Historical Evidence

This dissertation mainly discusses the connotation of historical evidence. We first investigate the semantic change of the word of "evidence" and the specific work program of empirical historians who is the representative of "Introduction to the Study to History ", and then we study Collingwood’s thought of historical evidence and combine previous research documents of historical evidence. Based on the research conclusion mentioned above, this dissertation believes that evidence at least in the field of history is reported to appear in front of historians in the form of material (evidence, witness, and testimony with declarative sentence), and present in historians’ mind in the form of concept. Among historians, and between historians and non-history professionals, when they communicate with each another to determine the historical truth, evidence is found to emerge in the form of language and other symbols. All these cognition are the evidence observed from a certain perspective. The evidence is in essence an activity, is an interaction result of objects, concepts and symbols, is a procedure of a set of work, and is a historical product. Its historicity and context determine that we have no possibility to give a universal concept for evidence. And all must depend on specific problems in specific contexts as well as people’s cognition. Evidence is limited rather than absolute, and it belongs to a particular context with changeable easily. But in daily life and work, people use evidence constantly without any problem, which just indicates that people regard some certain thing as the evidence for their convenience in every generation, and people set up a kind of program for possibility. Thus, the evidence would be generally understood by people at that time, and its universal confirmation can be possible as well. The universal definition of evidence lies in its use. No use is no definition.This dissertation consists of introduction, body and conclusion. In the introduction, it mainly explains the significance, the scope, the methodology, and the central thought of this research.The body is divided into four chapters.In the first chapter, starting from a historical standpoint, we trace the changes of "evidence" in the East and West and focus on the symbolic evidence in the form of language. As a word, evidence has different meanings in Chinese and Western languages. And in the process of historical changes, its form, meaning, and grammar have been undergoing subtle changes. There is no permanent fixed the word of "evidence". But indeed in historical changes and in interpersonal communication, the evidence gradually tends to indicate such external visible things that they could assist people to achieve an effective communication on the basis of uniform external things. However, evidence in Chinese is said to emphasize its activity (to prove activity), while in Western languages it emphasize its property (obvious). As to today’s Chinese "evidence", its meaning mainly focuses on visible things because of the infiltration of western ideas, and then there is a basic agreement about evidence’s external things in Chinese and Western languages. Moreover, from the point of historical change, evidence has a variety of forms of expression, and when it is used flexibly in different contexts, its meaning also has applicable differences. So context is one of its characteristics. As a result, what is evidence is that evidence (symbol) how to use (indication and expression).In the second chapter, starting from the language perspective, we analyse three aspects of meaning of historical evidence:historical field, historical criterion and historicity. And further, we investigate the methodology of historians, and take a sample of "Introduction to the Study of History" for specifically examining historical evidences of empirical historians. We realize that historians develop their historical cognitive activities in a certain cognitive framework which is a factor of context. Quite a lot of empirical historians regard the history as a subjective hypothesis-deduction science. Within the framework of this kind of historical science and in the textual research process, materials and facts are used alternately as evidence. With the transition from textual research context to communication context, evidence is also changed into linguistic arguments, which makes its certainty property convert into creditability and acceptability. Therefore, in interpersonal communication, independent truth of certainty is changed into public consensus, which means democracy is prior to essence.In the third chapter, we investigate Collingwood’s thought of historical evidence and reveal its historicity the historical evidence in terms of concept. Within the cognitive framework of question-and-answer logic, Collingwood discusses his historical evidence. Historical knowledge, a combination of questions and answers, is the product of a context. Question-and-answer logic is changed as its premise, which in itself is not absolutely fixed. In this kind of dynamic cognitive framework, the evidence being a product for specific problems to the mind is endowed with external properties by the mind. Anything can become the evidence, as long as they have an access to historical thinkings. In the historical thinking, historical evidence varies with historians’ thinkings and their interpretation principles, and shows different meanings and different functions due to different historical issues. Thus, historical evidence is always in a state of historicity.In the fourth chapter, we discuss the ideas of previous historians and historical philosophers about historical evidence and analyse some relevant documents and thoughts from the empirical and theoretical perspectives in order of time, so that it can provide references for our study from the view of other people.In the conclusion, we make a review of the above research process, and clarify our preliminary research conclusion.