作为方法的柯文——在学术前沿地带刷新中国史

Paul A.Cohen As Method:Refreshing Chinese History on the Academic Frontier

在中国当代史学史上,柯文的《在中国发现历史》可谓是一部指标性著作,人们常常将该书所倡导的中国中心观与三十年来中国学术对主体性的追求联系在一起。它似乎是对近三十年由政学两界推动的中国学术从整体上往更具“中国性”方向转型的预言。柯文漫长的学术生涯涉及“基督教与中国”“王韬”“中国史研究范式”“义和团”“勾践故事”等诸多课题,这些课题都有一个突出特征,即带有极强的方法论意识。他总是站在学术前沿,以崭新的前沿理论和方法来刷新中国历史研究,这让他的研究总是带有鲜明的实验属性。柯文的治学告诉我们,要永远追求不同学科知识之间的“异质整合”,以形成新的更高的基础性知识平台,在此基础上探索新的历史理论和方法。

In the history of Chinese contemporary historiography,Paul A.Cohen's Discovering History in China:American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past has been recognized as a classical masterpiece,and the“china-centered approach”it advocated was often connected with Chinese academia's pursuit for subjectivity in the last 30 years,it seemed a prediction on the overall transformation of Chinese academia towards“Chineseness”in this period.Cohen's long academic career involved multiple topics including“Christianity and China”,“Wang T'ao”,“Research Paradigm on Chinese History","The Boxers","The Story of King GouJian”and so on,all of his projects exhibit a prominent feature,that is to say a strong consciousness of methodology.He has always refreshed Chinese history by the new leading edge theories and approaches,and this always brought his research work an obvious experimental trait.Paul A.Cohen’s scholarship enlightens us that we should constantly pursue the“heterogeneous integration”of various knowledge and subjects,aiming to form a new more high-level basic knowledge platform and exploring new historical theories and approaches base on it.