評(píng)論
打印
The facts do not speak for themselves; historians use the facts in a particular way and therefore they, and not the facts, are doing the speaking.
事實(shí)不會(huì)自己說話；歷史學(xué)家們?cè)谟靡患禾囟ǖ姆绞絹砝檬聦?shí)，因此是他們而不是事實(shí)在說話。
Historians not only often disagree with others. They often disagree with themselves. Indeed they are often revising their ideas. They have to do so because they are constantly discovering new information, gaining new insights from other social scientists and mastering and using new techniques. Historians also learn from each other and benefit from international comparisons of similar events and institutions.
歷史學(xué)家不僅經(jīng)常和其他人意見有分歧，他們也時(shí)常不能與自己保持一致。的確，他們經(jīng)常在修改自己的觀點(diǎn)。他們之所以這樣做是因?yàn)樗麄冊(cè)诓粩嗟匕l(fā)現(xiàn)新的信息，從其他社會(huì)科學(xué)家那里獲得新的見解，掌握和使用新的技術(shù)。歷史學(xué)家們也彼此互相學(xué)習(xí)，并且通過比較研究國(guó)際上類似的事件和機(jī)構(gòu)而受益。
Can we eliminate all disagreement? If the state of our knowledge were such that it provided us with a model of unquestioned validity that completely explained human behavior, we can. But since we do not have such a complete and foolproof explanation, disagreements are destined to remain. When students realize that there is no one easy answer to the problems historians raise and that "truth" is but an elusive yet intriguing goal in a never-ending quest, they will find the study of history to be a significant, exhilarating, and useful part of their education.
我們能消除所有的分歧嗎？如果我們的知識(shí)水平已達(dá)到了這樣的程度——它能為我們提供一個(gè)別無疑義、能全面解釋人類行為的模式，我們就能做到這點(diǎn)。但由于我們無法作出這樣一個(gè)完整而且可靠的解釋，分歧便注定存在。當(dāng)學(xué)生識(shí)到，對(duì)于歷史學(xué)家們提出的問題不會(huì)有一個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單的答案，并且“真相”只是一種在永無止境的探索中的一個(gè)難以達(dá)到卻又充滿誘惑的目標(biāo)時(shí)，他們會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)學(xué)習(xí)研究歷史是自己所受教育中的一個(gè)重要、令人振奮并且使人受益匪淺的組成部分。
