Interrogating Qi Shan Again: History, Law and Evidence Science

Within the scope of history and law, there is a relatively common cognition, which are essentially evidence science. However, since Sima Qian said that the ultimate ideal goal of historians is “creating a philosophy of my own”, the theory of historiography has been promoted continuously by local and overseas historians. This theory involves the understanding of historical materials and the importance of the narrative factor of history writing. The theoretical reflection of law on its own discipline also has a linguistic turn, and researchers begin to pay more attention to the description and narrative of society in a legal sense. From the perspective of the theory and nature of law and history, these two subjects both are aiming to apply their own understanding and interpretation on the selected text or other evidences to tell a single coherent story. At the level of practice and operation of these two subjects; the historical materials and evidence are artificially selected by analyzing and summarizing them. These two subjects both rely on these “indirect story” to find facts. On these basis, they eventually present their own sets of understanding and narrative logic. Neither history nor law should be called as evidence science in the absolute sense.