issue110 历史的客观性

papajohnsUID: 127722

110. "When we concern ourselves with the study of history, we become storytellers. Because we can never know the past directly but must construct it by interpreting evidence, exploring history is more of a creative enterprise than it is an objective pursuit. All historians are storytellers."  

当我们研究历史时，我们变成了讲故事的人。因为我们永远不可能直接地了解过去，而必须通过解释史料来勾画出过去，所以探究历史更多地是一项创造性的事业，而并非一个客观的追寻。所有的历史学家都是讲故事的人。[现代的历史学家并不是storyteller，而且研究历史最要不得的就是creative]
My outline:
History is the study of the past. Obviously, the past, unlike the present, is unable to be directly studied. Therefore, reasonable extrapolation and conjecture are a must for historians to reconstruct the past. However, such reasoning is different from the baseless imagination which storytellers always take.  In this sense, I believe that the study of history is more objective pursuit and that historians are different from storytellers.

The study of history is a process of analysis and reconstruction. The purpose of historians is to give us an accurate and comprehensive description of past. For them, collecting data from various sources is the first task. Then, the ascertainment and verification of particular historical facts is another more difficult task, calling for critical faculty and good judgement. To deal with such task in an objective manner to satisfy a truth-loving mind, it will be necessary for them to look keenly into problems of conflicting testimony, of personal character, of the validity of documents, of the meaning of words, of the right method of construction. It is not enough; the next step historians would take is a more subtle process of discovering those facts’ causal relations. And at last by organizing those facts historians reconstruct the past. Clearly, there is no scope for telling story here---all concrete historical conclusions are only results of facts. In one word, history is a science based on facts.

On the contrary, story is a kind of art dependent on creativeness. It is defined as a fictional narrative, recording what did not happen or something fantastic. Harry Potter and the Lord of ring serve as the typical examples. The magic world in which Harry Potter lives comes from the creative mind of author and the super-powerful ring is also a total fiction, not a real existence. So, story, devoid of facts, is a different being from history. Consequently, historians are not storytellers.


As for unsettled problems, for example, the question of whether Yongzheng, the third emperor of Qing Dynasty, usurped the throng, historians has not yet explained it. Had it been left to storytellers, a very wonderful story would come about. Nevertheless, historians take a different way, admitting the incapacity to completely explain something with a limited amount of information. Not pleasing to our eyes though it looks, it is the historian’s version that should be the more accurate and thus far more relevant one.  

Admittedly, I am not denying that history dose not involve subjective participation. Yet, such subjective involvement is not amount to imagination without basis of facts. After all, so scarce and inaccurate historical facts are that there is no way to construct the past exactly. In order to better understand and study the past it is essential for historians to explore reasoning methods. Limited information entails reasonable extrapolation. The past is like a curve; and the existing information like points. How to draw a curve on the basis of limited points requires conjecture. Thus, the curve is a tentative and inexact picture of the past. Once new evidence emerges, that picture correspondingly is modified in the way to be closer to the truth.  Also, being not objective and authentic records about past, historical information itself is colored by the providers’ value and stance. Historians have to deal with human character, human feeling and motives, probabilities, and other data more or less indefinite. How to filter false and misleading facts requires historians’ subjective judgement.

In conclusion, I agree that historians require reasonable inference and construction if there is not sufficient historical facts. Or, the past was presented in a fragmentary manner. Such inference, based on facts, is totally different way from baseless imagination. Historians should not be regarded as storytellers.

papajohnsUID: 127722

呵呵,自己顶一下.

奇瑞QQUID: 151418

The way you construct your essay is a bit strange. For instance, why you make the example Yongzheng as a seperate paragraph? What' more, the thesis of this paragrah is not clear. Secondly, the third paragrah about characters of stories isn't strong and I suggest that you should cut it down. However, the second and fifth one, in my opinion, are pretty good.

P.S. 我考的issue题就有这一道, 以前看过一些美国历史学家的观点,他们好像还是蛮支持historians are storytellers的, 你可以上google搜搜看, 说不定能更加打开思路.

imongUID: 140258

写得不错！

有两点意见：第一段body不妨直说你要根据剖析historian工作的方法来证明这里面根本没有creative可言，全部是基于严密的逻辑和事实

倒数第二段的Admittedly写得不好。Admit过头了，一定要回来：（例如）尽管事实不够精确，但是在不断改进和发展的过程中historian永远恪守objective的准则。

其实我的论点和你不太一样：我认为historian SHOULD NOT be storytellers，yet unfortunately they ARE right now. 所以没法想到支持你的论证的例子了。

评个精华吧。我觉得差不多可以拿到5分了

其实还有一些毛病，大家都来挑一挑。可并不是perfect的文章哦。

poohUID: 146994

写得真好，语言的驾驭能力很强，第5段的比喻curve&point很有新意也贴切，其实你这个比喻可以用来证明histarians aren't storytells, 因为point毕竟会把curve的大体位置固定下来，不同于storytellers可能是没有边际的乱画。
keep on!

galaxysongUID: 152834

欣赏一下

so猫UID: 148633

感叹一下~~~~
和我昨天写的题目是一样的~~~
但比我强多了~~~~~~~~

papajohnsUID: 127722

呵呵,没想到被标精了,谢谢各位的评点.
1Admittedly那段我也觉得有点过,写着写着就收不回来了,我不知道是否再最后来一个转折,但是这个body是承认有点creative的成分.
2我觉得逻辑不太严密,段落安排不太好.特别是第3个body讲雍正的是否有必要,还有如果可以的话需要并入其他的段落吗?
3关于point&curve, pooh说的好,这个比喻应该用在主体段落.但是是不是应该重新开一个段落主要从历史资料的缺乏用驳论的形式反对.就是说有人认为历史资料如此缺乏客观性是不存在的.紧跟在第一个主体论证的段落之后.
4然后在论述对于那个不能解释的问题,就是讲雍正的那段,作为第3个段落.(以上讲的段落不包括introduction那个段落.
5有可能重新再编排一下,改写一下再发一片.再次谢谢各位.