Historical facts are events that happened in the past, and historians are divided into two schools of thought: Ranke, who sees them as objective facts, and Droysen, who interprets them as subjective perceptions. While Ranke argued that facts should be described as they are through thorough archival research, Droysen believed that the historian’s interpretation is crucial and that it is through this interpretation that the meaning of the past is constructed. Both approaches offer different perspectives on the study of history, and modern historiography has evolved to integrate them.
“Historical facts” can refer to individual events that happened in the past, or they can refer only to the facts of the past as subjectively perceived by the historian. A historian’s approach to historical research depends on which of these two conceptions of “historical fact” he or she emphasizes.
Ranke equated historical facts with objects in the natural world that were created by the “finger of God.” He believed that the individual facts of each era or past had an inherent value that was complete in itself and existed beyond the passage of time, and that it was the historian’s job to describe the historical facts of the past as they were, since it would be a contamination of divine history for the historian to interpret them at will. To do this, he believed that historians should recognize history through thorough examination and verification of sources, and not distort history for their own purposes.
Ranke’s position reflects a major current in 19th-century historiography. Historians of the time sought to bring the scientific method to the study of history and, in doing so, establish it as an objective and empirical discipline. Ranke’s approach, which emphasizes “history as it is,” emphasizes the absoluteness of historical facts, and is still influential today. His methodology involved analyzing ancient philology and documents in an effort to accurately reconstruct the past.
Droysen, on the other hand, emphasized that historical facts are only as good as the historian’s subjective perception of them. He did not see history as simply a collection of past events, but rather as the task of the historian to understand, interpret, and organize past events into a form of knowledge, and that archival evidence alone could only provide a partial and uncertain account of the past in order to determine objective facts.
Droysen’s position emphasizes the interpretive nature of history. It is not simply a recounting of past events, but an exploration of the causal relationships and meanings between them. In his view, history is not a mere record, but a narrative construct that reflects the complexity of human experience. This interpretive approach is the basis for modern historiography’s emphasis on the importance of multiple interpretations and perspectives.
However, even though Droysen emphasized the subjective perception of the historian, he did not believe that the historian arbitrarily understands and interprets the facts of the past. He believed that in the process of recognizing some of the individual facts of the past as historical facts, there is a “history as a category” that plays a decisive role before the historian’s subjectivity intervenes. In other words, history as a category a priori defines the historian’s historical perception. In this case, it is the ‘human world’ that forms the category of historical awareness. Humans live in a human world created by human will and action rather than a natural world given from the beginning of time. Therefore, history takes place in this artificial world and can only be understood in relation to it.
An important aspect of Droysen’s theory is the role of the historian. He believed that historians should not merely describe the past, but also reinterpret it for the present and the future. This position emphasizes the meaning and value of historiography to current society, and suggests that historians should fulfill their role as socially responsible intellectuals. The debate about the social role and responsibilities of historians continues in contemporary historiography, and it is one of Droysen’s legacies.
In short, while Droysen insisted on the subjectivity of historical cognition, unlike Ranke’s objective historical cognition, he believed that the a priori given human world determines the historian’s historical cognition and interpretation. Thus, his subjectivist theory of historical cognition never led to relativism.
In the end, both approaches to historical facts add to the diversity and depth of historical research. Although Ranke’s objective realism and Droysen’s subjective interpretivism seem to be in opposition to each other, both approaches have contributed to the development of historiography. Modern historical research seeks to integrate these two perspectives, attempting to understand the facts of the past as they are, while simultaneously interpreting them and applying them to the present and future. This integrated approach makes history a richer and more layered discipline.
