本文是一项围绕美国史学理论家海登·怀特思想展开的历时性研究，追溯了怀特自上世纪50年代末期以来直至2018年去世之前针对史学和历史所作的种种思考。在以往的研究中，国内外学者大体从后现代主义或叙事主义、人本主义的理论进路来把握怀特的部分思想或理论主旨。这些研究各有所长，但也有其不足。本文尝试提取出怀特思想的特定研究对象，即历史话语，以其为支点，统观怀特的全部理论，考察其思想的逻辑发展过程及其可能带来的启发。

历史话语，可指讲述和思考过去事件、人物的叙述，它以过去实在为其指涉，具有一定的长度（超出句子）且内在融贯。上世纪70年代，怀特展开对历史话语的形式剖析。他强调历史话语具有的调解作用，它沟通着呈现为杂乱史料的现象世界和史家头脑中用以领悟与预构这一现象世界的概念化模式。话语在这两者之间往返运动，最终编织出一个整体性的历史文本。更重要的是，历史话语使用的是比喻语言，比喻语言的不同转义类型有自身构想现象世界的独特方式。因此，配合着不同的概念化模式，历史话语在描述史实的同时也借由比喻语言赋予史实以各不相同、但可供选择的意义。史家最终呈现的历史即史实和史实之隐含意义的混合物。由此可以说，在话语层面，历史不同于混乱、琐碎的历史实在，历史中蕴含着史家基于伦理和审美偏好对历史整体过程及历史意义的主观理解和阐释。

怀特对历史话语的剖析，受20世纪五六十年代西方人文学科，尤其是结构主义和分析的历史哲学的浸染。这些学科反思和质疑在19世纪占据主导的历史经验主义观点。怀特的剖析亦是对这些质疑和反思的回应。然而，在80年代及其后，怀特的论断在史学领域引发激烈争论。研究者从经验研究的规范化作用、实在本身是否具有叙事结构以及语言规则和史家自由之间的张力关系等不同角度，对怀特思想提出质疑。这些质疑促使怀特澄清与语言决定论之间的关系，重申史家应当对语言力量保持自觉，为自身话语创造的意义负责的观点。同时，怀特转向探讨历史再现形式与真实性之间的关系问题，这将可能为已揭示的历史话语中的虚构要素正名。

围绕现代主义写作、比喻实在论等重要概念，怀特在上世纪90年代后着手思考历史话语的真实性问题。这里的历史话语，已不仅仅局限于正统历史学，思辨的历史哲学和历史小说同样含括在内。在讨论中，怀特试图表明，对实在之性质及历史现象之可能意义的把握离不开借助文学形式和比喻。比喻手法作为一种意义生产工具，将为事实赋予能够激发读者灵感和行动的道德教谕与情感意蕴。就这点而言，对历史话语的真之评判将不仅涉及史实的真确性，而且关涉话语中再现的历史意义的适切性。后者凸显了历史话语的伦理维度。但怀特没有为史家应当持何种伦理立场作出规定，相反，他捍卫史家为历史实在选择和赋予意义的自由，而这种自由将迫使史家对自身的选择负责。

        怀特的历史话语思想表明了他特定的历史和史学观。不同于经验史家“为过去而研究过去”的观点，怀特强调历史感与当下意识之间的联结。在他看来，人们对自身人性及未来道路的看法，将影响他探察过去；反过来，人们为自身选择和构建什么样的历史意义，也将影响他展开当下的筹划。怀特呼吁历史研究者应当敞开胸怀，接纳哲学性反思和诗性视野，承担起作为一名写作者的道德责任，书写一种服务于生活的历史。可以说，怀特在打碎经验史学朴素实在论观点的同时，也试图重新解答历史有什么用的问题。在他看来，历史能够引导人们探寻其生活所需的意义和方向。

        This paper is a diachronic study of Hayden White’s reflections upon history and historiography from the late 1950s till his death in 2018. Previous researches by Chinese and western scholars have linked White with postmodernism, narrativism or humanism, trying to get close to his either partial or central ideas. Those studies are inspiring, and there is space for more, hence this thesis, which, combing through White’s general theories, has the attempt to examine the logical development of White’s thoughts and the possible specific instructions, from the perspective of historical discourse, the particular object of White’s concepts.

        Historical discourse, with a certain length (beyond a sentence) and internal integration, means a narration telling and investigating past events and figures, and refers to reality in the past. In the 1970s, White made a formal analysis of historical discourse. He emphasized the mediative role of historical discourse, which connected the phenomenon world presented as messy row materials with modes of conceptualization adopted by historians’ minds to understand and prefigure the phenomenon world. Discourse moves back and forth between them, and eventually fabricates a holistic historical text. More importantly, historical discourse uses figurative language, and the ways for different tropological modes of figurative language to prefigure the phenomenon world are none of the identical. Therefore, with figurative language additional to different modes of conceptualization, historical discourse endows historical facts with diverse and alternative meanings when describing them. What historians represent at last is the mixture of historical facts and their underlying meanings, which suggests, from the perspective of discourse, history cannot equate with historical reality which is trivial and in chaos, but contains still historians’ ethically and aesthetically subjective understanding and interpretation of historical process and meanings.

        White’s analysis of historical discourse receives the influence of western humanities in the 1950s and 1960s, especially structuralism and analytic philosophy of history. In these fields there had been lots of reflections on and doubts about the dominant empiricism of history in the 19th century. White’s analysis whereas, turned out to be a response to the doubts and reflections. However, in the 1980s and later, White’s claims raised intense debates. Opponents questioned White about his ideas from the aspects as the normalization of empirical research, whether reality itself has narrative structure, the tension between language rules and historians’ freedom, and among others. These questions urged White to clarify his opinions against linguistic determinism, and reaffirmed that historians should be self-conscious of the power of language and responsible for the meanings derived from their discourse. Meanwhile, White argued that to discuss the problem of truth there would have been no way to ignore the forms of historical representation, which might potentially serve to justify the figurative elements in historical discourse he had proclaimed.

        Grounded on the important concepts such as modernist writing and figural realism, White developed his studies on the truth of historical discourse after the 1990s. The historical discourse concerned here does not limit itself to the history proper, but includes speculative philosophy of history and historical fiction.  In his discussions, White tried to propose that the nature of reality and possible meanings of phenomenon cannot be grasped without the assistance of literary forms and figura. As a tool of meaning creation, figura owns the ability to endow facts with moral concerns and implied meanings that could inspire readers and encourage them to act. In this regard, the authenticity of historical discourse concerns not only the truth of facts but also the propriety of historical meanings represented in the discourse. The latter, obviously, underlines the ethic dimension of historical discourse. However, White has not prescribed any ethical standards for historians, on the contrary, he defends the freedom of historians to choose and construct meanings for reality. The freedom, however, would force historians to take responsibilities for their own choices.

         White’s thoughts about historical discourse imply his specific ideas on history and historiography. Different from empirical historians who hold the view of studying past for its own sake, White stresses the connection between sense of history and awareness of the present. In his eyes, how people look upon their own humanity and ways toward future would influence their investigations into the past; in turn, how people choose and construct historical meanings would affect their acts in the present. White appeals that historians should open their mind to adopt the philosophical self-reflexivity and a poetic vision, and take the moral responsibilities as a writer to create a history which serves life. It could be safe to say that White has tried to answer the question of what the use of history is while he has dismissed the na?ve empirical ideas on historical realism. He believes that history could lead to the meanings and orientations of people’s lives.