An Inquiry Into The Meaning of Studying History and Historiography
An Inquiry Into The Meaning of Studying History and Historiography
By Kam Shing Hei, Faculty of Arts, The University of Hong Kong
Supervised by Professor Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, Common Core, The University of Hong Kong
Abstract:
What is the meaning of studying history? History education is often compulsory all around the globe and history curricula always are at the epicentre of education debates in politics. These current debates on history education are, however, mostly around “what to teach?” and “how to teach?” and not much about “why we teach?” I want to reflect, instead, on the meaning of learning history in schools and histography in higher education. These reasons and doubts usually are from the daily life common sense or social sciences ground. In this essay, I reflect on the meaning of doing and learning history from a philosophical perspective, particularly hard determinism, to see whether studying history can withstand this challenge.
