History. Although it's name suggests a study of what happened in the past, it is a much more complex field involving facts about the past that exist in the present and can impact the future. Thereof, according to Becker: history and historical facts are symbols of the event or era of the past that exist in the present and effect the present and future. In class we concluded, "The historical fact is not the event itself but is someone’s idea/representation of what happened. Therefore, the historical fact is not in the past but in the present, located in someone’s mind."

This idea that historical facts are located in someone's mind and are always influencing our ideas of the present can relate to the Theory of knowledge (TOK) concept subjectivity versus objectivity. Subjectivity is the way our human diversity in interpretation of reality is carried differences in culture, the individual and their perception. On the other hand, objectivity is the aim to diminish diversity of subjective interpretations of the world and have logical knowledge based off of fact. If historical facts are always in someone's mind and people use perception, memory, emotions, imagination and language as a way of knowing then there is no doubt in my mind that historical facts can be molded and perceived differently by each personal. In this case, while a class learns about World War II one student might see it as a total academic topic and have no reaction to the unit other than needing to know the facts, however another student might feel grave empathy towards the victims of World War II and perceive some facts as more severe or important than others.

A historical example of historical facts being perceived differently could include many different wars and disagreements that were started due to a disagreement in fact or different perception of land territory. For example, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is one that many people may disagree on who started or increased the intensity of the long-lasting conflict and violent war attacks on each other. It is also hard to determine who's territory they are fighting over and sometimes the historical fact about why they are fighting can change and be interpreted differently. The two groups have had many different started battles in the past and so all these historical facts, or symbols, need to be placed together and seen as one big thing with many little symbols of the event in it to better understand what has happened. An example when this is also used in my life, to a more casual and happier note, is my scrap books or collection of photos over the years. These photos are not the physical even themselves but they symbolize that moments and can give us some information about the event. Notice that one photo alone is not always as powerful as many photos together that can tell a story about an event or a year of someone's life. We need a little background information about it. Just like a historical fact is better off categorized in groups/eras.

One could argue that a historical fact is a fact, just a symbol of the time and it should not be argued against just as if one would not argue if the image or person that was photographed in a picture or documented in a scrapbook was real on a day to day basis. There is the idea that we accept the reality that we each perceive and fact is fact. However, in TOK especially, there is no fact and all knowledge is relative.

History is a complex topic because it is entirely based on facts that you must analyze but eventually need to have some certain facts to base a timeline or the knowledge of the event off of. We cannot accept everything as the truth however, some knowledge needs to be objective. While historical facts are everywhere at all times but basically present in the mind, it makes it hard for a student that does not take history to then accept that any historical facts are fact and that they are all subjective or relative to our perceptions. However, learning more about the area of knowledge I can further grasp the idea that it is important to critically think about the historical facts but there is a certain extent to which history needs to be objective and for the most part certain.

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