“有”“无”之辨:重建近代中国历史叙述管窥

“Existence” and “Non-existence”:Reconstructing the Historical Narrative of Modern China

20世纪初年以来,梁启超倡导的“新史学”的成长,不但影响近代中国史学观念的变化,还改变了“存史”的方式。因此,治中国近代史的学者面对的既是一个巨变的时代,也是史学观念与史学方法发生重大转变的时期。其带来的影响是,历史书写所揭示的“有”,往往是基于“普遍历史”所昭示的“目的论”立说;而过于关注这样的“有”,舍弃的很可能是更为重要的“无”,况且“无”所呈现的实际是另外的“有”。关注历史中“无”的一面,既可以突破“有”的樊笼,也有裨于呈现“无”所包含的“有”,重建近代中国的历史叙述。

Since the early twentieth century,the "New History"advocated by Liang Qichao has shaped the modern Chinese historiography and changed the method of "preserving history ". Modern Chinese historians thus deal with an age of fundamental changes including the changes in historical ideas and historiography. As a result,the "existence"in historical narratives is often judged by the teleological benchmarks of the "universal history ";and the overemphasis on such"existence"may ignore and discard the probably even more important "non-existence",which represents alternative"existence". Therefore,paying attention to the"non-existence"in history can break the restriction made by the"existence"and illustrate the"existence"implied in the"non-existence",so as to reconstruct the historical narrative of modern China.