評余英時先生的《朱熹的歷史世界：宋代士大夫政治文化的研究》

On Yu Yingshi's Zhu Xi's Historical World: A Study on the Political Culture of the Scholar-Officials in the Song

本文是對余英時先生《朱熹的歷史世界：宋代士大夫政治文化的研究》一書的評論。全文分為總評及分論兩大部分。在總評部分，本文肯定余書的最大貢獻在於對南宋高、孝、光、寧四朝朝廷政治文化的刻畫，亦即本書下冊的內容。本書在這方面的工作，可以幫助學界了解許多南宋士大夫政治的重要議題。例如，歷史中的「道學」集團所指為何，南宋道學家的政治活動，士大夫政治與宰執、皇權的關係，以及南宋朝廷對學術禁制的種種因素。在分論部分，本文認為作者在上冊提出的一些大現象的解讀，都有不少問題，如「後三代」、「與士大夫共治天下」、「國是法度化」等等論述。本文並對這些議題，詳加討論，以顯出作者在敘史、詮史時的問題，並認為這些問題正證實了後現代思潮對於人文學科反省的重要性。

This article reviews Yu Yingshi's book, Zhu Xi's Historical World: A Study on the Political Culture of the Scholar-Officials in the Song. It contains two parts. The first part indicates the contribution of the book: detailing the court politics of the first four emeperors in the Southern Song. The book helps readers understand several important issues of the political culture of the Southern Song scholar-officials, such as what the designation “daoxue” 道學meant politically; how the daoxue scholars acted potically; what was the relationship between the scholar-official politics, the primary minister, and the emperor; and the historical factors to ban Neo-Confucianism. In the second part, this article critically reexamines what the author proposes in each chapters. It argues that in many issues the author either over-interpreted or misread the historical documents. Therefore, several statements made by the author should be accepted cautiously or even rejected, such as the linkage between the Northern Song political culture with the term, “hou sandai” 後三代 (the Later Three Dynasty), the over-emphasis of the idea of “ruling the world with the scholar-officials”, the legalization of the national statement (guoshi 國是). Aside from the historical issues, this article also inspects how the author wrote history, and contends that what the author did is exactly in accordance with what the postmodern theorists propose which is attacked by the author seriously. In conclusion, this book is good for whomever interested in all aspects of the Song to read. However historians who want to cite the author's opinions must be very cautious and had better to reexamine them.