Narrative truth

Historians create large structures of meaning with respect to which matters are more complex than so far discussed. Recalling our earlier quotations, Bentley remarks of historiography's identity that it is “a distinctive way of organizing and representing knowledge”, while, of the father of history, Shotwell writes:

The argument of the previous section used short sentences for its examples, but historiographical writing is characteristically a lengthy affair. Characteristically historiographical is the view, going back to Herodotus, that it is the historical account or narrative that is factual. The historiographical account characteristically presents facts in a unified way, and, in so far as that unification is factually appropriate, it is, as a whole, in consequence factual itself. The nature of that “in consequence”, however, is a complex matter.

Herodotus “succeeded in putting together a trustworthy account of events he was too young to have witnessed and of countries whose languages he did not understand”. Associated with the historical account's claimed status as factual description is the view that it ought, in some way still to be understood, to be factually complete.