著者

胡 藤 Teng HU

出版者

島根県立大学北東アジア地域研究センター

雑誌

北東アジア研究 = Shimane journal of North East Asian research : North East Asian region (ISSN:13463810)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.33, pp.1-17, 2022-03-31

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Qian Daxin is one of the most representative scholars of the School of Evidential (kaozhengxue, koukyogaku) in Qing Era. He has a keen command of history studies and claims that Confucian Classics studies (jingxue) and history studies should not be treated separately. He believes that only studying both could prevent knowledge from becoming impractical like the Neo-Confucianism (school of principle, lixue, rigaku). This article takes his assessment of the Shi Tong (by Liu Zhiji) as a clue to analyze his understanding of historical records and what he perceives as the ideal way of historiography. Qian Daxin holds the point that the facts should be truthfully recorded, though the recording may be subject to interference by the political power of the time to ‘create myths’ to legitimate its rule. It is thus valuable to document other narratives of various historical sources to resist such political interference. Only in this way will the historical records be free from becoming moral judgments. And this means reading history will be to understand the ancients immanently through historical records. Qian’s point of view is usually seen to be close to Zhang Xuecheng’s, who is believed to hold a modern historiographical perspective. Although Zhang makes a similar point with Qian that all Confucian Classics should be regarded as historical materials instead of principles, he still attempts to establish in his historiography a continuous "orthodoxy" where the authority of political power overrides scholarship. Qian, unlike Zhang, focuses on discovering and understanding the specific ‘Other’, which was shared by most scholars of the School of Evidential at that time and is thus seen as the motivation of their studies.