论先秦儒家“礼”观念的层次及其意义

On the Level and Significance of Confucian “Rites” before Qin Dynasty

孔子重“复礼”,而礼的核心是等级观念,因此学界多称其政治上保守。但当时有等级观念者非仅儒之一家,不应以此观念定性儒家政治上的进步与保守。从层次上看,儒家赞同的等级观念包含着大量人类文明信息,不但不保守,而且非常先进,对今天的政治生活仍有一定参考价值。

Confucianism puts “rites” in the center of its system and hierarchy is the core of courtesy. For this reason, the academic world regards it as politically conservative. But in that period Confucianism was not the only school which had the notion of ranking, so it was unreasonable to define Confucianism as politically progressive or conservative. Hierarchically speaking, ranking system in Confucianism comprises large amount of human civilization. It is not conservative, but very progressive and still can be of great value to present day political life. The thesis analyses the hierarchy of Confucius＇ “rites” from three aspects： first, compared with old aristocrat, Legalists and Mohist School, hierarchical system in Confucianism is the most progressive one; Second, the connotative information of Chinese civilization in Confucius hierarchy system; Third, the new visual angle about human in Confucianism.