寻求"精英思想"与"民众观念"的统一--对中国思想史的一些思考

通过对西方和中国"思想史"研究的历史和现状考察可以看出,"思想史"研究大体分为传统的精英思想与民众观念两个层面,它们都重视思想和社会的关系,但前者以精英思想家和经典文本为主,强调社会或经济结构对思想的决定作用;而后者则重视普通民众一般的知识和心理,强调观念对社会的具体塑造作用。其实,思想是应对社会问题的产物,思想史介于哲学史和社会史之间,是相当理论化的社会观念史,中国思想史也概莫能外。所以,中国思想史研究应重视思想和社会的互动、重视社会思潮和具体思想家的互动。

Seeking Unity between Elitism and Populism --Some Viewpoints on Chinese Intellectual History

A survey of past and present studies of Western and Chinese intellectual histories leaves us two schools of thoughts; elitism and populism, with a common focus on the interaction between ideas and society. While the former centers on the elite thinkers and the classic texts, emphasizing the decisive effects of social and economic structures on human thinking, the latter attaches much weight to folk knowledge and mentality, with a stress on the molding effects of ideas on society. Indeed, ideas emerge from dealing with social problems; the intellectual history (with no exception of Chinese intellectual history) is a mediator between philosophical history and social history. Therefore, the interaction between ideas and social being as well as that between social thoughts and particular thinkers should become the focal points of the study of Chinese intellectual history.