Study On The Thought Of E.P. Thompson’s Historical Philosophy

This thesis analyzes and valuates on Thompson’s historiography from the perspective of philosophy. Thompson’s historiography is under the influence of traditional empiricism in Britain, classic Marxism and Western Marxism, and his ideas gradually gave birth to maturity in English New Marxism which as a ideological groups. But its development started from the critique of Stalinism. In the critique, Thompson still kept insisting the basic standpoint and position of Marxism and still kept chasing Marxism as the methodology instruction in his history study. Different from tradition Marxism, in his history study, Thompson critiques society history from the view of cultural angle, and always pierces through the thinking method of historicism. In the process of criticizing social history, Thompson calls the subjective powers of changing the reasonable reality in contemporary capitalism. He views that this power is in working class whom placed Thompson’s political ideal on. The highest mission of Thompson’s academic research is to restore the historical subject status of working class, and to stir up their vitality in making history.In Chapter One, Author briefly introduces Edward Palmer Thompson’s life and his academic development course, and also states the research meaning, research method and research way of this thesis. It also analyzes the research situation of Thompson from home and abroad. By doing this, the author attempts to find out problems which need to be further discussed and problems that have been discussed before are still inadequate to some extent and need to be improved and completed. The author finds his study field and study route in the process of doing this research.In Chapter Two, Author analyzes three sources of Thompson’s historical philosophy, which is Britain’s traditional empiricism, classic Marxism and western Marxism respectively. History School of English New Marxism which represented by Thompson has some qualities of Britain’s traditional empiricism inherently. It is based on the facts and pays attention to conduct their theoretical explanations from historical material. Therefore, Thompson’s history study has some empirical colour inevitably. Classic Marxism, especially the spread of Marx and Engel’s thoughts, contributes to the generation and development of English New Marxism. On the other hand, the full in-depth criticism to Stalinism is the turning point of the spring up of the English New Marxism and Thompson’s history study. From this starting point, Thompson began his independent thinking of academic life, which made him come into the stage of international academic and politics. After giving up dogmatic Stalinism, they were attracted by Western Marxism of the continent of Europe. The second generation of English New Left represented by Perry Anderson and Tom Nairn accepted Europe mainland theory and endeavoured to bring it into Britain, which was strongly against by Thompson. Based on local empiricism, Thompson began his history study through the basic ideas and methods of Marxism and reached a conclusion which was not quite agreed with traditional Marxism.In Chapter Three, Author discusses Thompson’s studying history from the perspective of culture and also discusses the research method he used which is historism. From the perspective of culture, Thompson revaluated and evaluated Marx’s’foundation-superstructure’model, which improved the proportion of culture in society constitution. He also emphasized that it is kind of culture that existed by ’whole competition style’ which was different from the diagnosis made by Williams who said that it was existed by ’whole life style’. Under the guidance of the method of historism, Thompson put forward many historical viewpoints that were ’alternative’. The method of historism is the critical thinking way of Thompson history theory. It is against the method of structuralism and structure orientation mode of thinking fundamentally.In Chapter Four, Author points out the political mission of Thompson’s historical philosophy undertake. From the history material, this chapter unearths the societal forces that change Britain and contemporary capitalism, which is the working class. The working class of Britain has kind of power hidden in them which can change itself and can change the unreasonable reality. By doing this, it can help to realize a better society that has no exploitation and oppression and everyone is equal and free and the dissimilation of the people eliminated in the future. Socialism is not only a kind of ideal, but also a kind of realistic social activity. In this chapter, by discussing socialism humanism, Thompson further deepening Marx’s critique to bourgeois humanitarian and abstract humanitarian of Feuerbach, etc. He also illustrates and expresses human oriented principle of Marx’s thought and makes it reach a new height. As a scholar and thinker, Thompson did not conduct abstract theory critique blindly in books, but put his thought of history study in his political practice.In Chapter Five, Author analyzed and summarized Thompson’s historical philosophy, pointed out that it is a theoretical system based on critizing the "base-superstructure" mode, while analysed the basic principles of this ideology can be constructed. Through this analysis and summary, we are trying to have a more accurate grasp of Thompson’s historical philosophy, and a more objective judgment.