Historians should strive for fairness despite the impossibility of full objectivity

Evidence

In a scholarly, meticulous, careful, precise way. No one can achieve complete freedom from bias. But … we do the best we can. This means using the new sciences that have been created for the study of documents, inscriptions, coins, and the like, and trying to achieve a better understanding of the past through methods and sources not previously available. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1962 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

I adhere to a different view: that the historian owes it to himself and to his readers to try, to the best of his ability, to be objective or at least to be fair— to be conscious of his own commitments and concerns and make due allowance and, where necessary, correction for them; and to try and present the different aspects of a problem and the different sides to a dispute in such a way as to allow the reader to form his own independent judgment. Above all, the historian should not prejudge issues and predetermine results by the arbitrary definition of topic and selection of evidence, and the use of emotionally charged or biased language. As a famous economist once remarked, “Complete asepsis is impossible, but one does not for that reason perform surgery in a sewer.” — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 103 (#expands, via linked claim)

[S]omebody in each era must make clear the facts with utter disregard to his own wish and desire and belief. What we have got to know, so far as possible, are the things that actually happened in the world… . [T]he historian has no right, posing as scientist, to conceal or distort facts; and until we distinguish between these two functions of the chronicler of human action, we are going to render it easy for a muddled world out of sheer ignorance to make the same mistake ten times over. (p. 722) He had written these words with American historiography in mind. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1073 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The subaltern resists all adequate representation, so historians work at an acknowledged limit. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 1774; Historians should strive for fairness through explicit awareness of their own biases — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 103; Objectivity is unattainable yet historians must still pursue it rigorously — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1962 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Historians should strive for fairness through explicit awareness of their own biases #expands (0.95) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 103
• Objectivity is unattainable yet historians must still pursue it rigorously #corroborates (0.95) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1962
• Historians must report facts regardless of personal desire. #complicates (0.75) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1073