历史叙事中的几个问题

Controversial Issues in Historical Narrative

长期以来,原原本本地再现历史本来面目被认为是历史撰写的宗旨,历史学家则应该是不偏不倚、超然物外的历史记录者;历史编撰的灵魂是真实。但是,现代思潮和语言哲学的发展对历史叙事的再现功能提出了质疑和挑战。对历史是语言构造物还是独立的客观事实,历史是强者的历史还是弱者的历史,历史表述的是外部事件还是内心真实以及历史是一部大写的历史还是多个小写的历史等问题的探讨揭示了传统撰史观的问题所在。

It has long been the mainstream idea that history purports to objectively represent the past as it was, historians are supposed to be impartial and detached recorders of what actually happened, hence the soul of history is troth. Nevertheless, the latest developments of modern philosophy and language philosophy cast severe doubt on and pose challenges to the representational function of history. Tentative study of historical narratives reveal that history is more likely to be a verbal construct than objective truth; it is more likely to be the history of the ruler than the ruled; it tends to represent the external events than the internal reality; and there are different versions of history, not History with a capital H. With these findings, it can be concluded that there does not exist an objective, impartial, comprehensive, and authoritative historical narrative.