Page 180 - 《社会》2025年第1期

重新发现“自然”：抗战前燕京学派社区研究传统的三重转换

and suburbs，market towns and border regions，and produced a number of classic
community studies that had become everlasting traditions.
This paper follows the trajectory of the discipline of sociology at Yenching
University to present the threefold transformation of the Yenching sociological
community studies prior to the Anti鄄Japanese War. The early sociological studies at
Yenching were shrouded in the God’s perspective of “one unity of religion and
society” and were devoted to social reconstruction. Then from the time of Xu
Shilian，the view became that the closer the research methods of sociology were to
natural science，the more developed sociology would become. The town of Ching
Ho，as a social laboratory，initiated the original tradition of “regional” studies，in
which the control of “nature” was seen as a measure of social progress. The third
academic shift came when Wu Wenzao incorporated the theoretical shift towards
human ecology with functional analysis，and thereby “culture”， a social constancy
that cannot be controlled， became the focus of community studies. When
“function” replaced “causality”，“comparative method” replaced“experimental
method”，“the natural history of society” replaced the previous simple and
mechanical “historical reconstruction of society”，it marked the establishment of
sociology as a discipline truly different from natural science.
In this process，natural science and social science were never rivals to each
other，and the community studies tradition of the Yenching school was never
detached from nature in the process of transforming it，but rather they were built on
the foundation of nature to approach step by step the cultural analysis of“human
beings” themselves.
Keywords：nature，Yenching school，christian college，community studies，social
experiment in Ching Ho

一、 引言：返回学术史的前半段

当下中国社会科学研究的基底正处在向人文性转换的阶段， 这意
味着对中国社会构造的把握和对学问总体形态 的省 思 正 迈 向 一 个 新
阶段（渠敬东，2021）。 中国社会学研究文明转向的基因，孕发于传统与
现代交汇的民国时期。 在蜕变中的中国社会，借由西方传教士主导的
一系列“科学”的社会调查，20 世纪上半叶的社会史和学术史开始呈现
更为丰富的样态。 宗教成为早期中国社会学开拓者研究和理解社会的

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