英文摘要 |
To most researchers of Chinese political thoughts, Tang Dynasty is not a very noticeable period. Influenced by the paradigmatic work, Hsiao Kung-chuan's A History of Chinese Political Thought (published in 1945), they tend to consider Tang Dynasty as a period lacking intellectual originalities, which leads them always to concern similar topics. However, if we reviewed the methodologies of the past studies, we could find their evaluations are limited to philosophical or elitist orientation—a dominant research tendency in the Chinese political thoughts studies. In recent years, some historians attempt to adopt new approaches to break the old research framework. This article believes the “political discourse” approach, initiated by the Cambridge school and causing significant influences on the Euro-American academia, has the potentiality to change the landscape of Chinese political thoughts studies. Other than the past approaches emphasizing the intellectual originality and logical rigorousness of certain individuals or texts, the “political discourse” approach pays more emphasis on the practical intentions, functions and efficiencies of political language, and tends to reconstruct political thoughts behind the languages from a more macroscopic and contextual way. This perspective is suitable for certain periods, such as the Tang Dynasty, which used to be considered as intellectual mediocrity, and it could provide us an opportunity to rewrite the history of political thoughts in the Tang Dynasty |