A Survey Of Ku Chieh-kang's "Stratification" Theory

"Stratification"theory is one of the most critical parts of Ku Chieh-kang's historiography thoughts, even bringing to light a trend in ancient Chinese history at the very moment it emerges. The influences of this pioneering theory are so great that it seems necessary to treat the gain and lose, the success and failure of it with an objective attitude, for it may be helpful to the future study. This paper reviews"stratification"theory from several aspects, including introducing the origins, formation, development and meaning of the"stratification"theory as well as making theoretical and experimental investigations to reexamine this theory. The general constructs are as follows:Chapter One mainly discusses the origins of Ku Chieh-kang's"stratification"theory. It is found that four kinds of ideology construct the developmental clue of this theory. The first origin is evolutionism and modern scientific western thought. And then, the preceding skepticism and the School of Old and New Text influence Ku greatly. Third, literary works, such as story, legend and myth also play an impotent role to the proposition of"stratification". The last but not least, new growing-up archeology seems to be another origin. Among these origins, Tsui Shu and the School of New Text's impacts to Ku are the most predominant ones. The inheritance to the School of New Text has long been regarded as one of his mortal wounds because of Ku's overdue skeptism and criticism.Chapter Two delineates the objective and subjective background of the"stratification"theory's formation, affirms that Ku Chieh-kang's"stratification"theory has positive impacts to the study of ancient history on the one hand; it reexamines the materials on the ancient history and promotes the comprehensive changes of the ancient historiography. The"stratification"theory as the basic hypothesis and the most powerful analyzing instrument can be treated as a so-called"revolution". But with the formation and development of this theory, more and more defects of it are discovered. That is to say, on the other hand, the"stratification"theory inevitably has its negative impacts. Ku's chief proposition still needs re-explanation.Chapter Three investigats the research methods and research subjects adopted by Ku Chieh-kang in the proposition of"stratification"from the aspect of theoretical analysis. Ku's proposition reflects inclinations for"Arguments from silence", which is greatly restricted by the erosion of the historical materials and knowledge. It is just Ku's neglect of the phenomenon of"the ancient Chinese history erodes little by little"that leads to many defects and faults existing in the proposition of"stratification"theory. In addition, making use of"social background analysis"to explain the transformation of the ancient history, Ku, to a great extent, discovered lots of origins of ancient legends, but it is also worth noticing that the undue applications of the"social background analysis"inevitably has its own shortcomings, that is to say, it is imprudent to make a conclusion that there are not true historical facts in the so-called fake materials. Ku's principle approach to scholarship is"Not to seeking one certain, but to perusing its changes", which induces Ku to pay overdue attention to trace the changes of historical events instead of the historical fact itself. Equally historical materials are Ku's research grounds to organize the theory of"stratification"into a coherent whole, however, with the excavations of underground materials, more and more historical materials are discovered. Thus the increase in research subjects will certainly lead to the re-examination to the specific viewpoints in the theory of"stratification".Chapter Four shows clearly how the new discovered materials reexamine Ku Chieh-kang's"stratification"theory. There is no denying the fact that Ku's accounts of four criteria to overthrowing the spurious history is reasonable, but some points of view in Ku's"stratification"theory still need to be testified. Firstly, it is believed that Rongcheng Clan is part of the lost Mohist School materials by making a comparison between the bamboo slips in Shanghai Museum---Rongcheng Clan and the documents of Ch'in-Han Era. Then the examination based on new or renewed archeological materials, including the slips of Mohist Shool ---Rongcheng Clan, is forcefully carried on through the investigation into Ku's mature works of"The Criticism and Creation of Spurious Literature by the Men of the Warring States, Ch'in-Han Era","A Study of How the Abdication Legend Arose from the Mohist School"and analytical narratives of Ku's initial ideas on"Yu"and"Wen Wang is not the Duke of Chou". Finally, compared to Ku's viewpoints in prophase, Ku reconstructs his works in anaphase with preference to defend his"stratification"theory, which seems to mislead his later historical research.On the whole, this paper tries to answer such several questions: What impacts did Ku Chieh-kang's theory impose on the research of ancient Chinese history? How to treat the gain and lose, the success and failure of Ku's thoughts on ancient history? And where is the way to lead Chinese ancient history to be prosperous? All in all, the proper attitude to Ku Chieh-kang's theory we should hold is neither totally accepting nor totally denying. It seems advisable to strengthen the communication between narrow-sense historiography and archeology to propel the integrated research model of ancient Chinese history.