「自然」概念的發展及其意義的轉換

The Concept of “Nature” and Its Development in Classical Chinese Discourse

關於「山水詩」的研究，自是近代以來古典文學研究領域中重要的議 題，而在處理「山水詩」相關問題時，往往涉及「自然」的概念。然而， 將「山水詩」置放在「自然」的概念下展開論述，則無疑是近代學術研究 語境的演變。本文試圖透過古典文化傳統的論述脈絡，探討「自然」一詞 的形成及其語義發展的過程。如追溯「自然」一詞在古典文獻中大致的用 法，則通常用以指稱天地萬物「自己如此」的原理與原則，而非指涉「天 地萬物」的總名，至於在近代的語境中，我們習慣把「自然」一詞視為名 詞，用以指稱外在世界事物的總名，且可以毫不思索的對譯於英文中的 「nature」。如果就目前資料所得，則王國維（1877-1927）在 20 世紀初譯 介日本學者桑木嚴翼（1874-1946）關於哲學的相關著作，大概是「自然」 一詞在近、現代中文語境發展中一個重大的轉折，而近代思想語彙中所指 稱的「自然」的概念與用法，始乃正式進入中國古典文學研究學者論述的 視野與語境。

Concerning the contemporary studies on the classical Chinese poetry of Landscape, or “Shanshui shi,” the theoretical framework has been largely directed to its relations with the conception of “nature.” And yet, “Ziran,” as still active and widespread in current vernacular usage, means that “so of itself” or “spontaneous” in the classical Chinese thought. The term “Ziran” in literary and philosophical discourse also can extend to mean “that which happens from intelligible causes or in accordance with uniform law,” and hence a kind of spontaneity. On the contrary, the term and the concept of “shanshui” originally refers to two categories of the natural world, that is, mountains and rivers, but its later shift of meaning to denote a perceptual outside world captured by poets is not within the context of the classical Chinese term “Ziran.” In this regard, the rise and its subsequent examinations concerning the poetry of landscape in the classical Chinese literary tradition is in no way to do with the term and concept of “Ziran.” It was not until the first decade of the nineteenth century that the modern conception of nature and its term was introduced into the Chinese discourse, be it literary or philosophical. So far as the documents can be traced, Wang Guowei’s (1877-1927) translation of philosophical writings by the Japanese scholar Genyoku Kuwaki (1874-1946) into Chinese in the year of 1902 might be the first step towards the reception and development of modern knowledge and its scholarship in the field of literary studies. Since then, the issues concerning poetry of landscape have been re-examined under the influence of the concept of nature in its Western sense and meaning.