待解放的先知与被重构的传统——在现代脉络中辨识钱穆

The Prophet to be Freed and the Tradition to be Reconsidered:Understanding Qian Mu in Modern Political and Intellectual Context

时代人物与传统人物是钱穆在品评现代学人时提出的一个基本区分,意在强调历史人物的时代贡献需要放在更为长远的立国传统中加以衡定。受此启发,我们对于钱穆的理解,应该兼顾传统性与时代性两面。只有建立起钱穆思考与时代问题的有机联系,我们才能领会其思想的先知性启示。作为一个有典型立国思想家气质的现代新士,钱穆赋予了立国思维以现代意识,同时强调现代变革的归宿在于长久立国。其政治思考的核心关怀是,业已被历史传统印证的优良政治秩序("中国式家国天下"),在充满敌意的现代洗礼中如何赓续新命并得以扩展。透过与鲁迅、韦伯的比较,钱穆在现代思想和精神谱系中的意蕴和价值需要被重估,其学思与革命、战争、西学和现代化的关系是有待充分发掘的智识富矿。

The difference between figures of the times and figures of the tradition is emphasized by Qian Mu to treasure the importance of longtime state-building tradition in Chinese civilization in evaluating modern Chinese scholars. Therefore, our understanding of Qian Mu should give fair considerations to the tradition and modern times both. As long as we pay full attention to the connection between Qian Mu’s thinking and modern times, the pioneering inspiration within Qian Mu’s thinking could be grasped by interpreters. As a modern scholar with typical state-building thinkers’ disposition, Qian Mu endows state-building thinking with modern sense and underlines order in peace as the destiny of modern reformation. The central concern of Qian Mu’s political thinking is that how the ideal order verified by the past tradition would be developed and renewed in modern atmosphere of distrust and animosity. Compared with that of Lu Xun and Max Weber, the significance of Qian Mu in modern intellectual world needs to be reevaluated, and the relation between his thought and modern revolution, wars, the Western scholarship and modernization is an intellectually rich ore to be explored in the future.