祭天与“天人合一”思想

在中国古代礼制中,十分看重祭礼,而祭天,则是祭礼中最重要的一种,只有天子才有资格祭天。祭天礼中包含有丰富的文化含义,其中之一就是报本思     

All Things Depending: Renewing Interdependence in Oceania

ABSTRACT Despite the enormous efforts made to civilize the Hawaiian, the Maori, the Samoan, and Fijian, Islanders have not forgotten all of their stories and in fact many Pacific peoples are in a position to recover much of the knowledge that sustained communities for thousands of years. There is hope in what we have done to reclaim our heritages—finding our voices in our languages, stories, and songs, our perspectives in our arts and literatures, our muscle and will in our own political advocacy and pursuit of our rights in courts and international arenas. There is need, however, for a new vision that reunites human beings with all of their relations in the world, a vision necessary to sustain a very difficult struggle.     

试析东北古地名中的"天人合一"现象

以星宿代指地域或以星宿命名地名,是中国传统文化所特有的一种文化现象,这是中国古代"天人合一"思想在地理学上的一个具体体现.本文列举了东北地区的几处以天文星宿命名的古代地名,对其中所反映出的"天人合一"思想进行了探讨.     

儒家天人观的政治哲学反省

把握普遍的必然性是人的天性。天是中国古代思想家所能认识到的最高意义的本体性存在,理解天人关系是中国古代思想家把握普遍的必然性的基本途径。思孟学派的天人合一论更多地注意到了天人之间的统一性,表达了古代思想家在更抽象的水平上把握客观世界的心理取向。宋代理学家用形而上的思想方式理解和把握天,从而使必然意义的天与可感觉的天和有神性的天分离开来,儒家的天人观也因此而达到了最高的境界。     

“敬天”与“射天”:上古夏、夷族群融合之殇

上古中国西部族群多源于氐羌,其酋豪曰"大",死则火葬,灵魂"登遐"升至山上(祖山)谓之"天"。甲金文"天"字即"大"上加一横或圆圈,表示在上、上面、神灵之意,是以又有"天在山中"之说。文献如《墨子》《荀子》《吕氏春秋》等记载西方羌戎之人对于被俘本身并不特别担忧,最为担心的是死后灵魂能否"登遐"升天,即回归祖山圣地,此即西部族群的"敬天"传统。上古人认为族与族之战也是神与神之争,因此东方殷人、夷人西征夏、周要"射天"、射山、搏木偶"天神"。这个习俗远可追溯到尧时的羿"射日(天)",晚则战国宋王偃还在"射天笞地",都是对于西部族群神灵之"天"的厌胜之术,所谓"威服天下鬼神"。汉民族融合早期主要是西部诸夏族群与东部商夷族群之间交合的历史,长期交往中伴随着征战与杀伐,最后形成血的凝聚。新石器时代以来考古学文化区系的逐渐明晰,让我们进一步看清了这一点。     

人地关系

世界上的第一份地图出自古希腊哲学家之手,时间是公元前6世纪.在哲学家们眼里,地图是对地球和世界的解释,借助几何学和天文学,地图确定了地球在宇宙中的位置.从希腊人殖民地中海、亚历山大大帝占领小亚细亚、罗马人扩张、十字军东征、大航海时代来临,直到近现代,伴随着人类的探索和发现,地理学延伸和扩展了我们对世界的认识,也将学科的视线,超越了古希腊时代"有人居住的世界"的范畴.     

故乡的爱农民的心--评《天人之际的非常对话》

最近拜读了安德明的新著《天人之际的非常对话——甘肃天水地区的农事禳灾研究》,感受颇多。想在此与同行分享一下自己读后的一些感受,以期引起更多学者的关注和讨论。     

人间与天庭——麦克尼尔与汤因比之间的学术渊源与分歧

对文明和文明史深刻而独到的认识,是麦克尼尔史学成就中的一个重要组成部分。就学理而言,麦氏与英国著名史学大师汤因比有着密切的关联,故而,就他们之间的学术关系加以梳理、辨析,不仅对认识麦氏本人史学主张和成就大有助益,亦可从一个特定角度和层面对20世纪西方史学在有关世界史研究领域的传承、变革与发展有更为清晰的了解与把握。     

Warrior geopolitics: Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and The Kingdom Of Heaven

The “war on terror” and remilitarization of political anxiety in the aftermath of September 11th in the West, is both facilitated and challenged by representations of geopolitical danger and the supposed necessity for warriors to fight wars in distant lands. Ridley Scott's three movies, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and most recently The Kingdom of Heaven explore the morality and identity of warriors. They do so in exotic landscapes and settings that emphasize the confrontation with danger as external and frequently unknowable; political violence is presented as something that has both simple and very complicated geographies. The public discussion of the necessity for warfare and “intervention” in Western states is enmeshed in discourses of moralities, rights and “just war”. The professional Western warrior, whether a special forces operative or garrison soldier in peacekeeping mode, is a key figure of the post September 11th era, physically securing the West, and simultaneously securing its identity as the repository of virtue against barbaric threats to civilization. These themes are key to Ridley Scott's work. Analyzing them in terms of the warrior, empire and the particular geographies of combat adds a specifically military dimension to the critical geopolitical literature on war and representation.     

颛顼“绝地天通”与凌家滩“龟卜”

颛顼"绝地天通"历来被视为原始宗教的重大改革,从文献学、民族学角度来解读具有丰富的内涵。根据考古材料论定龙山文化时期骨卜的普化暗合"绝地天通"所反映的巫觋功能的专门化。这就科学确定了"绝地天通"的年代学意义。而含山凌家滩玉龟和玉版"龟卜"的种种迹象,说明在接近颛顼时代之前",原始八卦"也已经基本定型。     

青藏高原人与生存环境相互作用的特点

青藏高原的生态环境系统与人类社会系统有着特殊的关系。在这种关系下,人类生存行为表现出既与自然环境矛盾冲突的一面,也表现出适应协调的一面。在探索人与自然、环境与社会和谐统一的前进道路上,要为恢复与改造自然生态环境努力,更要发现和总结人类在挑战环境制约实践中的创造。     

Things and the Slow Neolithic: the Middle Eastern Transformation

This paper argues that the search for an overarching explanation for the adoption of farming and settled life in the Middle East can be enhanced by a consideration of the dependencies between humans and human-made things from the Late Glacial Maximum onwards. Often not considered in discussions of the origins of agriculture is the long process of human tooth size reduction that started in the Upper Palaeolithic and can reasonably be related to the increased use of grinding stones that created softer and more nutrient-rich plant foods. A consideration of the use of groundstone tools through the Epipalaeolithic and into the Neolithic shows that they were entangled with hearths, ovens, houses and settlements, exchange relations and notions of ownership. The practicalities of processing plants drew humans into pathways that led to intensification, population increase, sedentism and domestication. Much the same can be said for other human-made things such as sickles, storage bins, domestic animal dung and refuse. The dialectical tensions between human-thing dependence and dependency generated the movement towards Neolithicization. Human-thing dependence (involving human dependence on things, thing dependence on humans and thing dependence on other things) afforded opportunities towards which humans (always already in a given state of entanglement) were drawn in order to solve problems. But this dependence also involved dependency, limitation and constraint, leading for example to increases in labour. In order to provide that labour or in other ways to deal with the demands of things and their entanglements with other humans and things, humans made further use of the affordances of things. There was thus a generative spiral leading to sedentism and domestication.