Abstract:

It is generally believed that there is a contradiction between academic conversation and political revolution in ZHANG Tai-yan.His rejection of the newly excavated documents at that time was considered as a typical example of his academic conversation.However,we cannot simply claim that ZHANG "always rejected" excavated documents,or "first was skeptical but finally convinced of" them.ZHANG did acknowledge the truth of some oracle bones in his old age,although still questioned the decipherment.He also acknowledged the truth of most bronzes as well as the decipherment before the Song Dynasty,while questioned the decipherment after the Song Dynasty.He praised highly the literary significance of The Stone Inscriptions in Three Character Styles,as well as Chencang Stone Drum,and even claimed that it had the same status with Shuo Wen Jie Zi.By studying ZHANG's attitudes towards excavated documents,we can see his respect for the inherent logic in the academic field and find out that he cannot be simply characterized by an academic conservative.Furthermore,both of ZHANG's relative radical attitude in the political field and his spirit of preciseness in the academic field are based on his profound recognition of disciplines in different fields.In spite of their contradiction at the first glance,they are consistent and correspond to each other.

Key words: ZHANG Tai-yan, political field, academic field, discipline, recognition