Modern Chinese Positivist Historical Research

Positivist Historiography plays an important role in the development of Chinese historiography. Since Yan Fu systematically introduced Western Empiricism and Positivist Historiography to Chinese, a large number of historians introduced it into China from the end of nineteenth century to the beginning of twentieth century, using its evolution opinion and positive method to modify Chinese traditional historiography. Thus, Positivist Historiography became one of the influential history schools and this promotes the transform of Chinese traditional historiography to scientific historiography. Due to the important role of Positivist Historiography, the research has been strengthened these years. But some research results need to be refined.The development of Positivist Historiography in China is different from that in western countries. In western countries, Positivist Historiography is based on the development of science. It not only inherited the historicity of Objectivism , but also focus on the rules of history development, opening a new field. The spreading of Positivist Historiography met the needs of social reform in China. Yan Fu and Liang Qichao cared about how to solve the problems using evolution opinion and positive method.After the May fourth movement, democracy and science became popular, helping the development of Positivist Historiography. In this period, historicists cared about the development of historiography and made the historiography more scientific, believing that historiography should be separated from the politic and social problems.This thesis makes a good use of the literature and uses the subject-like research method to talk about the development of Western Positivist Historiography, representatives, their articles and its impact. It pointed out the reasons of China accepting Positivist Historiography under the bad social conditions, political needs more than research innovation. This thesis divides three phases of Positivist Historiography from development todecomposition according to its rules. It describes in details the representative historicists and their achievements, introduces the development channels, the relationship of Positivist Historiography with other schools and points out that Positivist Historiography has its special characteristics. This thesis also compares the Positivist Historiography to Qianjia historiography, Relative Historiography and Marxism Historiography, intending to study the relationship of Positivist Historiography with other schools and its role. It also studies its impact and shortcomings.This thesis believes that Liang Qichao was a Positivist historian although his history idea was changed to some extent when he was old. Besides, this thesis analyzes the development rules of Positivist Historiography in each phase.Completely understanding Positivist Historiography can help us understand the role of Chinese Historiography over the world and the development of Chinese Historiography. It also helps us absorb the "essence of foreign culture and promote the development of Chinese Historiography.