“自由儒学”纲要——现代自由诉求的儒家表达

An Online of “Liberal Confucianism”:The Confucian Expression of the Pursuit of Modernistic Freedom

中国人对现代自由的诉求,亟需一种民族性的表达。然而,当代儒家往往错把前现代的"传统儒学"当作"儒学传统",导致至今还存在着儒学与现代自由的紧张。事实上,"传统儒学"是复数的,包含着各种不同形态的前现代儒学理论,其中并没有现代自由观念,尤其是皇权时代的儒学与现代自由之间存在着紧张;而"儒学传统"是单数的,是一以贯之、代代相传的一套儒学原理,其本身逻辑地蕴涵着现代自由。有鉴于此,"自由儒学"的路径选择是:批判地借鉴西方自由主义,同时批判地继承传统儒学理论。进而,"自由儒学"将通过追溯自由之源,重建儒家超越性的形上自由,建构儒家现代性的形下自由,由此呈现为"本源自由(自由之源)→良知自由(形上自由)→政治自由(形下自由)"的三层观念体系。

Chinese are eager for a national expression of the pursuit of modernistic freedom. However, both the modern Confucian and some Contemporary Confucian usually mistake the traditional Confucianism for the Confucianism tradition, so to this day there is still a tension relation between Confucianism and mod- ernistic freedom. In fact, the traditional Confucianism is plural, including many different pro - modern theories of Confucianism, which hasn＇ t the concept of modernistic freedom, especially the Confucianism of Empire having strained relationships with modernistic freedom. But the Confucianism tradition is singular and that is one principle of Confucianism running through it all. So the Confucianism tradition contains modernistic freedom logically. From this, the choice way of ＂Liberal Confucianism＂ is to imbibe the west- ern liberalism critically and meanwhile to inherit the traditional Confucianism critically. And then by ascending to the source of freedom,＂ Liberal Confucianism＂ is about to reconstruct the transcendent metaphysic freedom（ 形上自由 ） of Confucianism and construct the modernistic post - metaphysic freedom（ 形下自由）of Confucianism. Accordingly, ＂ Liberal Confucianism＂ as an integral theory system, contains three gradations of conception： Source Freedom（ 本源自由 ）→Liangzhi Freedom（良知自由）→ Political Freedom.