亦谈“科学”为何取代了“格致”.docVIP

亦谈“科学”为何取代了“格致” 【内容提要】 英文“science”最初的含义是知识或学问，进入十九世纪后用来特指自然科学，实证主义兴起之后又开始用来泛指基于数学分析和经验研究的一切学问。在作为“science”译语的“科学”由日本传入中国之前，中国主要用“格致”来对译“science”。这样，“格致”除继续指代与“正心”、“诚意”相关联的修身、明德方法之外，还被用来指称自然哲学、自然科学以及物理学等。当“science”在实证主义科学观的影响下演变成泛指自然科学和社会科学的概念之后，要不要扩大“格致”的解释范围以适应“science”概念的演变便成了一个必须面对的问题。结果是熟悉西方科学发展情况的严复和梁启超都选择了“科学”。于是，放弃语义多歧的“格致”，选用“科学”便逐渐演变成了一种社会潮流。The meaning of English word science varied during different times. Its original meaning is knowledge or learning. When it came into 19th century, this word began to refer to natural science specially. And after the rise of positivism, science means all learning based on mathematical analysis and experience investigation. Before Kexue as the translation of science was introduced into China from Japan, Chinese people mainly used Gezhi as the translation of science. As a result of this, Gezhi was used to refer to natural philosophy, natural science and even physics, except its original meaning-methods of Xiushen and Mingde which are correlative with Zhengxin and Chengyi. When science began to refer to natural science and social science with the impact of positivism, whether or not extend the meaning of Gezhi to adapt the evolvement of meanings of science became an unavoidable problem. It turned out that both Yan Fu and Liang Qichao chose science. Therefore, Kexue finally took the place of Gezhi which referred to too many things and became the translation word of science. 【关 键 词】自然哲学/自然科学/实证主义/“科学”/“格致”????natural philosophy/natural science/positivism/Kexue/GezhiEE83UU8389401 ????中图分类号：N04　文献标志码：A　文章编号：1000-8934(2010)02-0101-05????自杨文衡[1]1981年、樊洪业[2]1988年著文提出了“格致”为何被“科学”取代这一问题之后，王果明[3]、李双璧[4]、朱发建[5]、金观涛[6]、张帆[7]、吴凤鸣[8]等人也先后著文讨论了这一问题。一个并非热门的学术话题在这么短的时间里能够引起这么多学者的关注，而且其中还不乏大家，想必该问题比较重要，大有深入探讨之价值。“科学”取代“格致”应该是多方面的原因共同作用的结果。尽管上述作者所持的问题意识不尽相同，但他们都从各自的视角对“科学”取代“格致”的原因进行了分析。这些分析无疑有助于我们增加对“科学”取代“格致”问题的理解。不过，上述文章基本上都没有触及英文“science”语义的演变及其对“科学”取代“格致”的影响，而“格致”最终被“科学”取代与“格致”不能很好地对应“science”语义的变化不无关系。以下，笔者甘冒狗尾续貂之嫌，拟就这一问题谈些一孔之见。??