How and why did early modern European ‘travelees’ dispute the accounts of their societies by foreign travel writers? A surprising number did so, challenging travelers’ claims to authority while countering foreign characterizations of their societies as fundamentally different from those of the travelers. This article examines several such rebuttals, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, as new sources for the cultural history of travel as experience. The travelees’ key criticism was that of the travelers’ epistemological limitations. Both travelers and travelees agreed on the importance of eyewitness experience as the basis for knowledge; but travelees effectively argued that even accurate reports of travel experience could be unreliable as the basis for ethnographic knowledge, since foreign travelers lacked the cultural competence to interpret their experiences. In turn, the travelees discussed here put forward their own alternative views of their societies, based on insider knowledge, as more authoritative and reliable. These travelees legitimated their counter‐narratives according to the same standards and protocols as their opponents, arguing for the commensurability of nature, of European cultures and of experience. The reception of their rebuttals suggests, however, that their critics judged such travelee‐polemicists by different standards than they did travelers from their own cultural context.

中文翻译：

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从经验争论：早期现代交流中的旅行者与旅行者

早期现代欧洲“旅行者”如何以及为何对外国旅行作家对其社会的描述提出异议？一个惊人的数字这样做了，挑战旅行者对权威的要求，同时反驳外国对他们社会的描述与旅行者的社会根本不同。本文考察了从 16 世纪到 18 世纪的几个这样的反驳，作为旅行作为体验的文化历史的新来源。旅行者的主要批评是旅行者的认识论局限性。旅行者和旅行者都同意目击者经验作为知识基础的重要性；但旅行者有效地辩称，即使是准确的旅行经历报告作为人种学知识的基础也是不可靠的，因为外国游客缺乏解释他们经历的文化能力。反过来，这里讨论的旅行者根据内部知识提出了他们自己对他们社会的替代观点，因为它们更权威和可靠。这些旅行者根据与他们的对手相同的标准和协议来使他们的反叙事合法化，主张自然、欧洲文化和经验的可通约性。然而，对他们的反驳的接受表明，他们的批评者以不同的标准来评判这些旅行辩论家，而不是根据他们自己的文化背景对旅行者进行评判。这些旅行者根据与他们的对手相同的标准和协议来使他们的反叙事合法化，主张自然、欧洲文化和经验的可通约性。然而，对他们的反驳的接受表明，他们的批评者以不同的标准来评判这些旅行辩论家，而不是根据他们自己的文化背景对旅行者进行评判。这些旅行者根据与他们的对手相同的标准和协议来使他们的反叙事合法化，主张自然、欧洲文化和经验的可通约性。然而，对他们的反驳的接受表明，他们的批评者以不同的标准来评判这些旅行辩论家，而不是根据他们自己的文化背景对旅行者进行评判。