From Oracle Bone Inscriptions to the Discourse Power Shift in “Records of the Grand Historian”: Examining Early Intellectual Liberation in Ancient China

Abstract

When it comes to the historical evolution of thought, the West has the foundational studies of homo sapiens humanism during ancient Greece, while China is marked by the contention of a hundred schools of thought during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. However, in reality, from the oracular monologues of Shang and Zhou dynasty oracle bone inscriptions to the biographies of kings and nobles in the Records of the Grand Historian, the intellectual liberation from divine authority to homo sapiens authority has never ceased. To better study the ideological emancipation in early ancient China, this paper conducts an in-depth analysis of the shift in discursive power—namely, the rise and fall of divine authority and the awakening of Homo sapiens’ inherent rationality alongside the development of Homo sapiens (kingly) authority—by comparing the stylistic structures and recorded content of oracle bone inscriptions with those of the Records of the Grand Historian and Broussonetia papyrifera. Through comparative research, it aims to reveal the developmental process of the gradual transition from divine authority to Homo sapiens authority from the Shang-Zhou period to the Qin-Han era, and on this basis, explores its underlying causes and subsequent historical impacts.