中国古代专制说的知识考古

19世纪末以来,秦至清的帝制时代的中国政体为专制政体、皇帝为专制皇帝的论断影响广泛,流行不衰,并成为中国史研究的基本观点之一。本文从思想史的角度对这一说法产生、传播的历史及其后果加以分析,指出此一论断并非科学研究的结果,而是亚里斯多德以来的西方人对东方的偏见。18世纪时个别西方思想家开始以此来描述中国,19世纪末以后经由日本广为不同立场的中国知识分子所接受,并通过辞书与历史教科书渗透到大众中,罕有质疑者。这一说法实际未经充分的事实论证,不加反思地用它来认识帝制时代中国的统治机制只会妨碍研究的深入。     

A discussion of the concept of “feudal”

The Western terms feudal  and feudalism  have been widely and improperly translated as fengjian  in contemporary China. The early Western Sinologists and Chinese scholars, including Yan Fu, did not originally make such a translation. Yan initially transliterated the term feudalism  as fute zhi in his early translations. It was not until the 20th century, when Western classical evolutionism found its way into China, that feudalism  was reduced to an abstract concept, and the Western European model was generalized as a framework for understanding development in China and the whole world. Only then did Yan Fu first equate feudalism  with fengjian,  and China was believed to have experienced a feudal society  in the same sense as Europe. From the perspective of intellectual history, using evidential and theoretical analyses, this article attempts to show that feudalism was a historical product in the development of Western Europe and existed only in Europe, fengjian  is a system appropriate only in discussions of pre-Qin China, and China from the Qin to the Qing experienced instead a system of imperial autocracy. The medieval periods in the West and in China evidence widely divergent social forms and hence should not be confused with the same label.     

十二生肖铜镜初论

铜镜是中国古代人照面饰容的器具,与人们的日常生活有着密切的关系。在中国铜镜发展史上,各时段铜镜的时代特征相当明显,其镜背所装饰的各种花纹和铭文实际与当时的政治、经济、思想文化、社会风尚等有密切的关系。在众多类型的中国古代铜镜中,出现于隋、盛行于唐、延续至宋辽,直至明代的生肖铜镜就是一个非常典型的例子。此类铜镜出现的背景,以及持续时间久远的原因与人们赋予此类铜镜的特殊功能有很大关系。目前有关生肖铜镜的讨论不多,除孔祥星等作了初步论述外,几乎没有专门的讨论。本文将在收集整理历年各地考古出土的十二生肖铜镜的基础上,结合文献记载,展开相关讨论。