Historical Discourses in Traditional Chinese Historical Writings: Historiography as Philosophy

Title

Historical Discourses in Traditional Chinese Historical Writings: Historiography as Philosophy

Author

Chun-chieh HUANG

Page

25-51

DOI

10.6163/tjeas.2014.11(2)25

Abstract

　　During the long course of Chinese history, Chinese historians always added comments after narrating historical events in order to draw didactic lessons from the forge of history. From "the gentleman says" of the Zuozhuanto the "Grand Historian says" of Historian's Records, the "measured discourses" of the official Han History, the "assessments" of the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms , the "Your Servant Sima Guang says" of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government to Wang Fuzhi's (1619-1692) Reading the General Mirror of Historical Discourses and Discourses on Song History, these historians all examined the concrete "events" of history in detail in order to discourse on the "principle" or "moral norm" at stake. They thus followed the traces of history in order to seek the root causes; they followed upstream in order to reflect on the well-spring, the source, thus producing the synthesis of history and philosophy that characterizes traditional Chinese scholarship. This paper examines the complex relationship between "events" and "principles" in traditional Chinese historical writings, and discusses how traditional Chinese historiography orchestrates a synthesis of history with philosophy in which history operates as the function of philosophy.
　　The present paper consists of five sections: besides section one, the introduction, section two traces the development of the relationship between "events" and "principles" in Chinese historiography, stressing that before the 10th century C.E. (Northern Song), principle was regarded as parasitic on real events, i.e., as not really essential for understanding. After the rise of Song Neo-Confucianism, the principles identified in history gradually came to be viewed as the driving forces of historical events. This change reflected the gradual immersion of Confucian values into historical reflection, by which events and principle became ever more intimately connected. Sections three and four analyze two main uses that Chinese historical discourses started to have. Section three discusses how the forge of historical particularity was thought to produce universal significances, thus making the generalities in the works of Chinese history start to take on the appearance of Georg W. F. Hegel's(1770-1830) so-called "concrete universals."
Section four discusses the second use of the discourses in Chinese historiography; that is, the synthesis of the historian's "factual judgments" and "value judgments" or "moral judgments." Chinese traditional historical narratives mostly tended to be what Jörn Rüsen calls "exemplary narratives." The Chinese historians fully approved of the notion that the actors in history were exercising their free will, that the movers and shakers in history held ultimate historical responsibility for the fruits of their actions and the broader historical impact. In Chinese culture, historians used historical judgment in place of the Final Judgment which is fundamental in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Section five summarizes the main points made in the paper, stressing the special feature of the unity of literature, history, and philosophy in traditional Chinese learning, through which the traditional discourses of Chinese historiography revealed a Gospel for their own tradition.

Keyword

Historical discourse, Chinese historiography, Sima Qian, Zhuxi

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