主持人语

Introduction to the Special Theme

萧萐父先生是著名哲学家与哲学史家,他生于1924年1月。为纪念萧先生诞辰一百周年,本刊特地邀约了四位学者撰写专题论文。萧先生继承侯外庐先生的思想,通过对中西方走向近代,对沉重封建包袱进行自我批判的思想史过程的比较,表彰了明末清初所出现的早期启蒙思潮,论定这一思潮的政治和学术倾向已显然区别于封建传统意识形态,具有了对专制主义和蒙昧主义实行自我批判的性质。

Xiao Jiefu inherited the philosophical ideas of Professor Hou Wailu侯外庐(1903±1987).Through a comparative examination of the intellectual history of China and the West in their paths to modernity and their critical thinking about the heavy burden of feudalism,he highlighted the Early Enlightenment Movement in the late Ming(1368±1644)and early Qing(1644±1911)dynasties.Xiao argued that both the political and academic communities during the movement tended to develop in a direction that clearly diverged from traditional feudal ideology,and showed a tendency toward self-criticism of despotism and obscurantism.In his view,China had its own philosophical enlightenment or renaissance,which did not begin with the Neo-Confucianism of the Song dynasty(960±1279),but rather with the critical rejection of the entirety of Song±Ming Confucianism,including the School of Principle and the School of the Heart-Mind.It was precisely by breaking free from the intellectual constraints of the Song±Ming Confucian doctrines that the preliminary awakening of humanism occurred.During the Ming and Qing dynasties,our nation witnessed a number of enlightened giants with a heterodox character,who embarked on the cause of forging their anew tools.