San Pedro: Usa Ka Biblical Theology (Part 1)

Kini ang unod sa usa sa weekly issues sa Catholic Faith Defenders (CFD) Tagbilaran. 

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First Steps to Making our Integrated Cognition Model More "Collingwoodian"

One gap we identified in the literature on historical thinking (the concept itself or its assessments) is that all extant models are not complete. Each extant model in the literature leaves out some acts that fit the definition of historical thinking. We call this "the problem of domain representation."

Instead of detailing how we came to identify this gap, this blog for now will briefly discuss our solution to this gap, and then some changes I have to make due to some of the points that were made clearer to me as I engaged with three more secondary sources on Collingwood. 

Before this, the secondary sources that I considered include The Foundations of History: Collingwood's Analysis of Historical Explanation book by Leach (2017) and Collingwood's The Idea of History: A Reader's Guide book by Johnson (2013). As of now, I will not list the journal articles that I consulted. The changes that I had to make are not due to a lack in the rigor of these sources, but a lack on my end in understanding these sources especially due to limitations regarding time and access.

The three new secondary sources that I have just recently consoluted consist in one book, one encylopedia entry, and one lecture. I read the History as a Science: The Philosophy of R.G. Collingwood book by van der Dussen (2012). Next, I read Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosopy's entry entitled "Robin George Collingwood" authored by D'Oro, et al., (2020). And I watched the lecture uploaded on the Michael Sugrue YT channel entitled "Dr. Darren Staloff, R.G. Collingwood's 'The Idea of History' " (2022).

Our solution is to make an explicit attempt to construct a collectively exhaustive or domain representative cognition model of historical thinking. This is not to claim that we are the first to aim for completeness in the cognition model that we construct, much less is this to say that we are the first to construct a cognition model of historical thinking. The novelty in our research is making this attempt explicit, thereby exposing how well we meet such aim to scrutiny. This transparency is essential to any field of scientific inquiry, and is also essential specifically to the larger research that we are undertaking entitled "Historical Thinking Skills and Fake News Susceptibility of Learners."

The model as of mid-September is uploaded in my ResearchGate profile. In the rest of this article, I detail just three of the changes that I intend to carry out. 

1. Clarity about Elements Described

Before. In our description of Collingwood's Theory, our list of elements described by the theory consists in (1) the historian, (2) the past, (3) the present, and (4) the future.

After. Now the elements are (1) the historian (as the subject doing historical thinking), and (2) the historical agent (as the object being studied), with a keen eye on (3) their context, either (3.1) spatio-temporal or (3.2) socio-cultural.  

Rationale. The change is necessary because the former list was too vague and restrictive.

2. Shift from Historical Perspective and Memory to Historical Presuppositions 

Before. The cognition model we constructed has three broad categories: (1) historical knowledge, (2) historical method, and (3)  historical perspective. For the purposes of clarity, we changed historical "knowledge" into historical "memory" so as not to pre-judge the truth value of the content remembered.

After. The modified version of the cognition model will now have these names: (1) historical method, and (2) historical presuppositions. Both "historical memory" and "historical perspective" are now encapsulated by the latter. And to distinguish between the two, historical memory is called "surface" historical presuppositions and historical perspective is called "deep" historical presuppositions.

Rationale. Collingwood emphasized that the assumption that the future will have the same regularities as the past are not propositions, but presuppositions. Through this, he countered Ayer's claim that this assumption is not meaningful (due to Hume's fork). It is still meaningful since it is a presupposition that serves as a condition of possibility for the scientific method to be applied. And because both memory and perspective are such, that is, presuppositions, then both are best encapsulated under it. Language of "surface" and "deep" presuppositions are exapted from Chomsky in his discussion of deep and surface structures. Commitments, perspectives, dispositions, or orientations just seem too obviously deeper than mere remembered facts.

3. Inclusion of Explanatory Pluralism and Non-Reductive Description of the Historical as to the Historical Commitments 

Before. Explanatory pluralism, that is, the commitment that an event may have many distinct yet compatible explanations was not among the listed deep historical presuppositions (formerly historical commitments/perspective). Something similar is true with a Non-Reductive Description of the Historical, since although inclusion of "historical-perspective taking" and "empathy" already imply it, neither explicitly captures it as a clear and distinct idea.

After. Both are now included.

Rationale. Both are essential to Collingwood's conception of historical thinking, as it is essential to historical thinking in and of itself.

There are more changes, but for now these three seem to suffice for one article.

Think of this article as an attempt at reflexivity prior to undertaking a huge task. It forces me to express my ideas in a way less restricted by an academic format. Feel free to critique our work so we can make improvements as necessary. 

On Preparing for the Future and Living the Moment

A few years ago, I succumbed to despair. I saw my future to be bleak, given the apparently inevitable immutability of the present. It was until somebody pushed me to believe in my power to turn things around that my perspective changed. 

This somebody made me believe that the future need not be bleak. And then her presence naturally flowed from being merely a cause for the reframing of my thinking, to being integral to the very constitution of the future that I wanted to build.

And then I messed up. Aware of the drastic difference between the future and the present, my attention was almost entirely consumed by the task of transforming the future. I failed to live the present moment. I failed to give the present, concrete her the time she currently deserves. 

And so she rightly recognized that the waiting game is now way too much. Much happened. It is clear, at least, that the very fabric of the future that I have been working for has been torn.

It seems, I fear, that I am descending back into that primordial hell. Perhaps, I should just let things be. The fabric has been torn. And I have lost the will to mend it.