先秦儒家历史理性的觉醒

The Awakening of Confucian Historical Reason in the Pre-Qin Dynasty

在古代中国的诸种理性中,历史理性居于主导地位,它起源于西周初年对天的怀疑和民心的发现,表现为对历史变化及其恒常根据之关系的理性思考。先秦儒家发扬光大了这一传统,认为历史变化有常规可寻,变与常是统一的。他们还提出天人合一、古今一体、性习相待的观点,在历史的推动力量、历史的演进样式以及历史的内在根据等方面,拓展了历史理性的领域。在他们看来,变与常的统一是历史的本质,也是历史运动的原因。这与古代希腊的实质主义传统有着根本的区别。

Historical reason stood at a dominant position among the reasons which, originated in the early Western Zhou period in China as the outcome of doubt about the Heaven and the discovery of the people’s will, appeared to be a rational thinking of the relationship between historical movement and its constant foundation. The Confucians of the Pre-Qin dynasty set up this tradition, believing that the rules of historical changes could be grasped and hence changes and constants in history were unified. They also offered the following viewpoints, that the Heaven and the human being are interlinked, that the ancient and the present share the similar rules, and that the human nature and social conventions are interacted to each other. These viewpoints revealed the motive power, the changing patterns and the formal cause of history that could all be involved in the category of historical reason. According to the Confucians, the core of history is the tension between the changes and the constants that promotes the history forward. These understandings were absolutely different from the substantiality views of the ancient Greece.