汤因比晚年对中国文明的反思

汤因比早年与晚年的中国文明观大相径庭。早年他在《历史研究》中得出了中国文明已经僵化走向死亡的论断,而在晚年变为对中华文明极度赞誉。汤因比晚年改变对中国文明的认识,源于他对人类未来命运的忧虑,主要表现在为对以西方文明为特征的现代社会给人类带来全球性困境问题的真切痛思。汤因比晚年中国文明观是以价值判断为基础的,他认为中国文明有利于对全球性问题的解决,主要表现在:中国模式对"世界国家"的建立,儒家思想对新政治哲学观的确立,佛道思想对当前生态问题的解决。

Toynbee's Reflections on Chinese Civilization in His Later Years

At his old age, Toynbee's views on China were quite different from those made in his earlier days. Contrasting to make a conclusion that Chinese civilization became rigid and came to an end in his book A Study on History, Toynbee showed great honor to Chinese civilization in his later years. The reason to why his attitude changed so much was that he was so worried about human's future. He was very concentrated on the problems of global crisis, which were brought by Western civilization to human beings in modern society. We should surely get a lot of enlightenments from Toynbee's discussion on the significance of Chinese civilization to human crisis.