中国政治思想史的学理特点及方法论刍议——以董仲舒天人政治论为例

On the Theoretical Character and Methodology of Research of History of Chinese Political Thought——Taking Dong Zhongshu’s Political Theory of Heaven and Man for Example

中国政治思想史作为独立的学科创始于20世纪20年代,其学理特点是覆盖了政治学与历史学,具有某种交叉学科的性质。在价值结构、认知逻辑方面具有鲜明的政治学特点,在知识体系方面则有着明显的历史性。基于这样的学理特点,研究中国政治思想史当然需要选用政治学理论作为主要方法论。本文以汉儒董仲舒为例,分析了天人合一政治论的四个论点:政治权力合法性理论、君权相对制约理论、政治秩序原则、政策原则;并指出,以政治学理论作为方法论研究中国政治思想史,方能将这一错位多年的学科放回原位,从历史学领域的专门史回归到政治学学科的专业基础,成为政治学知识体系的奠基学科。

As an independent subject,the research of Chinese political history originated from 1920s.Its theoretical character was that it covered the area of political science and history and thus had some characters of inter-discipline.Speaking concretely,it was like political science in the respects of value structure and cognition logics.But as the respect of knowledge system,it had more similarity to history.So we should choose theory of political science as main methodology to carry on our research.In this article,I take Dong Zhongshu,a famous Confucian of Han Dynasty,as an example to analyzing four points of his theory of 'unity of heaven and man': legitimacy of political power,limited checks and balance between Emperor and subjects,principles of political orders and that of policies.I will argue that until we choose political theory as methodology to carry on our research it will not lead a correct orientation and shift from the area of history to political science.The research of Chinese political history should become the foundational subject of political science.