明清之际中国社会对欧洲文明的拒斥与接受

The Rejection and Acceptance of European Civilization By China Society of Late Ming and Early Qing Dynasties

16-18世纪耶稣会传教士来中国传教,同时也带来了部分西方的科学知识。中国的儒家士人和士大夫群体中,有一部分人激烈反对、拒斥接受这些知识,也有一部分人乐于学习传教士带来的科学知识,接受并试图融合而后超越西方文化。拒斥的一方,有出于意识形态立场、政治安全角度考虑的,如《破邪集》的编辑者徐昌治,以及该书中收录的各色人等,如清初布衣杨光先;也有王夫之这样的大儒,从儒家经学中天文、地理知识的固有立场出发,批评利玛窦的地圆说和地球与太阳及诸行星的距离说。接受的一方表现出比较多元的立场,有徐光启的“超胜会通”说、方以智的“坐集千古之智”折衷说,也有以康熙皇帝为代表的“西学中源”说。“西学中源”说虽然最终不利于中国人虚心学习西方的科学知识,但也包含着一定的合理的文明交流互鉴思想,即在学习外来文明中的先进内容时,必须保持民族文化的主体性。

In the 16-18th century,the Jesuits came to China with some scientific knowledge from the West,which was strongly opposed and rejected by some of the Confucian scholars and scholar-bureaucrats in China,and welcomed by others who were trying to accept,integrate and then transcend Western culture.Those who rejected Western civilization started either from the perspective of ideology and political security,represented by Xu Changzhi,editor of Po Xie Ji(Collection of Eliminating Evi),and the various characters included in the book such as Yang Guangxian in early Qing dynasty,or from the astronomical and geographical knowledge in Confucian classics,represented by great Confucians such as Wang Fuzhi,to refute the knowledge Matteo Ricci brought to China such as Spherical Earth and the distances between the Earth and the Sun and other planets.Pluralistic positions lay among those who accepted the western civilization,including Xu Guangqi's theory of"surpassing the West based on cultural integration",Fang Yizhi's theory of"eclecticism by assembling the wisdom through the ages",and theory of"Western learning rooted in China"represented by Emperor Kangxi.Although the theory of"Western learning rooted in China"is unconducive to Chinese people's modest learning of scientific knowledge from the West,it still contains some reasonable concepts of civilization exchange and mutual learning,that is,how to maintain the subjectivity of national culture when learning from foreign civilizations.