返本开新与儒学再造——论颜元的习行哲学及其历史命运

颜元是中国明末清初一位杰出的思想家、教育家。他的思想系统对前代学术传统而言,既非冯友兰所说的"照着讲",也非"接着讲",而是推倒两千年来的学术成见,直追周孔正学。他以"复古"为口号,进行着儒学新形态的探索工作,"溯本以致新"或者说返本开新是其思想的本质特征。溯本或返本即返回到原始儒家健全的精神上去,致新或开新即开出崇实尚动之儒学新形态。由其思想可以窥见明末清初中国哲学的特点,即反省意识、主体自觉、责任意识和崇实倾向。不过,当崇实倾向无法落实于外在的社会制度建构而只能向学问中探求时,反省意识与主体意识随之归隐,而埋头故纸堆的乾嘉朴学也就呼之欲出了。

Retuning to the Essentials to Rebuild Confucianism: On Yan Yuan's Practical Philosophy and Its Historical Fate

Yan Yuan was an outstanding thinker and educator in late Ming and early Qing dynasty.He criticized the Song-Ming Neo-Confucians for the uselessness and impracticability of their teachings and believed that from the Han Dynasty on Confucian scholars had lost the true meaning of the practical Confucians teachings.He urged that people return to the study of the ancient Confucian classics instead of the Neo-Confucian interpretations of them to learn the essence of Confucianism.What he did is to develop Confucianism in the name of restoration with the purpose of making Confucianism more practical than the ethereal Neo-Confucianism.Yan Yuan’s thoughts are suggestive of the characteristics of Chinese philosophy in late Ming and early Qing dynasty:self-examination,self-awareness,sense of responsibility and emphasis on practicability.However,when practicability could not be incorporated in the construction of social institutions but only in the pursuit of knowledge,self-examination and self-awareness would have to be buried in the study of the classics,which consequently gave birth to the Qianjia Puxue.