"Theorizing History(Shi Guan)":A New Practical Methodology for the Research of State-Formation
Using the research of state-formation as a case,this article discusses the method of"theorizing"and its methodological significance for integrating pre-modern Chinese history with modem political science.The method of"theorizing"analyzes the practical"subjectivity"of the researcher,thus going beyond the"positivism"approach which only simplifies the rationality of any researcher as the devotion of finding evidence to prove or falsify certain causal inference.The theorizing method reveals three dimensions of the practical subjectivity.First,it reveals how to discover new theoretical perspectives to re-interpret the personal experience.Second,it shows how to understand the subjectivity of other members in the community of inquiry when making dialogue with their theories and methods.Third,it shows how a new construction of scholarly community would be possible when scholars'intersubjective interactions could endlessly unfold.This article then shows how this new method could reveal the nature of Chinese state which has been overlooked by previous positivist theory on state-formation.
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