the mistake of historical literalism

• The core mistake of mechanism in psychology is that it literalises functions and actions as discrete moving parts, separated from each other. ... the mistake of historical literalism, that what is written in a history is what actually happened, a report of the facts, a verifiable account of actual events as they actually were ... placing history all on one side and fiction all on the other ... We can be as deluded about ourselves as about the world’s facts.
• factual history claims literal truth