十九世纪中国对于“民主”概念的接受

The Adoption of the Concept of Democracy in China in the Nineteenth Century

汉语中的"民主"一词早在先秦时代的文献中就已出现,但其词义内涵与我们现在所使用的却大不相同,"民"和"主"成偏正结构,意为"民之主";在现代汉语中,我们今日所言之民主乃经由英语的"democracy"一词在19世纪时跨语际而来,并逐渐在中国的社会和政治实践中被重新建构起其复杂和流变的词义内涵。本文力图通过对于19世纪"民主"概念在中国的使用意义的分析,来理清这个不同于我们传统理解的概念在进入中国的肇始,是如何被我们所认知和接受的。

Chinese word of minzhu has been used in early pre-Qin Dynasty, but the meaning of it is quite different from what we are using today; however, the concept of minzhu in modern Chinese was translated from the Western concept of the English word democracy in the nineteenth century, then it re- places and rebuilt the meaning of this old Chinese concept in the social and political practice. By analyzing the meaning of the Chinese concept minzhu that had been used in 19th century when the concept democracy was brought into China for the first time, the author intends to get an understanding of how we cognized and adopted the concept which is different from our tradition.