Abstract

Formerly, history was considered a discipline which attempts to arrive at a description of how the past really was. The truth of historical arguments could then be verified by evidence. This Rankean notion of historical realism is currently rejected by many historians because the evidence upon which it depends is itself theory-bound. This critical or "ironic" perspective, however, like the realist descriptions it criticizes, cannot provide a single method of accounting for events. The structuralist theory developed by Hayden White attempts to resolve this conflict by taking as its object not experience, but men's various representations of experience. However, to claim that truth depends upon criteria outside of the evidence renders the historian subject to either relativism or dogmatism. Only through a nontheoretical faith in the power of evidence to prove can historical inquiry uncover the true past