清末民初的经学与建国

Confucian Classics and the Nation-state Building in the Late Qing and Early Republic China

在晚清民初,中国从"天下—夷夏"向"世界—民族国家"的转化过程中,今文经学与古文经学提出了不同的建国理想。古文学者章太炎认为,必须以共同的历史为基础,建立一个新国族的根基。因此,他通过对经学的改造,建立了中国古远的历史传统,这种历史通向一个新的民族国家构建。今文经师康有为则认为,在历史上,孔教是古代中国的国魂,在现实中,孔教更应该是作为民族国家的新中国之国魂,孔教必须为新成立的、统一的国家提供立国之道,作为其正当性基础,因此,孔教是建立民族国家的国家伦理。

In the late Qing,China was in the process of transformation from the mode of Tianxia(land under the heaven)—Yi(the barbarian)Xia(the ancient name of China)to the mode of the world—the nation state.Scholars of Jin wen classics(Confucian classics in modern script)and Gu wen classics(Confucian classics in old script)proposed different ideals of founding a nation.Zhang Taiyan,a scholar of Gu wen classics,thought that the foundation of a new nation must be based on a common history.Therefore,through his transformation of Confucian Classics,China's ancient historical traditions were established,which paved way for the establishment of a new nation state.According to Kang Youwei,a scholar of Jin wen classics,however,Confucianism was the national spirit of the ancient China in history while it should be a national spirit of the new nationstate China in reality.Confucianism must provide the significance of founding a nation for the newly built and unified country as its legitimacy of the basis.Therefore,Confucianism is the national ethics of establishing a nation state.