连续性与断裂性:中国轴心突破论再考察的一个命题

Continuity and Discontinuity: A Proposition for Re-Examining China’s Axial Breakthrough Theory

雅斯贝尔斯的"轴心突破论"长期以来是解释中国哲学产生即所谓"哲学的突破"以及中国哲学内在超越性的经典范式。尽管"轴心突破论"在描述诸子哲学与前诸子时代之间的革新性方面依然有强大的解释力,但是它在强调东西方轴心突破的共通性时,容易遮蔽相较于西方启示宗教断裂性特征的早期中华文明演进的连续性特征。本文借助考古学与思想史的考察指出,与西方相比,贯通天地的宇宙论结构在中国的轴心突破前后依然延续下来,贯通天地、巫政合一的巫术性宗教传统是造成中华文明连续性的历史基础之一。孔子"以仁释礼"的轴心突破是在继周损益的基础上对三代传统的进一步发展而非断裂,中华文明政教一体、政教相维的政治秩序观可以追溯至突破前的巫术性宗教背景。

Jaspers’“Axial Breakthrough Theory”has long been a classic paradigm explaining the so-caled“philosophical breakthrough”and the immanent transcendence of Chinese philosophy.Although the“Axial Breakthrough Theory”stil has a strong explanatory power in describing the innovation between the philosophy of Zhuzi(诸子)and the pre-Zhuzi era,it tends to overlook the continuity of the early Chinese civilization compared with disruptive innovation of Western tradition of revelation religion when focusing on the commonality of the axial breakthrough between the East and the West.Based on the investigation of archaeology and the history of thought,this article points out that the cosmological structure that connects the heaven and earth stil continues before and after the breakthrough compared with the West,and the witchcraft-religion tradition,which is characterized by the connection between the heaven and earth and the unity of witchcraft and politics,is one of historical basis to result in the continuity of Chinese civilization.The axial breakthrough of Confucius’explaining Ritual(礼)by Ren(仁)is the further development of the Xia,Shang and Zhou Dynasties(三代),on the basis of the folowing the Zhou dynasty and making gains and losses,rather than thorough breakthrough from the background.The view of political order of the integration of state and civilized cultivation(政教一体)in Chinese civilization can be traced back to the religious background of witchcraft before the breakthrough.