【转帖】schafer评Chinese Thought and Institutions
按：Edward H.Schafer和费正清同时为70年代美国汉学界两大巨头，也代表了两种不同的研究取向。人类学和语言学出身的Schafer，对费正清所谓“社会科学化”的研究方法，颇有异议。下面这则由jstor上搜来的书评便是一例。如今费正清的著述在中文世界铺天盖地，而Schafer至今鲜为人知，翻译成中文的著述，也不过《唐代的外来文明》（The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A study of Tang exotics ）而已，不免让人唏嘘。
作者简介：Edward H.Schafer(August 23, 1913-February 9, 1991）本科就读于UCLA，后转入加大伯克利分校就读，修得人类学硕士和东方语言学博士学位，博士期间师从俄国汉学家Peter A. Boodberg。1947年开始在伯克利东方语言学部任教直至1984年退休。1975-1976年间任American Oriental Society 会长。其著述较为著名的有The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A study of Tang exotics 和 The Vermilion Bird: T'ang images of the South等等（其书目可参考此豆列http://book.douban.com/doulist/205084/）。生平还可参考http://texts.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb4t1nb2bd&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00060&toc.depth=1&toc.id=
【发表于 Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 78, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1958】
This volume is a collection of essays devoted to various problems of Chinese political and social history, ranging through ancient, medieval and modern times. The conception which purports to
unify these very diverse papers (including such extremes as the political use of omens and portents in the second century B. C. [Eberhard] and the political significance of the " treaty ports " in the nineteenth century A.D. [Fairbank]) is the now popular one of " Intellectual History," or what is often called " Thought " in the modish but narrow apotheosis of that word. A thoughtful and liter-
ate preliminary essay by Benjamin Schwartz attempts to give disciplinary dignity to this conception, but to me, at least, it remains, as Schwartz says, ". . . a particularly hazy area of human inquiry." At any rate, despite the variety of subject matter and treatment, a " social science 2' predilection is evident, in greater or less degree,
in all of these studies. That is to say, abstractions (of relatively high level) about the history of some Chinese institutions appear to be the aim of the majority of the earnest contributors, as opposed to
what John E. Fairbank, who has contributed an introduction to the volume, calls, ". . . the intimate and particular knowledge of the humanist." Fairbank's admirable tribute to knowledge of both sorts seems to me to have little other than theoretical and polite reference to most of the articles in this book. With some exceptions, they seem in this bloodless I am inclined to say " neo-scholastic."
I find few traces of the " rhetoric and sentiment " (for instance) which Fairbank wants to find at the heart of this kind of scholarship. The " Thought " which is honored here is neither every- day thought (purposing, dreaming and reflecting by real individuals about the world of sensible objects in which they find themselves, e. g. erotic ephemera) nor " cultured " thought (purposing, dreaming and reflecting about the choice objects
of their milieu, e. g. dinner party conversations), but is soulething much more grand. It is intellectual (subject matter which appeals to "thinkers ") and political (chiefly concerned with problems of power over human beings). So there is, after all, a kind of unifying principle, but the book is only humanistic by accident, as where an
individual contributor has not been able to escape , his own character (e.g. Wilhelm). With a less imposing title, and without the idealistic introduction to live up to, the volume would still have been, and indeed is, a collection of very interesting articles about China by very competent writers, his own character (e.g. Wilhelm). With a less imposing title, and without the idealistic introduction to live up to, the volume would still have been, and indeed is, a collection of very interesting articles about China by very competent writers.
作者简介：Edward H.Schafer(August 23, 1913-February 9, 1991）本科就读于UCLA，后转入加大伯克利分校就读，修得人类学硕士和东方语言学博士学位，博士期间师从俄国汉学家Peter A. Boodberg。1947年开始在伯克利东方语言学部任教直至1984年退休。1975-1976年间任American Oriental Society 会长。其著述较为著名的有The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A study of Tang exotics 和 The Vermilion Bird: T'ang images of the South等等（其书目可参考此豆列http://book.douban.com/doulist/205084/）。生平还可参考http://texts.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb4t1nb2bd&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00060&toc.depth=1&toc.id=
【发表于 Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 78, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1958】
This volume is a collection of essays devoted to various problems of Chinese political and social history, ranging through ancient, medieval and modern times. The conception which purports to
unify these very diverse papers (including such extremes as the political use of omens and portents in the second century B. C. [Eberhard] and the political significance of the " treaty ports " in the nineteenth century A.D. [Fairbank]) is the now popular one of " Intellectual History," or what is often called " Thought " in the modish but narrow apotheosis of that word. A thoughtful and liter-
ate preliminary essay by Benjamin Schwartz attempts to give disciplinary dignity to this conception, but to me, at least, it remains, as Schwartz says, ". . . a particularly hazy area of human inquiry." At any rate, despite the variety of subject matter and treatment, a " social science 2' predilection is evident, in greater or less degree,
in all of these studies. That is to say, abstractions (of relatively high level) about the history of some Chinese institutions appear to be the aim of the majority of the earnest contributors, as opposed to
what John E. Fairbank, who has contributed an introduction to the volume, calls, ". . . the intimate and particular knowledge of the humanist." Fairbank's admirable tribute to knowledge of both sorts seems to me to have little other than theoretical and polite reference to most of the articles in this book. With some exceptions, they seem in this bloodless I am inclined to say " neo-scholastic."
I find few traces of the " rhetoric and sentiment " (for instance) which Fairbank wants to find at the heart of this kind of scholarship. The " Thought " which is honored here is neither every- day thought (purposing, dreaming and reflecting by real individuals about the world of sensible objects in which they find themselves, e. g. erotic ephemera) nor " cultured " thought (purposing, dreaming and reflecting about the choice objects
of their milieu, e. g. dinner party conversations), but is soulething much more grand. It is intellectual (subject matter which appeals to "thinkers ") and political (chiefly concerned with problems of power over human beings). So there is, after all, a kind of unifying principle, but the book is only humanistic by accident, as where an
individual contributor has not been able to escape , his own character (e.g. Wilhelm). With a less imposing title, and without the idealistic introduction to live up to, the volume would still have been, and indeed is, a collection of very interesting articles about China by very competent writers, his own character (e.g. Wilhelm). With a less imposing title, and without the idealistic introduction to live up to, the volume would still have been, and indeed is, a collection of very interesting articles about China by very competent writers.
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