天理、公理和真理－中國文化「合理性」論證以及「正當性」標準的思想史研究

This essay aims at shedding a new light on the unique reasoning model in justification in Chinese culture and its transformation under the impact of the West. The authors try to achieve this goal by conducting an meaning analysis of the concepts like li (reason), tianli (principle f nature), gongli (axiom), zhenli (truth) and a frequency count of their appearance in Confucian classics and leading modern literature. The original meaning of the Chinese word li was texture＂ or ＂orderliness,＂ but it gradually partook the meaning of ＂arrangement＂ and establishment＂ of moral order. Li finally became a criterion for rationality or legitimacy in the process of justification or legitimization of certain political systems, institutions, behaviours, or social actions. This was a result of the fact that morals and ethics were regarded as the ultimate concern and common-sense rationality played an important role in Chinese culture. After Neo-Confucianism was fully developed in Song and Ming dynasties, li became a basis for the interpretation of cosmic order and a criterion for legitimacy of political systems, norms, and all social actions. From this development, we can see that the reasoning model in legitimization and justification in Chinese culture is quite different from that of rationalization in the West. When China was under the impact of the West and had to embark on her modernization, which can be viewed as taking up the Western way of rationalization (namely the expansion of instrumental rationality), the interaction between the traditional Chinese argumentational structure of legitimization and Western rationalization was inevitable. The replacement of tianli (principle of nature) by gongli in the late nineteenth century was a result of the entry of modern Western legitimization into Chinese culture. The authors' analysis of the various meanings of the concept gongli from 1895 to 1919 reveals that the process of the entry of Western rationalization into China was fluctuant. The replacement of gongli by zhenli after 1915 was an indicator of the emergence of modern Chinese argumentational structure of legitimization. In this essay, the concepts zhenli (truth), gongli (axiom), gongli (principle and lixing (rationality) that appear in five of the most representative journals are analysed. It is found that the argumentational structure using zhenli as a criterion for legitimacy and the reasoning model in justification employed by traditional Chinese common-sense rationality share certain characteristics. This is one of the causes leading to Chinese intellectuals' acceptance of Marxism-Leninism and is a basis for legitimization in Chinese modernization movement in the twentieth century. This essay shows that in the process of Chinese modernization, the entry of modern Western argumentational structure for legitimacy of institution into China was far more difficult than that of scientific knowledge or of Western institution per se. It is because such an entry was subject to the interaction between traditional argumentational structure of legitimization and Western rationalization; the formation of modern Chinese culture was also shaped by this interaction.

並列關鍵字

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