TRUTH AND FICTION IN HISTORY: THE DEBATE BETWEEN HAYDEN WHITE AND ROGER CHARTIER

Abstract

There are certain events that for his great impact and influence in the present are object of different historical stories and new rewritings that show new aspects or new relations. For example, this happens with the French Revolution. Nevertheless, as Adam Schaff (1971) indicates, though all the historians agree in its importance, each of them presents the Revolution according with his own view. Historians differ often in the selection and description of the elements involved but, fundamentally, they differ in the form in that are explained and interpreted.
This variety of readings raises the problem of the possibility that someone of these stories is restored as true about the event that explains, and if this is the case, what determines which one is true and which one is false. Particularly the problem turns out to be renewed in the philosophies of history that relate the historical text to the literary text.
From Paul Veyne and Hayden White, the borders between ficcional and historical narrative become uncertain and there is not clear the criterion that it allows to distinguish between the historical narrative and the ficcional.
In this work we will analyze these questions bearing in mind the logical distinction between truth and validity, to illuminate the discussion between Hayden White and Roger Chartier about historical true. Taking into account the construal that Verónica Tozzi makes of the White’s work.