Contribute
at least one comment to this week's discussion post on Telling the Truth about History. Why is empiricism inherently
problematic – and in what ways are assaults on historical objectivity
legitimate and reasonable? Conversely, how has the historical professional dealt with these
assaults on empiricism? And what can we do, as students and scholars of the past, to balance
the need for objectivity while accepting the incompleteness of our records?
Feel free to contribute more than one comment, of course. And engage your classmates too!
For me, we have to change the definition of objectivity what is value-free, unbiased or neutral, otherwise it is impossible for scholars to be objective. For example, historians who claim they are objective simply are biased, this is because their background knowledge their beliefs and even their researching sources all are strong enemies to “the truth”. Especially, their researching sources, newspaper documentary people’s memory etc, can’t be free from the subjectivity. One of the reasons is that, according to postmodernisms, the language is a big obstacle, because we can have various understandings about a simple word. Also even scientists they can’t be objective, they also can be misguided by their beliefs or self-interests. The World War II is a good example, the belief, Nazi, guided some scientists become the tool of killing. In other word, they all are biased, even Newton and Darwin who were seen as represents of the truth since the model science age. So more and more people realized that maybe what scientists believed help them find what they want. They just want us know what they want to know.
ReplyDeleteThen, we find ourselves get into an embarrassing position. According to author, we need back to the beginning, the definition of objectivity, to find a way out. The old definition is a misunderstanding of Enlightenment, indeed there is only relative truth. We need our critical eyes to watch the truth. As for history, the author said:
“We have redefined historical objectivity as an interactive relationship between an inquiring subject and an external object. Any of objectivity, we must focus on that relationship.”
Yet, we narrative the past from a different position and focus on different aspect, if we keep our critical eyes open and listen others’ voices, we will get our unperfected “the truth”.
ReplyDeleteOn the question of objectivity, it is of course impossible for any scholar to conduct research or present findings in a truly objective fashion. Part of being a human being and existing in the world that we do involves learning from others and basing our current decisions on our past experiences. To that end it is impossible for a scholar of any discipline not to bias their work based on their personal history. For historians, we can frequently use others’ work as a foundation or a model for our own writings. As such, our writing can’t be considered totally objective as it was influenced by prior works by different scholars. As we see in Telling the Truth About History even in the world of science and mathematics the researcher’s personal biases come into play influencing the particular avenues of investigation taken. My father, a physicist by trade, will interpret a set of data differently that his colleagues based on his political leanings and how willing he is to anger those who pay his salary. The political nature of research funding cannot be overlooked and naturally will affect scientific findings; as was the case with Newton, you are more likely to discover something if you are looking for it.
It is certainly fair to call into question historical objectivity. Clearly there has never been a time when history has been documented with complete objectivity, but we should never have been under any illusion that historical writing was done objectively. People’s willingness and, in many instances, eagerness to take an individual’s writing as gospel is abhorrently dangerous. Additionally, if anyone is seriously upset that one’s description of events that occurred many years in prior are not one hundred percent accurate for whatever reason the issue is with them, not the historian.
As students of history, we would do well to acknowledge our subjectivity and rationalize how it affects our works up front. Much as anthropology has done, historians and other scholars can easily include our natural biases by way of introducing research and head off potential criticism and maintain the legitimacy of the research. Acknowledging incomplete sources can also be done whilst introducing research with the effect of increasing our research’s legitimacy. If the reader gets a more complete picture of the challenges faced during the research process, a reasonable person should be more likely to accept the findings presented.
The point you made about your father's work is interesting. Until the final years of my undergraduate education, I never really thought about the politics in academia and research positions. I agree what you said on historical objectivity, I just want to add that while maybe it may not be completely objective, I think the attempt of trying to be objective is significant. While subjective views may always be present in research that subjectivity can shape things in different ways than other people's views. In the pursuit of objectivity different sides of a story can emerge based on someone's subjective view. However, I digress. I agree with your stance on being open about your subjectivity and how it affects your work.
DeleteAppleby, et.'s solution to the problem (if it is a problem), of historical objectivity reminds me a bit of the philosophy classical stoics embraced. On page 308, the authors write, "we authors have pooled our learning in order to locate the relationship of these critiques of the long dialogue about knowledge that bgean in the seventeenth century, gained momemtum in the succeeding centuries under the rubric of modern science, and today has yielded to a variety of noisy conversation." Appelby, et. al. seem to take joy in the never-ending discussions that result from the existence of competeting theories and methodologies. Less an attempt to pinpoint which methodology is correct, the goal is to embrace all forms of historical inquiry and check them against one another.
ReplyDeleteOf course, in a departure from my comparison to the Stoics, perhaps Appelby, et. al do believe there is some way to discover real, objective truth, even if it is rare. Since the expressed goal is to find the relationship between various forms of historical inquiry, then it might be that the brief areas of overlap are where truth is found. Of course, any truth that is found through this methodology could be debunked as soon as a new theory that does not overlap with the previous ones pops up.
All in all, the "future of history" seems to be an end of the constant effort to debunk the previous generation's accepted truth and to look and study the relations between competing truths. The philosophes and the Enlightment historians reveled in mocking and debunking the Church's truth. Nietzsche and the postmodernists that came in his wake critiqued the very idea of truth. Social historians accepted truth, in a way, but looked for the truths important to those who had previously been ignored by scholarship. Appelby, et. seem to want to put an end to the constant effort to trump the previous generation's theories.
ReplyDeleteTo answer questions of objectivity and empiricism for historical study it’s important to acknowledge what the authors believe. “Let us be clear about what we, the authors, believe. We view skepticism as an approach to learning as well as a philosophical stance” (pg. 7). The authors do a good job of explaining the history of historical absolutism; the heroic model, progress, and national sentiments and identity. The question of objectivity can’t be universal. What is objective to one person is subjective to another person that is influenced by different levels of empiricism.
ReplyDeleteCase in point, if I conduct research as a primary source for the history of children from Central America migrating alone to the U.S., I have the ability to be objective. I can travel to the region to conduct empirical research based on what I observe and experience. I can research current and past newspaper and journal articles about the issue. I can produce an oral history project by interviewing immigrants in similar situations. Based on my evidence, my written work is objective. However, when the child becomes an adult and examines my historical work, he/she will view the work as subjective because the author didn’t experience poverty, hunger or uncertainty. I’m working under the assumption that these factors influence the decision for children to journey alone. The level of empiricism is different for the immigrant child and American born researcher.
The problem is that there is no universal model to measure objectivity and empiricism for historical research. I can measure if a failed nation state will have a revolution with empirical data, but its difficult to measure hunger and uncertainty. I think this makes empiricism inherently problematic for a many disciplines because it’s difficult for scholars to remove themselves from personal prejudices. Perhaps, this book obligates scholars to ask if history is narrative or scientific?
The authors intended for skepticism to influence history by forcing scholars to constantly ask to questions of the research methods utilized for historical analysis.
Appleby, Hunt, and Jacobson encourage historians to “essentially rethink the understanding of truth and objectivity”. (194) They have arrived at what could be loosely coined “practical realism” in order to reassess objectivity, realism, and truth. These ideas are inherently abstract as historian Peter Novick has described maintaining historical objectivity to “nailing jelly to the wall”. I tend to agree that historical objectivity is a multitude of ideas, considerations, and assumptions of contemporary and historical attitudes that ultimately will remain and perhaps should remain disputed. If empirical or primary evidence cannot be found, used, or located that could resolve a historical dispute or question of “objectivity”, that “wall or problem” can become the focus of study even as Novick has surmised that convergence on any question, topic, or theory has ceased to exist (paraphrased).
ReplyDeleteAs other bloggers have suggested, history is not nor should it be defined by the thoughts of specific university corridors and volumes of explicit cannons….but by the embrace of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, political science, hard science, the fine arts and any medium that might help an author or reader arrive at some idea of a “competing truth”. It is noteworthy that the authors write on their first page that “confidence in the value and truth of knowledge eludes just about everyone”, and that their last line in the work is, “That telling the truth takes a collective effort”.
Besides arguments about the objectivity in history and science researching, there are another impressive content which should be took into careful consideration, that is, the uses of history. As for most people whose major is not history often believes that the history is equality to stories or remembering information. However, if that’s true, why we need history and historians? We just need some book, or a computer. So many history departments said learning history can develop your writing, reading, speaking skills and even your critical thinking. This may be good answer. But the author gives us another answer. In the third part, History Makes a Nation, he shows us how history can create a new country.
ReplyDelete“written record of the American Revolution could supply the deficiency of venerable traditions, religious, uniformity, and common ascent, the aging witness of the revolution took up their pens in the closing years of the eighteens century.”
“Far from telling a straightforward story, early nineteenth century historians explained to America why they nation was both unique and a model for the world.”
In my eyes, history not only can create a new country, also can keep a country good development. This is because though thousands of years have passed since Hunan being emerged, the nature of human being changes a little. Thus people’s histories are always similar with each other. If some historians write history relatively objective, then we can avoid make a same mistake. Of course, there are still many uses of history. I write these not mean to appreciate history or historians. I just think people need know what they are doing, than they will realize they have what kind of duties. One day, we may write our history, we must know that our works may make a difference.
Objectivity is important, but I believe that it’s impossible to a write a completely objective history. A history constructed with just facts and no argument or methodology to categorize those facts into, would be a difficult history to make use of. The goal of writing and having your writing reviewed by professionals is to try and attain some truth. But history is constantly changing because the discovery of new sources and the development of different methodologies in an effort to attain truth. So objectivity can be a goal, but I do not believe that anyone could construct a truly objective history that is infallible. The writing of history is influenced by the current historical trends flowing around academia, the schools attended and professors that a person studies under, and a person’s ideological world view. Historians should strive for a degree of objectivity, but they should be more concerned with creating a piece of writing that displays how cultures and societies operated in a particular time period, and how those factors have shaped the current society that we live in today.
ReplyDeleteOne problem with empiricism is that while it is based on knowledge and experience, that experience may be subjective to ideas that may be biased. This can be viewed in the early days of the United States. Americans had to construct a national identity, a culture and a history whereas other countries could kind of take that for granted. Early American historians took historical figures, like Washington, and worked them into heroic figures, based on an impression or experience with them. An example of this was John Marshall's history of George Washington. The problem with this is that the account of George Washington, and other early figures were romanticized in order to fill in cultural gaps that the United States were missing. Empiricism can be based too much in an experience and perhaps not as rational is it should be in some aspects. That leads to objectivity and subjectivity in history. Empiricism seems to be based in subjectivity, since empiricism is based in knowledge and personal experience. So if a historian is interested in reading or researching an empirical document on a specific history, it has to be done with a fairly critical eye. This lead me to question the notion of empiricism on a whole. If a historian strives to be objective, why follow or study the theory of empiricism and empirical sources? Well most primary sources are empirical and I think as a student of history, its my obligation to sort "biased fact" from event in these sources. Not necessarily disregarding biased or subjective sources, but acknowledging such subjectivity and learning from it and learning different views of different people. We can do this by questioning everything that we read and try and ask questions based on the text. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteFrom a philosophical point of view my thoughts about objectivity and absolute truth derive from the critical idealism of Kant. Kant believed that knowledge deals with phenomena in the human mind. Even though there might or most probably are „things in-itself“ we can only talk about „things for us“ because all insight has been processed by human perception. Therefore I agree with my fellow students and the authors that historical work cannot be completely objective and always is biased. Moreover, from a sheer philosophical position seeking „truth in-itself“ appears to be impossible.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless I also find Tommy's words important. The mere fact that modern history tries to be as objective as possible and deals with its own subjectivity can be marked as a progress. Furthermore, from a practical view pure skepticism and relativism are neither helpful in everyday life nor in historical work. People have to have certain theories and assumptions they can rely on for being „true“. These theories have to be open to criticism and change. Therefore the authors' suggestion of pragmatism and practical realism and knowlegde which can be provisional (p. 284) seem plausible. In their words a democratic and multicultaral society/education provide the basis for an open search for truths. Still, one should not forget that skepticism and relativism are important factors that shaped modern thought and without them even a democracy would be way more denying of new theories.
My take, on the sixth chapter especially, is that when studying a history through the lens of empiricism, it presents more facets through which to look at that particular history. Therefore, empiricism poses a problem to historical explanation because it is less objective and relies on the subjective because it is sense-driven.
ReplyDeleteThe first assault on empiricism was during the Enlightenment, when historians took on the investigative styles of science, and in the author's words, becoming neutral passionless. Though a credible way of investigation, it is best complimented by the "mentalitie"way of studying in the Annales school, embracing empiricism and involving it in studying history.
As far as how we can balance the need for objectivity while accepting the incompleteness of our records, I think that the incompleteness and the ever-changing analyses and emerging facts of historical record speaks to the objectivity. There have been narratives written that were widely accepted as true history, and then decades later were completely overruled by a discovery or a competing legitimate analysis. My point to the future of history is that because analysis and facts that find their way to light after many years can change the face of a certain history, that is why objectivity is necessary--what might be today's history could be tomorrow's garbage.
To me, empiricism wasn’t/isn’t completely problematic when conceived and applied in disciplines that fall under the humanities or often times viewed as ‘post-structuralist.’ Some of these are psychoanalysis, literary criticism, cultural and ethnic studies, and film studies. It seems to me that these disciplines emerged in colleges and Universities (particularly after World War II with the Frankford School in Germany) because conventional disciplines have not completely pursuit the question of the “human experience.” Or perhaps they felt that there needed to be other ways of speaking about certain (marginalized) experiences that have not been previously recognized by conventional disciplines. What I think traditional and newer disciplines keep in mind is that – and while thinking about how empiricism is used today – a system of ‘laws’, or method, is necessary to capitalize on ‘truth’.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a crucial point in Appleby’s et. al., book. The Scientific Revolution didn’t appear out of thin air, social and political circumstances inspired the lay Western intellectuals of the 1800s (or before?) to tackle this issue of ‘truth’ against the preponderance of the Roman Church. The desperate need to experiment method, in trying to develop true knowledge about nature, “occurs only after careful and replicable investigations performed by a distinctive method of experimentation that requires both evidence and theories that seek to find patterns, or what are called laws, at work in nature.” (28) Of course this is limited to the Scientific Revolution of the time, but is it not how scholars of different disciplines have arrived and continue to arrive at certain conclusions? As the authors suggest, Newtonic method was limited to its particular field, but its ‘general laws’ became “universally applicable.” So I think that historians do not completely dismiss empiricism as such.
And like everyone else I believe that empiricism in its ideal form can inherently problematic because its ‘laws’ may not be so inclusive, or inherently subjective. But perhaps the beauty of making history, as suggested by this book, is that it has so many ways of constructing a narrative at its disposal: that making history can take an interdisciplinary approach to understand the past, and flourish. We students now have an obligation to push forward the methods for making history – telling history from different angles and perspectives, and like the authors suggest, we must do so like a democratic society.
Like many others in the class I believe that objectivity, while a lofty and worthy goal, is an impossible aim for historians. I do not mean this statement to be absolute or unequivocally cynical, but is important to acknowledge that the production of history is a human venture that inherently contains the biases and inconsistencies of human nature. For me, the best historical writing contains an ernest evaluation, by the authors, of their ideological position on a topic and the forces that have led them to position. While these statements-- which generally fall in a monograph’s introduction-- need to be analyzed critically in the same way that an author’s evidence and conclusions must be scrutinized, they offer the keen observer an opportunity to evaluate the ideological and intellectual underpinnings of a particular work. I find such statements to be a useful tool when examining the conclusions posited and the evidence marshaled by an author.
ReplyDeleteWhile this post seems to be colored with relativism, I want to assure the class that I do not have a “pervasive lack of confidence in the ability to find the truth or even to establish that there is such a thing as the truth.” I fully side with the authors’ argument that “truths about the past are possible, even if they are not absolute, and hence are worth struggling for.” As a student of social history, I feel that it is important to critically examine how a particular historical event can be interpreted in myriad way by historical actors. In this way, it is essential to lay bare all perspectives and attempt to draw conclusions based on an honest examination of one’s ideological orientation. In our attempts to attain historical truth, I feel that this is a reasonable way to strive for the unobtainable goal of absolute objectivity.
It is possible for scholars to be objective, in the sense that they believe that they are being objective when they are researching or writing. Whether they can perform these activities while being objective, based on personality traits, time, place, etc. is another matter. Empiricism is problematic for these very reasons. Postmodernists attacked the pragmatically of empiricism in history for these very reasons in Telling the Truth About History. Exemplar history, elitist history, etc. motivated by personal factors were intrinsic in many of the great historical works of the 18th and 19th centuries. Appleby and authors do a good job of illustrating that, especially via discourse and deconstruction. Skepticism and relativism are also referenced. However, if we as historians are to pick at everything and everyone ever written about, we would have no national identity. Everyone is flawed. Are we not supposed to have heroes or a national identity to be proud of because of it? I think that Practical Realism works as a solution because subjectivity is admitted off the bat, it is an inherently human characteristic, but historians of this substrate try their best to be objective as they possibly can. Collective truth, through the public and peers alike, is a way of verifying the accurateness of historical accusations by these professionals. Through the past two centuries, schools of historical thought have clashed over what is true history, whether it was heroic, relativistic, positivistic, progressive, modernist, postmodernist, Marxist, American socio-economic, etc. The only way it appears through reading Telling the Truth About History to balance the need of objectivity while accepting the incompleteness of our records is to include them anyway and let the reader or professional historian weight the evidence for themselves. The element of truth is a subjective and arbitrary interpretation anyway. If a historian is in doubt about the authenticity of a source, they can always footnote or include their apprehensiveness somewhere in their monograph. Historians should not silence voices that can assist in the subject they are writing about. All a historian, at the end of the day, can do is be as truthful as possible and conduct research in a professional and scientific manner. Peer review and future historians will always be there to tear their work apart if something is off.
ReplyDeleteTelling the Truth about History, but Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob, presents an important aspect of researching and writing histories. They account for the evolution of the search for knowledge since the Enlightenment period in the 18th century, making the argument that "nothing since that time has been taken as given or beyond questioning, not the classics, not the Bible, not the teachings of church and state" (7). In arguing this point, the authors call upon present and future historians to analyze themselves and their motives for researching and writing history. They pose excellent academic questions that put into perspective that any account or source may be biased or have a distinct point of view that can weaken an argument.
ReplyDeleteI really liked when the authors wrote "since no one can be certain that his or her explanation are definitely right, everyone must listen to others" (10). This statement cannot be more true in that to get to the absolute truth about anything in history, one must heed what others have said about the event both in a primary and secondary sense. When we as historians can do that, when we can listen to what others have to say and still dig to what we imagine is the bottom of the truth, then we can justifiably publish our findings. Without listening to others and reading a variety of sources, we are setting ourselves up for a loss in the sense that the story will be incomplete.