Objectivity in history

FIJI TIMES
20 February, 2017, 12:00 am

OBJECTIVITY in history is a basic theme which historians, researchers,

students and everybody should be careful about. This article endeavours to
present a synoptic view about objectivity, subjectivity and bias, which are
interconnected and then go on to examine how a historian can be objective.

“Is history a science?” is a debate among philosophers regarding this theme

and how far the historical inquiry is objective.

EH Carr’s book What is History? describes the influence of historical and

social environment on the selection and interpretation of facts by the
historian. Therefore, he rejected absolute and timeless objectivity in history
because history requires the selection and ordering of facts about the past in
the light of some principle or norm of objectivity accepting by the historian
which necessarily included elements of interpretation.

Without this, the past dissolves into a jumble of innumerable isolated and
insignificant incidents and history cannot be written at all. Further, he
explains the facts of history cannot be purely objective as they only become
facts of history by virtue of significance attached to them by the historian.
Therefore, historian craft is all about getting the facts right and applying the
right standard of significance to the past.

Carr calls a historian objective based on two factors.

Firstly, “he has the capacity to rise above the limited vision of his own
situation in society and in history…his capacity to recognise the extent of
his involvement in that situation, to recognise that is to say, the impossibility
of total objectivity”.

Secondly, a historian “has the capacity to project his vision into the future in
such a way as to give him a more profound and more lasting insight into the
past than can be attained by those historians whose outlook is entirely
bounded by their own immediate situation”. Therefore, some historians write
history which is more durable and has more of objective character than
others.

This historian, terms that historian objective who have a long-term vision
over the past and over the future.

As historians endeavour to reconstruct or recreate history to reflect how life

was experienced and how it may be understood, as it requires an
imaginative engagement with the mentality and environment of the past.
Thus, a historian cannot be objective as facts do not speak for themselves
and no two historians will have completely identical imaginative response to
any hypothesis.

Objectivity, subjectivity and bias

Objectivity means existing independently of perception or an individual’s

conception. It is undistorted by emotion or personal bias and is related to
actual and external phenomena as opposed to thoughts, feelings etc.
Something is objective insofar as it is independent of either a particular mind
or minds altogether.

Secondly, subjectivity referred as it is a belonging to, proceeding from, or

relating to the mind of the thinking subject and not the nature of the object
being considered. It is related to or emanating from a person’s emotion,
prejudices, etc and lastly, biasness stand for as a mental tendency or
inclination esp. an irrational preference or prejudice or influence.

Norman Hampson’s Subjectivity and Objectivity in History describes the

difference between fact (objective) and opinion/interpretation (subjective) is
that objective information has the ability to be counted or described whereas
subjective information usually consists of statements of judgment,
assumption, belief, suspicion, or rumour. Objective information does not vary
and is close to the truth, whereas subjective information can vary greatly
from person to person and is far away from the truth.
Carr explains there are simply too many facts, even after the historian
followed the procedure of selecting only the significant ones, what he calls
“the facts of history” and the major obstacle to objectivity is ‘the historian
himself’. Objectivity is history cannot be objectivity of facts and absolute
truth is unachievable.

Is history a science?

The questions attached to objectivity is discussed by John Tosh’s The Pursuit

of History’ Is History a Science? The first proponents argue that history
employs the same procedures as the natural sciences and that its findings
should be judged by scientific standards.

The basis of all scientific knowledge was the meticulous observation of

reality which fitted all the known facts and explained the regularity observed.
These views are much closer to the view positivism. In this regard, the
beliefs and values of historians are irrelevant and their sole concern is with
the facts and the generalisations to which they logically lead.

Whereas the second view, gives conceptions of the nature of science have
been radically modified, which were closer to the philosophy of idealism,
“human events much be carefully distinguished from natural events because
the identity between enquirer and his or her subject-matter opens the way to
a fuller understanding than anything … natural events can only be
understood from the outside, human events have an essential inside
dimension composed of the intentions, feelings and mentality of the actors”.
They believe historical knowledge is inherently subjective. Thus it’s
necessary to evaluate every age be understood in its own terms and their
practical emphasis on political narrative make-up of the actions and
intensions of great men.

Furthermore, M.E. Hulme’s History and its Neighbors maintains that

“historical facts, in sharp distinction from scientific facts, are highly
subjective”. Science has the characteristic that it uses expression we can
bring to the “test”, but history could certainly not be conducted objectively if
its statements were not criticisable and some historians make statements
which are not in this sense objectively testable. Therefore, history is not a
science and as a paradigm of objectivity for the philosophy of history science
just will not exist.

Who is an objective historian?

The essential requirement to be an objective historian are believed to be,
firstly, that he has a capacity to rise above the limited vision of his own
situation in society and in history; secondly, he has the capacity to project
his vision into the future in such a way as to give him a more profound and
more lasting insight into the past. No historian can claim to write ultimate
history or total history of an event but some historians write history which is
more durable and has more of objective character than others, these are the
historians which have a long term vision over the past and over the future.
The historian of the past can make an approach towards objectivity only as
he approaches towards the understanding of the future.

Neil Munro narrates that a historian who, “gather the facts from the history is
also a human being, who comes with full complement of background,
education, attitudes, opinions, likes and dislikes. He may even have a belief
in one or other of the great determinist theories of history, which will be
better suited by some facts than by others. Historian will inevitably see the
course of history through those particular eyes”. Carr warns that the facts of
history cannot be pure, being always “refracted through the mind of the
recorder!”

Therefore, before reading a history, he suggests that the reader should first
study the historian and find out all that one can about the author. This will
help the audience to know the author’s mind of expressing history. One
scholar said objectivity in history lose value when it is applied to nothing and
it loses its usefulness when applied to everything.

Can history be Objective?

Many philosophers have rejected the possibility of objective historical

knowledge on the premise that one does not have access to a given past
against which to judge rival interpretations. However, Mark Bevir’s
Objectivity in History explains objective interpretation are those which best
meet rational criteria of accuracy, comprehensiveness, consistency,
progressiveness, fruitlessness and openness and these interpretations
should be regarded as moving towards truth understood as a regulative
ideal. He defended the objectivity via an intentional theory of meaning and
his claim that it might be possible to extend this logic of the history of ideas
to history in general; he calls an anthropological epistemology, a standard
based on appeals to shared facts based on historians’ consensus about what
happened, a critical/rational attitude by the historian and comparing rival
webs of theories of, or hypotheses for explanation. For him, objectivity rests
on comparison and the explanation of human actions.

Marc Trachtenberg questions if objectivity is possible as he believes history

should be ultimately obtainable but shows concern the way in which society
is moving it will become an obsolete ideology.

He stress one should put ones political beliefs aside and draft questions in a
manner that answers turned on what the evidence demonstration.

Whereas, Keith Jenkins article What is History? outlines that objectivity is

impossible to achieve in the study of history, as actual past has gone and
creating history in present means content is as much invented as found. As it
is impossible for historian to remove his or her, preconceived ideas and
personal motives to write history in an objective way.

Furthermore, he believes historians disregard the facts which do not fit into
his or her ideologies.

This post-modernist writer views that historical objectivity is oxymoron and

the history is more of an entertainment than an arm of academic study.

* Dr Sakul Kundra is an assistant professor in history at FNU. The views

expressed are his and not of this newspaper or his employer.