多樣性和融合之間：想像合流

Between Diversity and Harmony: Envisioning Confluences

受臺灣大學人文社會高等研究院主辦的國際學術研討會之邀，我們對「東亞思想的互動與融合」的中文議題進行了重新審視。在我看來，中文主題裡所採用的「融合」一詞應該具有 'assimilation' 或 'integration' 的含義；而英文主題中的 'confluence' 則是「合流」之意，含有水流匯合積聚而成河流的意象。那麼英文會議之主題是否受到了中文主題「融合」的影響呢？無論如何，作為回應，我首先回顧了我幾十年來對中國傳統中以及東亞與西方文化之間思想互動的研究。這一總結回顧為我的觀點提供了背景。在此基礎之上，我對通過關注 'confluence 合流' 可能的含義來推測東亞及全球不同傳統間理想的相互交流的觀點表達了不同意見。

An international conference at National Taiwan University's Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences invited us to reexamine 'Interactions and Confluences in East Asian Thought'. The Chinese theme utilized the term 融合 (i.e. assimilation or integration), rather than 'confluence'. 'Confluence' conveys, to me, an image of streams joining and flowing together to become a river. Did the Chinese theme influence the conception of the English conference on confluence? In any case, responding to the conference announcement, I reflected on my decades of studying interactions within Chinese traditions and between East Asian and Western cultures. After summarizing these reflections to provide a context for my viewpoint, I raise some reservations about possible implications of the focus on 'confluences' as a projection of desired interactions between diverse traditions within East Asia and globally.