历史因果关系的后学转向

A Post-modernist Directional Turn in the Studies of Historical Causality

无论是韩培尔的"覆盖律"模式,还是艾德乐的"归纳—统计化"模式,都不能将历史脱胎换骨成为客观的学科。倒是卡尔的因果主张,成为西方主流史学界多年来的主要观念。自后现代主义兴起后,因果解释全被视为外加和型塑的。后学的主张引起诸多的争议,但其对主流学界因果关系的批判也值得警惕。虽然至今尚无一致认可的、理想的因果解释模式,但因果关系仍是历史知识中最重要的部分。不论未来如何,人类对于过去的认识之渴望及需要一直都会存在,只要此点存在,因果关系就会不断地被寻求,而相关的讨论也不会终止。

Neither Carl Hempel's concept of 'Covering Law',nor William Aydelotte's 'Inductive-statistical' approach could transform history into a completely objective discipline.It was still Edward Carr's idea of causality that has been dominant in the Western historiography in recent years.Since the emergence of the postmodernism,the writing and interpretation of the past is regarded as an imposed and constructed act.The use of postmodernism in the study of the past has caused much controversies.However,its critiques of the conventional cause-effect relationship are worth noticed.It is true that despite so far there is no consensus on how to deal with the causality issue,it still remains the most important part of historical knowledge.No matter what the future holds,the desire and hope of the human beings for historical knowledge will be persisted.As long as persisting,the search of the event causes will keep on going,and consequently the discussion concerning the relationship will also continue.