<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="1" > the transcendent dimension of empirical evidence and interpretation: An Analysis of Mr. Yu Yingshi's Research Methodology on Cultural History</h1>
Liu Zhi
(School of Art Management, Shandong University of the Arts, Jinan 250300, China)
Abstract: Mr. Yu Yingshi's methodology for the study of cultural history is based on the traditions of Chinese and Western academic thought. He organically combined the tradition of examining the history of Chinese thought with the methodological tradition of universal significance in Western historical research, and formed his own unique cultural history research method beyond positivism and hermeneutics. His cultural history research practice involves the historical context of holism, the combination of examination and interpretation, the emphasis on the case study of ideological subjects and the study of cultural thought in the period of historical change, as well as the research purpose of exploring the modern transformation and development of traditional Chinese culture in the contemporary context and in the comparative vision of Chinese and Western cultures.
Keywords: positivism; hermeneutics; Yu Yingshi; cultural history
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In the field of American sinology, or Chinese studies, the contribution of Chinese scholars is very important, not only because of their innate language advantages in studying their native language culture, but also because they are in a special position at the intersection of Chinese and Western cultures. In this position, because of immersion in the two cultures, it is easier to see the advantages and disadvantages of the two. This is also why when we read the chinese cultural thought research works of most foreign sinologists, we always feel that there is a sense of itching in the boots; at the same time, for researchers who have not lived in the Western world, it is inevitable that they will commit the arrogance of Yelang, because They cannot start from the experience of two cultural life, so they cannot stand on the two cultures to reflect. Mr. Yu Yingshi regards cultural history as his research object, and has different academic historical contexts in China and the West. But it is an indisputable fact that both Chinese and Western, in the mid-to-late 20th century, the study of culture and its history has paid more and more attention. In the 1950s, cultural studies were still mainly active in the field of human beings, and with the famous "two cultures" controversy between Snow and Leves in 1959, cultural issues attracted more and more attention from different academic fields, and in the 1980s, with the rise of new cultural history, it became a boom in academic research. With the reform and opening up in China, there was also a craze for traditional Chinese studies and culture in the 1980s. For Mr. Yu Yingshi, who is well versed in the Western academic thought research methods and inherits the spirit of traditional Chinese academic research, his cultural history research undoubtedly has the characteristics of surpassing the inclusiveness of China and the West. Because of its special historical position, its research can absorb the latest academic theoretical methods in China and the West, so its research can connect China and the West, giving people a sense of being on a high level. This paper intends to start from the context of Western academic thought to analyze the cultural history research methods summarized by Mr. Yu Yingshi in his research practice beyond positivism and hermeneutics.
On Mr. Yu Yingshi's path of study, there are obviously the influences of both Chinese and Western traditions, and as a disciple of Mr. Qian Mu, it is obvious that there is a far-reaching influence on him by traditional methods of governing history. However, after visiting and studying from New Asia College in Hong Kong to Harvard University, he began to consciously shift his focus to the study of Western history and culture, and absorbed ideological nutrition and prescriptions from the study of Western classics. Western cultural historians such as Burckhardt and Huyzinha, as well as the famous philosophers of history, Croce and Collingwood, have had a profound influence on it. After a thorough study of Western classical, modern and even postmodern history, culture, and thought, combined with his early accumulation of traditional Chinese studies, Mr. Yu Yingshi has his own unique judgment on the history of Chinese and Western thought and culture, especially at the level of historical methodology, although he emphasizes "history has no adjudication law" and "history has no theorem", but summarizing its governance content, it is not difficult to summarize his own unique understanding formed after opening up the ancient and modern times in China and the West, which can be summarized as follows:
First of all, from the abstract level is the emphasis on "tong", which can obviously only be discussed after completing the study, that is, after reading many classic classics in China and the West, and having its own basic academic accumulation. Achieving "passing" means that from the academic point of view, it is possible to break through various boundaries, such as the boundaries of Chinese and Western, ancient and modern, and even disciplines, and even to the five university disciplines (history, economics, sociology, political science, and anthropology) that are increasingly strict after the formation of the five university disciplines (history, economics, sociology, political science, and anthropology) that are argued by modern Wallerstein. [1] (P16) Mr. Yu's "tong" is obviously based on his profound skill in traditional Chinese learning, and the classification of classics, histories, sub-collections emphasized in classical Chinese history is obviously completely different from that of the West, so some concepts and categories have different semantic evolution histories in their respective knowledge systems, and it is difficult to understand this in China and the West. For example, he cites the examples of Wang Guowei, Hu Shi, and Qian Zhongshu to argue. Although Wang Guowei criticized Zhang Zhidong's reform of the school system in his early years for not including philosophy in a discipline, and the philosophy, ethics, and pedagogy discussed in his early works "Jing'an Anthology" were also Western knowledge classification systems, after middle age, Dacheng returned to the traditional classification method of classics, history, sub-collections, represented by the "Guantang Jilin"; Hu Shi's "Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy", the crux of the problem was also that "western classification was used to replace or express traditional Chinese learning"[2](P96); the same is Qian Zhongshu's "Guantang Jilin"; Hu Shi's "Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy" also has the crux of the problem is "using Western classification to replace or express traditional Chinese learning"[2] (P96); the same is Qian Zhongshu's "". The "Pipe Cone Compilation" is also an example of breaking down the classification barriers of Chinese and Western knowledge systems. Further, if the above-mentioned examples of "tong" are only embodied in the level of epistemology, the opening up in the sense of cultural spirit is the spirit that can truly create the study of tongren, Mr. Yu Yingshi took Chen Yinke and Wang Guowei as examples, pointing out that these scholars in the transition period are people who are condensed by the real cultural spirit, and this kind of person generally has a far-sighted vision and will not be frustrated by the suffering in front of him. In addition, this kind of communication is also reflected in the opening of various methodologies, this kind of opening, just like the traditional Chinese governance emphasizes the relationship between research and argumentation, Mr. Yu Yingshi believes that fidelity to the data is the most important principle of all learning, so he opposes the combination of history and history, even if the theory is not enough from history, it is important to start from the original data on the basis of basic academic thinking training and extensive mastery of careful reading of materials, starting from the original data to gradually develop the problem, even if there is no theoretical support, you can also establish your own theory. This is also the essence of his emphasis on "going straight into the tower and looking for the phase wheel". For example, in Zhu Xi's "The World of History", although he repeatedly emphasizes that "cultural history, although it must involve the concepts and ideals of the era under study, does not deal with them in isolation, but associates them with actual life for observation." [3] (7) But this connection is closely related to the issue he focuses on, "the practical connection and interaction between Confucianism and politics, culture, and even various aspects of society"[4] (P3), and thus reconstructs the historical world in which Zhu Xi lived. This, in turn, is a tradition of Western thematic studies. From this research, it is reflected that it is problem-oriented, opening up the intricate relationship between history and culture, politics, social life, and biographies. On another level, most of Mr. Yu Yingshi's later works reflect his acceptance of the Western academic tradition with thematic research as the core, as well as the influence of the tradition of attaching importance to the history of biographical history at the psychological level; from the methodological level, he integrated the Western cultural history narrative methods from Vico, Burkhart, John Hoyzinha, etc. into his own research, and of course did not give up the research tendency of Chinese historiography to emphasize political and cultural examination as the mainstay. The spirit of governing history makes the development of this study provide readers with a broad and rich picture of the history of culture and thought.
If "tong" is the academic spirit that Mr. Yu Yingshi attaches more importance to in the macroscopic sense in the cultural history, this does not mean that he ignores the problem of "specialization". Although he opened up the western thematic research and the Chinese tradition of governing history from examination to righteousness, when choosing special topic research, he had to emphasize the problem of "specialization", which is also a small research theme, if the research topic is large and inappropriate, it cannot be specifically carried out, and the effect of the research will not be good. That's why he constantly admonished to learn to do research in the future to "start with a big mind and a small place." As far as the content of the research is concerned, the so-called "specialization" of cultural history, that is, the need to have a relatively easy time period to control, the analysis content of the three time stages set by Braudel: the structure of the long period of time governed by the geographical environment; the medium period used to analyze the changes in social life; the events related to individuals or historical politics, that is, the short period, these three units of analysis time, Mr. Yu Yingshi pays more attention to the study of the middle period, although he also has the "Scholar and Chinese Culture" on the long-term study and the "Short Period Research" on the short period of study. Fang Yi Zhi Evening Festival Examination" and so on, but in comparison, the middle period of research can combine a certain topic of study and the content of the material that can be controlled, and can also fit robert e. Lee. According to Merton's understanding, the "middle-class theory" of the social science methodology proposed by K. Merton is between the general theory of social systems and the detailed description of details. [5] (P60) Because, in his view, general theories are too abstract and often lack explanatory power for concrete social behaviors and social events, while microscopic studies, although they can depict specific details in detail, often lack generalization. The middle-level theory in between can avoid the shortcomings of both. Mr. Yu Yingshi also acknowledges that much of his research on the ideological culture of China's different historical epochs falls into this category.
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Mr. Yu Yingshi's academic achievements, throughout the spirit of his strong self-judgment and reflection ability. It is precisely this that has made it possible to immerse himself in the two different academic ideological traditions of China and the West for a long time, but he can obtain rich reference academic resources and be familiar enough with each other's strengths and weaknesses. Especially since the 1960s, various academic trends and theoretical methods in the West have surged up, and you have sung and appeared on the stage, which can be summed up in his words: to see you rise up a tall building, to see your building collapse. In this context, he fully demonstrated his insight not to be afraid of floating clouds to cover his eyes. On the one hand, he agreed with the assertions of Yang Liansheng and Mr. Xiao Gongquan: "Chinese scholars are good at collecting historical materials, and American scholars are good at judging historical facts." [6] (P146) However, it is emphasized that the two should complement each other's strengths so that Chinese scholars will not see trees but do not know the forest, and the latter will not mistake the floating clouds in the sky for a cluster of trees on the horizon. On the other hand, he also believes that various Western theoretical methods are "used in the study of Chinese history, some are useful, and some are useless." Universally high useful, special useless. Useless is also useful, its framework, method can bring enlightenment. [7] (P214) Based on this understanding, Mr. Yu Yingshi, on the basis of reflecting on the development of Western intellectual history since the 19th century, came up with his own set of cultural history research methods that transcend Western positivism and hermeneutics.
The specific analysis of this method needs to be combined with Mr. Yu Yingshi's own sorting out of the development of Western intellectual history and his own research reflection. Reflecting on the history of the methodological development of positivism is in fact the goal pursued by history as a discipline since its birth in the 19th century: that is, the history in which the idea of studying history was established in the same way that it studied the natural sciences. This is mainly the contribution of Rank, the father of history. Rank argues that historians should avoid judging the past and should show how things actually happened, and that historical research need only be "stated in themselves." [8] (P194) In reality, however, from Rank himself did not strictly follow this positivist criterion. Although his historical position is based on a critique of Hegel's metaphysical view of history. As Eagles points out, in fact Rank's own research has not been free from metaphysical speculation and value judgments, nor has it achieved the objectivity he claims to have, such as his study of the history of the Roman and Germanic peoples, which shows that it is influenced by nationalist value judgments. Although he replaced Hegel's philosophical ideas with historical ideas, he laid the foundation for the establishment of modern historical science. In Mr. Yu Yingshi's reflection, historical positivism dominates the study of history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and Collingwood summarizes the two core concepts of historical positivism: one is to try to restore the objectivity of history, and the other is to pursue the laws behind the facts. In the development after Ranke, it also incorporated Comte's historical reductionism, the quantitative method of the annals school, Marxist historical materialism, and of course, various determinisms of population, politics, geography, and race that developed later.
As a historical methodology that is easily directed to determinism, it is increasingly challenged in its later developments, the greatest challenge of which comes from the contribution of humanist historiography, which had a long history in the West before the advent of the positivist view of history, from the Renaissance Vico's distinction between the study of the history of nature and the history of man, to Hume's assertion that "no discipline, however far away it seems to be from human nature, will always return to human nature through one way or another." [9] (P6) The idea of humanist historiography continued in the West, reaching its zenith in Nietzsche, who even asserted that "only when historical tolerance is transformed into a work of art, and thus into a pure work of art, can it maintain its instincts, or even arouse its instincts." [10] (p196) The one who developed this idea into a systematic philosophy of history was the British historian Collingwood. Mr. Yu Yingshi highly recommends it. In summary, Collingwood's view of history is condensed in "all history is the history of ideas"[11] (P303); Collingwood in the early 20th century summed up this human-based view of history: he believed that the object of history study was not "events" but actions, and action contained two levels of events, the external refers to the materiality of events, and the inner refers to the state of mind of people in events, which Mr. Yu Yingshi is obviously deeply convinced of. As he exemplifies: Chen Sheng wu guang's uprising in Dazexiang in the first year of Qin II was only the external level of the historical event, and the mental state of the parties involved in the uprising against Qin tyranny was the internal level of this event. Only by delving into the inner dimension of this historical event can historians reveal the real reasons for the historical event. Because the processes of nature are only the processes of events, and the processes of history are the processes of action, and in Collingwood they are the intrinsic aspects of the processes of thought, "so what historians are really looking for is the processes of these ideas." [12] (P6) And the ideas are connected with culture and tradition in Mr. Yu Yingshi. It is also here that the essence of humanistic history is highlighted and the study of intellectual history or cultural history is closely linked. So in his view, the real study of history is the study of the history of ideas/cultural history. The profound influence of Collingwood's view of history on Mr. Yu Yingshi is not only that he identifies with it and practices it in his own research. It is also that he also deeply agrees with some of the core historical research methods proposed by Collingwood. For example, in his understanding of thought, Collingwood, who was heavily influenced by Hegel, distinguished between understanding the intrinsic aspects that govern action as reason, while those factors of emotion and emotion were attributed to the psychological level, which were not the objects of study by historians. Clearly, this distinction has its limitations. By denying the psychological element of action, it is difficult to understand the great calamities that irrationalist currents once brought to human history. Another example is the difference between imagination and literary imagination in historical research, as well as Collingwood's definition of historical evidence, which is deeply admired by Mr. Yu Yingshi. So much so that later, after he came into contact with Gadamer's hermeneutic method, he still saw an echo of Collingwood's thought. And he contrasts Gadamer's tendency to interpret group thought with Collingwood's tendency to reenact the past from his own mind, and clearly prefers the latter. This is not unrelated to the fact that he studies more of individual historical figures. As for Gadamer's hermeneutic approach, he is more in agreement with his emphasis on the continuity of the historical intellectual tradition. Proceeding from this continuity, it can be deduced that even in the historical period of the violent revolution, the tradition still needs to be inherited, so as not to break the society, which provides an hermeneutic basis for the development of the inheritability of traditional Chinese culture in modern times.
Reflecting on the methodology of Mr. Yu Yingshi's cultural history research, if we analyze it purely from the perspective of the influence of Western academic thought tradition, it is not difficult to find that he inherits and abandons positivism and hermeneutics as two universal historical research methodologies that have dominated since the 19th century. Inheriting the empirical side of objectivism, while identifying with the idea of sympathetic understanding of hermeneutics. And he believes that these two methods can be completely combined organically. The principle of confirmation pursued by positivism and the admiration of historical evidence have always run through his academic research, and this kind of argument is perfectly combined with the tradition of chinese historical research, the difference is that Western empirical evidence has a set of knowledge system support, Mr. Yu Yingshi agrees that the examination should be combined with the larger knowledge system, can not be examined for the sake of examination, this is what he advocates"to examine the classic text, explain the text of a paragraph clearly, that will not encounter a big problem, what to do after that? The West also has this practice, but there is a big structure behind this practice, and small specific research will affect or change this big structure. It is not that the large structure restricts the specific study, but the specific research will take the large structure," [13] (P43), if this architecture is still in the epistemological sense, then when he emphasizes the application of the principles of hermeneutics to the study of cultural history, this framework becomes a living socio-historical situation, and it is not difficult to find his reference to the idea of the integration of hermeneutic visions. Therefore, from the contextual analysis of the development of the history of Western academic thought, the ideological context formed by Mr. Yu Yingshi's research methods in cultural history can also be summarized: drawing on the methodological factors of positivism and hermeneutics, the research based on the main body of thought, based on specialized texts, perspective on the internal texture of historical and cultural changes, that is, the study of the "change" of history and the motive force of change. Its connotation is the two principles of positivism: confirmation and search for the laws behind historical phenomena. It is combined with the understanding of sympathy emphasized by hermeneutics (Mr. Yu Yingshi compared it with the ancient Chinese "exchange your heart, exchange my heart, and remember each other deeply").
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Next, we may wish to take Mr. Yu Yingshi's examination of a historical episode during Hu Shi's stay in the United States in the 1930s as an example to analyze how he has concretely implemented his research methods into research practice. Mr. Yu Yingshi himself admits that the objects of his research are mostly the mental processes of influential intellectuals in historical changes. With this as the object of study, it is impossible not to follow Collingwood's approach of "reenacting the past in his own mind"[14] (P389). In how to carry out this kind of research, Mr. Yu Yingshi derived two major types of historical research from the principle of positivism of confirmation and the principle of hermeneutic understanding, the former is called critical historiography, which is also collination of collination's criticism of traditional historical material clipping historiography, this type of historical research attaches more importance to authority; the latter is the problem-oriented reconstruction of history research advocated by Mr. Yu Yingshi, which is more in response to Collingwood's view of history, and the process of reenactment in narrative also echoes Roger C. Thompson's historical research. Stone's initiative to reinvigorate narrative historiography because reconstruction necessarily involves narrative, and how to narrate is a central issue in the study of contemporary cultural history. It mainly includes four elements: problem, overall structure, evidence, and imagination.
Any historical research will always carry problems, the problem of empirical historiography is often a combination of hypothesis and verification, and such assumptions often equate the object to be verified with natural phenomena, and the assumption faced by cultural history is a special humanistic phenomenon, so when seeking verification problems, the object is the thought and spirit of people in a specific time and space, although both need to rely on evidence to reason, but the latter does not take the confirmation or falsification of authoritative historical views as the purpose, confirmation or falsification of historical materials is rather an intermediary, its purpose is to reconstruct history, This is also the problem of cultural history research, which Vico emphasizes not only to prove the authenticity of historical materials, but also to understand why and why they are false, which Mr. Yu Yingshi believes is "a very important change in historical methodology"[15] (P18) thus opening up scientific humanistic historiography. Inspired by this, his sense of the problem of the study of cultural history is also based on evidence (this evidence is mainly documentary, although he has realized the importance of non-documentary historical materials) to reconstruct the history of ideas. Taking the emotional interlude in "The Journey of Rediscovering Hu Shi" as an example, this is Mr. Yu Yingshi when reading Hu Shi's diary and chronology, he stumbled upon that from April 14 to May 31, 1938, Hu Shi's diary frequently appeared in his records of his interaction with Robby, and this time Hu Shi came to the United States mainly to seek American support for salvation, and there were many Americans who interacted with him, but they were not robby frequently, and the diary did not explain the importance of this person to Hu Shi, which aroused Mr. Yu Yingshi's interest in research. Who is Robby and what does it have to do with Hu Shi? This is a question that needs to be confirmed, but the purpose of the examination is to serve to reconstruct the ideological and emotional experience of the special historical period that Hu Shi experienced during his stay in the United States.
It is with these questions in mind that Mr. Yu Yingshi began a journey of exploration that combined empirical evidence and interpretation. Of course, it is obviously impossible to go deeper without understanding the overall social situation of Hu Shi's entire life, especially this historical period. However, to understand this background, it is necessary to comprehensively study all the historical materials of the time to construct a holistic framework, the different historical situations of China and the United States during World War II, the situation of Hu Shi's life at this stage, and his family, social situation, and even personal ideological situation at this time. With this overall framework, we can read and understand the historical materials and reconstruct history without taking them out of context, only seeing the trees and not seeing the forest. Mr. Yu Yingshi undoubtedly had such a background framework when examining this history because of his profound historical accumulation, that is, the genealogy of Hu Shiliumei's relationship with many historical figures, his own thoughts at this time, and the atmosphere of the entire society in China and the United States at that time.
Finally, there is the evidence. On the basis of perusing the diary, Hu Shi discovered various details of Hu Shi's interaction with Robby, and restored various time clues and scenes where the characters interacted. According to the diary, Robby initially had contact with the two as the secretary of Dewey, a teacher of Hu Shi. On July 12, 1938, in Hu Shi's diary that was about to go to Europe the next day, Hu Shi's diary of "The Second Lovesickness on the Hezhen River", including the side note "Look at the small poem copied on April 19, 1938", enabled Mr. Yu Yingshi to find a clue and connect the front and back, combined with the emotional story of Hu Shi's early years and his cousin Cao Peisheng, thus convincingly examining the short love affair that broke out between Hu Shi and Robby. In addition to the two types of evidence that expressed his feelings through poetry and Hu Shi's diary, Mr. Yu Yingshi also used the circumstantial evidence of Dewey's disciple's diary to infer it. Especially after many years, he also confirmed the relationship between the two from a telegram sent by Robby to Hu Shi unpublished by Tsinghua University Press, which was sent on July 7, 1838, from the nickname in the telegram and the expression of "love", thus outlining the heroine's active and bold confession, as well as Hu Shi's reticence, and the psychological defense line was finally breached.
Here we can see the wonderful use of evidence chains emphasized by forensic historiography, combined with imaginative reasoning. In emphasizing the difference between historical imagination and imaginary imagination, Collingwood pointed out that historical imagination is to connect the history of real events and spaces composed of existing fragmentary perceived materials into a reasonable overall picture. For example, when you look out into the sea and see the location of a ship, but look at it five minutes later, it will be in a new position, and in the time that you are not paying attention in between, the route taken by the boat can be imagined. In this example, there are many fragments of events in the interaction between Hu Shi and Robby that are not recorded in the diary, and it is through the imagination of history that this emotional story is connected into a whole. For example, Mr. Yu Yingshi examined the climax of the two people's outings on July 12, 1938, and thus had the "second lovesickness on the Hezhen River". Later, with Hu Shi's appointment as ambassador to the United States, the relationship between the two developed, and because the diary was rarely recorded, there was a fragment. However, using reasonable imagination, Mr. Yu Yingshi still reconstructed the development trend of the relationship between the two. Especially the last mention of Robby in the diary, is the party with Dewey, the only separate meeting between the two is only one or twenty minutes, so it is difficult to have emotional communication, during Hu Shi's december 5 heart disease hospitalization, although there are records of nurses talking about Robby's visit to the sick described in Hu Shi's diary, but it is difficult to understand why it is "quite intriguing", and later Roby married the elder Dewey and became Hu Shi's mother, what is the situation of the two people interacting, In the end, due to the lack of historical materials, the author did not boldly infer that he insisted on the principle that all the imagination and inferences of historians must be supported by historical materials. But in terms of the history narrated by Mr. Yu Yingshi alone, this reconstructed historical relationship is still vividly presented to us, fully meeting Macaulay's assertion: "A perfect historian must have enough imagination to decorate his narrative and make it constitute a picture." ”[16](P14)
The reason why this example should be analyzed in detail is because it reflects Mr. Yu Yingshi's endowment as an outstanding historian, and truly reflects the realm of cultural history research that will be close to historical figures. This is reflected in his depiction of the inner world of Hu Shi and Robby's interaction. The reason why this love affair broke out, he concluded: Hu Shi came to the United States with a mission in that special historical period, the country was in trouble, his heart was full of anxiety, his appeal was limited in American society, and friends around him returned to China one after another, and Hu Shi was in this period of anxiety and loneliness in his interaction with Robby. These are naturally supported by their diaries. The reason for the lack of success in this relationship lies mainly in Hu Shi's self-defense function and sense of responsibility, he will not make a joke of the world's joy when the national disaster is in the head, which is also the reason why his diary records that he did not go to entertainment places after going to the United States. For this depiction, it makes sense naturally and reasonable, but Mr. Yu Yingshi's finishing touch is to use the "World Speaks New Language" "The saint forgets his feelings, the bottom is not in love, the love is in my generation" and Yan Shu's sentence "Full of mountains and rivers are empty and far away, falling flowers and wind and rain hurt the spring, it is better to pity the people in front of him" to understand the emotional world in Hu Shi's heart, which obviously belongs to the sympathetic understanding of hermeneutics. But this is based on his understanding of the history and society in which Hu Shi lived, and the overall spiritual atmosphere of the intellectuals at that time, and in this situation, empathizing with historical figures can naturally be closer to the truth of history. Of course, this truth is no longer the truth of empirical evidence, but the realism of interpretation. This also answers his own question: "In the process of practical research in the humanities and social sciences, why cannot the scientific method and the hermeneutic method be used at the same time?" [17] (P219) He gave the perfect answer with his own brilliant research.
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It is then necessary to evaluate this approach to cultural history that integrates positivism and hermeneutics from a new perspective. Based on the understanding that history is better understood as hermeneutics than science from a cultural point of view, Mr. Yu Yingshi integrates modern hermeneutics methodological factors on the basis of traditional research. In fact, this understanding is not separated from the development of Western intellectual history in the 20th century. In effect, the opposition between the positivist approach of science and the hermeneutics of humanities is an either-or mindset, beginning with Snow's two cultural debates, and the West is looking for a solution that transcends the conflict between the two cultures, John Brockmann, who proposes a third culture based on popular science, Wallerstein, who proposes open social sciences based on disciplinary integration and development, to Lynn Hunt's new cultural history, which combines hermeneutics and postmodern cultural pluralism, and Ken Hunt' new cultural history. Wilbur has made such efforts to propose an integrated perspective of the whole view from a psychological point of view. Although Mr. Yu Yingshi has many criticisms of the recent theories in the West, he believes that they have gone too far in challenging the mainstream with one-sided deep and reverse thinking, and do not have the universal significance of research. In particular, it is easy to fall into various determinisms. That is: "There is a problem in the study of the history of ideas, which involves order and thought, and the author must not think that anyone who takes the side of rebellion is a good position. There must always be an order. Of course, order can be changed. The big problem of the 20th century was determinism of all kinds. [18] (P214) But this does not mean that there were no thinkers of the 20th century who transcended these limitations, and the most transcendent reflection in this regard was the French thinker Edgar Moran. The complex thinking he proposes goes straight to the root of the problems of positivism and hermeneutics. From the point of view of complex thinking, the scientific method of understanding based on conceptual and logical operations belongs to one paradigm, while thinking and acting as ideas that people have incorporated into their brains by culture belongs to another paradigm, both of which serve a deeper paradigm, the "simplistic paradigm"[19] (P16). Taking cultural history as an example, the logical rationality strictly demanded by positivism and the sympathetic understanding required by hermeneutics, according to the understanding of complex thinking, are actually mutually implicit and separate relationships. If one consciously adheres to one approach and rejects another in a specific study, it is clear that one would make the mistake of simplification paradigm. And in making this mistake, the researcher himself is often unconscious, just as positivism rejects factors in the hermeneutic approach. Because that's what characterizes the paradigm.
Therefore, it is important to realize that in research we cannot dogmatically exclude certain factors in consciousness that may play an important role. This is precisely the problem with Hegel's deeply influenced Collingwood conception of history, which calls the rational in the human mind spirit, and the irrational factor (psyche or soul), which is the object of psychological study, and this blind power is only the cloak of the spirit. The actions of history are determined by the spirit. Therefore, the methods, contents and purposes of historical research are also defined by spirit. From the point of view of complex thinking, this division is entirely a simplified act of human consciousness, without realizing: "All rational actions of the spirit are accompanied by emotions." [20] (P202) Obviously, this concept also profoundly affected Mr. Yu Yingshi, although he later realized the importance of irrational factors such as human emotions and desires, especially seeing that in the Western tradition of historical research biography, due to the emphasis on psychological issues, it is often possible to deepen research, but in many of his research practices, he still attaches more importance to the spiritual level or conceptual level of human beings, which is not difficult to see from his research practice at all stages of Chinese history. The exception may be the study of Hu Shi and Chen Yinke, so the study of these two people can better reflect the organic combination of positivist and hermeneutic factors in the study of cultural history, for various reasons, in addition to the direct or indirect intersection of intellect and spirit between him and these two scholars, but also related to the personal experience of empathy for the social and historical situation in which these two scholars lived. For the former, he indirectly obtained a large amount of private information from his teacher, Mr. Yang Liansheng. And Mr. Chen Yinke has more exchanges of poems. These are all things that Mr. Yu Yingshi can really penetrate into the situation of his existence in his observation of the spiritual world of the object of study, and at the same time can be extracted from a large historical background, which can be both immersed in it and out of it.
If Mr. Yu Yingshi's cultural history research method can transcend positivism and hermeneutic methods and form his own unique methods, then the emphasis on the historical situation and the large knowledge structure of this research object also constitutes a transcendent dimension. This is also what he has repeatedly emphasized when talking about governance: "Although the study of history must start with specific problems, it must not be trapped in one detail after another, and at any time and place we must maintain and develop an overall grasp that transcends individual problems in examination." [21] (P41) Here the whole can be understood from multiple dimensions, according to the complex paradigm of thinking: because the subject of history is the individual and the group of people, as far as human beings themselves are concerned, they are biological, psychological, social, emotional, and rational; and the society created by human beings also contains multiple dimensions of history, economy, politics, religion, etc., and the overall framework theory is to comprehensively consider these dimensions when looking at cultural history phenomena. Of course, in order for the object of study to come alive, it is necessary to repeat history in the mind, as Collingwood said, in his words, "to study the history of ideas, not only to list the works of the time and the content of the ideas in them, but to understand the ideas in the context of the life of the time." You must not only reconstruct the way of life and value system of the ancients, but also pay attention to social, economic and political changes. ”[22](P134)
The purpose of historical research is to provide people with a bridge between the past and the present, and the ultimate goal is to serve people's understanding and control of their environment, because according to E· H. Carr's understanding of "man's ability to transcend social and historical circumstances seems to be determined by his sensitivity to recognizing the environment in which he finds himself." [23] (P107) Of course, Mr. Yu Yingshi's research on cultural history does not stop here, in his view, the history and culture of any nation has its own uniqueness and its research value. The fate of China's Confucian culture in the future, and how traditional Confucian culture can gain a transformative vitality in modern society, are not only related to the future values and beliefs of Chinese, but also have great symbolic significance for Western societies that are caught in various determinisms, especially scientific and technological determinism and the decline of humanistic culture. This is also why, since the 21st century, he has repeatedly called for the study of Chinese literature after getting rid of Western-centrism to start again, to take its own unique cultural tradition as the main body of research, and to replace the mentality of treating Western nationality as sacred to the mentality of "the stone of his mountain can attack jade" [24] (P544), which is also the transcendent dimension embodied in the purpose of his cultural history research.
In summary, Mr. Yu Yingshi's cultural history research includes five core elements: transcending positivism and hermeneutics in methodology; studying the historical changes of culture or thought; studying the thoughts and behaviors of the scholar class as the subject of research; the purpose of the research is to provide ideological resources for the contemporary inheritance of traditional Chinese culture from the perspective of the comparison of Chinese and Western cultural and ideological traditions; the research context includes a large historical and cultural background and an academic ideological background; and these five core elements cover various aspects of Mr. Yu Yingshi's cultural history research. However, in specific research, the center of its focus is not the same, and in its most representative work, "Scholars and Chinese Culture", we can find that it involves almost every aspect of the five elements, reflecting the vast knowledge and transcendence of a cultural history.
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doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-2236.2019.06.020
Medium figure classification number: K092
Document identification code: A
Article ID: 1002-2236 (2019) 06-0099-07
Received:2019-10-19
About author:Liu Zhi,male,Ph.D.,Professor of Art Management College of Shandong University of arts,Master supervisor,Research direction:Art Aesthetics and Aesthetic Culture.
