China's New Intelligentsia

China's New Intelligentsia

From Prospect by Mark Leonard

March 2008 144 » Cover story » China's new intelligentsia
Despite the global interest in the rise of China, no one is paying much attention to its ideas and who produces them. Yet China has a surprisingly lively intellectual class whose ideas may prove a serious challenge to western liberal hegemony
Mark Leonard

Mark Leonard is the executive director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. His book What Does China Think? has just been published by 4th Estate
Discuss this article at First Drafts, Prospect's blog

I will never forget my first visit, in 2003, to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing. I was welcomed by Wang Luolin, the academy's vice-president, whose grandfather had translated Marx's Das Kapital into Chinese, and Huang Ping, a former Red Guard. Sitting in oversized armchairs, we sipped ceremonial tea and introduced ourselves. Wang Luolin nodded politely and smiled, then told me that his academy had 50 research centres covering 260 disciplines with 4,000 full-time researchers.

As he said this, I could feel myself shrink into the seams of my vast chair: Britain's entire think tank community is numbered in the hundreds, Europe's in the low thousands; even the think-tank heaven of the US cannot have more than 10,000. But here in China, a single institution—and there are another dozen or so think tanks in Beijing alone—had 4,000 researchers. Admittedly, the people at CASS think that many of the researchers are not up to scratch, but the raw figures were enough.

At the beginning of that trip, I had hoped to get a quick introduction to China, learn the basics and go home. I had imagined that China's intellectual life consisted of a few unbending ideologues in the back rooms of the Communist party or the country's top universities. Instead, I stumbled on a hidden world of intellectuals, think-tankers and activists, all engaged in intense debate about the future of their country. I soon realised that it would take more than a few visits to Beijing and Shanghai to grasp the scale and ambition of China's internal debates. Even on that first trip my mind was made up—I wanted to devote the next few years of my life to understanding the living history that was unfolding before me. Over a three-year period, I have spoken with dozens of Chinese thinkers, watching their views develop in line with the breathtaking changes in their country. Some were party members; others were outside the party and suffering from a more awkward relationship with the authorities. Yet to some degree, they are all insiders. They have chosen to live and work in mainland China, and thus to cope with the often capricious demands of the one-party state.

We are used to China's growing influence on the world economy—but could it also reshape our ideas about politics and power? This story of China's intellectual awakening is less well documented. We closely follow the twists and turns in America's intellectual life, but how many of us can name a contemporary Chinese writer or thinker? Inside China—in party forums, but also in universities, in semi-independent think tanks, in journals and on the internet—debate rages about the direction of the country: "new left" economists argue with the "new right" about inequality; political theorists argue about the relative importance of elections and the rule of law; and in the foreign policy realm, China's neocons argue with liberal internationalists about grand strategy. Chinese thinkers are trying to reconcile competing goals, exploring how they can enjoy the benefits of global markets while protecting China from the creative destruction they could unleash in its political and economic system. Some others are trying to challenge the flat world of US globalisation with a "walled world" Chinese version.

Paradoxically, the power of the Chinese intellectual is amplified by China's repressive political system, where there are no opposition parties, no independent trade unions, no public disagreements between politicians and a media that exists to underpin social control rather than promote political accountability. Intellectual debate in this world can become a surrogate for politics—if only because it is more personal, aggressive and emotive than anything that formal politics can muster. While it is true there is no free discussion about ending the Communist party's rule, independence for Tibet or the events of Tiananmen Square, there is a relatively open debate in leading newspapers and academic journals about China's economic model, how to clean up corruption or deal with foreign policy issues like Japan or North Korea. Although the internet is heavily policed, debate is freer here than in the printed word (although one of the most free-thinking bloggers, Hu Jia, was recently arrested). And behind closed doors, academics and thinkers will often talk freely about even the most sensitive topics, such as political reform. The Chinese like to argue about whether it is the intellectuals that influence decision-makers, or whether groups of decision-makers use pet intellectuals as informal mouthpieces to advance their own views. Either way, these debates have become part of the political process, and are used to put ideas in play and expand the options available to Chinese decision-makers. Intellectuals are, for example, regularly asked to brief the politburo in "study sessions"; they prepare reports that feed into the party's five-year plans; and they advise on the government's white papers.

So is the Chinese intelligentsia becoming increasingly open and western? Many of the concepts it argues over—including, of course, communism itself—are western imports. And a more independent-minded, western style of discourse may be emerging as a result of the 1m students who have studied outside China—many in the west—since 1978; fewer than half have returned, but that number is rising. However, one should not forget that the formation of an "intellectual" in China remains very different from in the west. Education is still focused on practical contributions to national life, and despite a big expansion of higher education (around 20 per cent of 18-30 year olds now enrol at university), teaching methods rely heavily on rote learning. Moreover, all of these people will be closely monitored for political dissent, with "political education" classes still compulsory.

Zhang Weiying has a thing about Cuban cigars. When I went to see him in his office in Beijing University, I saw half a dozen boxes of Cohiba piled high on his desk. The cigar boxes—worth several times a Chinese peasant's annual income—are fragments of western freedom (albeit products of a communist nation), symbols of the dynamism he hopes will gradually eclipse and replace the last vestiges of Maoism. Like other economic liberals—or members of the "new right" as their opponents call them—he thinks China will not be free until the public sector is dismantled and the state has shrivelled into a residual body designed mainly to protect property rights.

The new right was at the heart of China's economic reforms in the 1980s and 1990s. Zhang Weiying has a favourite allegory to explain these reforms. He tells a story about a village that relied on horses to conduct its chores. Over time, the village elders realised that the neighbouring village, which relied on zebras, was doing better. So after years of hailing the virtues of the horse, they decided to embrace the zebra. The only obstacle was converting the villagers who had been brainwashed over decades into worshipping the horse. The elders developed an ingenious plan. Every night, while the villagers slept, they painted black stripes on the white horses. When the villagers awoke the leaders reassured them that the animals were not really zebras, just the same old horses adorned with a few harmless stripes. After a long interval the village leaders began to replace the painted horses with real zebras. These prodigious animals transformed the village's fortunes, increasing productivity and creating wealth all around. Only many years later—long after all the horses had been replaced with zebras and the village had benefited from many years of prosperity—did the elders summon the citizenry to proclaim that their community was a village of zebras, and that zebras were good and horses bad.

Zhang Weiying's story is one way of understanding his theory of "dual-track pricing," first put forward in 1984. He argued that "dual-track pricing" would allow the government to move from an economy where prices were set by officials to one where they were set by the market, without having to publicly abandon its commitment to socialism or run into the opposition of all those with a vested interest in central planning. Under this approach, some goods and services continued to be sold at state-controlled prices while others were sold at market prices. Over time, the proportion of goods sold at market prices was steadily increased until by the early 1990s, almost all products were sold at market prices. The "dual-track" approach embodies the combination of pragmatism and incrementalism that has allowed China's reformers to work around obstacles rather than confront them.

The most famous village of zebras was Shenzhen. At the end of the 1970s, Shenzhen was an unremarkable fishing village, providing a meagre living for its few thousand inhabitants. But over the next three decades, it became an emblem of the Chinese capitalism that Zhang Weiying and his colleagues were building. Because of its proximity to Hong Kong, Deng Xiaoping chose Shenzhen in 1979 as the first "special economic zone," offering its leaders tax breaks, freedom from regulation and a licence to pioneer new market ideas. The architects of reform in Shenzhen wanted to build high-tech plants that could mass-produce value-added goods for sale in the west. Such experimental zones were financed by drawing on the country's huge savings and the revenues from exports. The coastal regions sucked in a vast number of workers from the countryside, which held down urban wages. And the whole system was laissez-faire—allowing wealth to trickle down from the rich to the poor organically rather than consciously redistributing it. Deng Xiaoping pointedly declared that "some must get rich first," arguing that the different regions should "eat in separate kitchens" rather than putting their resources into a "common pot." As a result, the reformers of the eastern provinces were allowed to cut free from the impoverished inland areas and steam ahead.

But life today is getting tougher for the economists behind this system, like Zhang Weiying. After 30 years of having the best of the argument with ideas imported from the west, China has turned against the new right. Opinion polls show that they are the least popular group in China. Public disquiet is growing over the costs of reform, with protests by laid-off workers and concern over illegal demolitions and unpaid wages. And the ideas of the market are being challenged by a new left, which advocates a gentler form of capitalism. A battle of ideas pits the state against market; coasts against inland provinces; towns against countryside; rich against poor.

Wang Hui is one of the leaders of the new left, a loose grouping of intellectuals who are increasingly capturing the public mood and setting the tone for political debate through their articles in journals such as Dushu. Wang Hui was a student of literature rather than politics, but he was politicised through his role in the student demonstrations of 1989 that congregated on Tiananmen Square. Like most young intellectuals at the time, he was a strong believer in the potential of the market. But after the Tiananmen massacre, Wang Hui took off to the mountains and spent two years in hiding, getting to know peasants and workers. His experiences there made him doubt the justice of unregulated free markets, and convinced him that the state must play a role in preventing inequality. Wang Hui's ideas were developed further during his exile in the US in the 1990s, but like many other new left thinkers he has returned to mainland China—in his case to teach at the prestigious Qinghua University. I met him last year in "Thinker's Café" in Beijing, a bright and airy retreat with comfy sofas and fresh espressos. He looks like an archetypal public intellectual: cropped hair, a brown jacket and black polo-neck sweater. But Wang Hui does not live in an ivory tower. He writes reports exposing local corruption and helps workers organise themselves against illegal privatisations. His grouping is "new" because, unlike the "old left," it supports market reforms. It is left because, unlike the "new right," it worries about inequality: "China is caught between the two extremes of misguided socialism and crony capitalism, and suffering from the worst elements of both… I am in favour of orienting the country toward market reforms, but China's development must be more balanced. We must not give total priority to GDP growth to the exclusion of workers' rights and the environment."

The new left's philosophy is a product of China's relative affluence. Now that the market is driving economic growth, they ask what should be done with the wealth. Should it continue accumulating in the hands of an elite, or can China foster a model of development that benefits all citizens? They want to develop a Chinese variant of social democracy. As Wang Hui says: "We cannot count on a state on the German or Nordic model. We have such a large country that the state would have to be vast to provide that kind of welfare. That is why we need institutional innovation. Wang Shaoguang [a political economist] is talking about low-price healthcare. Cui Zhiyuan [a political theorist] is talking about reforming property rights to give workers a say over the companies where they work. Hu Angang [an economist] is talking about green development."

The balance of power in Beijing is subtly shifting towards the left. At the end of 2005, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao published the "11th five-year plan," their blueprint for a "harmonious society." For the first time since the reform era began in 1978, economic growth was not described as the overriding goal for the Chinese state. They talked instead about introducing a welfare state with promises of a 20 per cent year-on-year increase in the funds available for pensions, unemployment benefit, health insurance and maternity leave. For rural China, they promised an end to arbitrary taxes and improved health and education. They also pledged to reduce energy consumption by 20 per cent.

The 11th five-year plan is a template for a new Chinese model. From the new right, it keeps the idea of permanent experimentation—a gradualist reform process rather than shock therapy. And it accepts that the market will drive economic growth. From the new left, it draws a concern about inequality and the environment and a quest for new institutions that can marry co-operation with competition.

In February 2007, Hu Jintao proudly announced the creation of a new special economic zone complete with the usual combination of export subsidies, tax breaks and investments in roads, railways and shipping. However, this special economic zone was in the heart of Africa—in the copper-mining belt of Zambia. China is transplanting its growth model into the African continent by building a series of industrial hubs linked by rail, road and shipping lanes to the rest of the world. Zambia will be home to China's "metals hub," providing the People's Republic with copper, cobalt, diamonds, tin and uranium. The second zone will be in Mauritius, providing China with a "trading hub" that will give 40 Chinese businesses preferential access to the 20-member state common market of east and southern Africa stretching from Libya to Zimbabwe, as well as access to the Indian ocean and south Asian markets. The third zone—a "shipping hub"—will probably be in the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam. Nigeria, Liberia and the Cape Verde islands are competing for two other slots. In the same way that eastern Europe was changed by a competition to join the EU, we could see Africa transformed by the competition to attract Chinese investment.

As it creates these zones, Beijing is embarking on a building spree, criss-crossing the African continent with new roads and railways—investing far more than the old colonial powers ever did. Moreover, China's presence is changing the rules of economic development. The IMF and the World Bank used to drive the fear of God into government officials and elected leaders, but today they struggle to be listened to even by the poorest countries of Africa. The IMF spent years negotiating a transparency agreement with the Angolan government only to be told hours before the deal was due to be signed, in March 2004, that the authorities in Luanda were no longer interested in the money: they had secured a $2bn soft loan from China. This tale has been repeated across the continent—from Chad to Nigeria, Sudan to Algeria, Ethiopia and Uganda to Zimbabwe.

But the spread of the Chinese model goes far beyond the regions that have been targeted by Chinese investors. Research teams from middle-income and poor countries from Iran to Egypt, Angola to Zambia, Kazakhstan to Russia, India to Vietnam and Brazil to Venezuela have been crawling around the Chinese cities and countryside in search of lessons from Beijing's experience. Intellectuals such as Zhang Weiying and Hu Angang have been asked to provide training for them. Scores of countries are copying Beijing's state-driven development using public money and foreign investment to build capital-intensive industries. A rash of copycat special economic zones have been set up all over the world—the World Bank estimates that over 3,000 projects are taking place in 120 countries. Globalisation was supposed to mean the worldwide triumph of the market economy, but China is showing that state capitalism is one of its biggest beneficiaries.

As free market ideas have spread across the world, liberal democracy has often travelled in its wake. But for the authorities in Beijing there is nothing inexorable about liberal democracy. One of the most surprising features of Chinese intellectual life is the way that "democracy" intellectuals who demanded elections in the 1980s and 1990s have changed their positions on political reform.

Yu Keping is like the Zhang Weiying of political reform. He is a rising star and an informal adviser to President Hu Jintao. He runs an institute that is part university, part think tank, part management consultancy for government reform. When he talks about the country's political future, he often draws a direct analogy with the economic realm. When I last met him in Beijing, he told me that overnight political reform would be as damaging to China as economic "shock therapy." Instead, he has promoted the idea of democracy gradually working its way up from successful grassroots experiments. He hopes that by promoting democracy first within the Communist party, it will then spread to the rest of society. Just as the coastal regions were allowed to "get rich first," Yu Keping thinks that party members should "get democracy first" by having internal party elections.

Where the coastal regions benefited from natural economic advantages such as proximity to Hong Kong, the Cantonese language and transport links, Yu Keping sees advantages for party members—such as their high levels of education and articulacy—which make them into a natural democratic vanguard. What is more, he can point to examples of this happening. At his suggestion, in 2006 I visited a county in Sichuan province called Pinchang that has allowed party members to vote for the bosses of township parties. In the long run, democracy could be extended to the upper echelons of the party, including competitive elections for the most senior posts. The logical conclusion of his ideas on inner party democracy would be for the Communist party to split into different factions that competed on ideological slates for support. It is possible to imagine informal new left and new right groupings one day even becoming formal parties within the party. If the Communist party were a country, its 70m members would make it bigger than Britain. And yet it is hard to imagine the remote, impoverished county of Pinchang becoming a model for the gleaming metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen. So far, none of the other 2,860 counties of China has followed its lead.

Many intellectuals in China are starting to question the utility of elections. Pan Wei, a rising star at Beijing University, castigated me at our first meeting for paying too much attention to the experiments in grassroots democracy. "The Sichuan experiment will go nowhere," he said. "The local leaders have their personal political goal: they want to make their names known. But the experiment has not succeeded. In fact, Sichuan is the place with the highest number of mass protests. Very few other places want to emulate it."

Chinese thinkers argue that all developed democracies are facing a political crisis: turnout in elections is falling, faith in political leaders has declined, parties are losing members and populism is on the rise. They study the ways that western leaders are going over the heads of political parties and pioneering new techniques to reach the people such as referendums, opinion surveys or "citizens' juries." The west still has multi-party elections as a central part of the political process, but has supplemented them with new types of deliberation. China, according to the new political thinkers, will do things the other way around: using elections in the margins but making public consultations, expert meetings and surveys a central part of decision-making. This idea was described pithily by Fang Ning, a political scientist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He compared democracy in the west to a fixed-menu restaurant where customers can select the identity of their chef, but have no say in what dishes he chooses to cook for them. Chinese democracy, on the other hand, always involves the same chef—the Communist party—but the policy dishes which are served up can be chosen "à la carte."

Chongqing is a municipality of 30m that few people in the west have heard of. It nestles in the hills at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialin Jiang rivers and it is trying to become a living laboratory for the ideas of intellectuals like Pan Wei and Fang Ning. The city's government has made all significant rulings subject to public hearings—in person, on television and on the internet. The authorities are proudest of the hearings on ticket prices for the light railway, which saw fares reduced from 15 to just 2 yuan (about 14p). This experiment is being emulated in other cities around China. But an even more interesting experiment was carried out in the small township of Zeguo in Wenling City—it used a novel technique of "deliberative polling" to decide on major spending decisions. The brainchild of a Stanford political scientist called James Fishkin, it harks back to an Athenian ideal of democracy (see "The thinking voter," Prospect May 2004). It involves randomly selecting a sample of the population and involving them in a consultation process with experts, before asking them to vote on issues. Zeguo used this technique to decide how to spend its 40m yuan (£2.87m) public works budget. So far the experiment has been a one-off but Fishkin and the Chinese political scientist He Baogang believe that "deliberative democracy" could be a template for political reform.

The authorities certainly seem willing to experiment with all kinds of political innovations. In Zeguo, they have even introduced a form of government by focus group. But the main criterion guiding political reform seems to be that it must not threaten the Communist party's monopoly on power. Can a more responsive form of authoritarianism evolve into a legitimate and stable form of government?

In the long term, China's one-party state may well collapse. However, in the medium term, the regime seems to be developing increasingly sophisticated techniques to prolong its survival and pre-empt discontent. China has already changed the terms of the debate about globalisation by proving that authoritarian regimes can deliver economic growth. In the future, its model of deliberative dictatorship could prove that one-party states can deliver a degree of popular legitimacy as well. And if China's experiments with public consultation work, dictatorships around the world will take heart from a model that allows one-party states to survive in an era of globalisation and mass communications.

China scholars in the west argue over whether the country is actively promoting autocracy, or whether it is just single-mindedly pursuing its national interest. Either way, China has emerged as the biggest global champion of authoritarianism. The pressure group Human Rights Watch complains that "China's growing foreign aid programme creates new options for dictators who were previously dependent on those who insisted on human rights progress."

China's foray into international politics should not, however, be reduced to its support for African dictators. It is trying to redefine the meaning of power on the world stage. Indeed, measuring "CNP"—comprehensive national power—has become a national hobby-horse. Each of the major foreign policy think tanks has devised its own index to give a numerical value to every nation's power—economic, political, military and cultural. And in this era of globalisation and universal norms, the most striking thing about Chinese strategists is their unashamed focus on "national" power. The idea of recapturing sovereignty from global economic forces, companies and even individuals is central to the Chinese worldview.

Yang Yi is a military man, a rear admiral in the navy and the head of China's leading military think tank. He is one of the tough guys of the Chinese foreign policy establishment, but his ideas on power go far beyond assessments of the latest weapons systems. He argues that the US has created a "strategic siege" around China by assuming the "moral height" in international relations. Every time the People's Republic tries to assert itself in diplomatic terms, to modernise its military or to open relationships with other countries, the US presents it as a threat. And the rest of the world, Yang Yi complains, all too often takes its lead from the hyperpower: "The US has the final say on the making and revising of the international rules of the game. They have dominated international discourse… the US says, 'Only we can do this; you can't do this.'"

One of the buzzwords in Chinese foreign policy circles is ruan quanli—the Chinese term for "soft power." This idea was invented by the American political scientist Joseph Nye in 1990, but it is being promoted with far more zeal in Beijing than in Washington DC. In April 2006, a conference was organised in Beijing to launch the "China dream"—China's answer to the American dream. It was an attempt to associate the People's Republic with three powerful ideas: economic development, political sovereignty and international law. Whereas American diplomats talk about regime change, their Chinese counterparts talk about respect for sovereignty and the diversity of civilisations. Whereas US foreign policy uses sanctions and isolation to back up its political objectives, the Chinese offer aid and trade with no strings. Whereas America imposes its preferences on reluctant allies, China makes a virtue of at least appearing to listen to other countries.

But while all Chinese thinkers want to strengthen national power, they disagree on their country's long-term goals. On the one hand, liberal internationalists like Zheng Bijian like to talk about China's "peaceful rise" and how it has rejoined the world; adapting to global norms and learning to make a positive contribution to global order. In recent years, Beijing has been working through the six-party talks to solve the North Korean nuclear problem; working with the EU, Russia and the US on Iran; adopting a conciliatory position on climate change at an international conference in Montreal in 2005; and sending 4,000 peacekeepers to take part in UN missions. Even on issues where China is at odds with the west—such as humanitarian intervention—the Chinese position is becoming more nuanced. When the west intervened over Kosovo, China opposed it on the grounds that it contravened the "principle of non-intervention." On Iraq, it abstained. And on Darfur, in 2006 it finally voted for a UN mandate for peacekeepers—although Beijing is still under fire for its close ties to the Sudanese government.

On the other hand, China's "neocons"—or perhaps they should be called "neo-comms"—like Yang Yi and his colleague Yan Xuetong openly argue that they are using modern thinking to help China realise ancient dreams. Their long-term goal is to see China return to great-power status. Like many Chinese scholars, Yan Xuetong has been studying ancient thought. "Recently I read all these books by ancient Chinese scholars and discovered that these guys are smart—their ideas are much more relevant than most modern international relations theory," he said. The thing that interested him the most was the distinction that ancient Chinese scholars made between two kinds of order: the "Wang" (which literally means "king") and the "Ba" ("overlord"). The "Wang" system was centred on a dominant superpower, but its primacy was based on benign government rather than coercion or territorial expansion. The "Ba" system, on the other hand, was a classic hegemonic system, where the most powerful nation imposed order on its periphery. Yan explains how in ancient times the Chinese operated both systems: "Within Chinese Asia we had a 'Wang' system. Outside, when dealing with 'barbarians,' we had a hegemonic system. That is just like the US today, which adopts a 'Wang' system inside the western club, where it doesn't use military force or employ double standards. On a global scale, however, the US is hegemonic, using military power and employing double standards." According to Yan Xuetong, China will have two options as it becomes more powerful. "It could become part of the western 'Wang' system. But this will mean changing its political system to become a democracy. The other option is for China to build its own system."

The tension between the liberal internationalists and the neo-comms is a modern variant of the Mao-era split between bourgeois and revolutionary foreign policy. For the next few years, China will be decidedly bourgeois. It has decided—with some reservations—to join the global economy and its institutions. Its goal is to strengthen them in order to pin down the US and secure a peaceful environment for China's development. But in the long term, some Chinese hope to build a global order in China's image. The idea is to avoid confrontation while changing the facts on the ground. Just as they are doing in domestic policy, they hope to build pockets of an alternative reality—as in Africa—where it is Chinese values and norms that increasingly determine the course of events rather than western ones.

The western creations of the EU and Nato—defined by the pooling rather than the protecting of sovereignty—may one day find their matches in the embryonic East Asian Community and the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation. Through these organisations, China is reassuring its neighbours of its peaceful intent and creating a new community of interest that excludes the US. The former US official Susan Shirk draws a parallel between China's multilateral diplomacy and her own country's after the second world war: "By binding itself to international rules and regimes, the US successfully established a hegemonic order."

The UN is also becoming an amplifier of the Chinese worldview. Unlike Russia, which comports itself with a swagger—enjoying its ability to overtly frustrate US and EU plans—China tends to opt for a conciliatory posture. In the run-up to the Iraq war, although China opposed military action, it allowed France, Germany and Russia to lead the opposition to it. In 2005 when there was a debate about enlarging the UN security council, China encouraged African countries to demand their own seat, which effectively killed off Japan's bid for a permanent seat. Equally, Beijing has been willing to allow the Organisation of Islamic States to take the lead in weakening the new UN human rights council. This diplomacy has been effective—contributing to a big fall in US influence: in 1995 the US won 50.6 per cent of the votes in the UN general assembly; by 2006, the figure had fallen to just 23.6 per cent. On human rights, the results are even more dramatic: China's win-rate has rocketed from 43 per cent to 82 per cent, while the US's has tumbled from 57 per cent to 22 per cent. "It's a truism that the security council can function only insofar as the US lets it," says James Traub, UN correspondent of the the New York Times. “The adage may soon be applied to China as well.”

The debate between Chinese intellectuals will continue to swirl within think tanks, journals and universities and—on more sensitive topics—on the internet. Chinese thinkers will continue to act as intellectual magpies, adapting western ideas to suit their purposes and plundering selectively from China’s own history. As China’s global footprint grows, we may find that we become as familiar with the ideas of Zhang Weiying and Wang Hui, Yu Keping and Pan Wei, Yan Xuetong and Zheng Bijan as we were with those of American thinkers in previous decades; from Reaganite economists in the 1980s to the neoconservative strategists of the 9/11 era.

China is not an intellectually open society. But the emergence of freer political debate, the throng of returning students from the west and huge international events like the Olympics are making it more so. And it is so big, so pragmatic and so desperate to succeed that its leaders are constantly experimenting with new ways of doing things. They used special economic zones to test out a market philosophy. Now they are testing a thousand other ideas—from deliberative democracy to regional alliances. From this laboratory of social experiments, a new world-view is emerging that may in time crystallise into a recognisable Chinese model—an alternative, non-western path for the rest of the world to follow.

Discuss this article at First Drafts, Prospect's blog

西方学者的先秦思想史研究

程钢　

　 在中国历史的长河中，影响最大的一批思想经典是在先秦时代形成的。如果人们
要深入地理解中华民族的思想观念与社会制度，在很多问题上都必须回溯到先秦。在某种
意义上，先秦思想史的研究水平，是中国文化研究水平的标志杆。本文试图对西方学者（
主要是英语世界的）的先秦思想史研究成果作简略的介绍，并试图对其中有特色的方法论
与哲学背景作简单的分析。

全面衡量西方学者对先秦思想史（乃至整个中国思想史）的研究，二次世界大战是最
重要的分水岭。在这以前，西方的汉学已有相当多的积累，但对中国思想的研究成果并不
多，导致这一状况的主要原因在于当时中西交流的层次不深，未能触及到深刻的心灵问题
。二战结束以后，在近60年的时间里，西方的中国思想史研究取得了很显著的进步。研究
的深层动力是理解中国人民心灵的努力。因此，我们将会分两部分介绍西方的先秦思想史
研究。

第一部分讨论二战以前。在20世纪以前，西方的先秦思想史研究主要出在天主教传教
事业发达的国家，如意大利、法国等，英语世界的成果是非常之少的。意大利、法国等国
的神学人士对先秦典籍均下过一定的功夫。他们的总宗旨是介绍中国文明的渊博内容，让
西方公众相信中国的文明与理性，支持传教事业。他们在文献学方面已经达到了一定的水
平。除了教会人士以外，法兰西学院是最著名的研究机构。19世纪以后，这些国家在近代
工业化的竞争中处于下风，对国家外交政策影响最深的工商业与中国交往不多，没有深入
理解中国思想的动力。这一阶段最有名的汉学家是法国的几位学者，沙畹、伯希和、马伯
乐及葛兰言等，主要成果是翻译加评注。在中国经典思想方面，最有名的研究有，17世纪
柏应理等人用拉丁文译的《四书译本》（Sinarum Philosophus，直译，中国哲学）。此
外，19世纪，法国汉学家儒莲研究儒家经典《孟子》与道家经典《老子》，并将儒家经典
译成为拉丁文。在19世纪后期，在华传教的法国天主教传教士（耶稣会士）顾赛芬（183
5-1919）以法文翻译了多种儒家经典，具有较高的质量。

中英两国的交流起步很晚。英国人对中国的兴趣以工商业为导向，19世纪英国的中国
研究与法国相比要略逊一筹。在思想史领域内，由于理雅各等人的努力，英国汉学取得了
杰出的成绩。英国传教士理雅各（James Legge，1814--1897）以个人之力，经过数十年
之辛勤工作，完成了四书五经及《老子》、《庄子》的翻译工作，并因此成了牛津大学的
第一任汉语教授。理雅各的翻译体例谨严，附有大量注释，在翻译过程中尊重中国的学术
传统，从而保证了翻译的质量。这套翻译成为19世纪英语世界最杰出的汉学成果之一，直
到今日仍然没有完全过时。继理雅各之后，英国汉学家翟理斯（H.A.Giles ，1845-1935
）、翟林奈（L. Giles，1875-1958）父子对中国的儒家均有研究，翟理斯著有《儒家及
其竞争者》（1915年），并对《论语》、《孟子》、《老子》、《庄子》等思想经典作了
部分翻译。翟氏父子对《庄子》都很有兴趣，各有自己的《庄子》译本（节译）。

美国的中国研究起步就更晚了。美国的第一部汉学名著是卫三畏（S.Wells William
s ）的《中国总论》（Middle Kingdom ，1858年），对思想史几乎没有论述。由于起步
晚的缘故，在二战以前，美国主要的汉学师资来自于英国，个别来自于德国（如哥伦比亚
大学的夏德）。尽管如此，美国的思想史研究既不同于法国，又不同于德国，也不同于英
国。美国最早介入先秦经典研究的是有哲学训练的学者，这就使得美国的先秦思想史研究
具有一定的思辩性，并且不知不觉地形成了风格，尽管学者之间也许没有师承关系。

早在本世纪初，哲学家卡鲁斯（Paul Carus ）在中国先秦经典方面作出了杰出的贡
献。卡鲁斯(1852–1919) ，美国哲学家，早年在德国受过教育。长期担任Open Court （
目前是高水平的中国研究著作的出版机构）与《一元论》 的编辑。他是著名的一元论者
，又是积极的出版家与编辑，他对中国哲学与印度佛学均有深厚的兴趣，译有《道德经》
、《太上感应篇》（与铃本大拙合译），还译有佛教原始资料选《佛教的福音书》。他本
人是立场鲜明的一元论者，要将宗教建立在科学的基础之上，并将他的情怀带入了翻译，
他的译本因此引起了很大的争议。也正因为这个缘故，他的译本至今仍有其独特的价值，
它是根据一元论哲学立场出发对道家文献的解读与翻译。除了翻译，卡鲁斯也有中国哲学
方面的讲稿。例如，《中国哲学：中国思想释义》（1902年，芝加哥），《中国思想：中
国人的世界观念之主要特征的释义》（1907年，芝加哥）。著名的禅学大师铃木大拙，在
本世纪初曾经担任过卡鲁斯的助手，除了与卡鲁斯合译《道德经》与《太上感应篇》之外
，还写过一本《中国古代哲学简史》（1914年），在冯友兰的《中国哲学史》英译本问世
以前，是一部权威的著作。

从本世纪初到二战以前，在先秦思想史的研究中，主要的研究导向是文献学。这一时
期，学术界的主要任务是将先秦的思想史料译成英语，并根据史料作比较朴素的思想分析
。其中最有名的有：德效骞（H.H.Dubs，美国人，1892—1969年）的《荀子英译》（192
7年），以及德效骞的《荀子：古代儒家的铸造者》（1927年）；梅贻宝（Y.P.Mei ）的
《墨子政治及伦理著作选》（1928年），以及梅贻宝的《墨子及其时代》（1928年）；戴
闻达（J.J.L. Duyvendak，1889—1954年，荷兰人）所著的《商君书》（1928年），既是
《商君书》的研究专著，又是《商君书》的译本。以上诸种图书均出自普罗布赛因东方研
究丛书。

在此过程中，汉学家们受到了中国国内疑古思潮的影响。30年代，西方汉学家对先秦
思想典籍的研究达到了新的水平。《论语》本属于文献问题不太严重的文本，虽然梁启超
对于《论语》的文本作过分析，但在疑古运动之中，《论语》并非重点。受疑古思潮的影
响，英国汉学家韦利坚持认为，《论语》一书20章，只有第3至第9章是可靠的，其余各篇
均系后人所加。这一疑古考证已经成为西方汉学的经典工作，至今仍有较大的影响。《管
子》是文献问题较多的复杂文本，在前人失败的基础上，30年代也开始出现了哈龙（Gus
tav Haloun ）所作的局部译本。

第二部分讨论二战以后近60年的历史。二战以后，美国汉学家对中国思想史的研究有
了长足的进步，形成了自已的研究传统，形成了有自身特点的提问方式。

在二战以前，只有极少数人从事先秦思想的研究。最早的、最持之以恒的从事中国先
秦思想研究的学者要数顾立雅。顾立雅的专业不局限于先秦思想史，对于先秦的政治史、
社会史均有建树。顾立雅（1905-1994），芝加哥大学教授，著名汉学家，30年代初曾来
中国做访问研究。思想史方面的著作有：1929年出版了《中国世界观的演变》（英文标题
是：Sinism. a study of the evolution of the Chinese worldview，Open court 出版
。Sinism 一词不好译，或许可以译作“中国主义”？因其有史料价值，此书于1975年再
版），还有：《孔子与中国之道》（1960年；1949年初版时题作《孔子：其人及神话》，
已有中译本）、《中国思想：从孔夫子到毛泽东》（1953年）、《什么是道家？》（197
0年）、《申不害》（1974年），此外，顾立雅对中国周朝史也颇有研究，著有《中国的
诞生》（1936年）、《中国治国术的起源：西周帝国》（1970年）等。《中国世界观的演
变》的主体部分是先秦思想史。

早在1951年，费正清、芮沃寿发起了远东学会的中国思想委员会，由芮沃寿任主席。
1952年，在美国科罗拉多州的阿斯本，中国思想委员会召开了学术会议，并将论文结集成
为《中国思想研究》，主编是芮沃寿。1957年，费正清又主编了一本论文集，《中国思想
与制度》（台湾地区有译本）。芮沃寿与其他学者合编了《行动中的儒家》（1959年，与
倪德卫合编）、《儒家的说服术》（1960年）、《儒家人格》（1963年）。1964年，芮沃
寿又从后三本书的35篇文章中选出12篇文章，编成了《儒家与中国文明》。以上五本书构
成了一个大系列，代表了美国50年代中国思想研究的水平。

要理解这一系列著作的诞生，就不能不介绍芮沃寿。芮沃寿（Wright , Arthur Fre
derick，1913—1976），美国人，生前曾担任过耶鲁大学西摩讲座教授。1935年斯坦福大
学学士，1937年牛津大学文学士，1937至1939年在哈佛大学读研究生，1939—1940年和1
941—1947年在哈佛燕京学社读研究生，来华进修，1947年获博士。个人专长是研究佛教
及隋唐史，他所著的《中国历史中的佛教》（1959年）是一本雅俗共赏的好书，盛行至今
，久印不衰，仍然是美国大学生了解中国佛教历史的最佳入门读物之一。

上述关于中国思想史的一套书的基本特点是，关注中国的现实，并将关怀转化成为学
术研究的切入点。这一批学者关怀中国的思想与文化，其目的则是解释中国的现实。这一
批学者有一种共识，要理解中国的当代，必须了解中国的过去，要了解中国的历史，必须
了解中国人的思想。他们研究中国的古代思想，为的是解释中国现实。在这方面，费正清
的《美国与中国》很能体现这个特点。芮沃寿、倪德卫等均有类似的想法。还可以举一个
例子。一般学者都认为中国人没有宗教狂热，芮沃寿在《中国历史中的佛教》中指出，从
佛教史看，中国人并非全无宗教狂热的可能。这样的研究方式有优点，也有缺点。优点是
不脱离现实，研究的成果有经验的直观支持，不至于从事钻牛角尖的研究。但是，有时因
为急于解释中国现实，研究的学术性稍受影响。先秦思想史是中国思想史研究的基础领域
，其中包含复杂的文献学问题，又不能直接解释中国的现实，因而在总体上得不到这一批
学者的关注。

60年代以来，西方学者对先秦思想史的研究，取得了不少成绩。并且围绕着某些杰出
学者，形成了几个圈子，研究人员相对较多，方向相对集中，并且培养了自己的学生。

第一个圈子，以陈荣捷、狄百瑞为领袖。这个圈子本以研究、弘扬宋明理学著称，不
过，这一派特别重视基础资料的建设，因而对于先秦思想经典的翻译也颇有贡献。陈荣捷
（1901--1993），出身于中国广东，1924年岭南大学学士，1927年哈佛大学硕士，1929年
哈佛大学博士。1929—1936年任岭南大学教务长，1936年至1942年在夏威夷大学任教。1
942年起在达特默思学院任教。陈荣捷对于宋明理学尤其是朱熹有深入的研究，是这一领
域著名的学者。

陈荣捷最有影响的著作是《中国哲学原始资料选》（普林斯顿大学出版社，1963年）
，此书长达800余页，从商周甲骨文到解放后冯友兰的抽象继承法，时间跨度极大，是目
前英语世界最全面的也是最流行的哲学原始资料选集。在这部书中，对先秦思想经典给予
了足够的关注。陈荣捷翻译了全书的原始材料，其中，陈荣捷译的《道德经》后来又单独
成书。这一原始资料集为美国学生学习中国哲学提供了极大的便利，甚至可以说从资料上
奠定了美国学生研究中国哲学的最初取径。

1975年，陈荣捷写过一篇论文《中国人和西方人对仁的解释》，针对芬加勒特以“礼
”为孔子思想核心的观点，强调孔子思想的核心是“仁”。这篇文章在先秦思想史研究中
有过较大的影响。

狄百瑞（William T. De Bary ，1919--- ），美国哥伦比亚大学教授，曾于1948-1
949年来到大陆的燕京大学、北平图书馆作访问研究，阅读过钱穆的思想史著作，对他后
来的宋明理学研究有潜在的影响。1969年曾任美国亚洲研究协会会长。狄百瑞主编过《中
国传统原始资料集》（与陈荣捷、沃森合编，1960年），对宋明理学有比较深入的研究。
在80年代，他主张，中国儒家内蕴有自由主义的传统，在90年代，他进一步提出，儒家可
以为现代的人权观念提供新的资源。这种观点在学术界引起了激烈的争论，有人表示赞同
，亦有人表示反对。他本人虽然对先秦没有作过专门的研究，但他的许多结论涉及到儒家
的一般问题，以及儒家在现时代的意义，这些问题是任何研究先秦思想史学者无法回避的
，因而他的观点对于先秦思想史研究仍然具有一定的影响。如今，布鲁姆（Irene Bloom
，1939--）在哥伦比亚大学继续努力，力图将亚洲经典著作成为美国大学生通识教育的一
部分。她与狄百瑞合编了一本《亚洲经典著作入门》（1995年），邀请知名的从事亚洲研
究的学者，对亚洲的主要经典作了介绍，其中有孟子与唐诗。

第二个圈子，杜维明及波士顿儒学。

在当今海外研究儒家思想的学者之中，杜维明是影响较大的一位。他的重要性表现在
两个方面，其一，他是儒学新三期的代表人物之一。其二，以他为核心，形成了所谓波士
顿儒学学派，这一派的成员不局限于华人，其中有基督教神学家，例如有南乐山。

杜维明（1940--），1940年生于昆明，1961年台湾东海大学毕业，次年赴美深造，1
968年获哈佛大学博士。曾执教于普林斯顿大学、加州大学柏克利分校，1981年起在哈佛
大学东亚系任教。总本上讲，杜维明的研究重心不在先秦，而在宋明（尤其是明代，如王
阳明，刘宗周）。但杜维明在先秦思想史方面也作过阐释性的工作，具体体现为对于《中
庸》的解释著作：《论儒学的宗教性》（有中译本，段德智译；原作于1976年，1989年出
了增订本）。

杜维明的主要贡献之一在于，在国际的视野之下从事儒学研究。杜维明将儒学分作三
期，以先秦两汉为第一期，宋元明儒学为第二期，民国以来为第三期。值得注意的是，杜
维明在阐释第二期儒学时颇有新意，他强调儒学在朝鲜与日本的发展。过去学术界将朝鲜
与日本的儒学看成是宋代理学传播的结果，是宋代理学的翻版，杜维明则强调朝鲜与日本
儒学的创造性。这种新视野可以对学术界习以为常的许多结论构成严肃的挑战。例如，学
术界流行过一种说法，认为朱学为王学所取代具有历史的必然。如果局限于中国本土看，
这一结论或许有一定的合理性。但如果进一步扩展视野，考虑到朝鲜李朝大儒李滉与李珥
对于朱学的发展，问题就变得较为复杂了，也不能断言朱学必然被王学取代。

杜维明的儒学三期说引入了国际视野，将儒学搁置于东亚乃至香港、新加坡以及世界
各地的华侨之中，最终将世界各国认同儒学观念的非华人也包含在内，这是从世界主义的
情怀出发对儒学所作的发展，从长远看，这一思路具有相当宽阔的拓展空间。

在波士顿，有一批美国学者，出于对于儒家基本价值的认同，经常开展学术研讨，后
来他们自己命名为波士顿儒学，这是第一个成派别的海外儒学基地，杜维明是其中的领袖
人物。这批人之中既有华人，也有外国人，他们主要来自波士顿当地的两所大学，一是哈
佛大学，二是波士顿大学。哈佛大学原先的思想传统是费正清奠定的，以中国近现代史以
及中国革命的研究为中心，关注中国社会的整体变迁，以费正清为领袖；另有少数人研究
思想史，主要人物是费正清的学生史华慈。在费正清的圈子里，儒家总体上说来是负面的
形象（史华慈的态度属于例外）。1981年，杜维明来到哈佛大学任教，从此，他一直致力
于在哈佛大学建立起新的儒学研究传统。这一传统既不同于费正清的地区研究，也不同于
史华慈的思想史研究。史华慈等人研究儒学，为的是客观地认识儒家，是将儒学当成历史
看待。尽管史华慈对儒学怀有同情之理解的态度，对于儒学作了很多细致的辩析工作，推
崇儒学的魅力，但其根本的宗旨是认知及理解。杜维明则不然，他明确表白自己对儒学的
态度是“体认”与“践行”，而不是简单的“认知”与“理解”。他认同儒学的基本价值
观，相信儒学是蓬勃发展的活的传统，可以为诊治现代西方文明的弊端作出自己的贡献。
杜维明在哈佛开展了多种多样的学术活动，其影响直接扩展到了波士顿地区的其他大学。

南乐山(Robert C. Neville ) ，毕业于耶鲁大学。曾在纽约州立大学石溪分校担任
过人文与艺术学部主任，后来在波士顿大学担任神学院院长，宗教系主任。曾经任过美国
宗教学院主席，国际中国哲学学会主席，美国形而上学学会主席。是美国较有影响的哲学
家与神学家。南乐山是一位重视建设形而上学系统的哲学与神学家。在现代西方学界普遍
忽视形而上学、传统形而上学受到解构主义严重威胁的情形下，他广泛吸收一切资源，包
括中国的儒家，来重建传统的形而上学，从根本上为基督教神学辩护。

波士顿儒学传统在某种意义上再现了传统儒学的特点：学术工作与人生信仰、社会工
作的统一。杜维明、南乐山都是学者，但他们将很多的精力用于学术组织与社会活动，是
学术机构的行政负责人，是现代的scholar—official（士大夫） 。他们将很多时间用于
行政事务，践履自己的学术承诺。

波士顿儒学并不是铁板一块的学术团体，在具体观点及资源依托方面，杜维明与南乐
山不尽相同。他们都对王阳明与孟子学说深怀敬意，力图通过重新解释王阳明的学说阐发
自已的新意。虽然南乐山与杜维明都认同儒学的价值，但在细节上与杜维明有所不同。最
大的不同在于，杜维明强调个人修身的重要性，关注儒学的宗教性，向往天地人合为一体
的终极境地。南乐山则重视社会责任，关怀儒学伦理在现代社会的实用功能，南乐山是基
督教神学家，他的终极境地是基督教的终极关怀。在资源依托上，两家也颇有不同。南乐
山不太赞同“存在主义的儒家”(指杜维明)，反对将个人选择置于社会责任之上，他更多
地吸收了实用主义的思想遗产。在先秦经典资源方面，杜维明更重视孟子，注重仁的涵养
，南乐山更重视荀子，希望以荀子“礼”的精神强化现代人的社会责任感。

南乐山还有一位助手贝强（John Berthrong ），是波士顿大学神学院副院长。他也
极力认同波士顿儒学，积极推动宗教之间的对话。主要著作有：《天下：儒家基督教对话
范式的转换》，纽约州立大学出版社，1994年；《儒学之道的转换》，西方视野出版社，
1998年；《关注创造力：朱子、怀德海、南乐山的比较研究》，纽约州立大学出版社，1
998年；《儒学与生态学》，哈佛大学出版社，1998年。

第三个圈子的核心是安乐哲与郝大维。安乐哲（Roger Ames），英属哥伦比亚大学本
科与硕士，1978年获伦敦大学博士。长期任教于夏威夷大学，成果丰富。郝大维，耶鲁大
学博士，专业是美国哲学及中西比较哲学。在美国哲学方面有不少著述。其中有《罗蒂：
新实用主义的预言家与诗人》（1994），《不定的凤凰》（1982年）等。在中西比较哲学
领域，安乐哲与郝大维完成了一件令人难以想象的工作，一位汉学家与一位专业哲学家合
作，将汉学训练与哲学分析结合起来，形成综合性的成果。其成果是三本著作：《孔子哲
学思维》（1987年）、《预期中国》（1995）、《从汉而思》（中译名：《汉哲学思维的
文化探源》，英文原书出版于1998年；中译本出版于1999年），这些书已经成为中西比较
哲学真正学术意义上的奠基之作。

安乐哲与郝大维合作的基础是文化哲学，不是传统意义上的系统哲学。最典型的传统
哲学是系统性的，有一套基础的哲学设定，通常以认识论为中心，对一切问题有比较一贯
的价值标准。文化哲学则不同，它不预设哲学教条，也不以认识论为中心，它特别关注世
界各大文化体系之中没有构建成哲学教条、但在现实生活中又不时表现出来的思想观念。

安乐哲与郝大维认为，中国哲学与西方哲学代表了两种文化系统，每种系统有自己的
基本语法与词汇，如同两种不同的语言。对安乐哲与郝大维来说，两种哲学系统有同有异
，与同相比，异是更基本的、同时也是更值得关注的方面。安乐哲与郝大维将他们自己的
方法概括成“比较哲学”，而将学术界与报刊上常见的比较研究称作“跨文化比较”。两
者既有联系，也有区别。主要的区别在于，“跨文化比较”对于我们理解其他文化的能力
持有乐观的态度，它先行假定，跨文化的理解是可能的。而比较哲学则认为，我们的确想
理解另外一种文化，但在没有能够理解以前，先不要假定我们具有理解的能力。借用阐释
学的语言讲，“跨文化比较”假定，理解其他文化是自然而然的事情。而“比较哲学”则
假定，在跨文化的交流之中，误解是随处可见的事情，关键是要弄清楚，什么原因导致了
误解？

什么原因导致西方人易于误解中国的哲学？安乐哲与郝大维有一个非常简明的回答：
中国哲学与西方哲学有两套语法与词汇。当然，这是就哲学领域而发，不过，很明显，在
安乐哲与郝大维心目之中，这一结论可以推广到全部文化领域，只不过全部文化领域过于
复杂，无法将其化约为哲学系统中最简明的范畴。

这一结论在三步曲之中是逐步展开、不断明确的。到了三步曲的终曲《从汉而思》，
安乐哲将中西哲学的区别归结为三个范畴：自我、真理、超越。中国哲学在这三个范畴上
与西方哲学正相反对。弄清楚中西哲学在这三个关键范畴上的差别，可以比较方便地了解
其他的差别。

安乐哲以夏威夷大学为基地，培养了不少学生。据我所说，新一批学生继承原有传统
，对更多的主题进行了拓展。例如，江文思正在从事孟子研究，试图对孟子文本进行深度
解析，用美国的实用主义传统来沟通孟子思想。

第四个圈子以倪德卫为领袖，特长是运用分析哲学研究中国的古典哲学。倪德卫（1
923--），现为斯坦福大学退休教授。长期从事中国思想史研究，曾研究过章学诚、王阳
明与存在主义、共产主义道德与中国传统（主要从清代思想立论），他在先秦思想领域也
颇有研究心得，对孟子、荀子有深入的研究，培养了众多活跃在学术前沿的中青年学者。
此外，倪德卫还是知名的上古史系年专家，对于西周系年有深入的研究，成一家之言。

倪德卫的主要著作有《章学诚的生平及思想》（1966年），近年，倪德卫的学生将其
关于中国思想史的论文（其中部分是未刊稿）编选成册，题为：《儒学之道：中国哲学探
寻》（1996年）。全书分为三部分，第一部分研究先秦伦理传统，有“甲骨文及金文中的
‘德性’”、“德性的悖论”、“德性教育是否可以不凭借外力？”“中国道德哲学中关
于黄金律的论辩”。第二部分系对于先秦哲学的研究。论文有：“先秦哲学关于意志无能
的讨论”、“孟子论动机与道德行为”、“前四世纪中国哲学中的自愿主义”、“孟子发
微（告子上第3至5章）”、“孟子献疑（尽心章第17章）”、“论《孟子》的翻译”、“
《荀子》论人性”。第三部分收集了倪德卫关于宋明清哲学的论文。

倪德卫身处分析哲学的重镇斯坦福大学，注重分析，以文献学上的精细分析及哲学上
的细密思考见长。哲学上的细密思考使得他的考证及文本解读有哲学的视野，他从不作哲
学意义不明显的考证与文本剖析，他的文献学考证又使得他的哲学见解根基扎实，总是以
具体的文本作引子，同意其见解的人与不同意其见解的人总可以从他的工作之中获得实在
的启益。这种以分析为出发点的学问还有一个极大的优点，它便于培养学生。经过这种训
练的学生基本功夫牢靠，从事研究工作的后劲充足。由于倪德卫的努力，斯坦福大学已经
成为美国中国哲学研究最著名的人才培养机构之一。

倪德卫的学生沿着倪德卫的思路，进一步拓展研究的视野，并将其学术研究转化为教
材与原始材料的读本。其中，信广来、艾文荷、范班安都已经产生了较大的影响。

信广来，现任教于美国加州大学柏克利分校哲学系。1975年香港大学哲学与数学系本
科毕业，1978年伦敦大学哲学系本科毕业。1986年斯坦福大学博士。主要著作有《孟子与
中国古代思想》（1997年）。在汉学界颇获好评，在华人学术圈子当中，他也有较大的影
响。

艾文荷，现任教于密西根大学哲学系与东亚语言与文学系。从本科到博士，全部是在
斯坦福大学度过的，1987年获得博士。主要著作有《儒家传统中的伦理学：孟子与王阳明
》（1990年）、《儒家自我道德的修养》（2000年）。他不仅关注儒家伦理，对老庄也有
较深入的研究。他还与范班安合编了《中国哲学著作选读》（2001年），是一部先秦思想
的原著选。陈荣捷主编的《中国哲学原始资料》是上世纪60年代问世的，行世40年来，屡
获好评。但随着时代的发展，中国哲学史研究已经有了很大的进步，学术界需要有一本能
将这些新研究吸收进去的原始资料选集，艾文荷补上了这一空白。此外，他还主编了《中
国语言、思想与文化》（1996年），这是一部学记性质的研究资料集。艾文荷邀请汉学界
的专家，从不同的角度对倪德卫的思想学术进行了批评，最后有倪德卫本人的答复，是研
究倪德卫的重要资料。

范班安，现任教于美国瓦莎学院，1985年毕业于宾西法尼亚大学哲学系，1991年毕业
于斯坦福大学，获博士学位。

目前，艾文荷等人培养的博士生已经毕业任教，他们进一步拓展倪德卫—艾文荷的传
统，从事颇有美国分析哲学特色的中国哲学研究，就我所知，胡顿 (Eric Hutton）就是
其中的一位，他获得了斯坦福大学博士，已经取得了犹大州立大学的教职，现在加州大学
柏克利分校做博士后研究，专门方向是荀子思想及其道德哲学。

第五个“圈子”是以史学为职志的一批学者。严格说来，这些从事史学研究的汉学家
分散在各个学校，彼此之间形不成圈子，没有公认的领袖人物，也没有师承关系。这批学
者有比较强烈的历史意识，特别关注中国思想史研究中常见的哲学与史学之间的不一致之
处，力图从史学立场出发进行纠偏。由此之故，他们与上述几类学者之间形成了学术功能
上的互补关系。

上述四个圈子的学者都有史学以外的志趣，例如，杜维明关注儒学的宗教功能，狄百
瑞对儒家之返本开新（例如应对现代社会的人权问题）怀有很高的期望，南乐山的最终关
注的是基督教与儒学的对话，安乐哲、郝大维的先秦儒家研究意在沟通美国的实用主义传
统与中国的儒学等等，具有以美学为中心的人文主义哲学的色彩。

这一批史学意识特别强烈的学者大多关注儒学。儒家在过去和现在均具有教化的功能
，因而成为各种意识形态争夺的焦点。在儒学领域，历史与意识形态的冲突比较明显。

这一批学者之中最著名的人物是艾尔曼，他以研究清代学术史著称，著作有《从理学
到朴学》（1984年）、《古典主义，政治与家族》（1990年）等。以《从理学到朴学》为
例，这部著作试图向人们说明，以往通行的以考据学为清学代表的说法，从史学的角度看
，是经不起审查的。考据学只盛行于很小的一块区域（长江中下游），人数也只占清代读
书阶层的很小一部分。学术界笼统地将中国古代知识分子概括为儒学，仿佛儒学是一个有
机的整体，其实，儒学内部也有很大的区别。艾尔曼将历史学的态度引入了思想史研究，
但又保持了思想史研究的基本取向，意在根据知识分子的整体，而不是仅仅列举少数思想
精英，来了解中国思想史。

另一位立志从历史立场考察中国思想史的学者是在亚历桑拉大学任教的田浩。田浩反
对将宋明儒学化简为道学（理学和心学）的做法，主张从历史的角度，全面地看待儒学。
田浩的代表作之一是《功利主义的儒学》。《宋史》中将陈亮列入“儒林传”，不列入“
道学”。现代学者例如庐外庐就表示赞同。田浩却将陈亮列入儒家，称其为“功利主义的
儒家”，是儒学的功利派。这一研究得到了著名思想史学者、田浩在哈佛的老师史华慈的
高度称赞，称其对中国思想史研究中的文化人类学立场提出了真正的挑战。所谓文化人类
学立场，指将中国思想化约为某种固定结构、视中国文化或某一派为铁板式整体的流俗说
法。田浩的研究拓宽了儒学的范围。近年来，田浩与狄百瑞有过一场争论，其焦点在于，
是否可以认为道学是宋明儒学的代表。

另一位从事17世纪至20世纪的儒家范畴史的学者詹启华（Lionel Jensen ），他认为
，西方人仿照西方基督教模式，将孔子与耶稣相比附，将儒家与基督教相类比，将儒家译
作“孔子主义”（confucianism == confucius +ism ），这其实是对于历史的误解。现
代中国学人亦步亦趋，跟从西方，在某些方面变本加厉，进一步强化了这一误解。不论学
界是否同意詹启华的看法，也不论他的论据是否充分。从学术史的角度看，他的研究的基
点是历史的，他力求运用历史语源学的回溯方法，求得历史的真相。他的著作《制造儒学
》，对先秦儒家生成过程有所讨论。

以上两位学者均不以先秦为主要研究对象，不过，他们的研究态度与先秦思想的研究
有相互沟通之处。有一对学者夫妇，布鲁克斯夫妇（白牧之、白妙子），从事先秦思想史
研究。积多年的功夫，进行《论语》的辩伪研究，其成果收集在《论语辩》之中。在30年
代，著名学者韦利有一比较激进的疑古观点，认为《论语》中只有第3至第9章才是可靠的
，其他都是后来加上的。布鲁克斯夫妇更进一步，只相信第4章的前20节是可靠的，其余
都是孔子的学生们在240年的时间内逐步加上的。这一结论引起了较大的争议，新闻媒介
对这一结论作了各种很有趣的发挥与引申。不过，这一结论的本意是史学的研究，他们试
图寻求真相，辩出真的孔子学说来。

以上将西方对先秦思想史的研究分作五个圈子（最后一个并非真正意义上的圈子），
总的说来只是方便的说法。目前汉学界很难说存在充分独立的圈子。在费正清时代，这样
的圈子是存在的。但在费正清之后，这种拥有领袖、提倡对中国作整体性研究、并且真的
能统领大块学术领域的圈子，暂时是不存在了。

在先秦思想史领域，有一些作过贡献的杰出学者，他们的立场比较复杂，没有培养出
学术上的直接继承人，没有形成自已的圈子。他们留下了著作，这些著作是先秦思想史研
究的重要参考书。下面介绍几位。

（1）芬加勒特。芬加勒特（1921—），美国加州大学圣巴巴拉分校教授。是有一定
影响的哲学家与心理学家。严格说来，他不是汉学家，也不长期从事汉学研究，缺乏直接
阅读古汉语文献的能力。不过，他是先秦思想研究中产生了最大影响的人物之一，这起源
于他于60年代至70年代初的研究成果的结集《孔子：神圣的俗人》（1972年）。这是一本
真正的小书，全书不过82页，由几篇论文构成。但这本书却得到了几乎所有从事先秦思想
研究的汉学家的推崇（自然也引来许多争鸣），大名鼎鼎的葛瑞汉认为，此书影响了近二
十年来西方对于中国思想文化研究的方向。另一位思想史专家史华慈在其先秦思想史的名
著《中国古代思想的世界》一书中，第3章（论孔子）的长度超过了这本小书。这一章的
相当一部分内容是对芬加勒特的批评与辩析。

这部书在西方先秦思想研究史上的地位可以从两方面看，其一是学术基础，其二是价
值观念。在芬加勒特以前，先秦思想史的研究中存在着一个二元取向：学术基础方面依靠
中国的考据学，价值观念大都采用西方现代的价值体系，无论中外学者均难逃脱这个二元
化的俗套。例如，冯友兰以新实在论为基本价值依托，参以中国的文本考据，其著作的英
译本成为汉学界中国哲学史的基本著作。西方学者如顾立雅（著有《孔子：其人及神话》
1949年；《中国思想：从孔夫子到毛泽东》，1953年）也基本如此，其价值取向也是近代
西方的。他们有意无意地，将西方启蒙运动之后的现代价值当成了思想史研究的基本评判
准则。这种二元取向成为阻碍先秦思想史推陈出新的关键因素，但汉学家却没有注意这种
二元取向的深层危机。

第一个打破这种二元取向的，是“客串”汉学家芬加勒特。他的《孔子：神圣的俗人
》一书，学术基础上是西方的分析哲学，而且是看似很经院化的日常语言哲学。但这本书
的价值观念却是中国式的，与近西方启蒙运动以来的个人主义原则相左。20世纪以来，接
受过新型教育的学者几乎全部接受了启蒙原则，将“礼”等同于封建礼教，视作是孔子思
想之中应当加以回避的因素。推崇孔子的学者强调孔子的思想核心是“仁”，批判孔子的
学者强调孔子的思想核心是“礼”。在这一做法的背后，其实蕴藏着推崇启蒙价值观、否
定中国传统价值观的前提。但是如果人们想对人类的价值作更复杂的思考，对近代启蒙价
值观进行否定性的批判，不是将个人本位、而是将社会中的和谐相处作为价值观的中心，
这个问题就应当颠倒过来。芬加勒特所做的就是这种颠倒过来、重估价值的工作。他强调
孔子的思想核心是“礼”，而且对于现代社会来说，“礼”具有实际的意义，而不是仅仅
具有历史的意义。

（2）史华慈（1916--1999），哈佛大学教授。他是地地道道的哈佛制造的学者，从
本科到博士，全都是在哈佛度过的。他最初从事中国革命史研究，是研究中共党史与毛泽
东思想的专家，颇有成就。史华慈从事中国革命的研究，一开始就采取了思想史的路径。
他认为政治制度与思想文化是相互作用的两个极，政治史应看作思想的运用史，思想史则
是政治问题的诊断史。他认真对待中国共产党党内意识形态的细微争论，不视其为简单的
权力斗争，从中解读新中国基本政策的取向。他很有信心的断定，毛泽东将会走独立自主
的路线，而不会成为苏联政策的传声筒，这一预言很快就得到了验证。史华慈其后的研究
集中于思想史领域，成为费正清麾下最重要的力量之一。他在思想史方面的主要著作有《
严复：寻求富强》（1964年），《中国古代思想的世界》（1982年），此外，他还有多篇
很受汉学界关注的论文。后来这些论文收集成一本著作《中国及其他问题》（1996年）

史华慈的中国思想史研究，是从现代开始（毛泽东），后退到近代（严复），再从事
先秦思想史的研究。促使他研究先秦思想史的动机，是大陆60至70年代的反传统思潮。文
革使得史华慈意识到，先秦思想在中国尚未进入博物馆，仍是现实存在的文化要素。他并
未从严格的文献学训练入手从事先秦思想史研究，他的专长也不在这方面，很自然地，他
转向了先秦思想的批评史。他对70年代之后兴起的新的先秦思想史研究的方法与思潮进行
了建设性的批评，在批评中阐发自己的态度。特别值得注意的是，史华慈并不想阐述个人
的整套见解，或许他并没有成套的见解。他特别重视中国现代的本土学者对于先秦思想形
成的研究传统，这套传统有深沉的学术训练为基础，又吸取了近代西方文化中的重要因素
，对先秦的主要问题有大致成体系的看法，这是一种成分均衡、大体合理的传统。虽然在
不少地方，这一传统仍有待修改，但作为一种传统，是先秦思想研究最值得注意的参考系
统。

史华慈想做的事情是，以中国学者形成的基本看法为参考系，对西方学者新兴的先秦
思想史研究作一番纠偏的工作。因此，他的批评针对了众多的研究者。他并不否定这些学
者的全部工作，他的任务意在纠偏。他想纠偏的对象不止一位，有些是新人物，有些则是
旧人物。阅读《中国古代思想的世界》，最难的障碍就在于搞清楚他所针对的批评对象。
批评对象之中，有些人物或倾向可以连成一条线，还有些是零散的。

他要批评的人物较多，不妨列举四部分。一是被史华慈称作“文化人类学”思路的人
。这种思路喜欢将中西文化分别化简为某种公式，从而作出“中国文化是X，西方文化是
Y”的宏大论断。这是史华慈一贯反对的做法，在《严复：寻求富强》一书的前言中，他
对此已经作了很多的批评。他认为，文化是一流行不已的传统，不是某个固定不变的存在
，要说文化是什么，得借助文化之间的比较与交流，所谓某个文化的性质，是相对另一文
化比较所得的结论。二是以福柯为代表的后现代思潮，这套思潮认为，每种文化自成一套
封闭的话语，他人无法解读。由此推断，文化之间的交流是极其困难的，从根本上讲，是
不可能的。史华慈全书想说明，这种交流是可能的。在很多方面，20世纪的社会科学理论
与先秦的思想是可以沟通的。三是以曼海姆为代表的夸大思想的阶级性的思潮。曼海姆强
调，人的思想是其所处的社会经济地位决定的，因此思想并没有独立性。史华慈相信，人
类文化发展的希望，正在于有一些知识分子可以摆脱狭隘的利益与所处位置的束缚，能够
关怀全人类的根本利益。先秦思想的发展是如此，当代社会的发展也是如此。四是现代西
方流行的夸大“身心”对立的哲学思潮。19世纪末以来，西方哲学中有一股很强大的思潮
：反心理主义。这类哲学家（例如著过《心的分析》的G. 赖尔）想将一切与心理学相关
的词汇从哲学词典之中剔除出去。芬加勒特贯彻了赖尔的立场，对孔子的“礼”作出了新
的哲学辩护，但为了坚持其分析哲学的基本立场，芬加勒特力图向人们解释，孔子的“仁
”范畴之中不包含心理学的、内在的因素。在史华慈看来，这是真理走过头，转而成为了
谬误的例子。当然，他所着力的批评点远不止这些。这里只是列举出其中的几种而已。

（3）葛瑞汉（1919—1991），英国伦敦大学教授。著名的汉学家。早年从事宋代哲
学史研究，极力推崇程颐的哲学体系，称其为中国历史上最杰出的体系哲学家。当时，他
看不起先秦思想，视其为道德伦理教条的汇集。后来的看法有所改变，全力转向先秦思想
研究。对《墨子》、《庄子》、《列子》、《鶡冠子》、《孟子》等著作有精深的研究，
在学界影响颇大。葛瑞汉还是杰出的古汉语语法专家，这有助于他处理复杂的先秦文本。
此外，葛瑞汉本人也是一位哲学家，能够将他的先秦思想研究与其哲学观点的建构结合起
来。他在先秦思想史方面的主要著述有：《列子译注》（1960年）、《后期墨家的逻辑学
、伦理学和科学》（1978年）、《中国哲学与哲学文献研究》（1986年）、《论道者》（
1990年）。

最值得评论的是《论道者》，它是葛瑞汉最后的一部著作。葛瑞汉想写一部教科书，
将自己一生的精深研究深入浅出地介绍给青年学子。葛瑞汉对于先秦思想的诸多领域都有
深入的研究，这部书可以用作他的研究成果最好的导读本。这部书有两个特点，其一，全
书是哲学史，以天人关系为主线贯穿全书，书名是论道者，视“道”为中国哲学的中心范
畴。其二，书后有两个附录，一是论述中国道德哲学中的准三段论，二是以古汉语为案例
，对学术界流行甚广的沃尔夫假说进行了辩驳。

（4）孟旦（D.J.Munro ， 1931---）1953年哈佛大学学士，1964年哥伦比亚大学博
士。长期任教于密西根大学。主要著作有《早期中国关于人的概念》（1969年）、《当代
中国关于人的概念》（1977年）等。《早期中国关于人的概念》致力于对中国古代哲学作
概念的历史与范畴的分疏，西方汉学界先秦思想的入门著作之一。

（5）牟复礼（1922--）普林斯顿大学教授，著有《中国文化之起源》(1971年)，是
一部先秦思想史。这部书受到一些学者的推崇，视其为先秦思想史的基本入门读物。

（6）陈汉生（1942--），现任香港大学哲学系教授。密西根大学哲学博士，是孟旦
的学生。曾在台湾国立师范大学学习，受到陈鼓应的启发，对于道家情有独钟。主要著作
是《中国古代的语言与逻辑》（1983年），近年来力倡以道家为中心的中国思想体系观，
并将这一思想展开为一本很厚的著作（448页），书名为《中国思想的道家理论》（1992
年），意谓从道家看中国思想体系。这是根据陈汉生本人理解的道家思想立场出发去评判
各家的先秦思想史。陈汉生比较擅长语言理论与逻辑分析，价值立场上又倾向于道家。这
是一部很有个人特点的先秦思想史。

此外，还有不少学者对先秦思想的某些经典也有很深入的研究，在此列举几位。卫礼
贤的《易经译文》（1924年，德文版；有英译本）《易经讲稿：持恒与应变》（1932年，
德文本；有英译本）、卫德明的《易经八讲》（1960年）、《易经中的天地人》（1977年
）。苏联学者休斯基的《易经研究》（1936年，俄文版；1979年英译本）。戴闻达的《商
君书》（1928年）、汪德迈的《法家的形成》（法文本），王志民翻译的《荀子》（三卷
本）等等。此外，吴光明的道家研究（尤其是庄子），柯雄文的先秦伦理学研究，David
Wong的先秦哲学思想研究，Robert Eno的荀子礼乐思想研究，都有较大的影响。

西方汉学界经过长期的积累，在先秦思想史领域已经取得了相当多的成绩。无论我们
是否同意他们的结论，他们研究中的理论关怀与史料的处理方式都与我们有一定的不同，
有一部分工作也达到了相当高的水平。本文只是根据曾经过目的著作作一简单的介绍，挂
一漏万，在所难免。至于论文部分，因为内容较多，一般不作介绍。

如果人们要用比较少的时间，对西方学者的先秦思想史工作一贯通性的了解，以下五
本著作可能是比较重要的。

第一本书是韦利的《中国古代的三种思维方式》（1939年），这是韦利在作完《论语
》与《道德经》的翻译工作之后，为普通读者写的。韦利的《论语》、《道德经》译本都
有很长的前言，讨论了比较专业的问题，不适合普通读者阅读。于是他选了三个人物，《
孟子》、《庄子》、《韩非子》，分别代表儒、道、法三家，对他们作了简单易懂的介绍
。这部书写于1939年，文字非常浅显，论述也比较质朴。令人惊奇的是，这部书不仅能为
普通读者接受，也是有些专家案头常用的参考书。韦利以其高超的文笔，真实记录了自己
的许多阅读感受及疑问，这些感受与疑问常常成为西方汉学家从事先秦思想研究的切入点
，专业研究人员经常从中获得灵感。

第二本是葛瑞汉的《论道者》（1990年），这是一本由著名思想史专家写作的教科书
读本。第三本，史华慈的《古代中国思想的世界》（1985年），这是一本著名的先秦思想
研究的批评史。第四本著作是李约瑟的《中国科学思想史》（系《中国科学与文明》的第
二卷），这是李约瑟从本人的立场出发对中国思想所作的论述，全书比例不均，道家讲得
很多，儒家讲得较少，重道轻儒的价值倾向非常明显。但此书出自一位有较深哲学修养的
杰出的科技史家，某些部分十分的精辟，值得认真阅读。最后，还应说明，芬加勒特的《
孔子：神圣的俗人》（1972年）是一本精辟的小书，或许每一位对西方汉学家的思想史研
究有兴趣的人都应该阅读。

原发表于《周秦汉唐文化研究》第一辑，略有修订。