Ep 61: The errors and blind spots of Historians. What can we know? W/Terminal Philosophy.

The Mindcrime Liberty Show with Dobson and Patton

The Mindcrime liberty show is joined by Terminal Philosophy to discuss what can actually be known about history. How does issues of epistemology, propaganda and interpretation effect history? How much of history, especially which is relevant, is merely lost to history and unknown? What can we know about the ancient Egyptians, Spartans or even say Alexander the Great? How much of written accounts do we actually have? Of the phenomena we do have information and text available what is missing? What perspectives is one getting? Is the student of history only getting the "NY times version" or elite version of history? If one merely relied only official reports and the NY Times' to understand the recent American elections or the war in Iraq one would be getting quite an air brushed and one sided version of history. It isn't hard to expand this analogy to past events and one would be left with doubts about what can known. At least Societies in the "west" for all their censorship have a tradition of "openness" to some degree but on the contrary how does one know about closed societies such as a North Korea or the former Soviet Union? What can actually be known about history and with what confidence? Is philosophy a better guide than history?