Skepticism

Hayden White did not completely reject the value of objectivity in historical analysis, but he argued that the skilled use of language was as important as the effort to pinpoint facts using scientific method.  “We are no longer compelled, therefore, to believe—as historians in the post-Romantic period had to believe—that fiction is the antithesis of fact (in the way that superstition or magic is the antithesis of science) or that we can relate facts to one another without the aid of some enabling and generically fictional matrix.”^[1]  Some postmodern historians rejected objectivity in favor of relativism but did not believe that all accounts of historic events were equally valid.  As Peter Novick explained it, “The latter term refers not to a positive position but rather to a critical stance vis-à-vis various elements in the objectivist synthesis, and, in general, doubts about the coherence of the notion of objectivity as applied to history.”^[2]  Novick expressed sympathy for colleagues in the profession of history who rallied to defend the concept of objectivity, but he was unwilling to go against the prevailing trend of doubting its value.  He refused to completely reject objectivity in favor of a relativity.   Thomas Haskell resolved the elusiveness of objectivity by contrasting it with skepticism rather than comparing it to relativity.  “The search for objective knowledge, because of its commitment to a realistic picture, is inescapably subject to skepticism and cannot refute it but must proceed under its shadow. Skepticism, in turn, is a problem only because of the realist claims of objectivity.”^[3]  He noted that Novick’s criticism of White’s position on objectivity was guarded and respectful.  He accused both Novick and White of dodging the question and erring by confusing objectivity with neutrality.”^[4] 

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[1] Hayden White, The Fictions of Factual Representation, 126.

[2] Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity Question’ and the American Historical Profession (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 3.

[3] Thomas Haskell, “Objectivity is Not Neutrality: Rhetoric Versus Practice in Peter Novick’s That Noble Dream,” History and Theory 29 (1990): 129.

[4] Thomas Haskell, “Objectivity is Not Neutrality,” 141.