On The Objectivity Of Historiography

“Objectivity”is a must-have feature of science,and the knowledge without objectivity cannot be called science.The objectivity of cognition in natural science gave it the title of science.Whether the objectivity of history recognition can be properly solved or not will also affect the scientific status and academic status of the historical discipline.The theory and ideal of the“objectivity”were not only the core of the professional historiography and the cornerstone of this career,but also the beliefs of the historians and the reason for the continuous existence of historiography.However,for a century,the objectivity of historical cognition has been repeatedly suffered the queries and challenges from skepticism and relativism.Therefore,it is also the responsibility of the historians to propose the objectivity of historical cogrnition to defend the scientific status of it.The analysis shows that the objectivity-oriented queries are not valid.But such queries have led people to rethink the research methods of history.The suspicion of objectivity in the understanding of historiography has,of course,the source of philosophical skepticism,meanwhile,it is also an actual problem encountered in the practice of historiography.It is mainly due to the diversity of opinions,the inconsistency in recognition or the absence of consistency presented by historiography via opinions and texts.Specifically,the inconsistency in recognition’occurs in all aspects except historical facts,such as macro-historical narratives,historical composition,historical interpretation and understanding and historical evaluation.As a sign of objectivity absence,the inconsistency of cognition has a negative impact on the scientific status or academic status of the historical discipline.This paper tries to demonstrate why it’s difficult to eliminate such inconsistency of cognition from historical narrative,composition,interpretation and understanding and evaluation.It’s mainly determined by the linguistic construction of the ontological object of history and the diversity of human values at the conceptual level.In addition to the exploration of the obstacles of historical consistency,it is equally important to think of the status of ideological consistency in history.In this connection,we believe that the absence of consistency in history,a non-practical discipline,may not impede the serious academic status of history study.On the one hand,the dissimilar and appropriate recognition in historiography are the necessity and charm of its existence.On the other hand,in the discussion process,it is recognized that the blind pursuit of consensus in historiography will lead to the distortion of the direction by power or the related communities.An interesting aspect of objectivity is that the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity in the overall and individual dimensions.When the view turn from people who with consciousness,emotions and aspirations to the social structure,which seems to show the cognitive orientation from subjective to objective.In fact,as the literature has the characteristics of human beings,which involved in people or not is also a fundamental difference between the historiography and anthropology are all have an exploration which has empirical and concreteness and such as the macroeconomics and the theoretical sociology.With the blind pursuit of the structure and the laws of macro-history in historical studies,it will obscure the personality characteristics and the value pursuit of the individuals;the blind pursuit of the truth of the historical materials will make the historiography degenerate to the science of historical materials,which will further lead historiography to the extreme of "the ultimate historiography" and will diminish the confidence and determination of human beings to seek the significance and value of historiography;the blind pursuit of the truth of the text will lead the historiography to the direction of literature or fiction.Therefore,objectivity is a necessary condition rather than a sufficient condition for excellent historical works.The objectivity is not the only criterion for the rationality of historiography.Besides the objectivity,the diversity,depth,and inspiration of understanding and interpretation are equally important criteria for historical assessment.Thus,the thinking mode in historical studies also needs to be elevated from the polarity of subject and object to the integration of subject and the object.And it is necessary to adopt ontological inter-subjective thinking mode to analyze historiography which help return to the true history and reflect the true relationship between human beings in the living world.