Serial Number : http://www.riss.kr/link?id=A106009676

Title :  History and Truth - History Writing and History Making

Author : KIM, Gi-bong

Journal : The Korean Journal of History of Historiography,

VOl. : Vol.38 No.1 [2018]

Pages :  268-293

Published by : The Korean Society of History of Historiography

Date : 2018. 12.

Register Information : kCI

etc. :

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<Abstract>

Historians are people who make the past history. History is a story, while the past is a fact. Positivism in history claimed that historians were able to approach the truth by restoring what had happened in the past. However, this axiom of the positivist approach is merely an unrealizable postulate. Indeed, the history of historiography has been developed on the condition of inconsistencies, not in accordance with past and history. Descartes argued that history could not be science because historians were unable to produce clear and distinct knowledge of the past. On the contrary, Vico established the proposition “Verum esse ipsum factum” based on the premise that humans can know only what they have made. Historians make ‘historical facts,’ as a result of their study by utilizing ‘facts of the past’ as data. ‘Pseudo-history’ refers to a false history written by an attempt to distort or fabricate the historical data. ’Pseudo-history’ must be driven out since it threatens the identity of history as data science. But for historians, the accuracy of data is an obligation, but not a virtue. What is the truth that history must pursue in the digital age when many things in the real world are turning into the virtual world? In the virtual world, humans make facts, so truth is actually ”made-up”. In this era of truth making, Alvin Toffler said, “The future is not to predict but to imagine.” The Fourth Industrial Revolution calls for a new path to civilization that has not been visited by previous humans. In response to this request, history should be transformed into a discipline that fosters imagination that creates truth for the future rather than exploring objective knowledge about the past. 

<Key words>

Historical fact ,Fiction ,Truth of history ,Vico ,Pseudo-history,Future history