"History has two meanings" and the theories of modern people's activities, learning or learning, knowledge system, super science or semi-science, semi-art and science can all be regarded as the objective existence facts corresponding to history for the first, second, third and fourth times in its development process. Among them, the general "science" theory and the other two historical explanations in the "science" theory reflect two different periods in the fourth development era of history respectively; As for the latter, more precisely, it is a manifestation of the objective existence of contemporary historical practice in the form of historian theory, that is, it is the theoretical result of historical theorists' abstract understanding of contemporary historical practice. However, there are different opinions in China historians today, which is only a practical reflection of the confusion caused by the increasingly complex and diverse chaotic reality of historical practice in historians' minds; Moreover, their respective definitions of history are largely influenced by the academic background of the definer and the specific content of the research object.
Among several definitions of historiography, as far as the development of China's future historiography is concerned, the more meaningful ones are: He Zhaowu's theory of "super-science", Li's theory of "concrete empirical science with particularity, comprehensiveness and wholeness" and Jiang's theory of "integration". Among them, although Li and Jiang's two theories were obtained in different ways from different analytical angles and the same angle, their understanding of historical characteristics is basically the same, so they can be further integrated into one school. As far as the research status is concerned, if it is possible to form a theoretical school with China characteristics in the future study of China's historical ontology, then they are undoubtedly worth quoting as the theoretical basis for the establishment and development of this school. The historical definition of this book will be determined on the basis of Li Hejiang. Because history is not only an activity, not only a specialized knowledge or knowledge, not only a knowledge system, but also a special subject with scientific research objects and tasks. For China's Marxist historiography, it is not only a general science, but also a complete science in the sense of scientific knowledge.
As a Marxist historian in China, due to the existing facts of Marxist historiography, the answer to what history is should not stay in the general history stage, but must be regarded as a complete science in the sense of knowledge form. The history of China should belong to the only scientific Marxist historical category so far, not any other history. At the same time, our definition of history today cannot be satisfied with the understanding of history by Marx and Engels in the era of the founder of Marxism. We must combine the post-Marx-Engels era, especially the actual existence of contemporary China and the world historical practice, and make an accurate definition of the history of our era. The redefinition of historiography must conform to and reflect the requirements of this era.
For a historian, history can be a skillful or skilled professional means to make a living, a way for him to learn the necessary cultural qualities from history or to know human beings from history, and a beneficial spiritual activity for him to improve his cultural and artistic experience and appreciation ability. Of course, individual historians can also be non-Marxist historians and use other historical views other than Marxist historical materialism to guide their own historical research; Moreover, not every historian and every specific historical practice must undertake the task of revealing the special laws of the historical movement of a certain nation or country. However, such things only come from the subjective understanding of historical subjects, the particularity of this form and means of understanding and the particularity of historical application, or the special phenomena that happen to individual historical subjects, which come from the characteristics of historical development at a certain stage, rather than from the research objects and tasks determined by history itself, let alone from the reality of today's historical development, and cannot be the basis for denying that history is a science.
In terms of characteristics, although history has more or less the general characteristics of other social sciences and even humanities (such as literature and art), it has become an independent science not because of these general characteristics, but because it is rooted in its own research objects and tasks, which distinguishes it from other social sciences and humanities. The most remarkable and important thing is that it has special characteristics compared with philosophy, and its comprehensive and holistic characteristics are compared with general social sciences, history, Therefore, any definition or explanation that historiography is unscientific cannot be used as the basic material to redefine historiography.
History is a science. There are generally two reasons for its scientific nature: one is the objective reality and authenticity of its research object. The objects of historical research-historical phenomena, historical events, historical figures, etc. All the nationalities and countries in the world, as well as the facts and processes of the historical movements they formed, are all objective realities of historical existence, which are objective reality and authenticity, regardless of the subjective will of historical acquaintances. The first is the task it undertakes. The task of history is to reveal the special laws and characteristics of the historical development of all nationalities and countries in the world. Historical research is a cognitive activity aimed at exploring the special laws of historical development of human society. Only by these two articles, history has the scientific nature of general science.
The general basis for judging the scientific nature of a subject is:
(1) "The object of study must be objective reality, because as long as it is objective reality, it may have its inherent development law";
(2) It "must be a cognitive activity aimed at exploring the development law of the object". History clearly meets these two requirements. But this kind of history can't be called a real historical science, because it only has the necessary premise to become a science, but it doesn't have the sufficient premise to become a complete form of scientific knowledge. To become a complete form of scientific knowledge, a discipline needs to meet the requirements of the third level: "A complete form of scientific knowledge is based on revealing the laws of things and then explaining the reasons of things according to the laws of things themselves (that is, their internal relations)."
So far, such a truly scientific history in the sense of scientific knowledge form is only Marxist history. "The emergence of Marxist historical view is based on the establishment of Marxist historical materialism. This view of history provides scientific theoretical guidance for history, which makes it show tenacious characteristics different from other historiography in the past and shows distinctive scientificity. " The important feature of Marxist historiography in thinking method is that we only know history from the history itself, not from the clouds in the sky or people's hearts. In other words, Marxist historiography first determines the objective nature of historical research objects, and studies the whole history of human society as a natural historical process, thus realizing profound changes in the starting point of historical research. "It firmly believes that as long as we proceed from tenacious facts, we can truthfully reveal the truth of history." Secondly, "the practical application of Marxist historiography to historical materialism has obtained methodological guidance for studying the inevitable relationship between historical phenomena, thus making historiography truly an empirical science that studies the regularity of things and describes the real historical process according to its laws." "To make history a science, the most important foundation is to explore the laws of historical movements of human society. However, the history of philosophical development so far shows that only Marxist philosophy (specifically, historical materialism) has truly revealed the basic laws of human historical movement so far. So, the problem is simplified to this point. Only under the guidance of Marxist historical materialism can history become a real science. "
Accordingly, the scientific nature of China's history not only has the general requirements that the scientific nature of a discipline must meet, but also belongs to the category of Marxist history. In other words, the scientific nature of Marxist history fundamentally determines the scientific nature of China history.
History is a comprehensive social science, which is a spiritual production practice and product-historical knowledge created by historical research subjects under the guidance of the general laws provided by Marxist philosophy, using certain methods and means of thinking and understanding, and through the analysis and research of historical objects in the process of interaction, in order to understand their special laws and characteristics.
In this definition of history, "comprehensive social science" means that history is a comprehensive social science based on scientificity and authenticity, which combines particularity, comprehensiveness (or wholeness), positivism, abstraction (or philosophy), value and artistry internally or in an "additional" way, so it is different from general philosophy, other social sciences or humanities; "The subject of historical research" is the historian, not the general public or other communities; "Marxist philosophy", specifically historical materialism, mainly refers to the dialectical, historical and materialistic way of thinking that Marx and Engels "particularly emphasize" and "particularly insist" on observing things, rather than their specific historical conclusions; "Historical objects" refer to numerous historical phenomena, events and figures of all nationalities and countries in the world. They first exist as historical objective reality ("things themselves"), then enter the cognitive field of historians and become cognitive objects ("things are for our use"), as well as the objective historical facts and processes of all nationalities and countries in the world formed by them. It is the object field of history, so it is not one of the philosophical research objects of general human society. "Special laws and characteristics" refers to the special laws and characteristics of the historical development of all ethnic groups and countries in the world, rather than the general laws and characteristics of the historical development of human society. In the course of its development, history has experienced different forms of expression and development links, such as political note-taking activities, comprehensive activities attached to politics and focusing on cultural accumulation, learning or scholarship, knowledge system, philosophy, science and so on. And experienced different forms of understanding such as value, verification, art, science and philosophy.
History has developed to this day, although it must include all the manifestations or development links that have appeared before, and regard them as an indispensable part or part; As far as individual or special historical phenomena are concerned, today's history can also exist in some form it once had.
However, in a general sense, history can never be attributed to any of these forms or links, or the general definition of history can be determined according to one of them. History can only be a comprehensive social science. If we deny this, then in epistemology, methodology and philosophical tendency, it is either the lack of historical concept or the vulgarization of materialist dialectics and relativism, and skepticism or eclecticism is the inevitable destination of this vulgarization.
Lenin said in expounding the principle that materialist dialectics undoubtedly contains relativism, but it does not boil down to relativism: "Dialectics, as Hegel has explained, contains relativism, negation and skepticism, but it does not boil down to relativism. Marx and Engels' materialist dialectics undoubtedly contains relativism, but it does not come down to relativism. In other words, it does not deny the objective truth, but recognizes the relativity of all our knowledge in the sense that the boundary between our knowledge and objective truth is limited by historical conditions. " Lenin's principle on the relationship between Marxist materialist dialectics and relativism is of great methodological significance for us to define history today, analyze the value of the existing definition of history, understand that "history is a comprehensive social science" and even examine other ideological things.