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創刊号
平子 友長 Tomonaga Tairako西洋における市民社会の二つの起源
Two Origins of the European Concept of Civil Society; Societas Civilis and Buergerliche Gesellschaft
2007年01月 発行
[ 要旨 ]
この論文には日本語要旨はありません
[ Abstract ]
The two concepts of civil society in Western history, societas civilis and bürgerliche Gesellschaft of the German language region which took root after Hegel, have completely different origins and meanings. However, in Japan, these two concepts have been regarded as identical and translated into the same terms as “Shimin-Shakai,“ which means civil society as well as bürgerliche Gesellschaft. This has introduced enormous confusion into the Japanese literature of social sciences since 1930s.
The history of the transformation of the concept of civil society in the West goes back to the antique periods. The common origin of civil society in today’s Western languages is societas civilis, which was introduced into the Latin literature as the translation for Aristotle’s term of “politike koinonia” from Politics, and had, thereafter, been used as a term that refers to a political community characteristic of the West, which is based on the strict difference between “polis” (= political community) and “oikos” (= household community). The concept of civil society which had meant the public affairs (res publicae) based on civil self-government experienced a remarkable and significant transformation with the establishment of modernity.
This transformation was accomplished through (1) the development of the rule by political agency following the establishment of the state after the 16th century; (2) the development of the national economy accompanying the formation of the nation state, which gradually deprived the dichotomy of polis and oikos of its traditional relevance. The meaning of the concept of civil society experienced the enormous transformation in the 18th century England, however, the idea of civil society as a political society in contrast to a economic one still remained recognized.
Hegel is the first philosopher who introduced the concept of “civil society” (bürgerliche Gesellschaft) as a modern economic society where the market and division of labor has fully developed. Thereafter, in the German language region, “civil society” (bürgerliche Gesellschaft) has been understood as the private economic sphere in contrast to the political state. The German concept of “civil society” is, in essence, different from the English and French concept of it. In the last section of the paper, the author introduces Antonio Gramsci on his unique understanding of civil society. As creative Marxist theorist, he tried to re-estimate and revive the classical concept of the civil society in the 20th century.