- Or, must the writer always take a side and promote it (even if he or she is not philosophically conscious of taking a side and promoting it)?
- Is a neutral, fair, balanced, impartial, scientific, objective point of view on any subject really an impossibility?
You are basically questioning whether or not a human consciousness can be ‘objective’, it seems without an answer to that , none can be forthcoming.
Let’s say one set out to write a school textbook history of the United States, covering from 1760 to 1960. Is it possible to just “tell what happened,” without putting a political or philosophical “spin” on the history, thereby enabling the students who read the text to draw their own moral conclusions about “what happened” in American history.
But since any history is always a limited selection of “what happened,” doesn’t the historian’s or publisher’s political or philosophical preferences ultimately control what gets included or emphasized and what gets excluded or minimized?
Yes, I know that tons of ink have already been spilled in addressing this topic. What’s a little more ink?
Mr. A says, "I have the true, complete, and final philosophy, so when I write a history from that point of view, there is no bias, no unfairness, no subjectivity. "
Mr. Z will reply, “You’ve never proven that you have the true, complete, and final philosophy. So, your history is biased in favor of your philosophy.”
Mr. A will say: “My philosophy has been proven to be the one and only completely true one. You have simply been delinquent in seeking or apprehending that proof.”
Mr. Z will say: “There are many philosophies and religions that claim that the singular truth of their belief system has been proven.”
Mr. A: “You are a nihilist, and you long to sink into the mud with the preconscious slugs and amoeba. Since you reject reason, since you reject your status as a man, I will not speak any further with you.”
30 minutes ago, The Laws of Biology said:
Let’s say one set out to write a school textbook history of the United States, covering from 1760 to 1960. Is it possible to just “tell what happened,” without putting a political or philosophical “spin” on the history, thereby enabling the students who read the text to draw their own moral conclusions about “what happened” in American history.
But since any history is always a limited selection of “what happened,” doesn’t the historian’s or publisher’s political or philosophical preferences ultimately control what gets included or emphasized and what gets excluded or minimized?
Yes, I know that tons of ink have already been spilled in addressing this topic. What’s a little more ink?
Mr. A says, "I have the true, complete, and final philosophy, so when I write a history from that point of view, there is no bias, no unfairness, no subjectivity. "
Mr. Z will reply, “You’ve never proven that you have the true, complete, and final philosophy. So, your history is biased in favor of your philosophy.”
Mr. A will say: “My philosophy has been proven to be the one and only completely true one. You have simply been delinquent in seeking or apprehending that proof.”
Mr. Z will say: “There are many philosophies and religions that claim that the singular truth of their belief system has been proven.”
Mr. A: “You are a nihilist, and you long to sink into the mud with the preconscious slugs and amoeba. Since you reject reason, since you reject your status as a man, I will not speak any further with you.”
I think it is straightforward to come up with a number of important categories of events which one defines as constituting history, assuming History as a subject is geopolitical history, as opposed to historical accounts of other disciplines like scientific history, or art history, or history of education, history of clothing etc.
With those categories, be it geographic boundaries of states or occupied territories, population size growth, economic activity GDP, inventions developments or changes which affect these, political organizations or parties actually in power, some standards would be set for what amount of change counts as significant or constitutes historical events, sharp rise in disease or break out of war, but historical trends and gradual events are also important and form part of history: slow population migration into cities etc.
These can all be objectively defined, studied, and verified without any value judgements or political bias.
I have no doubt if people wanted to approach history objectively (regardless of politics or bias) they could agree on a set of standards and approach it objectively. When it comes to interpretation of or moral evaluation of history that is a separate and biased exercise.
That said, you would NEVER satisfy a people who WANT to characterize history in a subjective way, want to rewrite or distort the past, want to speculate and project upon history their own psychological “challenges”, never satisfy them that history can and is an objective study and recounting of the past.
“Chronicler” has a more objective vibe than “historian” , no?
12 minutes ago, tadmjones said:
“Chronicler” has a more objective vibe than “historian” , no?
Indeed.
- I suppose I am seeing that the “neutrality,” “balance,” and “fairness” in writing history that is promoted by a certain common sort of Liberal, who wants to evade the whole issue of philosophy, is an impossibilty.
- I think I am seeing that any historian must face up to his/her responsbility as a thinking human and realize that any story (nonfiction history, fiction, drama film, documentary film, etc.) will contain and promote certain moral premises, and that, therefore, the historian must become competent in philosophy before he can be competent in writing history.
- I accept this conclusion reluctantly, since gaining competency in philosophy seems like a long, arduous road.
Here’s the simple answer (although times before your existence would get more complicated and need many sources and accounting to be as accurate as possible) : can events be accurately video recorded in modern times? We know the answer is yes, minds doing accurate recording of events is the same. “Bias” doesn’t change accurate accounting of events when done honestly and with no purpose except an accurate retelling of events. There is your answer in essentials without dropping the context that the further back in time one goes the more resources and documentation, and accounting one needs to get the most as accurate picture of the past.
History is only as useful as those who read it , it falls on them to discriminate for objectivity. Essentially.
5 hours ago, The Laws of Biology said:
Mr. A will say: "My philosophy has been proven to be the one and only completely true one.
Is it possible to see the proof Mr. A is talking about?
The title question and this thread does not belong in the Aesthetics sector. This thread would be appropriate in the sectors Question or Epistemology or History or Misc.
Today one can improve the objectivity of the history of what one was taught in schoolbooks by later reading additional books on the topic and additional sources online, such as old newspapers which are now online through State hisorical societies. I was able to get assist in objectivity of some regional history recently thanks to that later sort of source. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3667599543478921&set=a.1483147068590857
LB, have you read the book Capitalism in America (2018)? Do you see anything unobjective about it?
- I posted this question in the Aesthetics sector because I view storytelling and history writing as both, to some degree, coming under the concept of Aesthetics.
- That is debatable, I suppose.
- I’ve always been intrigued about how the Spanish word for “story” is “historia” and the French word for “story” is “histoire.”
- In Spanish, the phrase “Tell me a story” is “Cuéntame una historia.”
- In Spanish, the phrase “Tell me the history of Spain” is “Cuéntame la historia de España.”
- I think many of us tend to think of “stories” (including fiction) as being essentially different from properly written “history.” But maybe this distinction isn’t so strong or necessary as we tend to think.
- So, I think this all leads back to aesthetics, and also to Miss Rand’s brilliant and justly famous “Romantic Manifesto.”
- Also, I seem to perceive moments when the borders separating matters of Aesthetics from matters of Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics, etc., all dissolve away, and all of reality can be seen as a whole. That is debatable, I know, and perhaps subversive of good social order. These divisions and categories are traditional in philosophy. But are they necessarily necessary or justifiable? Are these categorical boundaries, to some degree, arbitrary, motivated, or political in nature? These are just questions that bounce around my mind. Tons of ink have been spilled in cogitating about the nature of storytelling, and the nature of philosophy.
- I suffer for being incompetent in philosophy. I would like to remedy that incompetence.
- For me, that task seems like climbing Mount Everest without any guide and without any oxygen tanks.
- Anyone can be an enthusiast for this or that philosophical system, just as they can be in regard to a religion. Such a commitment can commence in an instant and last a lifetime (or change on a dime).
- But to be truly competent in philosophy seems like a different matter altogether, and requires, I think, years of study, writing, exploration, investigation, effort, testing, persistence, and courage. I guess it seems like what Joseph Campbell called the “hero’s journey.”
- As the melancholy Dane opines in his first soliloquy, “That it should come to this!” (I guess that expresses what Joseph Campbell calls the “Refusal of the Call” stage of the hero’s journey.)
Capitalism in America: A History
and a story not boring.
“Story” is a very general word that includes history, much other non-fiction, and most fiction.
We should think of categories like Aesthetics, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics as file folders for organizing our knowledge, not as having walls of separation between them.
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I would start by defining what a “neutral, fair, balanced, impartial, scientific, objective point of view” is. As far as I can tell, “point of view” presupposes a judgment, and “neutral, fair, balanced, impartial” precludes judgment. It is certainly possible to record events without judgment, just put a camera or microphone in a place and let it run. I will tell you that the result is massive amounts of meaningless recordings, waiting for someone to distill down to an condensed interpretation.
Judgment is absolutely essential in distilling the mass of raw observations into something humanly usable. So your question should be, what principles should guide a person’s judgment in interpreting events? The fundamental question in historical reporting should be “what happened?”, which is the basis for a higher-level question “why did it happen?”. This is not just about history, in science the fundamental question is “what exists”, the higher level question – which depends on accurate knowledge of what exists – is “why does it exist?”.
In all science, faithfulness to “what exists” is limited by a simple transactional consideration: you are aiming to sell your account to an audience. Perhaps your intended audience does not have the patience to plow through a 200 page technical treatise on the topic. Now you must decide what is of greater value to you: royalties, or a detailed account of what exists (and why). You have the option of selecting a particular audience, smaller but more dedicated to objective truth. You even have the option of discarding all limiting considerations of audience, in favor of strict faithfulness to truth. Whether or not you will just depends on what your value system is.