1. Makoto Abe
Senior Seminar Period 5
December 9th 2011
Roles of Language and Reason in History
Language is relevant to the theory of knowledge because it is one of the main ways
to acquire knowledge of the world. By communicating with others people can break out of
the small circle. This can apply to history where historians can use language to
communicate their theories based on various events however, language may cause
misinterpretations. Also people can acquire knowledge by using reason. People will
constantly use reason to go beyond immediate evidence of our senses. However reasoning
also creates fallacies which many historians use; this causes some conflict which
eventually alters the possible truth on a historical event. Language and reason has a large
role in history because it can always been misinterpreted which causes great conflicts or
confusions.
Language plays an important role in history for manipulating people and
interpreting history in the present. Propaganda was used often in history and many
historians use these propaganda speeches and posters for valuable sources to evaluate
history. The language used in many propaganda posters are intelligent and will have people
manipulated to do something for the nation. During World War I, the British created many
propaganda posters to encourage volunteers of British men to fight the war. For example;
one propaganda poster shows a son sitting on the ground playing soldiers while the father
is sitting in the chair while the daughter sits on the father’s lap. At the bottom of the poster

2. reads: “Daddy, what did YOU do in the great war?” This causes the men who read this
poster to want to go to war for the future, so that they can be proud for their
accomplishments. However language does not only play a role during history but it also
plays a role when evaluating history. When historians write textbooks they usually write
with vagueness or emotionally laden language which makes textbooks bias according to
each nation. In Western textbooks there is an idea of Eurocentric, therefore in many
American History textbooks it will read, “Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas”
when it should be “Christopher Columbus landed on the Americas.” Therefore language
has a large role for propaganda and history textbooks.
Historians use reason for their debates in history however many of these historians
use fallacies in order to support their reasoning and this creates conflict and confusion.
Some historians are biased in their reasoning on a historical event even though it may go
against reasoning. In the Nanjing Massacre in December 1937, Chinese historians
estimated 340,000 Chinese civilians were killed however, killing this amount of people in
the range of three days is nearly impossible. Therefore several thousand to 200,000
thousand seems more reasonable. Also there are fallacies such as Ad hominem which
historians use to support their theories. Many historians attack Hitler and blame Hitler for
the cause of World War II. Hitler is thought as an evil man in many countries because of
Hitler’s campaigns for anti-Semitism however, making Hitler the bad guy does not make
him the cause of World War II. Also another example of this is the forced acceptance of
war guilt on Germany’s part during the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Many nations
including France and Britain blamed Germany for the cause of World War I even though
there were other faults. However, the other nation’s attack on Germany had made people

3. convinced that Germany indeed caused World War I. Historians sometimes use reason
incorrectly with bias and fallacies, therefore reason may cause conflict and confusion.
Language can be misinterpreted which causes people to ignore reason therefore, in
history this can lead to conflict. There are two views on Hitler: either Hitler is a crazy man
who wanted war on the world or he simply intended to give Germany a great colonial
empire in Eastern Europe by defeating Soviet Russia. However historian A.J.P. Taylor
thought differently from these views. A.J.P. Taylor believed that World War II was not
caused by Hitler but it was caused by misguided policies of Britain and France. A.J.P.
Taylor supported his thesis because he believes that Britain and France had relied too much
on language to come to conclusions that they ignored reasoning to come to conclusions. On
28 November 1934, Baldwin denied Churchill’s claim that German air strength was equal
to that of Great Britain’s however, when the British foreign affairs visited Hitler, Hitler
told them that the German air force was already equal to that of Great Britain’s. This
caused the British to panic however, logically it is impossible for the German air force to
recover due to the economic strain and rearmament limits from the Treaty of Versailles.
Therefore because Britain and France relied too much on language they did not use reason
to interpret that it is nearly impossible to recover the German air force in such a limited
time.
Language and reason can be a source of knowledge for history however it can also
be a source of conflict and confusion. History is an endless cycle to find the truth of
various events and also it is a study of the human sciences. Also history will always have
bias based on people’s backgrounds and races. Therefore history may not have an absolute
truth because even has their own way to view history.