Anyone up for backing off Tom and Sally and discussing whether or not  
" . . . history can be objectively known . . . . " or whether or not  
there's  " . . . certainty of knowledge . . . " in well-researched,  
well-written academic history?

I, for one, side with those who agree with Ranke's ideals . . . but  
despair of attaining them.  Try, for example, describing the first  
battle of Manassas . . . or even the capture of "Sherman's battery" on  
21 July 1861 . . . on the basis of the best-available primary sources.

We traffic. I believe,  in more-or-less sophisticated pattern  
recognition, more-or-less language-limited articulation of those  
patterns,  and, at best, more-or-less logically reliable and   
intellectually honest approximations of "historical truth."

The trick lies in knowing how to make the distinctions.

The tragedy lies never accumulating enough historical knowledge to  
even BEGIN to see patterns.

No?

Dan Morrow
Middleburg


On May 16, 2008, at 9:25 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:
> If you cannot admit that history can be objectively known, then you  
> cannot
> believe that history bears any certainty of knowledge.

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