改革开放以来的中华民国外交史研究

对中华民国外交史的研究,改革开放以来,随着国内外、海峡两岸学术交流的日益增进和大量新史料的公布,取得了令人瞩目的进展,无论是对事实的梳理还是对历史经验的总结,都有明显改观,外交史研究在客观性、科学性、严谨性等方面有了长足的进步。随着新的研究领域的开拓、学术视野的进一步扩大,未来的民国外交史研究必将取得更大的成就。     

论唐代官吏休假制度

唐代在继承前朝的基础上形成了一套富有特色的官吏休假制度,从这套制度来看,不但有旬假、节假、婚假等众多种,而且设置合理,规定细致,切实可行。唐代官吏休假制度对后世影响很大,宋朝的休假制度就基本上是沿唐代而略有损益。唐代官吏休假制度对今天也有一定启示。     

实证主义对心理学的影响及其反思

实证主义作为一种方法论是心理学学科确立和发展的根基,它对心理学的发展起了不可忽视的重要影响,但也存在着明显的不足和缺陷。     

现代新儒家文化哲学的核心理念

现代新儒家文化哲学的核心理念是其文化价值观。这种文化价值观认为,人类文化的价值集中体现在精神文化,精神文化区分为形而下文化与形而上文化,形而上文化的核心是哲学思想。现代新儒家标举和阐扬儒家式的人文主义,反对片面地发展人类文化中属于工具理性的科学技术,谋求中国文化现代化过程中科学价值与人文价值的结合。但是,现代新儒家所追求的人文价值归根结蒂乃是道德价值。论者一般将现代新儒学的文化保守主义归结为以下两项:其一是中体西用的思想纲领,其二是泛道德主义的价值取向。本文则认为,中体西用的思想纲领归根结蒂也还是体现了泛道德主义的价值取向。现代新儒家在力图抵制和消除科学主义所导致的现代社会弊病,谋求科学与人文平衡发展的同时,以其泛道德主义的价值取向,表现并凸显了现代新儒学的文化保守主义思想。     

《〈水浒传〉中约数的称法》的补说

吕朋林先生的《〈水浒传〉中约数的称法》一文,详细考察了《水浒传》约数的各种类型,分析其性质,并总结了从古代经近代到现代约数称说法的演变规律,结论大多是可信的;但有三点值得商榷：一是关于三个数字相连的约数用法;二是“五七”用于抽象事物问题;三是《西游记》和《红楼梦》中“五七”用法及《红楼梦》后“五七”用法问题。     

积累·自觉·创新--读张晋藩先生的《中国近代社会与法制文明》

新近出版的张晋藩先生的《中国近代社会与法制文明》一书对中国近代法律的演变、移植、改革、转型和中华法系、中华法制文明的更新与再造等问题,从实证研究和理论分析的层面进行了全面、系统和深入的探讨。限于篇幅,形成本文的仅是笔者最主要的感受,即该书所体现的充分的学术积累、深刻的学术自觉和可贵的学术创新风格。     

Thermoluminescence dating of a Stillbay–Howiesons Poort sequence at Diepkloof Rock Shelter (Western Cape,South Africa)

New excavations have been undertaken at Diepkloof Rock Shelter (DRS; South Africa) since 1999. It is one of the very few sites where Howiesons Poort and Stillbay assemblages can be collected from the same archaeological sequence. These Middle Stone Age techno-complexes are particularly interesting for their affinities with the much younger Later Stone Age facies, and their association with evidence for symbolic behaviour. Establishing their chronology is therefore particularly important for the understanding of the apparition and the evolution of the so-called “modern” behaviours. Data already available suggest ages ranging from 55 to 80 ka for the Howiesons Poort and from 70 to 80 ka for the Stillbay techno-complexes in several South African sites. The thermoluminescence dating undertaken at DRS on 22 stone samples originating from the entire stratigraphic record indicates intervals starting 10–50 ka earlier for these techno-complexes in this site. Possible caveats in the dating process are examined but to the best of our current knowledge must be rejected.     

The marriage plot and the plot against the Union: Irish Home Rule and endangered alliances in Henry James's “The Modern Warning”

By the period of the Irish Home Rule crisis – in which Catholics and liberal Anglicans lobbied for limited self-government while northern Presbyterians campaigned to keep Ulster wholly within the Union between Ireland and Great Britain of 1800 – certain of those of pre-Famine northern Irish Protestant origins (the “Scots-” or “Scotch-Irish”) identified with the position of their Presbyterian brethren in Ulster. This identifiably Ulster Protestant engagement with the Home Rule debate is detectable (and generally overlooked) in the Scots-Irish Henry James story “The Modern Warning”. Moreover, equally discounted is the fact that James's story deploys the Irish literary convention of the marriage plot as metaphor for political union in order to grapple with a moment in which that alliance is – in the unionists' view – in danger. This article concludes that the political-union-as-marriage trope still sporadically returns at moments of political crisis in the British Isles, as occurred during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum debate.     

Wilhelm Reich: Culture as power

The past several generations of scholarship on Rembrandt's “Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaas Tulp” have suffered from the anxiety of influence exercised by the influential interpretations of William Heckscher and William Schupbach. Schupbach's interpretation in particular has guided interpretation of the painting in the past generation and has given rise to a fundamental misunderstanding of the painting and its cultural significance. Schupbach and those whom he has influenced have failed to recognize that, from the standpoint of Baroque consciousness, there is an inner compatibility rather than a paradox or tension between the optimistic endorsement of earthly science and the putatively pessimistic resignation to the inevitability of death. Where the figure of Tulp represents the optimism of science and technology, that of the topmost surgeon Van Loenen represents the recognition that the technological project functions within the larger context of a Christian worldview. A reflection on the original form of “Tulp,” in which Van Loenen was depicted wearing a hat, shows how Rembrandt's painting can still speak to us from a distance of almost four hundred years and pose a challenge to our own secular ambitions.     

A History of Chinese Immigration in the United States and Canada

The 2005 Québec novel by Nicolas Dickner (English publication, 2008) presents intertextual effects that become a reflection on writing. The novel is a voyage of self-discovery while offering connections to Melville, Joseph Conrad, the German “bildungsroman,” nineteenth century classic novels, twentieth century French existentialist essays, Anglo-Saxon seafaring sagas, Central and South American imaginative tales, “cric-crac” stories of Québécois “raconteurs,” subversive Canadian novels, adventure stories, detective narratives, comic books and computer-generated discourse. This complex mise en abyme of writing through interlacing genres stands as a metaphor for diversity and rootlessness in North American society.