History, historiography, us, and the others. Understanding, imagining, empathizing, and decentering in the classroom

Abstract

This article focuses on some of the foundations of history class work based on imagination, empathy, and decentering. Their dialoguing with diverse views of current philosophy of history helps adding nuance both to those who conceive such resources the alpha and omega of the teaching of history and those that discard them almost prejudicially. In some cases, it is the shared lines with historians’ work that strengthen them. In others, it is precisely the critical view of philosophy that provides with arguments to rethink the significance of a work counting on imagination/empathy in a history class. It will be, in short, the historiographical – and philosophical – mediation of each teacher that will contribute to reframing the bases of understanding the proposals of imagination or empathy presented to the students. Finally, we will see that just as to understand what happened in the past, to understand what happens in history classes – in every one – sometimes special tools such as imagination, empathy or decentering are required.