千百年来,孔子一直是中国人心目中“天字第一号”的圣人。18世纪以后,一向自视甚高的西方人也开始关注孔子的学说。20世纪80年代,欧美地区接连出现了两件与孔子有关而令当代中国人既吃惊又振奋的事情:一是孔子被美英学者推选为世界十大思想家之首;二是诺贝尔奖获得者在巴黎会议结束时的宣言中呼吁:“如果人类要在21世纪生存下去,必须回首2500年前,去孔子那里汲取智慧。” For thousands of years, Confucius has always been the saint of the “Tianzi No.1” in the minds of Chinese. After the 18th century, Westerners, who had always assumed high self-esteem, began to pay attention to Confucius’ teachings. In the 1980s, there were two successive occurrences in Europe and the United States that surprised and inspired contemporary Chinese. First, Confucius was chosen by the American and British scholars as the head of the world’s top ten thinkers. Second, the Nobel Prize winner The declaration at the end of the Paris Conference called for: “If humankind is to survive in the 21st century, we must look back to 2500 years ago to learn about wisdom from Confucius.”