A historiographical investigation to the methods in histories of Chinese geography
Author(s): SUN Jun, PAN Yujun, TANG Maolin, DU Yin, College of Tourism and Geographical Sciences, Yunnan Normal University, Key Laboratory of Educational Information for Nationalities, Ministry of Education, School of Geographical Sciences, Nanjing Normal University
Pages: 1557-1568
Year: 2014 Issue: 8
Journal: Geographical Research
Keyword: historiography of science; methods; positivism historiography; historical contextualism historiography; reconstruction of early modern Chinese geography; Chinese geography;
Abstract: The different as well as contradictory Chinese ancient geographical histories written in the past have made too much misunderstanding about the progress or shift of Chinese geography. Focusing on the methodological problems in writing history, a historiographical investigation is to expose how histories were written at different times and in different places. From a contextualism perspective, geography does not mean the same thing in different contexts, so we can have distinct histories of geography. For that reason, we should think about the histories of geographies not from the perspective of what we see"it"to mean contemporary, but from what"they"might mean in the past. Unfortunately, the leading works which have exerted a great influence on Chinese geographers, for example, All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas(by Preston E. James 1972, and now Geoffrey J. Martin, 2005) and A History of Geographical Thoughts(by Paul Claval), developed an‘essentialist’historiography which postulated what geography was(and is) as a science‘in essence’, a kind of"whiggish historiography"emphasized the scientific aspects, as well as positivism and mathematics, geography, and neglected or twisted other geographical traditions. Of course, the authors of these works are powerless to render assistance, because of the language barrier which we explained. Chinese geographers followed foreign positivism tradition conduced a reverse analogical interpretation seemed, but their original intention was analogical interpretation. In any case, both positivism and humanistic traditions were essential content if we want to write new histories of(Chinese)geographies. It is worth nothing that we do not agree with the views what James or Martin has stated, for their ideas about geography implied geography as"many rivers, one sea", or"oceans of European science", and insisted Chinese early modern geography was just a tributary spread from Anglophone. We retort that, it is a conceptual syncretism progress for the rise of both Chinese as well as Anglophone early modern geography.
Pages: 1557-1568
Year: 2014 Issue: 8
Journal: Geographical Research
Keyword: historiography of science; methods; positivism historiography; historical contextualism historiography; reconstruction of early modern Chinese geography; Chinese geography;
Abstract: The different as well as contradictory Chinese ancient geographical histories written in the past have made too much misunderstanding about the progress or shift of Chinese geography. Focusing on the methodological problems in writing history, a historiographical investigation is to expose how histories were written at different times and in different places. From a contextualism perspective, geography does not mean the same thing in different contexts, so we can have distinct histories of geography. For that reason, we should think about the histories of geographies not from the perspective of what we see"it"to mean contemporary, but from what"they"might mean in the past. Unfortunately, the leading works which have exerted a great influence on Chinese geographers, for example, All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas(by Preston E. James 1972, and now Geoffrey J. Martin, 2005) and A History of Geographical Thoughts(by Paul Claval), developed an‘essentialist’historiography which postulated what geography was(and is) as a science‘in essence’, a kind of"whiggish historiography"emphasized the scientific aspects, as well as positivism and mathematics, geography, and neglected or twisted other geographical traditions. Of course, the authors of these works are powerless to render assistance, because of the language barrier which we explained. Chinese geographers followed foreign positivism tradition conduced a reverse analogical interpretation seemed, but their original intention was analogical interpretation. In any case, both positivism and humanistic traditions were essential content if we want to write new histories of(Chinese)geographies. It is worth nothing that we do not agree with the views what James or Martin has stated, for their ideas about geography implied geography as"many rivers, one sea", or"oceans of European science", and insisted Chinese early modern geography was just a tributary spread from Anglophone. We retort that, it is a conceptual syncretism progress for the rise of both Chinese as well as Anglophone early modern geography.
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