转义海登·怀特,改变元语言

Troping Hayden White,Changing Metalanguage

本文试图用詹巴蒂斯塔·维柯的诗性逻辑和人类意识发展理论,表现海登·怀特的写作和教学生涯。人类意识发展经历了四个不同阶段。这四个阶段通过转向(转义转变)逐次实现。每个阶段对应一个转义、一种转变载体:隐喻、转喻、提喻、反讽。根据这一模式,人类生活始于隐喻,终于反讽,最终回归(复归)隐喻。本文认为,海登·怀特的知识分子生涯可以用两个主导转义界定:隐喻和反讽。反讽大多显现于公众中,与怀特作为专业人士的科学实践有关。隐喻构成了一种存在主义根基,表现于怀特的科学实践中。这是借用马克斯·韦伯的术语。怀特扼要重述他的工作时也断定,叙事主义路径在历史理论中占据主导地位,并为新研究趋势兴起奠定了基础。作者认为,当恐怖袭击、战争、好斗的民族主义、不断发生的大屠杀事件以及基因工程的迅速发展(基因工程改变了我们对“何谓人类”的理解)重新引起人们的极大兴趣时,怀特的话语方法就显得太过局限了。但这当然不是在说,怀特的方法全然没有任何价值。

This article is an attempt to represent Hayden White’s writing and teaching career in terms of GiambattistaVico’s poetic logic and theory of the development of human consciousness,which passes through four distinct stages,proceeding from one to the next by way of turns(tropic transitions).Each stage corresponds to a trope,a kind of shifter:metaphor,metonymy,synecdoche,irony.According to this pattern,human life begins with metaphor and ends with irony,with a final return(ricorso)to metaphor.The article proposes that Hayden White’s intellectual biography is defined by two mastertropes:metaphor and irony.The latter,more often manifested in public,is related to his practice of science as a profession,while the former constitutes a sort of existential foundation,expressing itself in his practice of science as a vocation,to use Max Weber’s phrase.White’s recapitulation of his work also concludes the predominance of the narrativist approach in historical theory and prepares the ground for the emergence of new research trends.The author claims,that today,when terrorist attacks,wars,aggressive nationalism and continuing examples of mass murder(as well as rapid development of genetic engineering that changes our perception of what does it mean to be human)have revived critical interest,White’s discursive approach proves too limiting(but it does not mean of course that it is not relevant).