历史理性与历史感

Historical Reason and the Sense of History

在史学实践的范围内,历史理性可以理解为人们在把握过去时的精神结构和智力装备,历史感是其中不可或缺的要素。对于人事变易无常的意识、对于过去与现在之间的异同的敏锐感受、健全的历史观、开放而自我克制的历史想象力、微观研究与宏观视野的结合,都是历史感在史家史学实践中的具体体现。分析学派的和叙事主义的史学理论都未能将历史感纳入自身的研究焦点。史学理论的当前转向为历史理性和历史感得到更为清晰的理论阐发提供了契机。

In the sphere of the practice of historical study,historical reason can be understood as the spiritual structure and intellectual equipment by and with which the historians try to comprehend the past.The sense of history is the core of historical reason.The consciousness of incessant changeability in human events,the sensitivity to the similarities and differences between the present and the past,a sound outlook of history,an open-minded but self-controlled historical imagination,the combination of microscopic historical study and macroscopic perspective,all those can be seen as the embodiments of the sense of history in the practice of historical study.The problem of the sense of history has not been explored in the agendas of the analytical school and the narrativist school in the field of historical theory.The present shift of the focus of historical theory can be taken as an opportunity for the theoretical clarification of historical reason and the sense of history.