To what extent can historians be objective?

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To what extent can historians be objective?

You have reckoned that history ought to judge the past and to instruct the contemporary world as to the future. The present attempt does not yield to that high office. It will merely tell you how it really was’ - Leopold Von Ranke

There are no facts, only interpretations’ – Nietzsche

   Here we encounter two diametrically opposed views concerning objectivity. It can be argued that “true” objectivity cannot exist, as history is more exposed to differing interpretations than any other discipline and to be “factual”, dispassionate or truly objective would be at best unrealistic and at worst impossible. Historians, in their selective analysis of the past on the basis of surviving historical records and evidence, draw conclusions, which must necessarily be subject to their own individual interpretations – interpretations that are in turn subject to the historians’ own individual ideologies. The fact that history is constantly being rewritten is testimony to the impossibility of attaining “true” objectivity.

    On the other hand, “true” subjectivity would constitute a threat to history itself as a discipline – the logical outcome of this would be to grant every historian his or her own perspective, no matter how out of synch with the “truth” it might be. The moral entanglement resulting from such an approach is not difficult to imagine.

   This essay will attempt to examine (some) historian’s views on objectivity, within these two extremes, but the limited word count necessitates the exclusion of others (White, Collingwood).

   Can objective “facts” exist in history? Even when a historian only presents the “facts”, would they not reflect their personal consciousness?  Even their personal writing style might mirror this. Also, historians have been known to be deliberately selective about which facts they present and which they don’t. It could be argued that facts in history are never “pure” – they come to us distorted, refracted by the writers’ own interpretation. This means that the reader must in turn also be selective, critical and analytical about the “facts” presented to them. The readers’ own understanding is formed by their own political, ideological or moral consciousness.

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   Leopold Von Ranke advocated historical objectivity. His approach was to avoid applying the spirit, modes of thought, wisdom and beliefs of the present to the events of the past – this is known as historicism and was pioneered by Giovanni Battista Vico  – by only using contemporary accounts and records. His tagline became Wei  es eigentlich gewesen (How it actually happened). Ranke distrusted historical textbooks, and argued that primary rather than secondary sources should be used. Arthur Marwick has slightly similar views regarding the nature of source material, also drawing a distinction between primary and secondary sources. To him, primary ...

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