Abstract

In this paper the emergence of objectivity as a leading epistemic virtue in the Dutch academic sciences is discussed in the context of the social-political developments that took place in Dutch society in the nineteenth century. I argue that the emergence of objectivity was closely connected to the rise of a formally-ruled and integrated nation state. My analysis is based on a case study, which involves three historians: Philip Willem van Heusde, Johan Rudolph Thorbecke, and Robert Fruin. For each historian, I show how their epistemic virtues (more particularly, those involved in the rise of objectivity) reflected, or contradicted, the Dutch social-political organization.