藉公共領域建立自主性（上）：對西方公／私區分語意及結構之探討
摘要
This article examines the public/private distinctions in the West, in order to build a frame of reference for a reflection about the Chinese tradition of political primacy. Guiding by the system theoretical approach of the operative constructivism, this article examines the different schemes of distinction that defined the publicity from citizenship, sovereignty, sociability as public life and the impersonal, instrumentalism-oriented activity areas. Putting these semantics back into the historical-societal contexts that they were embedded in, this article investigates at the same time the relations between them and the societal structures. By this way this article explains how the public/private semantics reflected or leaded the changes of societal structures in the course of transformation of societal formations from polis via empire and feudalism to functional differentiated society. With this analysis of the western experiences, this article finds that the following factors are fundamental to the autonomy of society: to distinguish the different orientations of politics, administration and the public in the political; to recognize the publicity in the private; to activate the reforming dynamics and to strengthen the self-organizing ability of society by way of the public sphere as internal environment of the function systems.