| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 歷史學研究所 === 95 === The concept of civilization originated from the historical consciousness of the intellectuals in the eighteenth century. Foreseeing the coming of a new era, these intellectuals proposed a handful of reconstruction plans for an expecting society, and debated the appropriate ways in the future progress. The concept of civilization represents two correlating ideas: the first is the reinterpretation of the past, and the second is the ideal objective of the progress of history. The modern usage of the word civilization is to denote either the different stages and progress of the history or the ideal state of society. The different modern usages show that there must be a final goal and direction in historical process; namely the concept of civilization is teleological. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the concept of civilization was the idea of linear progress: history would progress through different but definite stages and keep evolving until achieving the ideal state of society. It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that few people found the clash between the reality of human nature and the ideal state of historical development and started to doubt the concept of their contemporaries.
The thesis treats “civilization” as a historical and humanistic concept. The thesis investigates the origin and the characteristics of the concept in the nineteenth century, and its changes from the end of the nineteenth century to the end of the WWI. An attempt to interpret the historical meaning and significance of the change of concept between the centuries would be made. Through the discussion above, the author in the end would try to describe the characteristics of modern civilization and the probable direction of the future development of “our” civilization.
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