云梦学刊

自文明时代开始，政治活动就成为国家治理的重要内容。但是，政治活动的思想，却长期被淹没在习俗、宗教、伦理和其他知识领域中，不能独立出来。因此，关于政治活动，就很难形成客观、系统的独立知识。而人类认识政治活动及其本质的每一次进步，都要突破习俗、宗教、伦理等社会意识形态的束缚和压制，十分艰难，有时还会引起非同寻常的反响。今天从事政治理论研究的许多人热衷于宣讲亚里士多德、马基雅维利、霍布斯的贡献，却不知道在两千多年前的古代中国，被称为法家的思想家已经对政治活动作出了深刻的理性反思，形成了独立而系统的知识，对后世产生了深刻的影响。如果说上述几位西方思想家所作的理论贡献实现了政治的发现，那么可以毫不夸张地说，以商鞅、管子、韩非为代表的法家思想家们作出了同样的贡献，而且是中国式的政治的发现。对于法家的这一贡献，迟至21世纪才有学者予以正式揭橥。宋洪兵的新书《为政治奠基：法家政治思想之学理研究》应时代所需，对法家思想和关于法家思想的种种学说作出深刻的理论反思，在法家如何发现政治以及怎样研究法家思想等诸多重大理论问题上作出了新贡献，堪称对政治发现的发现。

Since the dawn of civilization, political activities have been an essential component of state governance. However,political thought long remained submerged within social conventions, religions, ethics, and other domains of knowledge, failing to emerge as an independent field. As a result, it was difficult to form objective and coherent systematic knowledge about political activities. Every advancement in humanity's understanding of politics and its essence required breaking through the constraints and suppression imposed by social conventions, religions, ethics, and the other social ideologies-a process that was exceedingly arduous and sometimes provoked extraordinary repercussions. While many contemporary scholars of political theory often enthusiastically discuss the contributions of Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Hobbes, few are aware that over two millennia ago,ancient Chinese thinkers known as the Fajia(used to be known as Legalists in the West) had already engaged in profound rational reflections on political life, developing an independent and systematic body of knowledge that profoundly influenced later generations in China. If the theoretical contributions of the aforementioned Western thinkers can be described as the“discovery of politics”, it is no exaggeration to say that the Fajia thought represented by Shang Yang, Guan Zhong, and Han Fei made analogous contributions—a distinctly Chinese discovery of politics. It was not until the 21 st century that scholars began to formally highlight this contribution of the Legalist. Prof. Song Hongbing's new book, Laying the Foundation for Politics: A Theoretical Study of Fajia Political Thought, responds to the needs of the times by offering profound theoretical reflections on Fajia thought and its various interpretations. It makes significant contributions to understanding how the Fajia discovered politics and how their thought should be studied, ultimately constituting what may be called a “discovery of the political discovery”.