Objectivity Vs Relativity

7 Pages 1819 Words

Objectivity versus Relativity
An Analysis of Natalie Davis’s The Return of Martin Guerre

In his book, That Noble Dream, Peter Novick discusses the argument, in the historical profession over the noble dream of historical objectivity. The historical profession was founded in the late 19th century and it was founded on the ideal of firm historical objectivity. Between the two World Wars, this ideal of historical objectivity came into question as some historians began to support “historical relativism.” This counter to historical objectivity challenged the long supported notion that true history consists of facts alone. While this relativist view initially only served to put the hallowed notion of objectivity on the defensive, it did cause a significant disturbance in the historical profession as more and more young historians flocked to the relativist banner (Novick 16). In Natalie Zemon Davis’s book, The Return of Martin Guerre, about the famous case of a French peasant’s identity theft, she employs both objectivist and relativist views. Davis begins her writing on Martin Guerre by expressing an objectivist purpose, but her writing does not uphold this purpose, as Davis’s arguments slip into the realm of relativity.
The idea of historical objectivity has always been a central ideal for the historical profession. In basic, the elements of objectivity can be summed up as committing to the reality of the past and to the truth that goes along with that reality and a very harsh separation between the raw principle facts and any values that one might wish to attach to those facts (Novick 1). An objectivist must use only the facts, making sure to take them out of context with anything in the historian’s own time. The objective historian must look at all of the facts possible and analyze them with a clinical detachment, almost as, “an entomologist studying a quivering specimen impaled with a pin.” (Novick 14) Wh...