Social Sciences in China Review

No.1, 2018

Understanding and Judgment of Historical Truth: On the Hermeneutical Nature of Historical Understanding (Abstract)

Yu Pei

History flows in people’s never-ending understanding and interpretation. “History” is the history that is interpreted. This is because the nature of history makes historical reality, historical documents and historians become relatively independent but closely related indispensable “three poles.” This determines that historical research is unfolded in the epistemological domain and sense. Historical understanding is hermeneutical nature, therefore, the understanding and judgment of historical truth cannot be separated from historical hermeneutics. The introduction of new concepts such as “compulsory interpretation” and “public interpretation” accelerated the process of constructing Chinese historical hermeneutics. How to establish a theoretical and discourse systems of contemporary Chinese historiography through the combination of theory and practice, history and reality under the guidance of historical materialism, is the mission of the times and an urgent practical task for Chinese historical scholars.