China Social Science Review

No.2, 2022

 

The History of Human Life: Understanding Civilization from a Human Perspective

(Abstract)

 

Liang Yongjia

 

Life history appears to be an auxiliary research method aimed at narrating the life history of individuals, but in fact it constitutes one of the dominant narratives of the world’s major civilizations, characterized by use of biography in narrating the changing and unchanging orders of the universe. By using “indigenous social theory” to understand “total social fact,” Mauss disposes of the social sciences approach of dividing up concrete phenomena with abstract concepts. His arguments prompt us to consider that “life history” may constitute a form of social research that allows us to understand civilizations from a human perspective—a means of comparison that can transcend time and space.