Historians can only touch the past indirectly through texts, but the shackles and constraints of the true and false past on historians are constantly revealed through historical materials. The discipline norms and historian skills formed over a long period of history are the source of its vitality and legitimacy.
Peng Gang was born in 1969. Peking University has a bachelor's degree in law, a master's degree in history in Tsinghua University, and a doctor of philosophy in China Academy of Social Sciences. He is a visiting scholar at Harvard University and the French National Institute for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences. Now he is a professor in the History Department of Tsinghua University College of Humanities and Social Sciences, mainly engaged in the research and teaching of western ideological history and historical theory. He is the author of The Turn of Narration: An Overview of Contemporary Western Historiography Theory, Spirit, Freedom and History: A Study of Croce's Historical Philosophy, and A Critical History of China's Classical Philosophy (co-author). His translations include Natural Rights and History, German Historical View and New Historiography: Confessions and Dialogue.
Like all other disciplines, the development of history often requires historians and historians to constantly reflect on their own disciplinary premises. The question "What is history" has a long history. It involves the subject nature of history, the research object of history, the relationship between historians and the studied history and many other aspects. In my opinion, through the investigation of the development track of western historiography theory in the 20th century, the pursuit and answer to this question can be summed up in three directions, namely, the historical view of reconstruction theory, construction theory and deconstruction theory.
Reconstruction theory: the true nature of history can be reconstructed and restored.
The core component of an important heritage that history got from the19th century is that history should aim at seeking truth, reconstructing and restoring the true colors of history and achieving objectivity.
In Europe, compared with18th century,19th century is a historical century. The reaction to the Enlightenment brought about the germination and development of historical consciousness. History has developed by leaps and bounds, gradually moving towards specialization and becoming a modern discipline. This is an important legacy of history from the19th century.
A core component of this heritage is that history should seek the truth, rebuild and restore its true colors, and take objectivity as its own goal. This is what American historian Beard later said, the "aristocratic dream" of historians. It can be said that this is our so-called "reconstruction theory" view of history. Frank, who laid the professional standard of history, is a complicated figure in his own mind, but what impressed the historians in later generations most was his famous saying "write truthfully".
At the beginning of the 20th century, when positivism was all the rage, some historians thought that history could find its own laws like natural science. Many historians deny that there are laws in history similar to those in the field of natural science, but they also believe that there is no difference between history and natural science in the pursuit of truth and the ability to achieve truth and objectivity. That's why Berry's famous saying: "History is science, neither more nor less."
History needs two conditions to realize that "lofty dream" and rank among the sciences. One condition is detailed historical data collection and strict and meticulous textual research. The object of historical research is different from other disciplines-human activities in the past have disappeared and never come back. However, human activities have left all kinds of historical materials. Collecting and revising historical materials can help us establish past facts. With the accumulation of past facts, they will naturally be related to each other, and the pattern and significance of the historical process will be presented. Another condition is that when historians engage in research and writing, they need to exclude subjective factors and not mix their own ethnic, political and personal preferences. He must be as objective, neutral and impartial as possible.
The combination of these two conditions seems to achieve the objectivity of history. Frank said that his history of religious reform should be acceptable to both Protestants and Catholics. Later, Sir acton, who presided over Cambridge Modern World History, also asked that the writing of the Battle of Waterloo should satisfy the French, Germans and Dutch. Historians are like a mirror, which clearly reflects the facts presented in historical materials and becomes a perfect picture of historians' work. Therefore, from the end of 19 to the mid-20th century, a considerable number of historians with similar beliefs, some complacent and some frustrated, said: in some research fields, historical materials have been collected, research has been deep enough, historians' various skills have been exhausted, and future generations can no longer do anything. This leads to acton's "ultimate history", which probably means that every historian's works may be separated from others, such as mountains. You study the currency of ancient Greece, and he studies Hitler's war decision. But in the final analysis, the accumulation of research results points to the "ultimate history" that reveals the true face of all human civilizations in the past.
The historical view of reconstruction theory includes the following points: historical facts are contained in historical materials and can be revealed by impartial and skilled historians; The accumulation of historical facts will naturally present the original appearance and significance of the past; Humans have a single and unified past.
Therefore, we can see that, on the one hand, historians believe in "grand narrative" and believe that the past history of mankind is ultimately a unity developed according to a clue, regardless of whether this clue can be recognized by people; On the other hand, with the increasing specialization of historians' work, academic historians, like experts in other disciplines, are increasingly aware of smaller and smaller things.
The combination of these two aspects is wonderful.