“价值”优先下的“事实”重建:清季民初新史家寻找中国历史“进化”的努力  

Reconstructing “Facts” for the Sake of “Values”:The Efforts of the New Historians in the Late Qing and Early Republican Periods to Search for “Evolution” in Chinese History

作　　者：王东杰[1] 

机构地区：[1]四川大学历史文化学院,教授成都610064

出　　处：《近代史研究》2012年第3期28-47,160,共20页Modern Chinese History Studies

摘　　要：清末民初的一种流行观点认为,中国自秦汉以下皆在退化或循环中。但按照社会进化论,它也就意味着中国处在人类历史"公例"之外,面临必然被淘汰的危险,这促使一批新史家在中国历史中寻找"进步"的迹象。然而,因为传统政治和学术主流皆被视为"专制的",他们不得不另辟蹊径。梁启超等人为此提出两个方案,一是把中国历史描述为一步步走向"世界"的过程;一是弱化传统政治史的地位,强调社会史、文明史、民史的重要性。这两种现象皆和社会进化论有密切而曲折的学理关系,结果把一些过去认为非"正统"的现象升格为历史叙述的主线。经过这番改造后,历史的"价值"与"事实"再次统一起来。A popular viewpoint in the late Qing and early Republican periods suggested that China had been following either a declining or a cyclic path since the Qin and Han dynasties.According to the theory of social evolution,that would mean that China was outside the 'common pattern' of human history and was in danger of elimination.This prompted some new historians to look for signs of 'progress' in Chinese history.However,because traditional politics and the academic mainstream were both regarded as 'autocratic,' the historians had to strike out a new direction.For this Liang Qichao and others put forward two programs:The first was to describe Chinese history as a process of entering the 'world' step by step;the second was to devalue traditional political history and emphasize the importance of social history,cultural history and people's history.These two phenomena both had close and complex theoretical relationships with the theory of social evolution.As a result,some phenomena seen as 'unorthodox' in the past were upgraded to the main lines of historical narratives.After this transformation,the 'values' and the 'facts' of history could once again be integrated.

关 键 词：进化论 进步 新史学 历史叙述 

分 类 号：K092[历史地理—历史学]