What, in your view, is a historian? (1 Viewer)

[Wics]

often in exams we need to know our own opinion, and our own definitions for history and its historians with sources to back it up.

Hence the question;
What, in your view, is a historian?

If we all contribute we can further shape our own definitions which should help us with paper one.
Yes i will edit this to have mine in it soon. just wording it is the hard part, heh.

wooooo, lets start the discussion

 

[absorber]

someone who analyses events and people from the past in order to logically deduct a conclusion

 

[Jack Burton]

a person who records history with ya mum

 

[doggieslover]

A person who uses past events to tell a story. An artist whose medium is past events, found out with scientific method.
An artist who uses their intellect and history (with a small h) to express themselves, as a musician uses music, a poet language, an historian uses past events and people to reflect themselves...
A storyteller

just some thoughts i only half believe myself!

 

[absorber]

by 'uses past events' do you mean manipulate? I don't personally agree with the 'storyteller' notion, at least in general. History's interesting as a story, but it's ultimately a story with a moral, something to be learned and something which therefore should be treated critically in order to obtain a productive outcome

 

[susstorm]

Re: In your view, what is a historian?

a person who is an authority on history and who studies it and writes about it

 

[absorber]

Someone who understands the benefit of hindsight when examining historical events and their outcomes

 

[roar84eighty]

Someone who understands the benefit of hindsight when examining historical events and their outcomes

lol
piss off that hindsight bullshit

maybe we should appreciate barthes' notion of the death of the author?

 

[xeuyrawp]

I follow Collingwood, who said that anybody who engages with the past is an historian. Therefore 'the question is not "Shall I be an historian or not?" but "How good an historian shall I be?"'

 

[pman]

everyone is a historian becouse everybody knows something about the past, for instance i know i posted this thread (which will have happened in the past by the time you read it)

 

[spence]

I have to agree with Pwar's view

someone who analyses events and people from the past in order to logically deduct a conclusion

Not meaning to be nit-picky, but I don't think many historians use a deductive method tbh. Generally historical explanations are abductive.