ZHAO Dingxin: The Spring-and-Autumn and Warring States Warfare and the Rise of Confucianism-Legalist States

Stanford ChinaRains (http://chinarains.stanford.edu/, http://chinarains.blogspot.com/) presents:

"The Spring-and-Autumn and Warring States Warfare and the Rise of Confucianism-Legalist States"

“春秋战国时期战争和儒法国家的形成”

by Zhao, Dingxin 赵鼎新
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology
University of Chicago

Saturday, March 17, 2:30 PM

@ Nairobi Room
2nd floor
GRADUATE COMMUNITY CENTER
750 Escondido Road, Stanford, CA 94305
Map: http://campus-map.stanford.edu/index.cfm?ID=10-590

Outline of the Talk:

本讲座探讨春秋战国时期的战争对中华帝国历史形态的影响。我的观点是：春秋战国时期各诸侯国之间长达五百多年的封建战争促进了工具理性及以效率为导向的文化的形成，它们进而推动了社会的全面发展，包括大型都市的兴起，货币经济的出现，以择优录取为特征的科层制国家的形成，及以各类哲学思想的争鸣。然而，由于缺乏强大的社会力量的钳制，这些由战争促发的发展最后归掌于法家国家的手中。法家国家在社会中地位的上升为秦帝国的统一奠定了基础，然而，法家学说并没有为国家统治提供一种在强力控制和镇压之外的合法性基础。法家国家的残酷性加速了秦帝国的解体。在此后数十年的发展中，中国政治开始走向一种“儒法国家” 形态。在这政治形态下，国家奉儒家学说为合法性基础，同时采用工具主义的法家作为御民之术，皇帝被神圣化为“天子”，而对“天命” 的解释权却在儒家官僚的手中。这种国家政权与儒家精英之间所建立的紧密共存关系（即政治权利和意识形态的共生关系）边缘化了军事和经济力量在社会中的作用，进而促进了中华帝国许多特定历史形态的形成。

About Prof. Zhao:

Dingxin Zhao is an associate professor in Sociology at the University of Chicago. His research covers social movements, nationalism, historical sociology, social change and economic development. He is currently working on a project on historical sociology, which, based on a comparison with the European experience, is intended to develop an empirically-grounded theory to explain the changes in state, military, economy and philosophy during China's Axial Age (722-221 BCE), the unification of China under the Qin Empire (221-206 BCE), and how the developments of this period shaped China's later history. He intends to devote his time here at Stanford to write a book, and is very much looking forward to getting to know more about Stanford and the faculty and students of this school.


Xiaobin He, Xiaoling Zhou & Hao Yan
ChinaRains at Stanford