Question

Citing examples from After the Fact, discuss some of the problems with the reconstruction of historical events. Is it ever possible to know the "truth" about a historical event? To what extent can we reliable reconstruct the motives and experiences of the people who participate in those events? how are these issues reflected in the writings of Sacks?

Answer 1

1. It is possible to know a partial truth about historical events, if we have not witnessed it. This is because to know the historical events we need evidence and documents that prove how these events happened and how it affected society. However, the older the event is, the more difficult it is to find complete and well-preserved evidence that allows full interpretation of these events. In addition, the evidence does not present a complete representation of the event, but rather a partial presentation, allowing us to see only part of the influx of that event and not the event completely.

2. We can only safely reconstruct the motives and experiences of the people who participated in these events from the evidence and documents that these people left, and we are not allowed to reconstruct further, creating assumptions or completing incomplete evidence as we think it would be, without evidence to justify this reconstruction.

3. Sacks wrote about his own experiences in neurological patients, presenting evidence that he himself lived. Thus, Sacks' reports are comprehensive for this type of situation, allowing reconstructions of cases to be made based on his words, but these cases have to be similar to what Sacks wrote.