Next Emperor,Please! No End to Retrospective Diagnostics

Abstract

The beginning of the seventeenth century marked the start of a scientific revolution, which had consequences for medicine. Vesalius in anatomy, and Harvey in physiology, were important figures who gave the Hippocratic and Galenic traditions new impulses. In this period of change in medical thought, Nicolaas Tulp (1593–1674) wrote his ‘Observationes Medicae’ (Tulp, 1641). A controversy existed in The Netherlands, concerning the circulation, with many doctors still adhering to the Galenic tradition. The following analysis discusses some of the neurologic cases from Tulp's book, seen in the light of modern medical thought.     

No Angst and All Play: Postmodernism and the Humanities

Abstract

There is widespread disagreement about Tocqueville's conception of human nature, some going so far as to say that Tocqueville possessed no unified conception of human nature at all. In this paper, I aim to provide the essential principles of Tocqueville's conception of human nature through an examination of the way in which he describes the power of human circumstances, such as physical environment, social state, and religion, to shape human character by extracting the principles underlying these transformations. There is no “natural man” or man “in the state of nature” but instead a set of psychic operations that reveal a picture of human nature in which human freedom, or the ability to initiate action in pursuit of important objects, lies at the heart of human life.     

后现代主义与后现代史学

后现代主义是 2 0世纪 70年代在欧美等西方学术界兴起的一种社会思潮。近些年来 ,我国学界对于后现代主义作品的介绍颇多 ,但对其进行认真研究的论著则较少。本文对后现代、后现代主义和后现代史学的发展过程进行了疏理 ,尤其是就后现代史学对现代史学的挑战作了认真的探析 ,认为后现代史学的核心是力图动摇西方现代历史编撰学的基础 ,颠覆西方自启蒙以来建立起来的历史观念     

Agency, Postmodernism, and the Causes of Change

This theme issue's call for papers notes that "several prevalent and influential historical practices of the last thirty years have limited agency's significance, . . . seeing the human as the patient of History rather than its agent." The questions implicit in this statement are nowhere more urgent than in those practices collectively known as the "linguistic turn." Yet such questions have been explored sparsely enough in relation to this movement that some adherents can still insist that the ideas they favor do not devalue agency, while many simply ignore the issue and incorporate agency as an integral part of their work. By examining a largely unremarked episode in Michel Foucault's highly influential thought and considering its connections to foundational assumptions of the linguistic turn, we seek to demonstrate in detail why the premises that underlie both structuralism and poststructuralism (the theoretical movements most deeply implicated in the direction the linguistic turn has taken in history) logically require the denial of agency as a causal force and ultimately compel the conclusion that no change can occur in realities as interpreted by humans. We illustrate the intractability of these logical problems by analyzing unsatisfactory defenses from some of the few linguistic-turn historians who have discussed relevant issues, after which we conclude by suggesting that attention to current work in linguistics and cognitive science may help resolve such difficulties.     

后现代女性主义的思想渊源浅析

后现代女性主义的思想与观点有以下几方面：第一,消解中心和本源,破除男女二元对立的思维模式。第二,关于话语即权力的理论。第三,否定所有的宏大理论体系,更加关注差异,以及化与历史的特殊性与多元性,并提出了整合的思维模式。第四,关于身体的思想。第五,关于惩戒凝视的观点。人们从这几个方面都不难发现其有后现代主义的思想渊源及影响,后现代女性主义的研究态势是人们应予以密切关注的。     

后现代主义与历史研究

本刊自本期起开辟《国外史学的新发展》栏目 ,主要发表各类文章介绍和评述国外史学自 2 0世纪 70年代以来的新发展。国外史学自 2 0世纪 70年代以后的新发展是值得我们十分注意和认真研究的。可以说 ,这次新发展的意义并不下于上次 ;也就是说 ,上次的发展标志着新史学取代传统史学 ,使史学走上新的发展道路 ,而这次的新发展 ,可以说是对新史学的挑战 ,预示着一种更新的史学可能出现。如果说上次的变化的发端是在上个世纪之交 ,即 1 9、2 0世纪之交的话 ,那么这个世纪之交 ,即 2 0、2 1世纪之交发生的这次变化不也正是一次同样深刻的变化的发端吗 ?因此 ,我们要预测 2 1世纪国外史学的发展 ,就不可不深入了解 2 0世纪 70年代以后的这次新发展。而在全球化趋势日益发展的今天 ,各国间的文化学术交流越来越频繁 ,我国史学的发展既不可能不和国外史学发生相互影响 ,也不可能再闭关自守 ,不去了解和研究国外史学的变化。总之 ,无论从哪个角度讲 ,我们都应加强对国外史学新发展的研究。2 0世纪 70年代国外史学的新发展 ,我们可以简略地概括为三个方面 ,即 :一 ,西方新史学的转型 ;二 ,后现代主义对史学的冲击和影响 ;三 ,苏联解体前后 ,俄国史学的剧变。当然 ,这三个方面并不能概括国外史学发展的全部 ,但应该     

History, the Referent, and Narrative: Reflections on Postmodernism Now

This essay surveys the present position of postmodernism with respect to the effect of its ideas upon historiography. For this purpose it looks at a number of writings by historians that have been a response to postmodernism including the recently published collection of articles, The Postmodern History Reader . The essay argues that, in contrast to scholars in the field of literary studies, the American historical profession has been much more resistant to postmodernist doctrines and that the latters' influence upon the thinking and practice of historians is not only fading but increasingly destined to fade. The essay also presents a critical discussion of the current philosophy of postmodernism in its bearing upon historiography, directed chiefly against its claim that the world has undergone an epochal transition from the modern to a postmodern age; its theory of language and linguistic idealism; its opposition to historical realism and denial of the actuality of the past as a possible object of reference; and its theory of historical narrative as unconstrained fictional construction. This discussion includes a consideration of the work of postmodernist thinkers such as J.-F. Lyotard, of the recent books by David Roberts and Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr. which espouse a postmodernist theory of history, and of the narrativist theory of Hayden White. The essay also notes some of the reasons for postmodernism's appeal; and while it does not deny that postmodernist philosophy may have served a useful purpose in provoking historians to be more self-critical and aware of their presuppositions and procedures, it maintains that its skeptical and politicized view of historical inquiry is deeply mistaken, out of accord with the way historians themselves think about their work, and incapable of providing an understanding of historiography as a form of thought engaged in the attainment of knowledge and understanding of the human past.     

没有本地的资料就没有本地的历史——在安徽省地方志资料工作会议上的讲话

山东省地方志资料工作会议,今天开得差不多了。卫国贤同志就全省资料工作作了一个很好的报告,有关市县的同志交流了资料工作的好经验,尤其是休宁的同志、肥西的同志介绍得很好。休宁的工作有特色,能把19位状元考证出来,对徽州文化研究是一大贡献,可以说对我们安徽历史文化研究都是一大贡献。关于今后全省地方志资料工作,我讲几点意见。     

Will the Real Daniel Ellsberg Please Stand Up

Book reviewed:
Daniel Ellsberg. Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.     

Please Destabilize Ethnography Now: Against Anthropological Showbiz-as-Usual

Gregg, Susan Ailing. Foragers and Farmers: Population Interaction and Agricultural Expansion in Prehistoric Europe. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988. xx + 275 pp. including index and bibliography. $24.95 cloth, $9.95 paper.

Hastorf, Christine A., and Virginia S. Popper. Current Paleoethnobotany: Analytical Methods and Cultural Interpretations of Archaeological Plant Remains. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. xii + 236 pp. including chapter references and index. $24.95 cloth, $9.95 paper.

Pearsall, Deborah M. Paleoethnobotany: a Handbook of Procedures. San Diego: Academic Press, 1989. xii + 470 pp. including chapter references and index. $59.95.     

Archaeology without gravity: Postmodernism and the past

Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the past and the present have become commonplace: anthropologists now situate cultures in their historical contexts, while historians pursue particularistic ends within politicoeconomic or ideational structures. Archaeologists have cast their nets even more widely, not only toward anthropology and history, but to fields ranging from molecular biology to hermeneutics. Postmodernist approaches maintain that archaeologists should be looking at the past from multiple perspectives and listening to its multivocality. Archaeologists, in fact, not only develop different ways of understanding the past, but actually develop alternative pasts. This paper argues that multiple paths to alternative pasts enhance archaeological understanding and, at the same time, stimulate the development of archaeological theory.