「人」與「民」語意的撕裂與誤導：孫子兵法的敵、我之辨

Two Peoples Separated by a Common Language: Friend or Foe in Sun Tzu's The Art of War

閱讀孫子兵法，讀者多半將內容中的「人」與「民」解讀為「我方人馬」。這兩個字相關字眼如國民、敵人，也明白易曉，不難解讀。但學者李零認為：孫子某些篇章，此二字單獨使用時有特殊涵義，他並將「人」與「民」分別解讀為「敵人」與「我方人馬」。李零是指出此二字在孫子兵法中有不同意義的唯一學者，如此帶領了我們了解孫子其實想在兵法中表達的微妙意圖。但此舉明顯地扭轉了兵法宗旨，甚至將此經典變成另類兵法，在其中「將」者所欲對付的對象變成了自己的人馬，而非敵人。李零將「人」與「民」二字做更精細定義，以此研究孫子兵法所牽涉的敵我，想法固然有趣，但我人也應對此二字有正確了解，以確保孫子學說真諦。既然兵者國之大事，孫子處理這兩個字定然不致草率，所以，假定他故意含糊其辭以誤導讀者，此說得失極大，因此我人認為有必要檢視李零說法是否正確，本論文將首先說明李零見人所未見的觀點，其次則檢討其說對中國戰略思維的誤導。

For the most part, readers tend to accept Sun Tzu's uses of ‘ren' (人) and ‘min' (民) to refer to ‘our men.' These two words are self-explanatory and straightforward. However, there are occasions in which Sun Tzu seems to use ‘ren' and ‘min' differently when the word is used singly, especially when he uses these two words one by one in the same paragraph. Li Ling claims that ‘ren' refers to ‘the enemy' while ‘min' refers to ‘our men.' Li Ling is the only scholar who claims Sun Tzu purposely differentiated between the uses of these terms, and leads us to a new understanding of the nuances Sun Tzu may wish to express when he purposely chooses these two different words in a single sentence. In so doing, however, he also twists the main theme of this masterpiece and transforms it into the art of another war in which a general fights against his own people instead of his enemy. It is interesting to read Sun Tzu through Li's lens which shows that friend and foe are more rigidly defined, but we must differentiate between the two terms to ensure we know what Sun Tzu really tries to convey. The lack of mutual understanding of the meaning of ‘min' and ‘ren' has significant consequences for interpreters and readers alike, for, if warfare is a matter of life and death, Sun Tzu would not have been so careless with his use of these important terms. It is a huge risk to assume he does it purposely and intends to mislead his readers; therefore, it is worthwhile to find out if Li is correct in his assumption about these two terms. This paper intends to explain firstly how Li retrieves the claimed nuances Sun Tzu would wish to express, and secondly to study the misleading relevance of Sun Tzu in Chinese strategic thinking.