《文本簡介》Asia in the Making of Europe Volume II Book Three

Introduction to Texts Before 1800

主題 Topic	世紀奇聞：The Scholarly Disciplines A Century of Wonder: The Visual Arts
書刊名 Title	《由亞洲建構歐洲》第二卷第三冊 Asia in the Making of Europe Volume II Book Three
作者 Author	Donald F. Lach
出版社 Publisher	The University of Chicago Press
出版年 Year	1993
語言 Language	英文 English
裝訂 Binding	□ 平裝 Paperback　　　　■精裝 Hardcover
頁數 Pages	368 pages
ISBN (10 / 13)	ISBN-10: 0226-46734-1
Bibliography Reference	(STC, Duff, GW . . .)
來源網址 Web Link
劇本簡介撰稿者	李祁芳、林柏豪
撰寫日期 Date	15 July 2015

A.   簡介 Introduction (within 100 words, Chinese or English)

 在十六世紀文藝復興時期，學問的分析與分類，並非與現代學科一樣可以清楚按學科分門別類。以當時的宇宙結構學為例，它就綜合了地理、歷史、數學、天文學、航海術。文藝復興時期學習所強調的是探究學科間的關係，而非單獨一門學門的鑽研。文藝復興時期的知識份子對於普世主題的追求不遺餘力。他們比較注重且追根究底的是上帝與人及自然間的關係，以及藝術與科學間的相關性，而較不強調各個領域間的學術方法。在探索的過程中，他們在我們現今所說的各個領域內外，追尋何謂古典與宗教權力，將之與他們當代之觀察與結論做比較、並在傳統與現代間嘗試找到可化解衝突的方法，
    相較於文藝復興時期的教會中的知識分子，俗世的人文學者致力於復甦非基督教的古典經典，然而，在基督教的強力影響下，當時的普遍信念是希望俗世人文學者的治學可以融合古典研究與基督教傳統。而信仰正統基督教之教會學者與神學家則相反，他們將歷史視為是一個乾淨、毫無原罪的過去，在當中，人類只講一種共同的語言，且在唯一真神上帝的引領下滿足生活。這兩種互相衝突的治學理念，讓彼此的緊張關係長久存在，並在宗教改革後逐漸惡化。百年後，兩派人馬皆被後進強調經驗主義的提倡者所嘲諷，因為他們缺乏了與學問普及面的整合與應用。
對我們來說很明顯的是，無論是任一派別或是兩派融合的學說皆無法解釋並包含海外所發現的事物。新教徒的存在以及美洲和亞洲所發現的異教徒，都證明了基督教對世界有普世價值的斷言是錯誤的，這也削弱了教會長久以來的信譽以及它的學術傳統。在不摧毀傳統的學習框架的前提下，許多新興學者致力於發展既有領域的視角，以延伸舊有的知識系統，或者是重新詮釋教會教義以容納新知。這樣做，有些案例成功，有些失敗。在十六世紀，治學之道發生了很多改變，特別是對於某些無法跨自我設限的領域。
歐洲的學術因為東方的發現以及舊有概念的衝突而有所改變，而純理論的學問最晚受到改變，這是因為純理論研究最晚接觸到地理大發現。各個領域的實做者，而非理論家，最先受到東方的衝擊。舉凡工匠、煉金術師、製圖師、詞典編纂者、首當其衝。而墨守理論的藝術家、化學家、地理學家、語言學家於其後。且這些實做者比遵循理論的人更為容易接受新的知識觀念。因為那些效法古典正典與教會的學者不承認傳統知識的不足與錯誤，也因此他們在於接受新知的腳步上總是慢了許多。
在所有自然科學中，新興學科植物學因受海外地理探索的關係，最為正在蓬勃發展的歐洲科學探究所影響。長久附屬於宇宙結構學的地理學，也因為新知的傳入，所涵蓋之範圍變得更加深廣與務實。學習語言及地理的學子比其他學門的學生能更加快速習得這些大量的新知。他們也能快速地將歐洲與亞洲的事物串聯，並發展出新的技術文獻與假設。植物學者更是排除了過去的禁錮，在新知的壓力下，審視過去的觀念並且開始以嶄新的組織方法來實驗。然而當海外之開展幫助削弱傳統學術權力之威望，知識分子要完全取代過去並且整合所有新知並非指日可待，還有好長的路要走。

B.   文本摘錄 Extracts (4-6 Pages)

An analytical ordering of scholarship, consonant with the intellectual activities of the sixteenth century, cannot be made successfully within the framework of modern learning, divided as it is into separate matter and methodology. In an era when cosmography combined the studies of geography history, mathematics, astronomy and navigation the stress in scholarship was upon the interrelatedness of disciplines rather than upon their individual internal arrangement and development. Renaissance intellectuals showed no hesitation in pursuing universal topics, often preferring them to critical inquiry within a narrowly defined field of study. They were more deeply concerned about the relationships of God and man to nature and about the correlations between the arts and sciences than they were about discovering the intellectual approaches most suitable to the various sciences. In the course of their investigations they searched the classical and religious authorities, compared those findings with contemporary observations and conclusions, and sought to reconcile the conflicts discovered between traditional and recent learning, both within and among what we call separate disciplines.
  Secular Humanists worked to recover the best of the Ancients, but prevailing beliefs often required them to blend classical learning with Christian traditions. Orthodox scholars and theologians also liked backward, but what they saw was a pristine past in which a sinless mankind spoke one universal tongue and lived contentedly doing the bidding of the one true God. Tension between the secular and the Christian had long existed in many speculative fields of scholarship and was exacerbated in all branches of learning by the Reformation and its aftermath. Over the course of the century the knowledge of both the classical and religious authorities was challenged and sometime openly derided as inadequate or inaccuracy by the proponents of a newer learning which upheld the primacy of empirical and demanded, though unavailingly, new syntheses of universal dimension and applicability.
  It was quite apparent to many contemporaries that neither classical nor Christian learning, nor a combination of the two, could explain or encompass what was being discovered overseas. The very existence of the Protestants, as well as the multitudes of heathens found in America and Asia, belied the church’s claim to universality and undermined the credibility of much of its traditional learning. Efforts were made in all aspects of scholarship to stretch established boundaries or to reinterpret conventional doctrine in an effort t accommodate the new information without destroying the traditional structures of learning. In some cases the accommodation was adequate; in others it failed. Basic changes soon came, even in the sixteenth century, to those disciplines whose theoretical limits would stretch no further.
  The reactions in scholarly Europe to the opening of the East were conditioned by the character of the disciplines involved as well as by the reigning intellectual conflicts. Speculative scholarship was touched last, and perhaps least obviously, by the new geographical revelations. The practitioners of each discipline were the first absorb the shock of the new discoveries: artisans rather than artists, alchemists rather than chemists, cartographers rather than geographers, lexicographers rather than linguists were the ones first exposed. As a group the practitioners were more receptive than theoreticians to the new products and information of Asia and found little trouble in accommodating them. The scholars learned in the canons of Antiquity and the church were less willing to admit the inadequacy or error of traditional learning and consequently were slow to adjust their intellectual perspectives.
  Among the natural sciences the newly independent discipline of botany was the most deeply influenced by the broadening of Europe’s scientific horizons. Geography, long the handmaiden of cosmography, reasserted independence as its domain suddenly became enlarged and more clearly defined as earthbound. Students of language and geography were quicker than most others to grasp the idea that the theories of the past governing their disciplines were too narrow to contain the flood of new scientific information that poured into Europe. They were also quicker to incorporate the Asian materials, as they became available, into new technical literature and hypotheses. The botanists, even more than the geographers and linguists, impatiently brushed aside the authorities of the past and under pressure of new knowledge began to reevaluate general concepts and to experiment with novel organizing principles for their disciplines. While the opening of the overseas world helped to erode the prestige of the established authorities, it would be a long time before new syntheses emerged to replace those of the past and to accommodate fully the new knowledge.