从古典的civilitas到马基雅维利的vivere civile

From the Classical “Civilitas” to Machiavelli’s “Vivere Civile”

马基雅维利的“公民生活”(viverecivile)是他政治思想的核心概念,它不仅继承了“civilis”一词自古罗马以来一直保留的主要含义之一——对法律的尊重和对僭政的敌视,而且蕴含着新的内涵。不同于当时人文主义者所倡导的守成型共和国,马基雅维利“公民生活”的主要形态之一是一个对内实行法治而对外致力于扩张的帝国型共和国。对“civile”一词的追本溯源工作有助于我们更准确地理解“civile”和“公民生活”的含义,有助于纠正当代剑桥学派对“公民生活”概念的误读,同时促进我们对马基雅维利政治思想的深入理解。

Machiavelli’s“ vivere civile” is the core concept of his political thought. It not only inherits one of the main meanings of the term“ civilis” which dates from ancient Rome:respect for law and hostility to tyranny,but also contains a new connotation. Different from the conservative republic advocated by the humanists at his time,the dominant form of Machiavelli’s“ vivere civile” is an imperialist republic which maintains the rule of law internally and devotes to expansion externally. This retrospective research of the word“ civile” in this article will help us to get a better understanding of its meaning and Machiavelli’s“ vivere civile”,which will lead to a correction of the Cambridge school’s misreading of his“ vivere civile”, and promote our understanding of Machiavelli’s political thought.