Neo-Historiography and the Formation of Early Chinese Social Science: A study on Chen Fuchen's theory of "minshi"

近代中国社会学的产生不仅受戊戌维新时期“西学东渐”的影响,同时也是中国思想和社会传统自身发育的产物。本文以内在视角出发,通过回到地方史和地域学术传统之中,呈现近代永嘉学人陈黻宸思想的产生与中国社会结构、机制及其历史脉络的关联。这一考察将发现,陈黻宸“民史”观的形成与19世纪中叶以来浙江文人群体的经世传统密不可分。在融合永嘉经制学、陆王心学和章学诚史学,并吸收西方实证主义史学和经验论传统的基础上,陈黻宸赋予了经学典范价值以新的解释,提出以“民史”为核心的总体社会科学学说。这一总体社会科学体系呈现了近代经世文人对19世纪中叶以来人心世变的体察、对社会制度安排的探索,以及对政治理想的追求。

The birth of Chinese sociology was not only affected by the Western culture (particularly during the period of the Hundred Days of Reform in 1898), but also shaped by the traditions rooted in the Chinese ancient thought and the structures of Chinese society. Based on a review of inner history, this research takes Chen Fuchen's thought as an example to propose that those traditions embedded in Chinese local history have prompted the birth of the early modem Chinese sociology. The author finds that the traditional doctrine of practical-oriented method, popular among the scholars in Zhe Jiang province during the middle of 19th century, had impacts on Chen's idea of "minshi". Merging together the ideas of Yongjia, Mind study (xinxue) and the historiography of Zhang Xuecheng, Chen endowed the value of traditional Confucianism with a new explanation. In addition, he reconstructed the shape of traditional historiography based on the instructive ideas of positive historiography of Henry Thomas Buckle and empirical philosophy, and proposed a system of theory of social science. The author argues that Chen not only put forward a theory of human nature to respond to the requests of social reconstructions after the Taiping Rebellion in the middle of 19th century, but also tried to propose a constitutional agenda to resolve the political crises in the late Imperial China. In a word, the idea of "minshi" marked a milestone of the history of Chinese sociology and expressed the traditional Chinese literati's political ideal.

侯俊丹

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