Writing History, Presentism And Historicism - 850 Words

Historiography is a complex topic, with often no answers to the questions is raises. (Hergenhahn Henley, 2014) This paper will be analyzing a few thoughts to be considered when writing history. There are two approaches to consider when writing history, presentism and historicism. Presentism is the format that takes a look at the psychological past and relating it to psychology today to show how it became that way. Historicism is the study of the past without relating it to the present in any way. Our text book takes on the approach of presentism because it can be difficult to present history without any regard to present day knowledge. (Hergenhahn Henley, 2014) Another way to look at presentism as a strong approach would be to think about our universities. The first university was created by the Greeks and has continued to developed as a strong education platform. (Introduction) Nowadays, it is difficult to find a career without some sort of college degree. It would be difficult to see the progress of education if it wasn’t for presentism. With presentism, one may be able to see the possible future with the information they have at hand now. (Hergenhahn Henley, 2014) As of right now, an undergraduate degree is seen as almost a necessity for most careers, and one could see the possibility of graduate degrees being required for an increased amount of degrees as more information is learned. It would also be difficult to imagine math and science in the view of