陈寅恪与赫尔德——以了解之同情为中心

CHEN Yin-ke and Herder——A Study Centred on the Idea of Empathy

陈寅恪著作中使用的“了解之同情”一语的源流来自德国启蒙时代的重要思想家赫尔德,此语特指对古代历史、思想、艺术进行一种深入其境的理解和思考并寄予一种同情。陈寅恪使用此词来自其游学欧美的学术阅历,或是翻看西方哲学书籍、史籍,或是借助吴宓的帮助,或是间接来自师友白璧德,以一专门学术用语从德语语境进入汉语语境,作为历史背景看20世纪初期中国学者对西学的借鉴与运用。其次,陈寅恪在中国中古史研究中颇为著名的以文化而非血缘论种族认同的种族文化观和赫尔德在种族文化问题上有共同之处,可能受到赫尔德的文化民族主义思想的启发。

This paper aims to identify the German origin of a well-known Chinese phrase ＂liaojie zhi tongqing＂ used by CHEN Yin-ke, a renowned Chinese historian. This paper argues that this phrase should be rendered from a German word Einftihlung, originally indicating a modem historical methodology in the works of an eighteenth-century German thinker J. G. Herder. CHEN elaborated it in the context of Chinese culture without indicating its German root. By closely reading CHEN＇s works and comparing his interpretation of the term with the German word in Herders works, this paper documented a neglected yet significant chapter about how modem German thought had an impact on Chinese scholars in early twentieth century. Given the contact of CHEN with a Harvard professor Irving Babbitt and Babbitfs citation of Herder, this papersuggests that CHEN might have learned this German term from Babbitt during his study at Harvard. This paper continues to compare CHEN＇s ideas on ethnicity and national culture to Herder＇s influential cultural nationalism, and interestingly it illustrates that CHEN and Herder share some common ideas on ethnicity and its relationship to national culture and identity.