“启蒙”在现代中国的历史使命——邓晓芒、刘小枫之争的核心问题

The Errand of Enlightenment in Modern China—— The Focus of the Debate between Deng Xiaomang and Liu Xiaofeng

前不久发生的邓晓芒和刘小枫之争,引起学界和社会的广泛关注。这场争论的核心问题是:究竟如何看待源自欧洲近代的启蒙思想在中国现代化过程中的历史地位。作为一种具有世界意义的外来思潮,理性启蒙对当代中国来说具有与西方世界完全不同的历史意义。中国的启蒙实际上是一场借助具有世界意义的西方近代思想资源反思自身传统文化和社会的局限性,并逐步推动自身现代化的历史过程,只有基于对整个世界历史发展潮流的理性思考来谋划本民族在精神上的出路,理性启蒙才能在中国得到真正的推进。

The recent debate between Xiaomang Deng and Xiaofeng Liu aroused the interest of the academic circle and the community.The focus of this debate is how we consider the errand of enlightenment which had its source from Europe in the modernization of China.As a foreign philosophic thought of world significance,the enlightenment of reason in China has entirely different significance from that in western world.The enlightenment in China is a historic progress of reflecting the shortcoming of the Chinese culture and society with modern western thought,and of carrying out the modernization of China.Only if we considerate the spiritual future of our nation on the trend of world history,the enlightenment of reason in China could be carried out.