1) Language and reason both play significant roles in making and learning history. Language is how historical records are documented and passed down through generations. Reasoning is how decisions were made that shaped historical events. 2) However, both language and reason have limitations that can impact the accuracy of historical interpretations. Language can be ambiguous and difficult to translate between cultures. Reasoning can differ depending on perspective and involve biases or fallacies. 3) While language and reason are important for writing and understanding history, it is impossible to completely avoid prejudice since individuals perceive events through their own lens, influenced by factors like nationality.

1. Honori Yamada
December 9, 2011
Senior Seminar 4
Discuss the roles of language and reason in history.
“If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.” (Pearl Buck). History
plays a very fundamental role in our everyday lives as it has been helping us mold our future.
However, the word „history‟ is very broad and universal that talking about a specific matter of
history can be simply biased due to its ambiguity of the term. History can be defined as a
chronological record of events, such as the life or development of people or institution that often
includes an explanation on the events. History does not merely help us understand about the past,
but it also helps us understand the present and predict our upcoming future. Within historical
records, there are two major evidences: primary and secondary sources. In order to record
evidence, communication and language becomes very important; thus, the role of language in
history becomes a significant factor. Reason is also another key factor in history since reasoning
leads us to make decisions, therefore reasoning must have built up all the decision in history.
Although language and reason both play significant roles in history and helping us mold the
future, the two concepts also have each of its limitations. Furthermore, this comes into question,
“How far are historical interpretations a result of reason, language, and other ways of knowing?”
Both language and reason plays a significant role in making and learning history. Similar
to oxygen, language has become ubiquitous and completely surrounds us every day that we are
rarely conscious of using it. Because we use language on our everyday basis, it has a central
function in our lives. Language is used in many purposes such as describing things, expressing
feelings, communication facts and information, and persuading others. In fact, language can be
one of the greatest ways in which we gain knowledge about the world and our surroundings. For
example, we usually learn history at school by reading textbooks, watching historical
documentaries, and listening to teachers. This shows that we rely heavily on language to study
and understand history. Because historical records are noted and described through language to
keep for generations and generations, we can say to an extent that without language, there would
be not much history today. In addition, reason is also a great factor in helping us learn and
understand history. By reasoning specific situations, people come up with decisions to act upon.
To put in historical context, wars and treaties were essentially made through the process of
reasoning and decision makings. One way in which most politicians in history made decisions
have leaderships and presidents is through group consensus. Therefore, as far as language is
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2. Honori Yamada
December 9, 2011
Senior Seminar 4
important in history, reason is as important since without any decisions that were made in
history, none of the events would have happened to be recorded.
Although language is a great factor to learn and understand history, language is an
extremely powerful tool not only to communicate thoughts, share facts and information, but also
to alter people‟s ideas and facts. In one expression, language is very ambiguous. Some of the
ways language is used to alter people‟s thoughts and emotions is by persuasive words,
euphemisms, weasel words, grammar, and by revealing and concealing. In history, wartime
propagandas and posters that support its nation‟s superiority use extreme languages to influence
and persuade people to become nationalistic. Not only did language help shape up and build
history in the past, but it also has limitations to how history was recorded. Since language differ
from different groups, cultures, and places, recording and keeping secondary sources of artifacts
can have limitations to its lost in translation. Different words from different languages cannot be
perfectly translated and thus, this affects the accuracy in portraying history. For example, casse-
toi in French literally translates to „go break yourself‟. However, in French, it is defined a way to
simply say „get out‟. Many historical records were discovered from all over the world and in
order for historians or writers to translate primary sources into secondary sources; is must result
to issues in translation that thus altered the history we have in our mental map over generations.
Since there are things people can express in one language that cannot be expressed in another,
this is an example of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Reason and how it is used in history have limits as well. Although rationalists may
believe that reason itself is the way to get to truth and reality, reason has significant merits
similar to language. There are different ways of reasoning and what is most important is how
people often believe that their reasons are valid, however we are often unconscious that we do
not reason accurately. These lead to different informal reasoning and fallacies. For example, in
relation to history, the way Western textbooks reason the colonization of Africa and the way
African textbooks reason the colonization would be different. In Western textbooks, it would
most likely explain how the western colonies came to Africa to civilize and help develop the
country. However in African textbooks, it would most likely explain how the westerns invaded
their land and forced intensive labors upon the African citizens. Most cases with the issue of
reasoning to tell history is Ad Ignorantium, which claims that something is true simply because it
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3. Honori Yamada
December 9, 2011
Senior Seminar 4
cannot be proved wrong. Ad Ignorantium mostly applies to the issue of reasoning in history
because no one can go back in time to find out the truth of a specific case. In addition, another
issue that applies to reasoning in history can often be the use of special pleading. Similar to the
example of the different reasoning in the Western and African viewpoints, it can be viewed that
both countries are using double standards to excuse or support their own nations and to make it
sound „good‟.
In writing and learning history, two of the most fundamental ways of knowing that apply
would be language and reason. Although using language and reason have limitations that lead to
inaccurate information and facts in history, both language and reason are still very significant
and important concepts that need to be applied with history. After all, we need language in order
to write and keep historical record. At the same time, reasoning would also be impossible to get
rid of since each nation‟s governments are involved in how history should be taught at schools to
keep their nation on the good side. Unfortunately, people see prejudice and bias in history but it
would merely be impossible to completely get rid of it since every individual has their own
mental maps and perceive things differently. Afterall, we can agree upon a quote from Mark
Twain in that “The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”
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