什麼是歷史教學中的Historical Empathy？

What is Historical Empathy in History Teaching?

英、美歷史教育主流學者對於historical empathy的主張，偏好理性客觀的歷史理解，反對想像或認同等連結個人經驗與情感的理解。本研究爬梳歷史哲學，並訪談七位歷史學者與五位碩士級以上高中歷史教師，探究historical empathy被如何理解及實踐。研究發現，受訪者對於historical empathy的認知呈現光譜般分布，理性導向者似乎受科學的歷史主義影響較深，認為historical empathy是瞭解歷史脈絡與根據證據的推論判斷；情意導向者則有受後現代主義及浪漫主義之影響痕跡，主張同感、想像與啟發的重要；綜合立場者則較有詮釋學的觀點，主張兼具理性與情意面向的historical empathy，並鼓勵證據之外，運用歷史想像、經驗及個人判斷的歷史思維。本研究支持綜合立場者的觀點，認為「歷史的同情理解」是較貼近的翻譯，並認為歷史教學者有必要瞭解不同的歷史哲學觀如何影響「同情理解」的教學，從而能抉擇自己的教學取向。

Mainstream British and American history education prefers a rational and objective historical understanding, and rejects imagination or identification that connects with personal experiences. To explore how historical empathy is understood and practiced, this research delineated different historiographical orientations of the history discipline and interviewed seven history scholars and five high school history teachers who hold at least a master’s degree. The results showed that the interviewees’ perceptions of historical empathy present a spectral distribution. Those who take the rational stance seem to be influenced by scientific historicism, and perceive historical empathy to be understanding historical contexts and making inferences based on evidence. Those who value emotions seem to be influenced by post-modernism and romanticism, which advocate the importance of sympathy, imagination, and inspiration. Furthermore, those who hold the integrated position embrace a hermeneutic view that historical empathy is both cognitive and affective, which encourages the use of historical imagination and personal experiences, in addition to evidence, for historical understanding and judgment. This paper argues for the integrated view and believes that history teachers must understand how different historiographies affect historical empathy teaching in order to make better judgement about their teaching orientations.