Historical thinking
Historical thinking is its own form or attitude of consciousness towards the world as historical consciousness . Thinking, consciousness arranges the outer world with the help of historical categories (fundamental concepts such as development , progress , process ). In this way, human experiences of time become history .
Characteristics of historical thought
In historical thinking, all social conditions are considered to be random, contingent, and changeable. They have developed in this way under several conceivable possibilities in reality ( historicity ); It is the task of historical research to determine the reasons for this . Bodo von Borries ' standard example is the question: Why are the Austrians not Germans? The answer lies only in the historical development, which can also be imagined differently. Objects of historical thought are political, economic, social, ecological, intellectual and cultural relationships that have determined or are still determining people's lives.
Historical statements show the structure of narrative : historical contexts are always told as meaningful stories . This is the basis of all historiography . The philosopher Arthur Danto has the epistemological , the literary critic Hayden White history theoretically analyzed.
Historical thinking is an Enlightenment achievement . It recognizes and emphasizes the ability of people to bring about social change through conscious action. At the beginning of the 18th century, the philosopher Giambattista Vico was one of the first to understand that it is in the power of people to make their own story.
With the emergence of historical thinking, conscious change first became the subject of theoretical considerations. The interest in change included the recognition that human subjectivity is also part of history and thus changeable. This new awareness of the transience of ideas and relationships recognized human consciousness as having a decisive, history-making role.
School practice
Historical thinking has to be learned. It develops in competence
- for the investigation, clarification and representation of historical phenomena,
- for the interpretation of contexts and the passage of time,
- on historical discourse as well
- to conclusions for the present and the future.
This includes the methodological skills
- Reconstruct the past from sources and other information ,
- To deconstruct representations of the past , to question their interpretations and their meaning for oneself.
Quote
- "Historical thinking is looking back in the face of a current need for orientation (a current temporal uncertainty) in order to gain an idea of how 'today' and 'tomorrow' can be acted sensibly." ( Jörn Rüsen )
literature
- Arthur C. Danto: Analytical Philosophy of History , Frankfurt a. M. 1980 (English 1965), 2nd edition 2009 ISBN 978-3518279281
- Hayden White: Klio also writes or the fiction of the factual. Studies on the tropology of historical discourse , Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1986 ISBN 978-3608912531
- ders .: The importance of form. Narrative structures in historiography , Fischer TB, Frankfurt a. M. 1990 (engl. 1978) ISBN 3596274176
- Jörn Rüsen : Historical Reason. Basics of a History I: The Basics of History . Vandenhoeck Ruprecht Göttingen 1983
- Jörn Rüsen: Article Historical Categories , in: K. Bergmann u. a. (Ed.): Handbuch der Geschichtsdidaktik , 5th edition, Seelze-Velber 1997
- Bodo von Borries : Learning to think historically - exploring the world instead of looking at an era. History as a subject and educational task , Barbara Budrich, Opladen u. a. 2008 ISBN 9783866491526
Remarks
- ↑ This distinguishes it from e.g. B. mathematical or utopian thinking.
- ↑ Kultusministerkonferenz : Uniform examination requirements in the Abitur examination history, 2005 EPA 2005 (PDF; 669 kB)