OBJECTIVITY

OBJECTIVITY:AN INTRODUCTION

• Principle of Objectivity in Western Historiography:

• Historical Importance:
• It is the foundation of the historical profession in the West.
• Objectivity seen as essential for credibility.
• Even when historians disagreed, they argued their own version
was more objective than others.

• Peter Novick: Objectivity was “the rock on which the

(historical) venture was constituted, its continuing raison d’être.”
• Challenge to Objectivity:
• Since 1970s – faced strongest criticism.
• Critics claim the quest for objectivity is:
• Futile (impossible to fully achieve).
• Sometimes undesirable (can obscure the historian’s own perspective).

• Current Situation:
• Controversy is intense; debate is philosophical and
methodological.
• Most practicing historians still believe in some possibility of
presenting a true account of the past, even if imperfect.
 WHAT IS OBJECTIVITY IN HISTORY?
• It’s the founding principle of Western historiography.
• It Means separating the historian (subject) from the past (object) —
believing the past can be recovered as it really happened.
• Peter Novick’s definition :
• “Commitment to the reality of the past, and to truth as
correspondence to that reality; separation between knower and
known, between fact and value, between history and fiction.”
• Facts come first; interpretations must fit the facts — if facts contradict
them, interpretations are abandoned.
• Truth is one, not relative; patterns in history are “found” not “made .”
 HISTORIAN’S ROLE ACCORDING TO NOVICK

• Must be impartial — no taking sides.

• Suspend personal beliefs, rely only on truth of the evidence.
• Act as a neutral, disinterested judge (not an advocate or
propagandist).
• Maintain balance and even-handedness.
• Avoid partisanship or bias
• Key warning: “Objectivity is at grave risk when history is written for
utilitarian purposes.”
• Loyalty should be to objective historical truth, not to politics, ideology,
or personal loyalties.
 THOMAS HASKELL’S CRITIQUE
• Objectivity ≠ Neutrality(“Objectivity is not neutrality.”) — you can be
politically committed and still be objective.
• Neutrality (standing in the middle) is not necessary for objectivity.
• Historians can have strong passions and still produce objective work
— as long as they seek truth and understanding.
• It(Objectivity) does not value even detachment as an end in itself, but
only as an indispensable prelude or preparation for the achievement
of higher levels of understanding.
 COMMON GROUND ACROSS DEFINITIONS

• Objectivity is still seen as:

• Opposed to propaganda and wishful thinking.
• Based on evidence and logic.
• Requiring at least some detachment.
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRINCIPLE OF OBJECTIVITY
• Ancient Roots:
• Since Herodotus, Western historians believed the past was real and could be recorded
accurately.
• Impact of Modern Science & Positivism:
• 19th century: rise of modern science → belief that scientific methods could be applied to
history.
• Positivism (Auguste Comte):
• History should follow scientific (inductive) methods.
• Societies pass through three stages:
• Theological stage – events explained by gods/supernatural forces.
• Metaphysical stage – abstract/occult explanations.
• Positive stage – mature, scientific thinking; search for laws, not causes, using observation, reasoning, and
experimentation.

• Positivists believed universal laws apply to all societies.

• Ranke and German Objectivism:
• Niebuhr introduced the critical method, but Leopold von Ranke gave
objectivity its firm base.
• Key ideas:
• History = separate from literature & philosophy (avoid
imagination/speculation).
• Investigate the past “as it essentially was.”
• Use primary sources (original documents) — trust them more than
printed/secondary sources.
• Examine sources critically for authenticity and internal consistency.
• Belief: impartial historians + proper method → accurate reconstruction of the
past.
 19TH & EARLY 20TH CENTURY FAITH IN FACTS
• Belief: facts already exist in records — historians just have to “discover” them.
• Goal: write “ultimate history” (final, perfect history) once all facts are known.
• Lord Acton: history should transcend nationality, language, and religion;
aimed for complete objectivity.
• Langlois & Seignobos: once all documents are known and processed,
historical work is finished.
• J.B. Bury: history is a science, “no less and no more.”
• George Clark: distinguished between a “hard core of facts” and “pulp” of
interpretations.
 EARLY 20TH CENTURY CHALLENGES

• New archaeology & methods = more information, even for ancient

times.
• Shift from political history (elites) → social, economic, cultural history
(common people).
• Critics:
• Rankean approach too focused on individual facts.
• Too political & elite-centered.
• New schools: Marxist and Annales historians → still believed in
scientific objectivity, but focused on broader patterns and ordinary
people.
 WARS & COLD WAR IMPACT

• Between WWI & WWII: objectivity undermined by

manipulation of facts for politics/propaganda.
• Cold War: many historians took sides or hid opinions due to
political pressures.
• But — most historians still believed objectivity was possible if
using proper scientific methods.
 CRITIQUES OF OBJECTIVITY

• By the late 20th century, many thinkers challenged the

belief that history can be truly objective or scientific.
• Three main lines of criticism:
• Constraints of evidence & individual bias
• Cultural relativism
• Postmodern & linguistic turn
 GENERAL CRITIQUES

• History as literature → Many historians began to think history is closer to

storytelling than to science.
• Linguistic theories (Saussure) → Language doesn’t just reflect reality — it
constructs reality.
• Louis Mink → “Stories are not lived but told.” Life has no natural
beginnings or endings — these are created by storytellers, including
historians.
 CONSTRAINTS OF EVIDENCE & INDIVIDUAL BIAS

• Kant → Separation between the real world and the

observer; reality can’t be fully reconstructed.
• Wilhelm Dilthey →
• Science ≠ history.
• Scientist = external observer; historian = part of the process
of constructing reality.
• → Conclusion: Pure objectivity in history is impossible.
• Benedetto Croce → “All history is contemporary history”
(past exists only through the historian’s mind).
• R.G. Collingwood →
• “The past simply as past is wholly unknowable.”
• History = interpreting evidence with skill, not “discovering what
really happened.”
• Each historian writes their own history, shaped by their present
context.
• “All history is the history of thought.”
 E.H. CARR’S VIEW

• Historians are products of their time — shaped by contemporary ideas

and politics.
• Evidence is selected twice:
• 1️⃣ By people in the past who decided what to record.
• 2️⃣ By historians who decide what to include.
• Facts are never “pure” — always shaped by the recorder’s perspective.
• “The past is doubly constructed for us.”
 CULTURAL RELATIVISM

• historians’ works are shaped by the culture they belong to — their

ideas, concepts, language, and biases. Because different cultures see
the world differently, history can’t be truly objective.
• Clifford Geertz (anthropologist) → Historians’ accounts are influenced
by their own society’s cultural prejudices and priorities.
• Different cultures describe the same event differently (e.g., solar
eclipse, death of a king).
 PAUL A. ROTH’S ARGUMENT

• No “static past world” waiting to be uncovered.

• “Past events exist, qua events, only in terms of some
historically situated conception of them.”
• Historical truth that is free from human perception is
impossible.
• Events are divided and categorized by us, not by nature.
 GEERTZ’S SEMIOTIC VIEW

• Culture = “an interworked system of construable signs” → like a

collection of texts.
• Society = organized in symbols whose meanings we must decode.
• “The real is as imagined as the imaginary.”
• Reality and imagination are inseparable — meaning history is no
more “real” than literature.
 POSTMODERN & LINGUISTIC TURN

• This view says language, not reality, shapes meaning and human
consciousness. Because language doesn’t directly connect to the real world,
history is essentially a construction, not a recovery of truth.

• Saussure’s Structural Linguistics:

• Language = a closed, self-contained system.
• Signifier (word) → refers to signified (concept), not to real-world objects.
• Language doesn’t describe reality; it creates meaning.
• Thought is shaped by language, not independent of it.
 ROLAND BARTHES

• Historians don’t write about the real past, only concepts of

the past.
• History is “a parade of signifiers masquerading as a
collection of facts.”
• “Reality effect” = illusion created by historical writing
(footnotes, quotes, references) to make it look real.
• Past is historian’s own creation, not a discovered truth.
 DERRIDA & DECONSTRUCTION

• No reality outside language → we are in a “prison house of

language.”
• Language has no fixed meaning; meaning changes with each
reading.
• Text is “a fabric of traces… referring endlessly to something other
than itself.”
• Deconstruction = shows language’s inability to refer to reality.
• Reader, not author, gives meaning → all interpretations equally valid.
 IMPLICATIONS FOR HISTORY

• If meaning changes each time, objective history is

impossible.
• Past becomes a literary construction rather than fact.
• Lawrence Stone: If nothing exists outside the text, “fact
and fiction become indistinguishable.”
• Gabrielle Spiegel: Past dissolves into literature.
 HAYDEN WHITE & LOUIS MINK

• Mink: History claims truth, but is really

imaginative construction.
• Hayden White: No difference between history
and fiction; historical writings are “verbal
fictions… invented as much as found.”
 POSTMODERNIST CRITIQUE

• Modern historiography linked to Western imperialism

→ not impartial.
• Objectivity claims are politically and culturally suspect.
 KEY QUOTES

• Barthes: “A parade of signifiers masquerading as a collection of

facts.”
• Barthes: Objectivity = “referential illusion.”
• Derrida: Text is “a fabric of traces… referring endlessly to something
other than itself.”
• Spiegel: “Past dissolves into literature.”
• White: Historical writing is “verbal fiction… invented as much as
found.”
 POSSIBILITY OF OBJECTIVITY
• Postmodernists challenge absolute objectivity, but rejecting all objectivity is seen as going too
far. Historians argue for a middle ground — partial, limited, but still meaningful objectivity.
• Limits to Objectivity
• Simple correspondence theory of truth (history = direct match to reality) is unreliable.
• Our knowledge is shaped by:
• Present concerns
• Ideological commitments
• Cultural environment
• Intellectual atmosphere
• Sources are biased, and historians themselves have cultural biases.
• Full truth of the past is impossible — sources vary and interpretations are endless.
 AGAINST TOTAL DENIAL

• Total rejection of objectivity = extreme position.

• Even if full truth is unreachable, partial truth can be
recovered.
• Not all narratives are fiction — they can still convey
accurate information.
 NOEL CARROLL’S ARGUMENT
• Narratives are invented (constructed) but not necessarily made-up (fictional).
• Narratives represent the past and can track:
• Background conditions
• Causes & effects
• Social context
• Logic of situations
• Practical deliberations
• Actions taken

• Criticism of Hayden White:

• White’s view: If history is not a perfect mirror-image, it’s fiction.
• Carroll’s rebuttal: There’s more than two extremes (mirror or fiction).
 BRIAN FAY’S “DIALECTICAL MIDDLE GROUND”

• Preserve insights from both objectivists and relativists.

• Avoid excesses of either extreme.
• Aim for balanced historical practice:
• Accept biases, but strive for evidence-based accuracy.
 KEY QUOTES

• Carroll: “Invented, but that does not preclude their capacity to

provide accurate information.”
• Carroll: Narratives track “background conditions, causes and
effects… social context, logic of situations…”
• Fay: Seek “a dialectical middle ground which preserves the
insights of each attitude and prunes each of its excesses.”
 SUMMARY

• Objectivity in history means presenting the past without personal bias, prejudice,
or distortion — letting the evidence speak for itself rather than shaping it to fit the
historian’s opinions or political agenda.
• Objectivity has been central to Western historiography since ancient times,
solidified by Leopold Von Ranke’s 19th-century empiricism.
• Critics argue historians cannot escape ideological or cultural biases, and sources
themselves are subjective.
• The “linguistic turn” claims reality is accessible only through language, making full
objectivity impossible.
• Most historians now adopt a middle ground, accepting partial but not total
objectivity.