现代性理论的革新:多层现代性理论概要

Modernities:Multiple Origins,Multilayered Formations

"现代性=西方性","现代化=西方化",这样的等式在近两百多年的"现代化"争论中占主导地位。但在今天,"西方现代性"正在失去其普遍性的地位。"多元现代性"理论问世后开始强调现代性的多种形式。但是"多元现代性"理论有其弱点和局限性:弱点是现代性观不明确,局限性是认为现代性发源于西欧。本文提出了新的现代性理论,这一理论将解决"多元现代性"理论的缺陷,并将这一新理论称为"现代性的历史多层构成论",简称"多层现代性论"。

The dominant discourses of modernity presuppose the western European origin of modernity. This presupposition has been accepted as a kind of unquestionable truth. In this presupposition, European modernity obtains the status of universality. This paper questions that presupposition. Eurocentric theories of modernity inevitably privilege a specific time and space and idolize modernity. Non-European modernities are unavoidably lacking and incomplete in these discourses. Recently theories of multiple modernities have emphasized the multipie features of modernity. Understanding modernity in plural terms is an advance in the discourses of modernity. Nevertheless the discourse of multiple modernities is not free from the strong presupposition that Modernity itselfhowever multiply it unfolds in these days-was the exclusive invention of Western Europe. This paper locates the historical origins of modernity （proto-modernity） in the birth of ethical religions and the establishment of ancient empires （Christian-Roman, Hindu-Indian, Confucian-Chinese）. The historical modern era began when the encompassment of the sacred over the mundane in the civilizations of pro-modernity was completely reversed. The Western experience of Reformation is just an example of this reversion. This paper maintains that both the origin of proto-modemity and the beginning of the historical modem era are multiple. Thus begun modem era has passed the second stage of colonizing/colonized modernity and the third stage of global modernity in order. Thus formed three layers of modernity-proto, colonizing/colonized, and global-coexist and overlap these days. This paper calls this complex formation of modernity ＂muhilayered historical formation of modernity＂. It also expands time dimension of the theories of modernity by introducing a new concept of time outside time.