ARE WE HARD‐WIRED TO THINK ABOUT HISTORY?

This book assumes that basic ways of thinking about history are hard‐wired in the brain. Since different styles of discourse with which we talk about the past are hardwired, Blum infers that a protohistorical consciousness is necessary for the existence of language. Historical logics reflect some preconceived part–whole relation. Blum discerns four kinds of part‐whole structure, which he terms continuity, quantum, continuum, and dialectic. Blum believes that these part–whole relations rest on universal, prereflective intuitions. He concludes that humans have different prelinguistic intuitions of time. Blum claims that people's variable innate temporality is expressed in their historical style. It follows that historical style antedates history as a genre. Hence we are not talking about historical style, but about how individuals apply their sense of the relation between parts and wholes to the problem of time. Our study of historical context becomes secondary to the assumptions we make about the interface between part–whole relations and time. The temporality of history is derivative of a phenomenon that is not historical. Certain conclusions are suggestive. First, modality precedes tense in evolution. Second, we ourselves are continuing to evolve. Blum believes that we are moving “towards a selection of abstract thinkers ruled by pure reason.” Instead of viewing cultures as organisms, it is more profitable to think of the evolution of structures of thinking, and to show that some are more prominent at present than they have been in the past. For Blum, historical thinking is a dependent variable. It depends on tense and modality, which are given before language and culture. Historical thinking reflects a primary experience, but it is not such a primary experience itself.     

美国早期史研究中的自我探索与历史叙事 --评《透过一块晦暗的玻璃》

《透过一块晦暗的玻璃》体现了美国早期史研究领域的较新的发展趋势。这本论文集从小历史的角度来论述了早期美国史研究中关于个人认同的自我探索与边缘化状态的问题,并较好地弥补了大历史的缺陷,使人们从历史叙述、文本细读和语言学转向这三个方面更新了对小历史长处的认识。     

会通思想与历史编纂——论中国古代史学的一个特点和优点

"会通"思想作为一种古老的宏观考察社会历史变化的历史观念,经司马迁的深刻理解和《史记》的运用与彰显,在中国史学上产生了巨大而深远的影响。尤其是从中唐至元初五百年间几部不同撰述宗旨、不同体裁、不同内容的通史著作的面世,把会通思想发展到新的境界,使中国古代史学在通史撰述方面出现了异彩纷呈的局面,而马端临是评论这一宏大史学现象的第一人,他的史学批评方法论,至今仍有启示意义。     

HARTOG,KOSELLECK, AND RICOEUR: HISTORICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE CRISIS OF THE PRESENT

I enquire here into whether historical anthropology may serve to orient the critique of modes of temporalization under the conditions specific to what François Hartog designates as the contemporary regime of historicity. To this end, I bring Hartog into conversation with Paul Ricoeur: both arrive at a diagnosis of the crisis of the present on the basis of a parallel interiorization of the metahistorical categories of Reinhart Koselleck. Sharing a common interlocutor, the diagnoses at which they arrive are nevertheless quite different in nature, a result of the way in which these categories are inflected alternatively toward the anthropological perspective of fundamental temporalization and the semantic perspective of articulation at the level of “orders of time.” I suggest that the crisis of the present eludes the grasp of both and, with a view to gaining a more secure critical purchase over this crisis, propose a framework for bringing them into conversation.     

Phenomenology and the Problems of Oral History

Abstract: In this article, the author argues that many of thebest practices of oral history reflect phenomenological thinkingeven though practitioners may not describe themselves as usingphenomenological methods. The author suggests that knowledgeand application of phenomenology can clarify or minimize suchpotential problems as interviewer bias and informant unreliabilityand can refute accusations that oral history is less reliablethan history taken from documents.     

中国现代经济理论史论纲

本文对 1 949— 1 999年半个世纪的中国经济理论发展过程作了全景式的勾勒 ,内容包括中国经济学者对马克思主义经济学的研究、对西方经济学的引进和研究、对中国现实经济问题的研究和构造“中国经济学”的理论尝试 ,整理了中国现代经济理论史的发展线索 ,给出了中国现代经济理论史的理论框架 ,并作了纲要式的分析评述。     

论史料

史料是一种语言,对史料性质的分析本质上是一种“元分析”。只有在史料系统内部,史料才具有客观性。史料的客观性是一种语言的客观性。历史研究的客观性就是运用史料的规范性,即语言游戏的规则性。史料与历史的关系是一种假关系。史料不能直接产生理论,但可以充分限制理论;史料虽不能肯定什么理论是好的,但可以肯定什么理论是不好的。     

PERFORMING HISTORY: HOW HISTORICAL SCHOLARSHIP IS SHAPED BY EPISTEMIC VIRTUES

Philosophers of history in the past few decades have been predominantly interested in issues of explanation and narrative discourse. Consequently, they have focused consistently and almost exclusively on the historian's (published) output, thereby ignoring that historical scholarship is a practice of reading, thinking, discussing, and writing, in which successful performance requires active cultivation of certain skills, attitudes, and virtues. This paper, then, suggests a new agenda for philosophy of history. Inspired by a “performative turn” in the history and philosophy of science, it focuses on the historian's “doings” and proposes to analyze these performances in terms of epistemic virtue. It argues that historical scholarship is embedded in “practices” or “epistemic cultures,” in which knowledge is created and warranted by means of such virtues as honesty, carefulness, accuracy, and balance. These epistemic virtues, however, are not etched in stone: historians may highlight some of them, exchange one for another, or reinterpret their meaning. On the one hand, this suggests a rich area of research for historians of historiography. To what extent can consensus, conflict, continuity, and change in historical scholarship be explained in terms of epistemic virtue? On the other hand, the proposal outlined in this article raises a couple of philosophical questions. For example, on what grounds can historians choose among epistemic virtues? And what concept of the self comes with the notion of virtue? In addressing these questions, philosophy of history may expand its current scope so as to encompass not only “writings” but also “doings,” that is, the virtuous performances historians recognize as professional conduct.     

The Characteristics of the Theory of History in Ancient China

Historical studies in ancient China have left us many bountiful legacies. One of them is the theory of (objective) history, whose major characteristics can be loosely divided into the following categories: (1) a wide variety of literary forms, including theoretical remarks affixed to historical narratives and even special chapters and books on historical criticism; (2) continuity of research at many levels of historiographic theory; (3) reasoning through facts (i.e., basing theory on facts and offering arguments by following historical evidence); and (4) a wealth of masterpieces. Translated from Academic Research, No. 1, 2004     

历史与记忆

当代史学和历史哲学中关于记忆问题的探讨为我们关于史学的理解提供了新的视角。在这一视野下,记忆超越单纯个体心理的层次获得了作为脑外"文化记忆"的历史维度。在历史与记忆关系的层面上,历史记忆的多元性对历史记载的单一性提供了重要的补益,同时,史学文本的宏观视野对于历史记忆的微观局部性和片断性亦显示出认识上的优越性。在认识论维度之外,历史记忆诉诸历史正义的道义性是其十分显著的特质,于此凸显史学科学性与道义性维度复杂的张力关系,历史科学性不能成为漠视道义性的理由。最后,在历史与记忆关系上传统的历史本位立场之外,对人生有意义的历史终究要落实在人间的历史记忆中,从而彰显记忆本位的合理性,这或许是关注历史记忆所能带给我们的一点理论启示。     

THE CRITICAL THEORY OF HISTORY: RETHINKING THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY IN THE LIGHT OF KOSELLECK'S WORK

There are many ways to consider the philosophy of history. In this article, I claim that one of the most viable approaches to the philosophy of history today is that of critical theory of history, inspired by Reinhart Koselleck. Critical theory of history is based on what I call known history, history as it has been established and expounded by historians. What it contributes—its added value, so to speak—is a reflection on the categories employed to think about historical experience at its different levels, not only as a narrative but also as a series of events: their origins, contexts, terminology, functions (theoretical or practical), and, finally, eventual relevance.     

Data scopes for digital history research

The term Macroscope has recently been introduced as an instrument to study historical big data using digital tools. In this paper we argue the need for a more elaborate set of concepts to describe and reason about the interactions to select, enrich, connect, analyse and evaluate historical data using digital tools. Interactions change the data and are essential in understanding any subsequent analysis. It makes them part of historical research methodology, but there is little consensus on how these steps can or should be performed. Moreover, they are rarely reported and discussed. We introduce the term data scope as an instrument encompassing these choices and interactions. Elaborating on these processes encourages deeper reflection on and discussion of the interactions and their consequences for research outcomes.     

浅议"文革"史研究中文献法与口述法的综合运用

文献法与口述法的结合运用,能够更大程度地赋予普通民众阐释自身历史的权力,推进宏观论证与微观调研、量化研究与质性分析的同步进行,不仅有助于挖掘新史料,还能够拓宽研究视野、提供新的研究方法。对“文革”史研究具有突破性的意义。     

THE RULES OF THE GAME IN THE STUDY OF ANCIENT HISTORY

“The Rules of the Game,” expounded in ten remarkably bold theses, can easily be read as a synthetic retrospective or introduction to the formidable oeuvre of Arnaldo Momigliano. Indeed, this piece served as the opening chapter to his Introduzione bibliografica alla storia greca fino a Socrate (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1975), and its subsequent reprints as an independent essay in several Italian journals and anthologies signal its importance for Momigliano. In this provocative and occasionally brilliantly witty essay, Momigliano sets forth his programmatic views on the ethos of the historian, as well as on the historical method and its applications in the study of ancient history. Here, as elsewhere, Momigliano is interested in detailing the link between ancient documents and their historical interpretations in later millennia. Ancient sources, he cautions, do not capture ancient realities transparently or completely, but are mediated documents whose historical value hinges, within certain limits, on the historian's analytical questions, inflected as they inevitably are by different ideological commitments. For this reason, he places special emphasis on the comparative method, stressing difference rather than similarity, and advises that historians with various areas of expertise collaborate, a point underscored throughout the essay. What is more, the essay contains the salutary reminder that the historian ought to attend not only to the surviving documents but also to the conspicuous silences and lacunae in the evidence.     

STORY MAKES HISTORY,THEORY MAKES STORY: DEVELOPING RÜSEN'S HISTORIK IN LOGICAL AND SEMIOTIC DIRECTIONS

This essay will argue that the traditional opposition between narrative and theory in historical sciences is dissolved if we conceive of narratives as theoretical devices for understanding events in time through special concepts that abridge typical sequences of events. I shall stress, in the context of the Historical Knowledge Epistemological Square (HKES) that emerged with the scientization of history, that history is always narrative, story has a theoretical ground of itself, and scientific histories address the need for a conceptual progression in ever‐improved narratives. This will lead to identification of three major theoretical levels in historical stories: naming, plotting (or emplotment), and formalizing. We revisit Jörn Rüsen's theory of history as the best starting point, and explore to what extent it could be developed by (i) taking a deeper look into narratological knowledge, and (ii) reanalyzing logically the conceptual strata in order to bridge the overrated Forschung/Darstellung (research/exposition) divide. The corollary: we should consider (scientific) historical writing as the last step of historical research, not as the next step after research is over. This thesis will drive us to a reconsideration of the German Historik regarding the problem of interpretation and exposition. Far from alienating history from science, narrative links history positively to anthropology and biology. The crossing of our triad name‐plot‐model with Rüsen's four theoretical levels (categories‐types‐concepts‐names) points to the feasibility of expanding Rüsen's Historik in logical and semiotic directions. Story makes history, theory makes story, and historical reason may proceed.     

试析20世纪40年代中国马克思主义史学家对史料和历史考证方法的重视

20世纪30年代,经过中国社会史论战而迅速扩大影响的中国马克思主义史学,存在着明显的教条化和公式化、轻视史料与考证的缺失。40年代的中国马克思主义史学家对此进行了积极的反思和纠正,而且还从理论上论述了史料及考证方法在历史研究中的重要性,阐述了理论观点与材料方法间的辩证关系,极大地促进了马克思主义史学的中国化和学术研究的中国化。