西漢時，諸子思想消沈，儒家經學獨尊，是中國思想文化史上極重要的變化。現代論析的趨向，是跳出了狹義的政府政策措施的考論，而從學術、思想、文化發展的趨勢與政治運作的交互作用上著眼。從短程狹義的考證來看，秦始皇「焚書坑儒」並未使「子學」中絕，漢武帝「獨尚儒術」也未立即使儒學獨尊。就「政治權勢」與「學術思想」(傳統或稱「政統」與「道統」) 的關係而論，文中考詮揭示出現代人用現代人對現代政治的理解去看待古代的政治情況而產生的誤差。二千多年前的秦朝和漢朝雖然建立了大一統帝國和中央集權的專制政制，但在當時的文化水平上(尤其是政府組織及運作的能力及所面對交通、通訊上的困難)，其實際權力施展的規模和範圍相當有限，對學術思想的影響更是有限。諸子思想的沒落，在「事勢」和「事理」上應該另有原因。從長時距來觀察，這種改變代表了古代思想家對論理色彩鮮明的「諸子學說」的反動，認為「徒托空言，不如見諸行事。」因而轉向於積聚經驗， 「實事求是」的「史學思維」。本文兼采「事勢」、「事理」和「哲理」的角度，認為從「諸子義理思想」發展為「漢儒事理思想」是連貫性的發展，不是「中絕」式「衰落」，而是學術思想本身在「認識論」基礎上發展的定向，有其文化精神和學術理念上長遠的意義。

　　　　　 The cause for the decline of ancient Chinese philosophies and the triumph of Confucian classical learning in the Former Han Dynasty (202 B.C.-A.D. 2) has been laid by traditional historians mainly to the "burning of books and proscription of scholarship" by the First Emperor of Qin in 213 B.C. or the establishment of the Confucian orthodoxy by Emperor Wu (r. 140-87 B.C.). Recently, scholarly efforts have been made to offer a more adequate analysis of this very critical development of Chinese cultural history in some arena beyond this narrow political frame. With an intellectual purview broadened by historicist insights or even post-modernist theorizing, and taking into consideration the complex politico-social and the intellectual-cultural changes of that time, it is possible to substantiate the postulation of a developmental continuum between the "pre-Qin schools of thought" and the "Han orthodoxy of classical learning," both subsumed by a mode of "historical or historicist thinking," reflective of the intellectual and political reality experienced during the turbulent years from the late Warring States (early to mid 3 century B.C.) through the Qin (220-206 B.C.) to the early Han (2 nd and 1stcenturies B.C.).