中國歷史思考中的秦帝國經驗

The Ch'in Unification in Chinese Historiography

公元前221年，六王畢，四海一，秦始皇統一中國。秦帝國之興亡一直是二千年來中國歷史思考中的重要事件，中國知識份子從秦經驗中汲取「教訓」。本文以秦帝國為具體個案，分析中國歷史思想中的諸多問題。本文共分五節，第一節是引言，說明本文之問題意識。第二節分析中國歷史思考本質上是一種道德思考，中國知識份子是為「現在」及「未來」而「過去」。第三節探討漢代以降中國知識份子歷史意識中，秦帝國的正反兩面之涵義。第四節分析中國歷史思考中「道」既是「規律」又是「規範」之雙重性格，及其所引發的對歷史中的「惡」之缺乏解釋力之問題。本文第五節則綜合全文論述，提出結論性看法。

This article attempts at scrutinizing the peculiarities of Chinese historical thinking via a study of the Chinese reflection on the Ch'in experience. We survey the Chinese intellectuals' and historians' reflections upon the Ch'in empire and argue that Chinese historical thinking is essentially moral thought; traditional Chinese historical scholarship is the study of ethics in its own right. To better analyze the ethical concerns of Chinese historical thinking, the second section of this paper begins with a study of the characteristics of Chinese thinking; the third section deals with the negative and positive moral judgments that the Chinese intellectuals had extrapolated from their reading of the Ch'in experience; the fourth section inquires into the two-foldness of the notion of tao in Chinese historical thinking; the final section concludes with some reflections on the difficulties in Chinese historical thinking.