How Do You Construct the Past Objectively: 'What Is History?' by E.H. Carr

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How Do You Construct the Past Objectively: ‘What Is History?’ by E.H. Carr

First and foremost, what is the definition of History? History originates from the Greek word Historia which means information or an inquiry designed to extract the truth. There are many definitions of history; a simple definition of history is the study of past events, particularly in human affairs. History is also a continuous, typically chronological, record of important or public events or of a particular trend or institution. History is the study of life in society in the past, in all its aspects, in relation to present developments and future hopes. History is a means to understand the past and present. The different interpretations of the past allow us to see the present differently and therefore help us to learn from our mistakes and not repeat the same mistakes twice for a better future. History is purely based on evidence and without evidence, there would be no history. It is an Inquiry into what happened in the past, when it happened, and how it happened. In addition, history is also an inquiry into the unavoidable changes in human affairs which take place in the past and how these changes influence, determine, or affect the patterns of life in society. History also includes the academic discipline which uses a narrative to analyze and examine a sequence of past events, and objectively determine the patterns of cause and effect that determine them(Evans,2001). History is or should be an attempt to re-think the past. The purpose of history is to help people understand the present existing economic, social, and religious conditions of the people. This is because, without history, there will be no knowledge and background of our customs institutions, religion, and administration. History helps to explain the present and to analyze and trace its course. Therefore, cause and effect relationship between the past and present is vital to understand history better.

History is also an analysis and interpretation of the human past enabling us to study continuity and changes that are taking place over time. It is an act of both imagination and investigation that pursues to explain how people have changed over time. To fully understand, examine and revisit the past historians use all types of evidence which include not just written documents such as memoirs, and biographies but also oral communication and objects such as photographs, artifacts, paintings, and buildings. Historians use these sources to a full extent to get an accurate evaluation and interpretation of the past. Also, historians also face challenges in making a historical sense of these sources. History can also provide us an insight into our cultures of origin as well as cultures that we are not familiar with thus increasing our understanding and cross-cultural awareness. In addition, history is important because it helps us to make more sense of the current world. One can look at past economic and cultural trends and be able to offer reasonable predictions of what will happen next in today’s world.

There is also a debate about whether history is a science or an art. Many people often think that history is a science because it is about the past and the past is unalterable. History should be considered both a science and an art simply because history is sometimes classified with the social sciences and sometimes with the arts. History is considered a science because history answers questions about things, places, people, and dates which we would consider to be facts. In other terms, history gives us a perspective about the confirmable world that has happened before. For example, when events happened, how they happened, and where those events took place. However, history is always written from the perspective of a historian who nuances those events, things, places, and people and what they meant in the past, and what significance it has in the present. This takes place with or without the express intent of the historian. The role of the historian is to draw theoretical and concrete meaning from historical events and arrange them into a meaningful whole which is then presented to an audience which is an art which is why history is both an art and a science. History is considered to be a science because it involves collections of different information, and formations, through scientific tools. According to Esedebe (2003), science can mean 3 things. Firstly, science can mean knowledge. Secondly, science can mean knowledge of nature and science can also mean scientific method.

Historians write about events that are not part of their society and also about events that are not witnessed by the historian. Thus, whenever a historian interprets or discovers facts about the past activities and experiences of man, he employs critical thinking to produce what Collingwood (1978) calls scientific history or historical work based on objective empiricism. (Marwick, 1970). Moreover, history also follows the scientific method of inquiry to find out the truth. Although historians use scientific techniques, experiments are simply not possible because history deals with events that have already happened and cannot be replicated and repeated. Rickman argues that history is not a science as he said that History deals with a sequence of events, each of them unique while Science is concerned with the routine appearance of things and aims at generalizations and the establishment of regularities, governed by laws. In other words, a historian cannot come up with general principles or laws which may allow the historian to predict with certainty the occurrence of like events, under given conditions. Meanwhile, scientists on the other hand can predict the future and control the present by looking at knowledge from a universal angle and the historian can also arrive at a certain generalization. The construction and reconstruction of the past are inevitable parts of history. Like art, its wholeness, harmony, and truth are inseparable from a concrete and vivid appreciation of its parts. History, in fact, is a social science and an art that lies in its flexibility, variety, and excitement.

So how do we construct the past objectively? What does being objective in history actually mean? Objectivity in history means not being influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts. It also means that history is based on facts rather than feelings or opinions. The general argument is that objective historical knowledge cannot be achieved because we do not have access to a given past against which to judge rival interpretations. Factuality, sensibility, and impartiality which means not bias are also important to construct history objectively. In addition, objectivity means existing independently of perception or an individuals conception and these perceptions are undistorted by personal bias or emotion and are related to actual and external phenomena as opposed to thoughts or feelings. The opposite of objective is subjective which relates to the way a person experiences things in the historians mind. Being subjective also means being based on feelings or opinions rather than facts. Subjectivity referred to it is belonging to, proceeding from, or relating to the mind of the thinking subject and not the nature of the object being considered. Subjectivity is related to or originating from a person’s emotions, and prejudices. According to Ranke, for history to be objective certain requirements need to be followed. Firstly, historical facts should be organized based on findings and valid interpretations. Secondly, historians should be free from political interest and religious bias. Next, historians should avoid moral judgments or evaluations. Lastly, historians should avoid abstraction and speculations. For historians to have objectivity in history, he or she needs to refrain from historical bias. Examples of historical bias are a misinterpretation of facts, omission of significant facts, failure to capture and understand the history, description based on false facts, and incomprehensive causal explanation.

Objectivity in history is a basic theme that historians, researchers, students, and everybody should be wary about. Carr in his book What is History describes the influence of historical and social environment on the selection and interpretation of facts by the historian. (Carr,1980) Hence, Carr 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 accepted by the historian which necessarily included elements of interpretation. Without this, history cannot be written at all as the past dissolves into a muddle of incalculable isolated and irrelevant incidents. Moreover, the facts of history cannot be purely objective because they only become facts of history by the significance attached to them by the historian. For that reason, historian craft is all about getting the facts accurate and applying the right standard of significance to the past. In addition, he explains that there are simply too many facts, even after the historian followed the procedure of selecting only the important ones and he claims that the major obstacle to objectivity is the historian himself. According to Carr (1980), an objective historian is based on two factors. Firstly, a historians capacity to rise above the limited vision of his own situation in society and in history and his capacity to recognize the extent of his involvement in that situation, to recognize that is to say, the impossibility of total objectivity. Secondly, the historian has the capability of projecting his vision into the future in such a way to give him a more insightful and more lasting vision of the past that can be achieved by those historians whose viewpoint is completely constrained by their own situation Therefore, some historians write history which is more durable and has more of objective character than others. Historians attempt to recreate and reconstruct history to reflect how life was experienced and how it may be understood, as it requires an imaginative engagement with the environment and mentality of the past. Hence, a historian cannot be objective as facts do not speak for themselves and no two historians will have a totally identical and equal imaginative response to any hypothesis. Sampson (1976), he describes the differences between fact which is objective, and opinion or interpretation which is subjective in that objective information has the ability to be counted or described. On the other hand, subjective information usually contains statements of judgment, rumors, beliefs, or suspicion. 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.

Construct history objectively, a historian plays an important role in doing so as they are the ones who are interpreting the facts and evidence. The historian needs to have requirements to be objective, firstly, the historian needs to have the capacity to rise above the limited version of his own situation in society and in history. Secondly, historians need to have the capability to project their vision into the future in a way that gives a more thoughtful and lasting understanding of the past. A historian cannot claim to write ultimate history or total history but some historians can write history which is more durable and more objective than others and these are the historians that have a long-term vision of the past and the future. Historians of the past can make an approach towards objectivity only as he approaches the understanding of the future. To achieve a full understanding of historical events, the historian must study the general circumstances of the period of which he is studying and compare them with particular events in which he is interested. Then, the historian should find similar events that have taken place at other periods along with the general environment of these periods. After the historian has completed these two main stages, he should then be able to identify events as reasonable and probably true or unacceptable and almost definitely false. Certain events need only be studied separately, along with the general circumstances of their periods, to know which parts of them must be true or false.

Philosophers have rejected the idea that history can be objective because one does not have access to a given past against which to judge rival interpretations. Mark Bevir rejected this claim because according to him objective interpretations are those that meet the criteria of accuracy, consistency fruitlessness, progressiveness, and openness, and also these interpretations should be considered as moving towards truth understood as a regulative ideal. (Bevir, 1994) Moreover, he defended objectivity through an international theory of meaning he claimed that it could be possible to extend this logic of the history of ideas to history in general. Objectivity rests on comparison and the explanation of human actions. At the beginning of the 20th century, American historians began to question the real ability of historians to produce objective history. This is mainly because the written history of events is solely the historians version of the events, relative to the historians time and purposes. According to relativists, a historians preferences, knowledge, and experience determines the content, shape, and direction of the history he produces. Moreover, the content of history is also adjusted according to the needs of the time. Jenkins (1995), argues that objectivity is impossible to accomplish in the study of history because the past is long gone, and creating history in the present means that content is as much invented as found. It is impossible for the historian to remove his or her, preconceived ideas and personal motives to write history objectively.

In conclusion, construct objectivity in historical knowledge, historians play an important role in doing so as they are the ones making interpretations with the help of facts and evidence. Historians should refrain from political interest and religious bias. Historical facts must be organized based on findings and valid interpretations. Moreover, the historian should also avoid moral judgments, evaluations, abstraction, and speculations. Factuality, sensibility, and impartiality are also vital to construct history objectively. The historian needs to have the capacity to rise above the limited version of his own situation in society and in history and also historians need to have the capability to project their vision into the future in a way that gives a more thoughtful and lasting understanding of the past. Some philosophers argue that objectivity cannot be achieved because one does not have access to a given past against which to judge rival interpretations.

References

Bevir, M. (1994). History and Theory, 33, pp. 328-344
Carr, E.H., (1980). What is history? England: Penguin Books.
Collingwood, R.G. (1978). The idea of history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Esedebe, P.O. (2003). Reflections on history: Nation-Building and the University of Nigeria An Inaugural Lecture of the Ajaegbo: The Unity of Knowledge: History as Science and Art AFRREV IJAH, Vol.2 (3) July 2013 Copyright © IAARR 2013: www.afrrevjo.net/ijah 18 University of Nigeria, Nsukka delivered on Thursday, 11 September 2003. Nsukka: Prize Publishers.
Hampson, N. (1976). Subjectivity and Objectivity in History, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 7, p. 188
Jenkins, K. (1995). What is History? London and New York Routledge
Marwick, A. (1970). The nature of history. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd.
Professor Richard J. Evans (2001). ‘The Two Faces of E.H. Carr’. History in Focus, Issue 2: What is History? The University of London. Retrieved 10 October 2019.

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