赵仪文 澳门利氏学社
Camus, Yves, Macau Ricci Institute
原文Original
中国研究中的文化对话——反思与挑战
在学界，有关中国的研究——它的语言、文字、历史、文化、文学艺术、思潮、社会、经济和精神传统——现在被归于三个主要术语之内：汉学，中国研究和国学。本文首先要谈论的是，这些术语在相关学科历史中相似性，以及它们在当下运用中的差异性。
事实上，目前学界普遍认同一点，即对中华文明和文化的直接认识并不是始于马可·波罗或伊本·巴图塔的旅行日记，而是始于利玛窦在中国18年的生活经历。然而，利玛窦在文化对话中使用的友好而学术的方法却在百年后退化为一场权力意志和文化的冲突，即“中国礼仪之争”。
利玛窦的后继者们就是在这样的背景下学习中国经典并将这些典籍翻译成拉丁文的。这些经典都被引入了欧洲学术界。于是，这门以拉丁文Sinologia为名的学科由此诞生并稳步发展。这些在欧洲出版的中国典籍译著和注释，以及一些私人信件（也以《耶稣会士中国书简集》<Lettres édifiantes et curieuses>为名编辑出版），都引起了启蒙时代的某些所谓的“哲学家”的极大兴趣，如莱布尼茨、伏尔泰和孟德斯鸠等人。
但是这种兴趣是以某种程度的扭曲为代价的：哲学家们将中国经典剥离出它们在中国历史中的语境，将中华帝国的真实情况理想化，以便能与他们自己的论述一致，并将其大力推广，作为反对当时欧洲专治统治的理性之光。这种类型的文化接触已经被幻想模糊了。而真正学习并教授中文的机构直到1732年才在意大利那不勒斯建立起来，建立者名叫马国贤，是一位曾去过中国的传教士。巴黎的一些学者在两名中国年轻人的帮助下也开始学习和教授中文。但直到1814年，“法兰西学院”才设立了第一个中国和满族研究的教席。雷慕沙（Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat）得到了这个教席，现代汉学也因此迎来了一个新的起点。
在此起点上，中国研究及其相关的许多领域都在西方展开了。本文将提及最有影响的一批学者。但是需要指出的是：在提到汉学或中国研究之时，无论是从语言学到历史学、从古代典籍到诗歌和文学、还是从政治制度到道教或佛教学派等，中国在这些众多学科中仍然只是一个“研究对象”。尽管最近对于中华文明和文化在世界历史中的特殊性有一些争议，但对于从事中国研究的学者们以及他们那些从事国学研究的中国同事们来说，这也许正是勇敢地面对反思和挑战的时刻。
译文Translation
Cultural Dialogue through Chinese Studies: Reflections and Challenges
Studies on China ― its language, script, history, culture, arts and letters, currents of thought, society, economy, and spiritual traditions ― are now known in the academic world under three main terms, namely Sinology, Chinese Studies and National Studies. Some remarks on the similarities of the terms in the history of the concerned disciplines and the differences in their present usage will first be addressed in this paper as an introduction to its topic.
There is in fact a general agreement to date the beginning of a direct knowledge of Chinese civilisation and culture, not to the age of travel diaries by Marco Polo or Ibn Battuta, but to the living experience in China by Matteo Ricci for some eighteen years. Yet his friendly and scholarly approach in a cultural dialogue degenerated one hundred years later into a clash of wills and cultures known as the Chinese Rites Controversy.
Such is the background that accompanied the efforts of Ricci’s successors in studying and translating in Latin the Chinese Classics. Those were to be introduced to the European academe. Hence the discipline first known by its Latin name as Sinologia was born and developed steadily. These translations and commentaries published in Europe and accompanied by personal letters (also edited and published under the title of Lettres édifiantes et curieuses), both attracted great interest from the part of the so-called “philosophers” of the Age of Enlightenment, mainly Leibnitz, Voltaire and Montesquieu.
But it had been at a price of some distortions: the Chinese Classics had been presented out of their historical context in Chinese history, so much so that the Philosophers idealised the real state of the Chinese empire as conformed to their agenda, and used the former to promote in Europe the light of reason against the absolute political power of the time. Such cultural encounter was blurred with illusions. But institutions that would really study and teach Chinese were established, first in Naples in 1732 by Matteo Ripa, a missionary in China. Some scholars in Paris, with the help of two young Chinese, started also to learn and teach Chinese. But it was only in 1814 that the “Collège de France” founded a chair of Chinese and Manchu studies. With Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat who was given the position, modern Sinology had received a new start.
With it, the age of Chinese Studies with their many fields was open in the West. Mention of the most influential scholars will be made. With a reservation nevertheless: in speaking of Sinology or of Chinese Studies, in these many disciplines, from linguistics to history, from Classics to poetry and letters, from political institutions to Daoist or Buddhist schools, etc., China remains an “object” of study. Despite some recent controversies related to the specificity of the Chinese civilisation and culture in the history of the world, it is perhaps high time that scholars in Chinese Studies and their colleagues in National Studies dare confront their reflections and challenges.