古今中西:《乡土中国》遗留的一个疑难问题

“Ancient-Modern”or“Chinese-Western”:A Problem Left by From the Soil—The Foundations of Chinese Society

费孝通在《乡土中国》一书中陈述了他在中西社会之间看到的许多差别,如“差序格局”与“团体格局”。不过,这些差别到底是古今之别还是中西之别?对于这个问题,费孝通在其著作中并没有提供一个确定的答案,而冯友兰和梁漱溟两位先生则给出了两种完全相反的答案。三位学者对这一问题所做出的解答及其分歧,构成了迄今为止我们在这一问题领域所能看到的基本思想景观。从理论和经验两个层面来对这一问题展开进一步的深入研究,仍然是我们面临的一个艰巨任务。

Fei Xiaotong stated many of the differences he saw between Chinese and Western societies in his book From the Soil-The Foundations of Chinese Society,such as the difference between“differential modeorganizational mode”of association,and so on.However,whether these differences are the differences between ancient society and modern society or the differences between Chinese society and Western society,Fei Xiaotong can not provide a definite answer to this question in his book,while Feng Youlan and Liang Shuming gave two completely opposite answers.On the whole,the three scholars’answers to this question constitute the basic ideological landscape that we can observe on this topic so far.It is still an arduous task for us to carry out further indepth research on it from both theoretical and empirical levels.