中国社会早期海洋观念的演变

Evolution of Ocean Concept in Early Chinese Society

传统中国以农业立国,农耕生产方式对土地的依附决定了这一国家的内陆属性。但是,这并不意味着传统中国是与海洋绝缘的国家,相反,它背靠大陆、面向海洋的地理格局决定了其价值选择在大陆与海洋之间往复摆荡的特性,也决定了走向海洋是其重要的取向。从历史看,中国社会早期对海洋的认知大致包括如下几个方面:第一,华夏民族共同体的形成主要源自"面向大陆"和"面向海洋"两种文明体系的交汇,这使中国文化在其初成时期即包蕴了深厚的海洋基因;第二,中国社会早期对海洋的发现,基本遵循了黄河→渤海→东海→南海逐步放大的路径,并最终形成陆海并济的国家地理观念;第三,海洋空间的深广和无限,对中国人的海洋认知和想象构成考验,所谓陆海并济的天下观,主要表现为从陆地经验向海洋想象的挪移和展开;第四,农耕文明对水或河流价值的体认,最终导致了在哲学层面对海洋价值的极端肯定。大海被视为众流的归宿和水的本源,这使传统的陆地中心观念有了向海洋中心发生反转的可能性。从史籍看,这种反转完成于魏晋时期,重要的表现是海洋成为哲学反思的对象,中国传统的道论、元气论至此蜕变为一种"以水为本"的海洋宇宙论。

Traditional China is a continent country led by agriculture,but that does not mean that ocean is out of people＇s consciousness. In fact,the formation of Chinese nation from the historical perspective to a large extent arises from the inter- section of the two civilization systems： the systems of continent and ocean, and the discovery of ocean starts from the Yellow River to the 13o Sea to the East China Sea and finally to the South China Sea. Meanwhile, the acknowledgement of the value of water in the Chinese agricultural civilization ultimately leads to the extreme affirmation of the value of ocean at the philo- sophical level,an ideology formed in the Wei and Jin Period, when the Taoist and primordial essence theories are simultane- ously disintegrated into a kind of ocean-universe ideology based on water.