The Study Of Chang Hsueh-cheng's Historiographic Philosophy

This thesis focuses on Chang Hsueh-cheng's historiographic thoughts from a philosophy respect, including his concept of historiography; his theory of historiographic knowledge; and his philosophic ponder over the relationship of historiographic content and form, the meaning of history and the morals of historian.Chang Hsueh-cheng's concept of historiography is associates closely with his view about the Tao and the Study. The Tao is the reason of things, which lies in the concrete historical reality and emerges continuously in pace with history. The aim of the Study is to obtain the Tao, which involves studying and thinking at the same time. The emphasis on thinking leads to: as to the Study, self-acquisition is essential. The basis of self-acquisition is the scholar's temperament and passion. Mere collection and compilation of documents is not real historiography, the real historiography includes the selection of historical data and individual judgment. 'The sixfold canon is all history', canon is a part of history, canon can only reflect the Tao of the Three Dynasties, the Tao should be studied in the history. There is an essential diversity between history and literature, the former is edited on the basis of historical evidence, while the latter may be at one's will. But history must present its content in the form of literature, and the literal form of history is determined by the content of history.The historical knowledge originate in historical data. Chang Hsueh-cheng thinks that all Canon, History, Philosophy and Literature are the source of historical data. Government should set up a strict system of collecting, organizing and conserving historical data. Historical data should be corrected and testified before adopted. The real historical data are not historical evidence inevitably, historical evidence are the real historical data that are selected by the historians. Historical fact is an inference which is established on the basis of historical evidence. Historical facts include events and speeches. Chang Hsueh-cheng holds that events and speeches can not be separated, they are all the reflections of a man's mind, based on this which, Chang proposes his point of view: events and speeches are verified each other. Establishing historical facts is the first step of recognizing history, the knowledge of historical meaning and causality must be acquired through historical understanding and explanation. Chang Hsueh-cheng thinks that the history of human beings is not only spiritual but also naturalistic, the spiritual side of human needs understanding while the naturalistic side needs explaining. Historical actions result from both spiritual reason and current situation. The way to understand ancient people is to imagine the historians themselves as ancient people, and to think in the way of them in order to understand the meaning of historical facts. Chang Hsueh-cheng admits that ethical appreciation should be involved in the historical writings, but he resists pointless and intentional ethical appreciation. In the appreciation of achievement, Chang holds the principle of commenting an event based on the event itself.Chang Hsueh-cheng thinks, as far as the relationship of historiographic form and content is concerned, the former derives from the latter, the form changes according to the content, Chang uses a word—"yuan rung" expresses this view. Chang's historical meaning(shih-i) includes three meanings: political and ethical meaning; the essential factor guiding the historian's selection of historical data, historical construction and historical criticism; the purpose of historian's work. The basis of the historical meaning is the unique individual sense of historian, and the foundation of the unique individual sense is the historian's temperament and passion. Chang Hsueh-cheng proposes the rationality in the morals of historian. Chang demands that historian not only have decent intention, but also deal with historiographic work rationally rather than emotionally. So, historians should enhance self-cultivation in their daily life.Chang Hsueh-cheng lived in the Chien-lung and Jia-qing era, when critical philology(kao-cheng) reigned supreme in Confucian studies, but he was engaged in the study of literary and historiographic theory. Chang said: his foundation of his learning derives from his father and his townsman Shao Ting-cai, and later Chu Yun . But we think: the general atmosphere of times and individual temperament and passion determine the character of Chang's learning. Both Chang Hsueh-cheng and the scholars of philological criticism seek for learning and knowledge, but their views about what is learning and how to acquire knowledge are not identical. Chang thinks learning is related to scholastic subjectivity, and the ways of acquiring knowledge are not only philological criticism; the scholars of philological criticism think learning is independent to scholastic subjectivity, and philological criticism is the only way to acquire to knowledge. The essential character of Chang Hsueh-cheng's learning is emphasis on scholar's subjectivity, which is shared by modern Western historical thoughts. The idea that the basis of learning is scholar's temperament and passion is the base of Chang Hsueh-cheng's leanrning theory and determines his stress on scholar's subjectivity and individuality.Chang Hsueh-cheng answers a series of questions, including what is historiography, how to acquire historical knowledge and how to achieve the objectivity of historiography in China in 18^th century, which reflect his astonishing insight.