Ancient Historians and Their Objectivity - Essay Example

Ancient Historians and their Objectivity Beyond doubt, historians cannot be all knowing and therefore have to be selective on what they write about as facts (Grant1 31). Scholars in an attempt to explain the history of humans are usually faced with two main challenges. One of these challenges is to establish the existence of “historical truth”, and secondly if determining the degree of historical objectivity in historical study. In order to establish historical truth and objectivity, modern historians have had to compare the writings of ancient historians, more especially Roman and Greek writers. Many a scholar has commented that even if objectivity is achieved by a historian, such objectivity always remains confined within the narration of the facts that are presented sequentially. According to (Rüsen, 2), the best definition of history must include the sense and meaning within the expression of time in the past, present and future. The connectivity of these aspects of time utilizes the main mental form of presentation that narration offers. Narration gives past, present and future some meaning to human life by relating experience to expectation. It is therefore correct to state narratives as the form in which history is stored in human minds and assists them to orientate themselves in temporal change. Objectivity in historical narratives has been analyzed to act as a yardstick of validity, integrity and truth in narratives. The main purpose of narrative objectivity can be said to be the linking impact of historical occurrences and the cumulative complement that each part of history gives to the other. In ancient historical narratives, there was lack of linkage of historical ideas from different writers and time. Objectivity was lacking due to the fact that there was no platform to refer one’s work from pre-existing similar ideas. Many inconsistencies were identified in ancient narratives when comparisons of such uniformed texts were done. Later, ancient historical narratives adopted the truth claim of connecting history to valid explanations of events. The validity of the majority of ancient texts is highly questionable, partly due to the fact that the literacy levels were limited. Majority of ancient historical texts were primary sources since the authors were the first to generate and write on the topics. Modern historical narration has however adopted a more literature perspective in offering validity to events and occurrences. Almost every topic in history has been explored and the relevant information backed up in form of databases. History has advanced to incorporate many an interdisciplinary aspect among which is literature. Narrativity has taken the central role in offering solutions to the underlying validity issues where meaning is now sought from subjectivity. Departure from scientific explanation of historical events can be seen as a major development in offering admissible reasons to historical occurrences and happenings. Over-reliance on objectivity has been termed as relating history to fiction and modern history steers history away from truthful claims. Objectivity treated with a realistic approach that enhances the validity of the text. Literature and information technology have been used to demystify historical occurrences that were once linked to fiction, by offering acceptable valid explanations to underlying historical issues (McCrank, 1). Some of the reasons for the preparation of historical texts by early historians included expression and communication, record keeping, creativity and relaying of religious information. Objectivity in the information contained in such texts is largely disputed since the level of extensive consultation and research was minimal. Reviews as well as criticism were not a channel of guaranteeing validity to the readers. Besides, literacy was a preserve of the affluent minority since education was not a necessity. Bias was a common thing, since the little knowledge that one had could not easily be updated, and gaining extra information was almost out of reach. Historical text needed to report accurately but the information required to ensure accuracy was not forthcoming. The storage of the information faced compromising factors that reduced the integrity of the material. Whereas objectivity in modern history text is not completely tied to strict truth claims as ancient history was, subjectivity is not completely enshrined in its principles. It is clear that the current historian adopts balanced validity criteria, where literature and creativity play important roles. Concept indexing is advanced in modern history where information Historians like Thucydides, Tacitus and Herodotus like many modern historians openly set the reasons behind their writings according to (Grant1 51). Generally, the reasons can be categorized into four groups: truth, understanding, glory and moralizing. Thucydides, for example, in describing the Peloponnesian War stated that the war was going to be great and therefore worth being written about. In this sense, he described the necessity of writing to be bent on the unprecedented nature of the looming battle; its scale. Josephus and Herodotus also wrote quite a bit about wars having recorded historical events related to the Jewish rebellion and the Persian war respectively. Their accounts of the war were mainly based on the realization of how monumental these conflicts were (Grant2 62). What this shows is that some historians wrote about events owing to their being worth remembering. This however is not only the limit of modern history. Modern historians go beyond recording past events (their facts, figures and details) and in this respect venture deeper beyond what the ancient historian had in mind. Herodotus and Thucydides are two ancient historians who experienced political exiles. The two historians appreciated that when the truth perceived to be conformed to past events; it becomes a sine qua non of history. In as much as the two historians sympathized with Athens, they maintained their truth and objectivity and never gave into to petty bias (Grant2 83). Without automatically giving the prize to Athens, Herodotus judiciously argued in respect of the best form of government. Thucydides, in his desire to comprehend the very nature of events also gave himself not to blind partisanship. In fact, many historians of recent times ghave reserved for him praise even crowning him as the ancestor of historic objectivity. This is because he always wished to present events to his audience the way they had occurred . However, others have accused the same historian for single-mindedly selecting truths which only fit his concept of history. Thucydides could quite confidently insist, if he were present today, that not his ardent detractors or his great defenders quite comprehended the reason for which he wrote history. The current world has facts and fiction a lot mixed up. Ancient historian found these two hopelessly confused and mixed up. Ancient historians according to some failed to tell the truth and indeed could not. This may be because they preferred not to give true accounts or because e they intended to present biased information to their audience. Some historians argue that some ancient historians may not have recorded truth in their recordings because such truths were inaccessible to them, or maybe because the truth was no more accessible to anyone. Other historians owing to the accounts of ancient historians note that some ancient historians maintained objectivity as they wrote for various reasons. This is the main reason historians today have to consider and compare several sources of information before making their conclusions. Historiography helps historians to maintain their objectivity while considering several perspectives before making reasonable conclusions. Works Cited McCrank, Lawrence J. Historical information science: an emerging unidiscipline. Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc., 2001. Print Burstein, Stanley M., & Pomeroy, Sarah B. Ancient history. Markus Wiener Publishing, Inc., 1984. Print Grant1 Michael. The ancient historians. Scribner. 2008. Print. Grant2 Michael. Greek and Roman historians: information and misinformation. Routledge. 1995. Print. Gill, Christopher, Virtue, norms and objectivity: issues in ancient and modern ethics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print Kalle, Pihlainen, “Narrative Objectivity Versus Fiction: On the Ontology of Historical Narratives.” Rethinking History, 2.1(1998):7 - 22 Read More