社会杂志 ›› 2018, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (6): 180-215.

• 论文 • 上一篇    下一篇

中国近代“公益”的观念生成:概念谱系与结构过程

武洹宇   

  1. 中山大学社会学与人类学学院
  • 出版日期:2018-11-20 发布日期:2018-11-20
  • 作者简介:武洹宇,E-mail:wuhuanyu@mail.sysu.edu
  • 基金资助:

    中国慈善联合会“竹林计划”（2016ZLJH-251）资助，为广东省哲学社会科学“十三五”规划学科共建项目“广东志士与中国近代公益话语的萌芽”（GD16XLS06）、中山大学人文社会科学青年教师桐山基金（1709001）的阶段成果。

The Formation of “Gong-yi” in Modern China: A Philological Perspective

WU Huanyu   

  1. School of Sociology and Anthropology, Sun Yat-sen University
  • Online:2018-11-20 Published:2018-11-20
  • Supported by:

    This research was supported by the China Charity Alliance "Bamboo Program"(2016ZLJH-251), a Joint Project with Guangdong Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science for the 13th "Five Year" Plan, which was entitled "Cantonese Patriots and the Formation of Modern Chinese Gong-yi"(GD16XLS06), and Seiyu Kiriyama Foundation for Young Scholars of Social Science and Humanities at Sun Yat-sen University(1709001).

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摘要：

与过去普遍认为中国“公益”概念舶自近代日本的观点不同，本文发现中国本土的“公益”语汇至少在清代中期已经出现，并具有经济收益、国家利益与地方公事三种用法。其中，表示“国家利益”的语义很可能随着《万国公法》的东渡而重塑了日本近代的“公益”概念，并于19世纪末伴随宣传维新思想的著述出版而传入中国，成为变革话语的建构工具。“公益”概念遂于清季十年得以普及并发生语义重构。综观其重构以后的语义格局，系列新生语义的现代特质一方面在于其所表征的“国家利益”被赋予了支持政体转型的群学理论与变革实践，另一方面亦承载了这一转型过程中国家与地方之间错综复杂的动态关系以及两者对“公”合法性资源的争夺，两个方面共同反映出中国“公益”的开端与国家制度近代转型之间的同构关系。这一同构在何种程度上可能形塑了中国公民性在特定文化脉络中的历史养成，或能为今天探讨公益慈善与公共精神提供一种关注本土内生属性的问题意识。

关键词: 公益, 概念谱系, 语义结构, 近代转型

Abstract:

The Chinese term "gong-yi"(公益), which usually translated as "philanthropy" or "public interest" in English, has long been regarded as a new modern concept originated from Japan in the early 20th century. This study, however, finds the term "gong-yi" had appeared in China at least no later than the middle of Qing Dynasty. Its usage stood for three major meanings:economic benefit, national interest and local public affair. With high probability, the meaning of "national interest" of the term was introduced into Japan through the Japanese translation of a Chinese version of Henry Wheaton's Elements of International Law in the first place. The Japanese usage of "gong-yi" was thus transformed accordingly ever since. Consequently, at the late 19th century this usage was brought back into China along with the new thinking of the Meiji Restoration, becoming a tool for reform discourse in Chinese language. "Gong-yi", with its newly coined meaning, was used as an ideological term to express ideas about reformation in the early 20th century China. It was in this capacity that the Chinese "gong-yi" was swiftly popularized and often referred to the reformation as national interest. At the same time, the denotation of "gong-yi" was sometimes inevitably ambiguous wavering between "the nation" and "the local". It reflected the volatile conflict between the state and the local over legitimate control of "public" resources in a transitional period. Therefore, while "gong-yi" was used as an ideological concept to construct a political movement at the time, its discourse between the state and the society seemed unsettled and intermingled. In author's view, the question of to what extent this interlock between the emergency of modern "gong-yi" and the nation's modern transition might have shaped the historical formation of Chinese citizenship yields insights to the investigation of the nature of Chinese philanthropy and its essence in public spirit.

Key words: modernization, contextualization of concept, meaning system, gong-yi