多元與辯證的時間觀--讀費爾南.勃羅代爾⋘歷史和社會科學:長時段⋙(History and the Social Sciences: The Longue Duree)

Concept of Time: Introduction and Comment on the Idea of Fernand Braudel

歷史是時間的科學，但是如何處理時間的問題，一直沒有令人滿意的答案，直到勃羅代爾提出他的時間觀，才有了較具說服力的說法。眾所周知，勃氏乃年鑑學派的一代大師，他清楚地將該學派的時間觀加以理論化及系統化，亦即提出了短時段、中時段及長時段的歷史時間觀，與之對應的為事件的、政經趨勢匯流的，以及長時期結構性的，從此三種時間觀來觀察分析歷史現象，歷史時間不再是平面或是直線的，而是三度空間立體式的；換言之，藉由勃氏的時間觀，使得史家較能夠處理歷史的問題。本文即是對此歷史時間觀的介紹。

History is a science of time. But, as to how to handle the problem of time, no satisfactory answers were available until Braudel presented his concept of time, Braudel was an important figure of the Annales School. Based on his research, he theorized and systematized the concept of time, and presented a three tiered concept of time, that is, short, mid-range and long time. Correspondingly, he postulated event(a point of time), convergence(several scores of years of the converge of social, political and economical trends) and structure(long time ecological and social structure) in the process of history. Looking at historical phenomena through this perspective, we can understand that history is no longer one dimensional and linear, but three dimensional, In other words, with the Braudel's concept of time, historians can now better treat historical problems.