杜亚泉多元主义文化观再审视

A Re-examination of the Cultual Pluralism of Du Yaquan

作为五四时期知名的文化保守主义者,杜亚泉关注国际政局和世界形势,具有开放的文化心态。他对东西文明进行学理意义上的比较,主张多元主义和文化调和论,断定东西文明不仅是静的文明与动的文明的差异,而且是精神文明与物质文明的差异。他不承认西洋文明在总体上比中国文明优越和进步,认为中国文明可以“救济”西方文明,乃至对世界文明作出补救性贡献。这种文化调和论肯定中华文明有其自身的价值,力主通过东西文明的调和,创建以中国传统文明为根基的中国现代新文明,体现了对民族命运的关怀和对中华文明前途的担忧。这一思想顺应并揭示了五四时期东西文化交汇融合的发展趋势:思想自由、价值多元与开放包容的格局。但他夸大了西方近代文明的弊端,误解了欧战对西方近代文明的消极影响,仅仅看到两种文明的民族性差异而否定两者之间更为明显的时代性差异则是错误的,这无益于东西文化问题的真正解决和中国现代新文明的建构。

As a well-known cultural conservative in the May Fourth Period, Du Yaquan paid close attention to the international political situation and the world situation. With an open cultural mind, he compared the Eastern and Western civilizations in the theoretical sense and advocated pluralism and cultural harmony theory. He concluded that the difference between the Eastern and Western civilization was not only the difference between static civilization and dynamic civilization, but also the difference between spiritual civilization and material civilization. He did not admit that Western civilization was superior to and more progressive than Chinese civilization on the whole, believing that China’s inherent civilization could “relieve” Western civilization and even make a redeemable contribution to world civilization. Du Yaquan’s theory of cultural harmony affirmed that Chinese civilization had its own value and promoted the creation of a new modern Chinese civilization based on Chinese traditional civilization through the reconciliation of Eastern and Western civilizations. It reflected his concern for the destiny of the nation and the future of Chinese civilization, and conformed to and revealed the development trend of the integration of Eastern and Western cultures during the May Fourth Movement — freedom of thought, diversity of values and openness and inclusiveness. However, he not only exaggerated the disadvantages of the Western modern civilization, but also misunderstood the negative impact of the European war on the Western modern civilization. As a result, he only saw the national differences between the two civilizations and denied the more obvious differences of times between the two, which was not reasonable, and not conducive to the real solution of the Eastern and Western cultural problems and the construction of the new Chinese modern civilization.