本书从中国是一个超稳定结构假说出发,讨论中国历代政治文化的特点及其演化机制。通过比较魏晋南北朝时期佛教传入与近代西方文明扩张这两次重大的外来文化冲击,探讨中国文化融合消化外来文化所具有的共同模式,并进 而揭示二十世纪中国现代思想的起源.

This article discusses the introduction of the Western concept of democracy to China from the late nineteenth century to the first two decades of the twentieth century and the formation of the Chinese concept of democracy. It suggests that the modern Chinese concept of democracy underwent two formational phases. At the beginning, the traditional elite tended to interpret Western democracy in terms of republicanism. During the New Culture Movement, the new generation of intellectuals began a selective reconstruction of the notion (...) of democracy, which resulted in the modern Chinese view of democracy characterized by popular participation and elections. With funding from several research grants, we have created a database of texts related to modern Chinese political thought. By carrying out a frequency count and meaning analysis of the terms gonghe and minzhu, this article examines the roots of the replacement of the concept of republicanism by democracy from the perspective of intellectual history. (shrink)