《論語》編纂對孔子學說的形成及詮釋的影響

The impacts of the compilation of the Analects on the formation and interpretations of Confucius’ doctrine

過去兩千多年以來，《論語》一直被公認為是研究孔子最原始和最重要的材料。《論語》這種高度的「透明性」很容易令人忽略了它自身的文本性質，「《論語》中的孔子」與「歷史上的孔子」幾乎可以劃上等號。然而隨著近數十年出土文獻的發現，《論語》的中心地位漸漸動搖起來，其文本敘述的性質亦開始受到關注。從詮釋的角度看，今本《論語》多少滲透著編者對孔子的理解，因為編纂的過程不免對孔子學說有所別擇與剪裁，呈現出編者企圖建構的孔子學說。除此之外，《論語》箴言式的引錄形式亦令書中所述孔子話語出現獨特的意義轉化，制約及引導著後世學者對該書的解讀。鑒於這方面的問題尚未得到充分的討論，本文擬通過《論語》與其他傳世及出土文獻中相似記述的比較，從敘事詳略、學術觀念和論述重點等細微異同的分析中，闡明《論語》以輯記編纂的方式所建構的孔學特徵，並且探討這種文體所衍生的各種詮釋效果。

 

Throughout the past two thousand years, the Analects is unanimously regarded as the most original and essential materials for the studies of Confucius. The extreme transparency of the Analects tends to conceal the textual nature of its own, which almost makes the “textual Confucius” in the Analects identical to the “historic Confucius”. However, since the discovery of many unearthed documents in the last few decades, the central status of the Analects has been shaken and its textual and narrative attributes has drawn much more attention. From a hermeneutical point of view, the present Analects inevitably reflects the editors’ understanding of Confucius’ doctrines because they could selectively extract related materials in the compilation process, and thus construct their own Confucian doctrines. Furthermore, the aphoristic style of extraction tacitly altered the meaning of Confucius’ discourses, which restricted and guided scholars of the later generations in interpreting the book. Given that these issues are not yet fully addressed, this article will compare similar narratives arising in the Analects and other present or unearthed documents. Through the analysis of the subtle similarities and differences among them, which includes the length of narratives, its academic ideas and the themes in the discussion, the article will illustrate how the compilation of the Analects shaped the characteristics of Confucian doctrines, and examine the interpretative significances derived from such kind of genre.