清理与重构:吕思勉的神话研究

From Deconstruction to Reconstruction:Lü Simian's Study of Mythology

上古史是中国近代历史学的重要研究对象,有关上古神话的研究更引起了广泛关注。吕思勉利用文献考据、社会从低级到高级的发展规律及“统属思维”塑造的“同质人类群体”的概念,对上古神话进行清理和重构,形成了区别于传统的新解释,并尝试以此取代传统思想中有关上古神话的“旧常识”。这种新旧知识迭代背后隐藏着吕思勉以“统属性思维”取代“关联性思维”的研究理路,是近代新史学打造学科话语体系的尝试,也彰显出历史学家普遍面对的“当下主义”的困境,以及这种困境对于历史知识迭代的意义。

The history of antiquity is an important object for study in modern Chinese history and the research on mythology has attracted wide attention. Lü Simian followed the logic that society progressed from low to high levels in development and introduced the concept of “homogenous human groups”in historical research.The latter was derived from the concept“subordinative thinking”. In three aspects,he deconstructed myths from the antiquity and replaced the “old common sense”with new interpretations. Behind the evolution of old and new knowledge systems is Lü ’s effort to replace “correlative thinking ” with “subordinative thinking”,and to create a disciplinary paradigm for modern new historiography. A look into his study of methodology will help us not only to realize the dilemma of presentism that is commonly shared by historians,but also to recognize the generational shifts in the historical knowledge production.