I think history cant be objective for two reasons, first of all the subject of study is a subjective choice and second the sources chosen to study the subject are also going to be subjective so the claim that there is an "objective" history is pure bull****.

I wonder what you guys think?

Does objective = ideologically neutral

or does it mean

Engaging with scholarship in the field and sources in a way that shows extensive consideration of the important issues in the specific piece of work you are producing.

This, pretty much.

If it's the former, obviously not, as History is a human endeavor dealing with interpreting events and their causes and effects on other humans.

If it's the latter, yes, at least to some extent. Good history always considers multiple angles and factors surrounding events.

The first argument applies to all scientific fields and is a complete non-issue.

The second merely reflects that historical claims have a lot of uncertainty attached to them, more so than claims in other fields of inquiry. Historians simply don't have the data to support their claims as well as empirical scientists can, which means that there's a lot more room for interpretation. As long as the methodology applied to what limited data they have conforms to the logic of evidence, however, history is our best gues wrt things that happened and there's nothing subjective about it that does't also affect other fields.

I think the tentative nature of historical knowledge should be stressed, though.

Completely objectivity is kind of impossible if your dealing with human thought's, as they themselves contradict the idea of ''objectivity''.

However, being neutral as in showing both sides of arguments, yes it's very possible. I consider the best history where it shows both sides, then the historian gives his opinion after the fact - he makes it clear that it is opinion - but it's fun to see how an expert see's the situation.

I can get by in a few languages and in every single one of them I know except English their word for "history" implies that it is "just a story". Maybe we should do that too. It would save a whole bunch of confusion.

No matter how objective you try to be, our views are stained by personal and cultural opinion. History is written by the winners. It is always from that perspective.

I think elements can to a degree of certainty. If a bunch of pots get excavated in an area which can be analyzed to say they came from 'x' period we could say pottery began to develop in that area around that time. That can then be balanced with other factors like, when did humans first arrive in the area, and what is the average time for settled humans to develop pottery, and come to a pretty good guess.

I agree that the narratives are subject to interpretation, but there are other dialogues--like in the writings of Plato--where we can see the questions facing the society at the time and intuit some things about the larger context. For example if someone were discussing the measurements of an aqueduct they were building, that conversation would leave little room for interpretation about the question of whether aqueducts were used during that time.

In my view, I strongly believe that history must be objective. However, in fact, perhaps there is nowhere in the world where history, particularly history as a school subject, is being taught objectively. Every government in the world has their own bias

Can history be objectively determined through corroboration of historical evidence and primary source accounts?

The gathering of the most reasonable accounts (from different viewpoints and sources) and reliable facts and eyewitnesses can be objective and then letting that evidence speak for itself is about as objective as it gets. The best and most reliable historians do this well. General X had 25,000 troops of which 2,000 were Calvary; General Y had 35,000 troops of which 5,000 were Calvary and they met on the plain of Po on the morning of August 1, 56 B.C. Etc. General X was victorious. General Y with his remaining forces fled the field in disorder and panic.

The problem occurs as to the exact whys, hows, the repercussions, and the interpretations of the main characters and battle etc., (in my example) that the historian must give to his readers, which they deserve.............that, more often than not, will included the subjective color and the prejudices of the relater of the events. We expect, as readers, some conclusions as to the outcome. This is almost always a subjective task. After all if the historian just related the bare facts, as best known, it would be about as interesting a read as a tide chart. Information, somewhat useful, but hardly inspiring or informative of human activities and foibles.

I don't believe that the history taught in US public schools is history told by the 'winners' in the manner you may imply. There's nothing victorious about it, no revisionist history to protect the winner. Instead it actually dredges up guilt for US past crimes, many of which were not crimes at the time. It's the presentation of "visions" rather than objective history: it has a moral aim, to teach social justice virtues of diversity and equality of outcome.

I don't think history can be "objective" as in devoid of opinion. The definition of objective is "unclouded by judgement." That's impossible, because a historian has to choose what to write and what not to write. In itself that shows judgement. The best thing a historian can do is reveal his opinion honestly rather than to try to appear objective when he can't be.

The first historians also included their opinions from time to time. Nothing is wrong with that imo.

The closest to what I think you mean by objectivity to me would be helping to put the history into context by describing the culture of the time. In my experience with history textbooks, they do a poor job of that. As in condemning the Atlantic slave trade while not mentioning that the US outlawed it in 1807 while the rest of the world except a few European nations practiced slavery until much later. Leaving this fact OUT makes the history non-objective, or rather, stupid - but it serves an agenda.

This forum looks deader than.... um..... Benjamin Franklin? I dunnow, just picked a random dead dude from my memory.

In any case. Outside of *truths of definition*, i.e. all pure maths, there is no such thing as true objectivity. What we think of as 'objective' is merely 'collective subjectivity'. Did I just roll a 5, or a 6? If there were a bunch of people watching, and cameras to record the event, in case I pulled some psychomagic on the observers, then there could be said to be an effectively objective truth, but as you can see, as you've (OP) pointed out, all things are to some degree subjective.

So, technically, yes, there is no such thing as objective history. However, 'effective' can do a lot of work; technically it's not a guarantee that the sun will rise tomorrow, nor is gravity guaranteed to hold true tomorrow as it did today, and both natural selection and evolution are both theories; however, they are effectively true, as are many events in history, as they have been corroborated far far far beyond any reasonable doubt.

One good reason to that is

History is usually written by the winners

There are many more ofc

While that's largely true, there will sometimes still be some accounts from the losing side, and good history takes into account the archaeological record. 'History is written by the victors' tends to mean more that entire cultures can be lost, especially when they are not literate, for example the south american empires where the spanish sought afterwards to effectively eliminate all cultural vestiges of the old world and replace it with the new.

Obviously history can be objective. People need to understand what the word objective means. It is not the same as true, but rather an objective statement is one that can be demonstrated to be either true or false. The statement that the Battle of Gettysburg occurred July 1-3 1863 is an objective statement, but so is the statement that the Battle of Gettysburg occurred in 1944. The first one is a true statement, the second is false, but both are objective.

Obviously history makes quite a lot of objective statements. If that were the extent of history, then yes obviously it would be fully objective. The better question is “SHOULD history be fully objective?”, rather than is it possible. I would argue that the answer is no. A fully objective history would be boring and not particularly worthy of study.

For example a fully objective history of the US Cvil War would read something like this: The Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820. It limited slavery in new states to those south of a certain line. In 1850 another set of compromise bills was passed by Congress providing for admission of California as a free state, allowing people of new states to vote on whether slavery is legal and providing a fugitive slave law. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected President. In December 1860 South Carolina declared that it was no longer part of the USA. Other southern states seceded after and formed the Confederacy.

In 1861 Confederate forces fired on Ft Sumter. A battle between Confederate forces and Union troops occurred at Manassass VA. Union troops battled Confederate troops on the peninsula near Richmond VA. Further battles occurred at Sharpsburg MD, Fredericksburg VA, Chancellorsville VA, and Gettysburg PA. Eventually Confederate forces fortified near Petersburg and Richmond VA. These forces eventually surrendered to Union forces at Appomattox Court House.

Obviously the problem with this kind of history is that we cannot speculate about the connections between events. We cannot discuss “why” questions. These are the very features that make history worthy of study, IMO, though. Why would anyone want history to be fully objective?

It is arguable that because it is never possible to prove anything to 100%, that therefore nothing is knowable, that there is no objective ledger we can consult to find out the truth, and therefore true objectivity is impossible outside of our constructed virtual worlds. What we have instead is collective subjectivity that effectively simulates objectivity well enough that we can call it that, but philosophy states that facts cannot be proven, only disproven (again exempting mathematical etc truths).

Did you miss the part where I discussed what objectivity actually means? Even if a statement is false it can be objective. Statements of fact are indeed objective, whether they are true or false. The statement “The Battle of Gettysburg occurred in San Diego California in the year 1912” is most certainly an objective statement. It also is false.

The question “Where and when did the Battle of Gettysburg occur?” is a question with an objective answer. There is a factually correct answer to such a question even if there is uncertainty about what that answer is. This seems strange because we have very little uncertainty regarding this question, but a question like “When was the city of Sumer first settled?” likewise has an objective answer; we just don’t know it. Uncertainty does not imply lack of objectivity.

I did not miss that; both things can be true at once, even if we're using terms slightly differently. If we define 'Battle of Gettysburg = the battle that happened in Gettysburg in 1863' then 'the Battle of Gettysburg happened in 1863' becomes objectively true, but only within the virtual world of definitions we've created. We create that world by collectively agreeing that enough of the evidence points that way such that there is effectively no doubt about it. I've reviewed your evidence and process, you've reviewed mine, everyone's reviewed everyone else's, there is effectively no doubt, the Battle of Gettysburg is definitely the battle that happened in Gettysburg in 1863. But that doesn't make it objective, whether objective fact or objective lie: it makes it collectively subjective. It doesn't make sense to say that the battle of gettysburg happened in 1944 because that contravenes the definition we've given that particular collection of words.

Take the value of money. £1 = ~$1.30 or something, right? That exchange rate is not objective, rather it is the collectively subjective result of a bunch of different exchanges and sales.

'Objectively true' means 'true in all possible worlds'; you're using objective vs subjective as meaning more like objective facts and statements are possible as they are the complement to subjective statements which are 'I feel like'.

The idea that a "fully objective" view of the ACW should ignore tariffs shows your lack of knowledge.

My post was illustrative but not intended to be comprehensive. Certainly statements such as “The Federal government passed a law increasing tariffs on foreign goods that led to the doctrine of nullification” are objective statements. A statement like “Passage of an unpopular tariff led to discontent in the South and was a contributor to the secession of those states” is NOT objective. That is a matter of interpretation and opinion. Others might (justifiably) point to slavery as a much more important contributor to the war. That too is a subjective interpretation though, which was kind of my point. History without subjective interpretations to link events, establish causal patterns, etc., would be very uninteresting and practically useless.

It can be 'largely objective', but that process seems to take time and can be perverted by partisans with contemporary ideological agendas.

Observation Bias... there is NOTHING new here.

The act of looking at something changes that thing...