An Exploration Of Paul Weiner's Theory Of Historical Writin

The French historian Paul Veyne(1930-2022)was not only an outstanding classical historian,but also an excellent theorist of history,whose Comment on écrit l’histoire,published in 1971,concentrates on the essence of his theory of history.Although the theory of history accounts for a small proportion of Veyne’s entire career in history,its weight is not light,and it implies a professional historian’s theoretical self-consciousness of self-historical research.Comment on écrit l’histoire has the symptoms of “ baroque art ” in its presentation style,which presents a kind of meandering and winding writing style,which is a variation of linear writing style.The book is extremely rich in thought resources,fully reflecting Veyne’s disciplinary background of classical studies and the intellectual tradition of museum studies,as well as Veyne’s unique mode of comprehension of the world of knowledge.The book has an “anti-theory” tendency,and at the level of text weaving,its strategy is to make dogmatic assertions supplemented by quotations and examples,instead of the logical deduction and discursive reasoning style common in general historiographical theoretical works,which is not only in line with Veyne’s writing style about “theory” in the humanities and social sciences,but also in line with Veyne’s view of “theory” in the humanities and social sciences.This style of writing is not only closely related to Veyne’s understanding of the positioning of “theory” in the humanities and social sciences,but also to the traditional soil of French academic prose writing in which Veyne lived,as well as to the so-called “French theory” of the era in which he lived.Veyne’s theory has an interdependent structure at the logical level: by “history”,Veyne actually means “ non-event history ”,and almost all the theses in the book center around the central idea of “non-event history”.Almost the entire book revolves around the central idea of “non-event history”.Many of the themes discussed in the epistemology of history are re-examined in the context of “non-event history”,and the new narrative historiography represented by the new cultural history since the1970 s is the real “non-event history” in Veyne’s mind.Non-event history highlights the tension between structure and event,and is generated in comparison and critique with event history.Non-event history has two variants: conceptualized historiography and sociological historiography,which reveal the theoretical essence of non-event history from different aspects.Conceptualized historiography is the logical starting point and the first link in the writing of non-event history,which ensures the scientific nature of historiography and provides an epistemological foundation for the writing of non-event history in the Annales School.The concept of history is identical with historical theory and historical types,all three are the products of highly compressed historical episodes,which are composed of quasi-proprietary terms,and the purpose of establishing historical concepts is not to seek laws but to narrate,the concept of history is illuminating for history writing;sociology is a vague concept,it is not self-aware of contemporary historiography,there is only a formal difference between the two,in the attributes of the discipline and the level of writing,history and sociology are not the same,a good work of historiography is necessarily a sociological work.Non-event history writing is composed of theme and event field,through these two elements can outline the face of history,therefore,the plot is the only measure of historical writing,it is the core of the event field,but also constitutes the historical interpretation itself,the historical plot consists of the material cause,the purpose of the cause and the contingency of the three elements,which are also the three modes of historical interpretation,corresponding to the origins of three kinds of historical concepts: Material cause corresponds to historical materialism,purpose corresponds to historical conceptualism,and contingency corresponds to the dichotomy between surface and deeper causes;the episodic nature of historical writing highlights the nominalist position,which helps to dispel three “ illusions ” : historical depth,general history,and the renewal of the object.In the context of the theory of non-event history,Veyne re-examines issues of historical epistemology.The first section analyzes the nature of historical writing around the proposition that “history is a true(honest)fiction” in which themes such as the historiographical genre,the relationship between “truth” and “fiction” and“ whether historical writing is a science or an art ” are discussed in the context of Veyne’s text.In this section,themes such as the historiographical genre,the relationship between “truth” and “fiction”,and whether “history writing is a science or an art” are analyzed in the context of Veyne’s text.The second section analyzes Veyne’s proposition that “everything is history writing” and that the dissolution of capital history and the rise of plural history is a necessary corollary of non-event history,which involves Veyne’s analysis of the concept of capital history,and his reflection on how historicism fails to be related to historical relativism at the level of writing.The third section focuses on the causal interpretation of historical writing,which is essentially a relationship of retrospective synthesis through episodes,based on a sociologically and anthropologically referenced series of compilations that include customs,practices,and genres,which are the product of practical human experience in reality.Veyne’s theory has the temperament of “returning to the roots and opening up the new ”,and its proposition challenged the increasingly rigid academic writing system at that time and lowered the threshold of entry for history writers,which not only echoes with the “everyone is his own historian” advocated by Carl Becker in the 1930 s,but also resembles the “public historiography” that emerged from the late1960 s onwards.It echoes the “everyone is his own historian” advocated by Carl Becker in the 1930 s,and is also similar to the “public historiography” that emerged from the late 1960 s onwards.Undeniably,Veyne’s theory is limited by the era in which he lives,and the narrative theme is still monotonous and narrow.His theory of non-event history is mainly based on the reference of “human being”,which largely ignores the discussion of the dimension of natural history,and has an anthropocentric tendency,which is in contradiction with the proposition of “everything is history” he advocates;only by combining with the new things emerging in reality and extending it to the post-human historiography and all the new things can the theme of history writing be re-framed.Only by combining with the new things that keep emerging in reality,re-setting the theme of history writing,and extending it to the post-human historiography and all new things,can the ideal blueprint of Veyne’s non-event history theory be considered to be truly realized,which,on the other hand,precisely highlights the long-lasting vitality and growth point of Veyne’s non-event history theory.