View Of Methodology In Ancient History "faction

In the history of historiography of the 20th century China, Mr. Ku Chieh-kang (1893—1980) and the Ku-shih-pien debates has always occupied a crucial position, and their main job of sifting and criticizing the materials on the ancient history had promoted the comprehensive changes of the modern historiography. But over half of one century, their achievements have been faced with all kinds of misunderstandings, and Ku's several chief propositions still need re-explanation.The Letter Discussing the Ancient History with Mr. Qian Xuan-tong written by Ku Chieh-kang which issued on the Reading Magazine on May 6^th 1923 actually constituted the cause for the collapse of the long-lasting framework of the ancient Chinese history with the signs of Pan Gu, the Three August Ones and the Five Lords. The statement advanced in this paper that the ancient Chinese history was accumulated layer upon layer which acted as the basic hypothesis and the most powerful analyzing instrument should not be limited only within the sense of historical materials. If there did contain the so-called "idea of modern historiography", it mainly reflects that the proposition embodied Ku's view on the universal character of the historical knowledge or the revolutionary attitude to the historical knowledge. The general conclusion drawn from it by Ku is that when we distinguish the ancient history, we should pay more attention to the experience of the legends than to the arrangement of the historical facts. And in brief, Ku's epistemological approach was "not to establish one certain truth but only pursuing its changes". The proposition which pigeonholes the noumenon of history and emphasizes the evolvement of knowledge about ancient history embodies Ku's empiricist standpoint on epistemology. Viewing from the sense of historical epistemology, when Ku Chieh-kang concentrated his attention upon the "development as stories" and the "modeling of roles" in ancient history, it meant that much earlier than the postmodernists prove that the historical text is also literary fabrication, Ku had already restored the history, especially thewell-known ancient history to the literary works such as story, legend and myth. In the universal epistemological sense, from doubting the record of ancient history to doubting the total historical record, Ku has eventually got in the relationship between the general nature of historical knowledge and the nature of myth. In fact, there is no essential distinction in the means and procedure between the choice and arrangement to the material by myth-maker and the historical narration of professional historian, thus the differences between history and myth only exist in relative and limited sense. So the proposition of "accumulating layer upon layer" should be regarded as an epistemological one with universal significance: whether or not the documents are adequate, all the history still carries the character of uncertainty, and there also exists the possibility of being accumulated under the objective conditions. That is the ontological resource of the emergence of historical myth. And Ku's profundity is that he had already seen it.And the other proposition dependable with the former one is the so-called "there is no history before the Eastern Zhou Dynasty". Its background is that during the age of the May Fourth Movement in the early 20th century, breaking the idolatry and re-estimating the value of tradition became the common atmosphere and main trend throughout the society. In the field of historiography, the textual criticism movement with the representative of the Ku-shih-pien debates was aroused. All the ancient classics and even the authentic history thus became the object of historical study, and the former authoritative ancient history system of the Three August Ones and the Five Lords was totally subverted under the yardstick of evidence. And that is the main content of the proposition of "there is no history before the Eastern Zhou Dynasty" put forward by Hu Shih and Ku Chieh-kang. And we should make it clear first that this proposition also belongs in the field of historical epistemology but not ontology. That is to say, the "history" they overturned was not the actual history before the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, but was the historical narration kept in the documents, especially the authorized Classics. Through the arguments of Ku and others, as the mainstay of the previous ancient history, the characters from Yao, Shun and Yu, to the Three August Onesand the Five Lords were all full of the quality of myth, legend, or even fabrication. And furthermore, the chronological record could not be definitely proved either. In all, once measured by the positivist criteria, we can see that the existing historical records were totally lack of the support of evidence, i.e. the "direct material'", thus they lost the basic possibility to be the proper historical knowledge, and the system of the Three August Ones and the Five Lords as authentic history or historical fact was undoubtedly to be overthrown. So the proposition of "there is no history before the Eastern Zhou Dynasty" is in fact a conclusion compelled by the standard of evidence. At that time, under the universal circumstances of doubting the ancient classics and documents, and the positivist historians holding the historical facts as their eternal aim, sticking on the yardstick of evidence, they never reached a overall grasp to the ancient history from beginning to end, even the archeological objects cannot solve this problem fundamentally. To say, the reconstruction of ancient history still needs the cross-disciplinary cooperation.Speaking of the academic transcendence, Kang You-wei and the School of New Text in the study of Classics in the late Qing Period had been one of the important origins of Ku. That has long been regarded as one of his mortal wounds. But we should see that China's modern history was established step by step with the collapse of the orthodox position of the traditional study of Classics and the idea of "Classics be the authentic history". The Confucian scholars, especially the scholars had played an important and positive role in the process, and the School of New Text, which derived from the academic atmosphere of Qing Dynasty, had been appraised for giving the motive power for the transformation of China's history. With the material collation as the main form and the ancient history as the core scope, the modern history was not evolved naturally from the traditional history, but transformed from the study of the Classics. So when Ku and other modern historians conscientiously bared the task of terminating the old Classic study and constructing the new history, because of their solid foundation on the Classics, they could not shake off the traditional routes and colors. Although Ku had undoubtedly abandoned Kang's sectarianism, orthodox worship andpolitical intention, as well as adjusted some of his view, he had inherited his skeptical spirit, achievement on criticizing the ancient document and history, and the means of inspecting their social background. Furthermore, Ku had looked upon Kang's proposition of "reforming in the name of ancient history" as an undeniable truth. Because he also laid stress on the social background, Ku had focused his researching scope within the period of from the Spring and Autumn, the Warring States to the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties as same as Kang. Besides, he had always taken the problem of the Old and New Text in the Han Dynasties as the only proper course to analyzing the learning of that time and even the study of the ancient history. In conclusion, his eternal aim is to gain the materials enough to reflecting the true physiognomy of the ancient history, and his measure is taking the time for judgment, proceeding from the concrete society and circumstances, approaching the ideological condition of each time, and then clear the false history or material derived from it out of the field of ancient history little by little, and simultaneously, closing in on the source material and the crux of historical facts. So finally, Ku's studies on the materials of the ancient history can also be seen as the repercussion of the traditional textual criticism originated from the study of the Classics.