing at the end of a Latin inscription on a tombstone stand for Votum Solvit Libens Merito .
• From all appearances the letters V.S.L.M. are on this tombstone at the end of a Latin inscription.
• Therefore these letters on this tombstone stand for '' Votum Solvit Libens Merito ''.

This is a syllogism in probabilistic form, making use of a generalization formed by induction from numerous examples (as the first premise).

[ edit ] Argument from analogy

The structure of the argument is as follows: [ 15 ]

• One thing (object, event, or state of affairs ) has properties p 1  . . .   p n and p n + 1 .
• Another thing has properties p 1  . . .  p n .
• So the latter has property p n + 1 .

McCullagh says that an argument from analogy, if sound, is either a "covert statistical syllogism" or better expressed as an argument to the best explanation. It is a statistical syllogism when it is "established by a sufficient number and variety of instances of the generalization"; otherwise, the argument may be invalid because properties 1 through n are unrelated to property n  + 1, unless property n  + 1 is the best explanation of properties 1 through l n . Analogy, therefore, is uncontroversial only when used to suggest hypotheses, not as a conclusive argument.

[ edit ] See also

• Historiography
• Marxist historiography
• Philosophy of history
• Scientific method
• Scholarly method
• Source criticism

[ edit ] Footnotes

• ^ Thurén, Torsten. (1997). Källkritik. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
• ^ Howell, Martha & Prevenier, Walter(2001). From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8560-6 .
• ^ A Guide to Historical Method , p. 168
• ^ A Guide to Historical Method , p. 118
• ^ A Guide to Historical Method , pp. 157'158
• ^ Understanding History , p. 163
• ^ A Guide to Historical Method , p. 292
• ^ Understanding History , 165
• ^ A Guide to Historical Method , 261'262)
• ^ See J. Vansina, De la tradition orale. Essai de méthode historique , in translation as Oral Tradition as History , as well as A. B. Lord 's study of Slavic bards in The Singer of Tales . Note also the Icelandic sagas , such as that by Snorri Sturlason in the thirteenth century , and K. E. Bailey , "Informed Controlled Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels", Asia Journal of Theology [1991], 34'54. Compare Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy .
• ^ Justifying Historical Descriptions , p. 19
• ^ Justifying Historical Descriptions , p. 26
• ^ Justifying Historical Descriptions , 48
• ^ Justifying Historical Descriptions , p. 47
• ^ Justifying Historical Descriptions , p. v85

[ edit ] References

• Gilbert J. Garraghan, A Guide to Historical Method , Fordham University Press: New York (1946). ISBN 0837171326
• Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method , Alfred A. Knopf: New York (1950). ISBN 0-394-30215-X .
• Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods , Cornell University Press: Ithaca (2001). ISBN 0-8014-8560-6 .
• C. Behan McCullagh, Justifying Historical Descriptions , Cambridge University Press: New York (1984). ISBN 0-521-31830-0 .
• R. J. Shafer, A Guide to Historical Method , The Dorsey Press: Illinois (1974). ISBN 0-534-10825-3 .

[ edit ] External links

• Introduction to Historical Method by Marc Comtois
• Philosophy of History by Paul Newall
• The Historian's Sources , online lesson by the Library of Congress
• Federal Rules of Evidence in United States law

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The Authenticity of Sources and the Reliability of Informants

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• Jerzy Topolski  

Part of the book series: Synthese Library ((SYLI,volume 88))

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Textbooks of historical research usually distinguish between the external and the internal criticism of the sources. The former is often termed (after Langlois and Seignobos) erudite criticism or (after Bern-heim) lower criticism; the latter is called higher criticism or, as has been mentioned earlier, hermeneutics. Assimilating the principles of criticism, especially those of external criticism, was for a long time-from the birth of the erudite approach in the 17th century-the main component of the methodological training of historians. It has remained so to this day, but as we move away from the positivist and idiographic approach, which attaches excessive importance to source-based knowledge, historians must be given more and more elements of the general methodology of history.

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Reading is interpreted here very broadly, so as to cover extracting information from non-written material sources (e.g., traces of an old building).

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S. Kościałkowski (cf. Historyka, ed. cit ., p. 79) restricts the study of the authenticity of sources to establishing whether a given source “conveys the text in its original, unchanged and uncontaminated content, form, and wording, given to it by its true author”. M. Handelsman distinguishes — next to the study of the time and place of origin and the authorship of a given source-the criticism of the nature of a source (whether a given document is genuine or not, pp. 45 ff) and what he calls the analysis of the sources (pp. 159 ff), intended to sort out original, secondary, dependent, etc., sources. We find the same in Bernheim (pp. 324-446). Langlois and Seignobos single out, within external criticism, critique de restitution (pp. 51 ff) and critique de provenance (pp. 66 ff). The former means establishing the proper text (e.g., by the comparison of several copies), and the latter, finding out the origin of a given source. Valuable data on external and internal criticism are to be found in Studia źródłoznawcze .

We might also say that, regardless of our knowledge of their time and place of origin, all sources are authentic. This would be a still more general, unrestricted, concept of authenticity, but useless in our considerations.

On extra-logical rules see J. Giedymin, Problemy logiczne, ed cit ., p. 2.

Cf. A. J. Ayer, “Imiona wlasne a deskrypcje”(Proper Names Versus Descriptions), quoted after the Polish-language text in Studia Filozoficzne , No. 5/1960, pp. 136–56.

M. Bloch, Apologie pour l’histoire , ed. cit ., pp. 115–116.

Cf. M. Handelsman, Historyka , ed. cit ., pp. 135 ff; E. Bernheim, Lehrbuch der historischen Methode, ed. cit ., pp. 391 ff. On the place of origin see Ch. Higouet, “La Géohistoire”in: L’histoire et ses méthodes, ed. cit ., pp. 68-89.

This example is drawn from Dzieje Gniezna (A History of Gniezno), War-szawa 1965, section written by H. Chłopocka, pp. 133-5.

Kronika wielkopolska (The Greater Poland Chronicle), B. Kürbis (ed.), Warszawa 1965, p. 16.

Cf. G. Labuda, Ź ródla, sagi i legendy do najdawniejszych dziejów Polski (Sources, Sagas and Legends Relating to the Earliest History of Poland), Warszawa 1960, pp. 9, 111.

Cf. A. Dopsch, Die Wirtschaftsentwicklung der Karolingerzeit vornehmlich in Deutschland , vol. I, 1912, vol. II, 1913.

Quoted after M. Handelsman, op. cit ., pp. 148 ff.

The example given by M. Bloch, Apologie pour l’histoire, ed. cit ., p. 149.

The concept of reliability has been extensively treated by J. Giedymin in numerous papers. The summing up is to be found in Probkmy, założenia, roz-strzygnięcia (Problems, Assumptions, Decisions), ed. cit ., pp. 105 ff. His numerous suggestions and solutions are used in the present book; they are generalized so as to cover all sources, and not only those which were intended to convey information.

Cf. G. H. von Wright, “The Foundation of Norms and Normative Statements”in The Foundation of Statements and Decisions , ed. cit ., pp. 351–67. See also J. Topolski and J. Wisniewski, Introduction to Lustracje Województwa Pod-laskiego , 1570 i 1576 (Inspections in Podlasie Province, 1570 and 1576), Wro-claw-Warszawa 1959, p. xxxi.

S. Nowak, Studio, z metodologii nauk spolecznych (Studies in the Methodology of the Social Sciences), Warszawa 1965.

J. Giedymin, op. cit ., pp. 106–9.

Ibid., pp . 105 ff.

C. Bobinska failed to grasp these distinctions when she criticized J. Giedymin for his supposed failure to notice the fact that all written sources are tendentious. He did notice it, but all that applies to the concept of real informant. (See C. Bobińska, Historyk. Fakt. Metoda (The Historian, the Fact, the Method), ed. cit ., pp. 69-70).

The fact was also noted by J. Giedymin, op. cit., p . 108.

The aspect of the problem is more extensively commented on by C. Bobińska, op. cit ., pp. 69 ff.

Of coure, contemporaneity must be interpreted conventionally. A set of legal provisions contains information intended for the contemporaries as long as it is not altered.

An interesting literature of the subject is available.

T. Seweryn, Staropolska grafika ludowa (Old Polish Peasant Drawings), Warszawa 1956, p. 13.

Cf. A. J. Ayer, op. cit ., pp. 136 ff. Of statements about individuals see T. Czezowski, Filozofia na rozdrożu — Analizy metodologiczne (Philosophy at Crossroads — Methodological Analyses), ed. cit ., pp. 62 ff.

A. J. Ayer, op. cit ., pp. 155–6.

The terminology is that of J. Giedymin ( op. cit ., p. 78), who was also, concerned with authorship studies in his Z problemów logicznych analizy histo-rycznej (Some Logical Issues of Historical Analyses), ed. cit ., pp. 47 ff. The problem will be discussed again in connection with mathematical (frequency) analyses of texts.

The summing up of the latest achievements in textual criticism is to be found in R. Marichal, “La critique des textes”in L’histoire et ses méthodes , pp. 247-366. See also H. C. Hockett, The Critical Method in Historical Research and Writing , New York 1955. J. Friedrich, Geschichte der Schrift , Heidelberg 1965, may also prove valuable to a historian.

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Topolski, J. (1976). The Authenticity of Sources and the Reliability of Informants. In: Methodology of History. Synthese Library, vol 88. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1123-5_20

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