Wow your question is so deep, thanks for asking it. When you say historical lessons, I interpret that as meaning lessons learned from experience. Lessons learned from experience were considered the highest form of truth by the ancient Greeks since experience allows for us to have an emotional connection with the truth. By having an emotional connection with the truth, we fully integrate it into ourselves and make the most of it.

So are historical lessons key for determining which idea's are true? Well it isn't necessary, but it is the most effective way of doing so. By having an emotional connection with the truth, we have an emotional connection with a yardstick that we can use to discover other forms of truth. Truth ultimately is our only hope of discovering other truth in this messy and complex world.