从齐家到经世如何可能——晚清湖南理学家的思考

How Governing a Family is Connected with Ordering the World——Thoughts of Hunan Neo-Confucians in Late Qing Dynasty

从罗泽南和郭嵩焘带有理学印记的学术著作、刘蓉的书信到曾国藩以礼学齐家与经世的主张,所有这些反映的是晚清湖南理学家这样一个学术、政治群体互相关联乃至连续的思考过程。前三人揭示的是政治领袖通过处理家内关系为社会树立道德权威并培养领导才能,或通过模仿家内关系加强与同事情感和思想的充分交流以求和衷共济。他们都相信儒家的道德伦理可以从家内推广到家外。曾国藩在此基础上提出儒家理想的家庭可以作为从政治军的模型。他特别的贡献在于思考如何将程朱理学彰显的普遍道德价值落实于当下的具体情境。为此,他不是自限于心性之学,而是倡导综合性的礼学,从整个经史学术的传统中寻找思想的资源:对作为道德实践依据的礼的追寻和探索,明显超越了此前儒家各个学术分支的限制。

Luo Zenan and Guo Songtao’s academic works,Liu Rong’s letters and Zeng Guofan’s practice and propositions of relying on lixue(礼学)to govern a family and to order the world all contributed to an interrelated and even continuous thinking process of Hunan Neo-Confucians in late Qing Dynasty.Luo,Guo and Liu argued that political leaders could establish moral authority in societyand cultivate leadership skills by managing relationships in the domestic sphere,or could enhance exchanges of emotions and thoughts with their colleagues by treating them as family members.They all believed that Confucian morality should be first nurtured in the domestic sphere.On this basis,Zeng Guofan further proposed that the idealized Confucian family could be used as a model for leading a state or an army.His special contribution lies in considering how to implement the universal moral values demonstrated by Chengzhu NeoConfucianism in specific historical situations.To this end,he did not confine himself to the study of moral philosophy,but advocated the more comprehensive lixue,looking for resources from the entire tradition of classical Chinese scholarship:his exploration of li("礼")as the basis of moral(and political)practice clearly exceeded the boundaries of various branches of the Confucian scholarship,such as Neo-Confucianism and the kaozheng("考证",evidential research)movement.