In a court of law expert witnesses are required to demonstrate the truth
"beyond reasonable doubt". This is difficult for a 'knower', such as a
historian, to be able to assert this at the witness stand. Let's say that a
young couple has just been married. The young couple stays together for a couple
of months before they break up. When the two individually write reports on why
the divorce is necessary, the judge is confused about the disparity between
them. Thus, he calls upon a historian who specializes in the history of certain
marriages and divorces to act as an expert witness for this court case. The
historian is given information on the case both first-hand by the husband and
the wife as well as from some secondary sources. This historian's job is to use
his expertise to determine the truth of what really happened that caused the
divorce of the couple. First and foremost, the historian knows that he must try
to get as close to the objective truth as possible; he has to select a single
set of data from groups of different information to construct a single truth, or
'what really happened'. Since he is dealing with a modern case, as opposed to
his usual account of a past divorce case, the historian is tempted to list all
the data from the primary sources. Fortunately, he remembers that listing all
the different points of view is not more objective, simply because they may
contradict. Regardless of the varying points of view, the past event only could
have occurred in one way-that is the truth. Therefore, to say that the event
transpired in many different ways that are all equally valid is no longer a
search for single truth. As von Ranke said, "the historian's task is to
find out how it really was." Consequently, the historian tries to 'lift'
himself from the data. He also must remove his biases from the sources of the
information. For instance, he cannot be biased against the husband's brother who
backed into his brand-new convertible just a week ago. He must give the
brother's information the same treatment because it may be valuable. After
achieving this, the historian can move on to the actual selection of the data.
The historian's next step is to use the correspondence test of truth by trying
to find the certain data that is pretty well constant amongst all the
information. This correspondence theory is the same one that is used in science,
where scientists do different experiments; if their data is constant, then a
scientific theory can be made about the data. For example, when scientists did
experiments on the reaction between iron and oxygen, they kept on producing the
same rusty coloured substance: iron oxide. Thus, they are able to conclude that
iron + oxygen = iron oxide is a truth. Like chemistry, history uses
correspondence between data. Presuppose that all reports of the separated couple
indicate that the husband did not remember his wife's birthday and that she did
not want children. What gives this data extra durability is that it was found in
both the husband's and the wife's account, as well as in the secondary sources'
information. Moreover, it makes indicative statements about why the divorce
could have occurred. Therefore, it is possible to conclude with a measure of
confidence that the statements are true beyond a reasonable doubt. Nevertheless,
the historian questions his judgement and begins to think, 'Does correspondence
necessarily mean that the data is true?' He immediately remembers his high
school history class where he studied documents about the American Revolution
written by people from the American and British sides. Although the data
differed in many ways, there was a lot of consistency between the two sides.
When considering the battle at Lexington Green, both sides contained consistent
information: that there was a first shot, that the British shot at the
Americans, and that the British killed a number of people. However, in
historical information from different sources, some data may be contradictory.
In this case, there may have been a multitude of American sources which said
that the first shot was British while there may have been only a few British
sources available, all of which stated the opposite. One could say that because
there is a larger degree of correspondence that the British shot first, that is
must be true. But, that may not be correct in all instances. Hence, there must
be other methods of deciding what is the truth in addition to correspondence. In
the case of contradiction, the selection of data is much harder; the historian
must extend his investigation. Suppose there is conflicting data between the two
sides regarding the issue of who's turn it was to take out the garbage on the
first Sunday of the first week of their marriage. Assume that the husband's side
claims that the garbage was the wife's responsibility while the wife's side
claims that it was the husband's responsibility. How does the historian choose
who is being truthful if they are such direct contradictions? Here, the
selection is much more personal. This process is parallel to the search for
religious truth. The person himself has to get contradictory information from
different sources and somehow select which data, or in some cases, which
religion, is true. One way that the historian can decide is by using his
intuition; he might have a 'feeling' that one side is correct. Unfortunately,
especially for this particular case, the historian cannot solely rely on his
intuition. However, it can be used in co-operation with other sources of
knowledge. The historian can also use reason. Perhaps it was absolutely
preposterous that the wife be responsible for garbage duty because in the
husband's report, he had indicated that he was responsible for all of the
physical work around the household. Thus, the historian could safely assume that
the wife could not have been responsible and that the man was lying when
questioned about the garbage problem. This procedure involves a coherent test of
truth. That is, a test of whether the husband's report was coherent in itself.
If it was not, then its details would be discredited as a reliable source of
historical information. Again, although the historian cannot make an absolute
judgement-there is always some level of doubt-reason is one of the more reliable
ways of discovering truth in this particular case. Another way that he could
select data is by using testimony. He could find her family doctor and ask
whether the woman had been injured during the marriage in any way. This would
indicate that the husband may have been physically abusive toward his wife. This
is also reliable, although can be a problem if there is doubt in the
authoritative source. The last possible source of knowledge is empiricism. If
the historian saw the wife's leg in a cast, he could probably make a judgement
as to how and when it happened. Although this way is very reliable for this
specific case, it is not often possible in historical situations to actually
observe the subjects concerned. In any case, these four sources of knowledge
should be used in 'ensemble'. It is essential that the historian uses all of the
possible strategies. When regarding a system of knowledge such as history where
judgements must be made, there is a great importance in investigating all the
possible techniques so that as much of the truth as possible can be recovered.
Judging from this extensive process of finding the truth of what actually
happened to this couple's marriage, one can see why it may be difficult for this
historian to be able to demonstrate the truth 'beyond reasonable doubt' at the
witness stand. Historical truth in the essence of the concept, as also
demonstrated by the historian's process, is hard to find and is very difficult
to be proven beyond reasonable doubt. This is because historical truth requires
"the courage and self-confidence to make choices and, above all, to leave
things out" in selection. This formula is very human and therefore, has
many implications. Human interpretation is pervasive in the search for truth,
such that truth becomes part of the historian and part of human nature which
contains intelligence, emotion, and beliefs in a single mind. Thus, we must have
an enormous amount of faith in ourselves: in our ability to search and recognize
the truth in things. Historical truth and knowledge, then, becomes tainted by
its selective nature. One could say that history is defined by natural
selection: history is determined by the past data's ability to be selected,
based on its capability to survive as truth in the human environment. All in
all, historical truth is subject to a commensalism between past data and the
contemporary historian; because of this, the discovery and expression of
ultimate, untainted truth is impossible. Like the one involved in the divorce
case, then, the historian must rely on his ability to select facts and on the
four ways of knowing in order to demonstrate the truth 'beyond reasonable doubt'
as best he can, in all its difficulty.

BibliographyCarr, E.H. What is History?. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd., 1984.
Tuchman, Barbara. In Search of History article: excerpt from Practicing History.
Random Thoughts about History article: collection of quotations