社会、经济与激情——重思亚当·斯密的历史观

Society,Economy,and Passions——Rethinking Adam Smith’s Views of History

18世纪苏格兰启蒙文人形成了他们特有的历史观念和著史方法,亚当·斯密是其中的杰出代表。他认为治史是为了揭示历史真相背后的哲学真相,以期达到"教谕"目的。他试图利用"推测的历史"为人类社会的演进寻找一个关联律,提出了社会发展四阶段论,并将其中的商业社会作为自己研究的落脚点。他始终强调经济和激情的因素在社会演进中的关键作用,以及演进由此所具有的自然而然的非人为属性。斯密的这一理论,折射出苏格兰启蒙文人在社会学领域的开创性贡献和他们与其法国同行在进步史观方面的差异,为人类思考何谓现代社会以及如何实现这一社会提供了一个新的视角,由此助推了 18、19世纪英国立法者的社会改革和经济的飞速发展。

Adam Smith,an outstanding thinker of the Scottish Enlightenment,believed that the ultimate goal of studying history was to discover the principle of evolution in the human society,so as to achieve the purpose of "didactick".Therefore,he put forward four stages of social development by using "conjectural history".He often emphasized the key roles played by economy and passions in the social evolution,and stressed the impersonal factors resulted from such evolution.His theory provided a new perspective for thinking about what modern was and how to get into the modern society,thus contributing to the political reform and social development at that time.