經學研究新視域：從“知識轉型”開展“經學學術史”的研究———從歷代經數與經目的變化談起

From Six to Twenty-one Classics—The Expansion and Paradigmatic Shift of Classical Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.

“中國近代知識轉型”是一個龐大的研究工程。欲探討這個東西方學術交會衝擊與裂變的議題，至少得從兩個大方向進行，一是西方近代科學式知識如何在中國建構，包括體制與觀念；一是傳統中國學術在近代如何轉變。本人一向致力研究後一議題，一方面想了解傳統中國學術是否有一知識體系，一方面則探討傳統學術在近代早期亦即明清以降的變化，並試著梳理出傳統學術的分化與開放的可能性。

欲探討傳統學術的變化，“經學”———這個處於傳統學術中心並和政治極度結合的學術載體毫無疑問是一焦點。本文即以經學爲主題，觀察它在明清尤其是清代乾嘉以降的變化情形，並解釋這種變化的學術意義。欲研究經學，議題與角度極其繁多。本文則把主綫放在經數與經目的變化上，從歷代經數與經目的變化來觀察經學的學術轉變意義，尤其把重點放在18、19世紀———也就是清代中期考據學最興盛的乾隆、嘉慶、道光時段，事實上經數與經目的變化也以這個時期最爲劇烈。這個研究主題的意義，不僅欲指出傳統經典中的正統與流派，同時也想證明在知識擴張的晚清，“經學已不能構成單獨的學術權威”，以期彰顯正統之外的知識界是如何面對知識擴張與典範轉移的新學術局面。换言之，傳統中國學術的變化，經典未必只在内部以詮釋的方式作變遷，它很可能遭受其他鄰近學科的挑戰，而産生性質上的大變化。

“Constructing Modern Knowledge in China, 1600-1949” is a topic of large scope and special significance. To explore colossal research project, I propose two basic approaches: First, to examine the differentiation of knowledge that was already occurring in traditional Chinese scholarship, including the rise of new fields and classifications of knowledge. Second, to explore the construction and practice of Western knowledge in China. Without the latter, it is impossible to grasp the overall development of Chinese modernity; without the former, it is impossible to understand how the system and nature of traditional scholarship clearly established the position of Chinese scholarship and opened up a dialog between China and the West. I have devoted my research to the internal dynamics and evolution of traditional Chinese scholarship and would like to address the fundamental question: Given the dynamics and evolution, was there a unity of intellectual system in traditional China? To do so, I have been studying the change of scholarship in early modern China and attempting to analyze how traditional Chinese scholarship could differentiate, specialize and maintain an open system.

To examine the intellectual change in early modern China, I focus on classical knowledge — the prestigious location of both politics and culture in China for millennia. Previously historians had adopted many perspectives to study classical knowledge in early modern China. In this paper, I will investigate the evolution of the numbers of Classics and versions of the Confucian canon in order to shed new light on the history of classical knowledge and its cultural implication. Over the past two millennia, the numbers of Classics and versions of the Confucian canon changed in accord with contemporaneous political and intellectual contexts and intensified during the peak of evidential scholarship movement, roughly spanning from Qianlong, Jiaqing, and Daoguang reigns [1730-1850]. My research will not only discern the imperial orthodoxy from different version of classical knowledge but also show that classical knowledge could no longer be the sole academic authority in late Qing China. I would like to demonstrate that the discursive space craved out for classical knowledge in High Qing China was indeed more energized and active than we previously assumed. Moreover, the transformation of the classical knowledge in Qing China was not merely an internal evolution of classical knowledge itself but also an outcome of rapid change of academic disciplines as well.

The multifarious and intensified change of the numbers of Classics and versions of the Confucian canon in the nineteenth century can be found in the new arrangement of twenty-one Classics by Duan Yucai (1735-1815), ten classics by Shen Tao (1792-1855), a different justification of twenty-one Classics by Liu Gongmian (1824-1883), and the new justification of orthodox version of the Confucian canon in Six Classics espoused by Gong Zizhen (1792-1841).

As a result, the traditional classical knowledge had already significantly expanded and even shifted paradigmatically before the advent of the industrial West. The emergence of these new branches of specialized knowledge in the Confucian canon demonstrates the expansion and paradigmatic shift of classical knowledge during the nineteenth century. I shall call it the germination of modern specialization in China. This sort of differentiation within the traditional classical knowledge was an indispensible step toward the construction of modern knowledge in China. The academic prototype in modern China should be traced to the specialization of classical knowledge in the Qing dynasty.