1. The concept of history
What is history? No matter beginners or people engaged in in in-depth research, they can't avoid this problem. With the development of the times and social changes, people in different time and space environments will give different answers to each other. For historians, the definition of the word history itself seems to be more difficult than any other vocabulary. Until today, the discussion around this concept is still in a complicated and controversial situation. Theoretically, this phenomenon is normal, just as Goethe said, "People only have clear knowledge when they have little knowledge, and knowledge will grow with doubt."
A. Three meanings of the word history
The authoritative historical theory works in China believe that the word history contains three meanings.
"First, it refers to the objective historical process of human society in the past, or the history of what happened in the past, that is, the history of objective existence as the object of history learners' understanding;
Secondly, it refers to people's historical understanding or historical works as the concentrated achievement of historical understanding, that is, the subjective history of reconstructing the objective historical process as the subject of understanding;
Third, it refers to the discipline of history. From the Marxist point of view, it is a science that studies various historical phenomena in human society and explores the laws of their occurrence and development. (Du, Pang Zhuoheng, Chen Gaohua: An Introduction to History, Higher Education Press, 1990, p. 3. )
If we further sort out these three levels, we can think that history contains two basic elements, namely what happened in the past and people's understanding of these things. This also involves the subjectivity and objectivity of history.
2. Western historians discuss the subjectivity and objectivity of history.
A. Thucydides' historical understanding Thucydides, an ancient Greek historian, was the first person in western history who was famous for respecting the objectivity of historical facts. He didn't believe in rumors and tried to make his story conform to the facts. However, like other classical historians, he also put the moral cultivation function of history in a very important position in his historical writing. At the beginning of the History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides made clear his purpose of writing a book. "This historical work of mine may not be attractive to read because it lacks fictional stories. But if those who want to know clearly what happened in the past and similar events will happen in the future (because human nature is always human nature) think that my work has some benefits, then I will be satisfied. My work is not just to cater to the public's temporary hobbies, but to hang on forever. " (Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War, translated by Xie Defeng, Commercial Press, 1960, p. 18. It seems that the author wants to admonish future generations by describing the rise and fall of Athens and learn from history. For example, he often writes long speeches in the tone of the client, but in fact he expresses his political pursuit. In the well-known "Pericles's Speech at the State Funeral Ceremony of the Dead Soldiers", Thucydides strongly praised the democratic politics in Athens.
B. Ranke's Historical Understanding19th century, the "Ranke School" founded by German historian Ranke is famous for its objectivism historiography. They have a famous saying: Let's describe how history happened. In Frank's time, the status of history rose rapidly, so that later generations called19th century "the century of history". Historians at that time were often full of winning beliefs about their subjects. Scholars who have received strict professional training in history believe that by scientifically sorting out the historical materials left over from the past period, the original face of history can be presented to the world comprehensively, thoroughly and truly. Under the guidance of this principle, Frank and his students spent a lot of energy, leaving behind masterpieces such as Latin and Teutonic national history. On the surface, the hierarchical school seems to have completely excluded personal subjective factors from historical writing, but in fact, their efforts cannot be fully realized. On the one hand, Ranke emphasizes the objectivity of history, but on the other hand, history has regularity. He declared to the world with a typical elite view of history: the whole history was written by God, and under the guidance of God's will, emperors will create history according to their own intentions. Therefore, the historical materials used by historians of Michelle School are mostly related to the behavior of the upper class, while the lower class is excluded from their historical vision. Although the hierarchical school followed the objective and scientific method of making history in form, fundamentally speaking, all this served its "elite historical view" and carried out its subjective consciousness.
C. Croce's understanding of history
Croce, an Italian philosopher and historian, is a representative figure who advocates historical relativism and is famous for emphasizing that all history is contemporary history. He believes that historians should "only focus on adapting to a certain point of a problem and form a living and positive history, that is, contemporary history"; On the contrary, there is no object history that exists independently of the subject consciousness. (Croce: Theory and Practice of History, translated by Fu Rengan, Commercial Press, 1982, p. 37. In Croce's view, the historical knowledge that the knower needs to master through subjective perception and personal needs is the real history. "History exists in each of us, and its information is in our own chest."
(Croce: Theory and Practice of History, p. 14. ) and other redundant and out-of-sight histories are false and totally unreliable. Here, compared with objective history, people's subjective consciousness has been emphasized as never before.
D. collingwood's historical understanding
Collingwood was an English philosopher and historian in the first half of the 20th century. In the philosophy of history, it is advocated that "all history is a history of ideas", and it is the ideological motivation of the parties that determines his actions, thus promoting the historical movement. "For historians, the discovered object is not a simple event, but the thought expressed in it." (Colin Wood: The Concept of History, translated by He Zhaowu, China Social Sciences Press, 1986, p. 243. Therefore, historians must study the thoughts behind human behavior. After Croce, Collingwood raised the role of subjective factors in historical understanding to a new height.
3. History is the unity of subjective and objective.
Generally speaking, historical research is inseparable from the subjectivity of historical understanding and the objectivity of history itself. The history discipline needs the interaction between them to some extent. As far as past events are concerned, their objectivity exists independently of human consciousness. The emergence and development of historical science must rely on people's subjective initiative and make specific and in-depth explanations. It is impossible for any historical research to absolutely exclude human subject activities, which is a remarkable feature of humanities and social sciences. It seems impossible to build the history discipline into a model similar to pure natural science. Because history is unrepeatable, its regularity is only effective under certain conditions. On the other hand, we don't need to do that. From a realistic point of view, people in different times will have different social problems, and these problems require critical historians to make a wonderful interpretation of keeping pace with the times according to the so-called objective historical facts in the past.
4. Relativity of historical understanding
A. the relative significance of historical understanding
Historical cognition is relative in nature, and the significance of relativity lies in that the object of cognition is more prominent than other scientific objects in self-selection, non-repetition and non-intuition; The subject of historical cognition is in the general process of historical universal contact, and the cognitive activities of historical objects cannot go beyond the constraints of their specific ideological level, tendency and value of the times purely and objectively.
The absoluteness of historical knowledge only exists in some strange judgments about specific historical facts, or only in the direction that can only be approached step by step, which represents the inheritance series of infinite development of human historical knowledge.
On the basis of understanding the relativity of historical knowledge, we can deeply discuss the essence of historical knowledge and other scientific knowledge, and objectively seek the reference and combination between various sciences.
B. Requirements for historical researchers
Historical researchers must constantly reflect on themselves, pay attention to the degree and significance of their potential consciousness, knowledge characteristics and other ideological tendencies reflected in their own historical understanding results, and how to treat this component. Furthermore, they need to pay more attention to other people's subjective factors infiltrated into historical materials in order to eliminate their negative effects as much as possible. When making a general and universal conclusion, we should pay attention to its premise, especially the ad hoc and hypothetical components of the theoretical premise itself. Finally, for the historical understanding with universal significance, we should give up the consciousness that the understanding has ended and be prepared to re-understand the history at any time on the basis of reality. (See Zhao Yifeng: Relativity of Historical Understanding, Historical ResearchNo. 1998,No. 1. )