历史的真实性:试论数据库新方法在历史研究的应用

一、历史研究中的"客观性" 今日,历史学家正在面临可怕的精神分裂.一方面,历史学家的本能告诉他,勾划过去的图画必须和科学研究一样,严格客观地考订史料,去寻找真相并其进行解译,以求理解人类历史展开的模式.     

Telling Times: History, Emplotment, And Truth

In Time, Narrative, and History , David Carr argues against the narrativist claim that our lived experience does not possess the formal attributes of a story; this conclusion can be reinforced from a semiotic perspective. Our experience is mediated through temporal signs that are used again in the construction of stories. Since signs are social entities from the start, this approach avoids a problem of individualism specific to phenomenology, one which Carr takes care to resolve. A semiotic framework is also explicit about a theme Carr handles implicitly: the status of representation. Representation is internal to signification, mediating our experience not just retrospectively but prospectively in the planning and execution of action.
A model is presented in which the temporal organization of experience and action is formally coordinated with the temporal organization of narrative. The model is then applied to a historical event: John Batman's attempt in 1835 to purchase land from some Aboriginal tribes around what is now Melbourne. The meaning of this event is not located only in historical writing about it but in the semiotic constitution of the event itself. Changes of meaning emerge from relations between events as new events–in this case the Australian High Court's Mabo decision–align with old ones. Finally, a number of contrasts are indicated between this model and proposals made by Arthur C. Danto, Hayden White, F. R. Ankersmit, Fernand Braudel, and Paul Ricoeur.