History helps us understand the present

The argument

Proponents of this position argue that history earns its place not as a record of what is finished but as a guide to what is currently happening. Studying the past, on this view, reveals recurring trends in culture and economics, and once a trend is visible it becomes possible to say what could happen should similar trends continue. The claim is not that history repeats exactly; it is that the present is always partway through processes that began earlier, and that anyone who has watched comparable processes run their course is better placed to judge where this one is heading than someone encountering it cold. A second strand concerns the institutions people live inside. The rules that exist in today's societies were created in response to something which happened in the past: each was an answer to a problem, a conflict or a failure that someone at the time thought needed settling. A rule read on its own therefore looks arbitrary, while the same rule read alongside the circumstances that produced it becomes intelligible, and both its purpose and the question of whether that purpose still holds come into view. On this account, looking to the past simply is the explanation of why a particular rule, or set of rules, exists at all. The third strand is breadth rather than depth. History also gives an insight into other cultures, both past and present, and proponents hold that this matters in a globally connected culture and economy, where decisions routinely involve people whose assumptions were formed by histories other than one's own. Understanding how those societies came to hold what they hold is, on this reasoning, a practical skill rather than an antiquarian one. Because each of these strands makes the present legible in a way it would not otherwise be, proponents conclude that history is important.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The study of history actually takes time away from studying how the present-day world works. History classes could, for example, be replaced by current economics and civilization courses.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The knowledge which history offers us is useless in the present.