The Big History View Of David Christian

This thesis is divided into three parts to discuss the David Christian's big history view.The first part of this thesis discussed the developing venation of big history view from ancient times until now.It was expressed through every kind of traditional culture at the very beginning in the form of genesis mythology,it was from the beginning the integrated product interacted in various degrees between the three: the religion-theology,philosophy and science.From the view point of the interplay of the three,the development of big history view can be divided into the leading of theological phase,the leading of philosophical phase and the leading of scientific phase.However,the big history view was mainly in the form of“universal history” to fully expressed the first time through the Christian civilization.On the basis of inheriting the predecessors,Christian's big history view is an inevitable outcome of western big history view developed from the old times until today,it is still the integrated product interacted with the theology,philosophy and science.Christian claimed that the carrier of his big history view is modern creation myth,which is called big history built by the help of modern science and every other disciplines.It thus made the human the first time to use all the knowledge of the mankind to describe the whole space and time with a relatively reliable description.The second part of this thesis mainly discussed the contents and characteristics of Christian's big history view.As for the contents,one is concluded that the history is the entire range of space and time,it is the whole universe and all time(it includes the past,present and the future);the other is considered the history is a single historical continuum.As forthe characteristics,Christian tried to synthesize all the possible knowledge up to present,hoped to find out the ultimate theory of history,and also could do more possible profound discussion about the future.Christian's big history view reckons that the history has the law,and it is full of paradoxes.History itself is a process of directional and paradoxical development,it is determined by a certain ultimate theory.Although this ultimate theory is far more unrecognized,but Christian might be show us a window to get a glimpse of the ultimate theory through the research of the complexity,and the contradiction between the rise and demise of the order is just the prime power of the directional and paradoxical development.The third part of this thesis discussed the value and enlightenment of big history view.The value of Christian's big history view is concluded as:a certain confirmed theory is used to explain the history not only show the history could be interpreted,but also could be given the meaning;So by it we could be found the sharing big world view of humankind,and weaken the ability of narrow world view that lead to harm the humankind;We could also be study the whole of history,and make history study return to its own position.The Christian's big history view is given us the enlightenment as below: firstly,the history of every age is worth of rewriting,this is the interactive,directional and paradoxical development result between the history itself and the writing behavior of historian;secondly,to seek the ultimate theory of history,to explain the history and to be given the history its meaning,then we must reconsider the ultimate questions of humankind,moreover the big history view can exactly provide the help.