“无为而无不为”和“无目的的合目的性”——论老子与康德的美学观

“Doing Nothing With Everything Done”and“Purposiveness without Purpose”—On Lao-Tzu and Kant’s Aesthetic View

"道德与实践"是老子与康德哲学体系中的核心范畴,但人们常从一般的哲学层面来考察二人的思想立场,忽略了其美学观念在向道德实践转化中的重要功能。本文主要从自然审美的层面说明老子的"无为而无不为"和康德的"无目的的合目的性"中的道德实践观,说明老子的"无为"并不是完全地归顺自然和否定形式美,而是顺从自然的有度治理,是一种虚静恬淡的审美心态;而康德的"无目的"也并非是完全地否认经验概念的美,而是主张在自然先验与认知经验之间的调和,使经验融入自然先验的普遍规律中,从而转为"合目的性"的内在和谐的完满形式美。由此,二人都肯定了无功利的纯粹自然之形式美,均是从审美—道德的途径来实现各自最高的"自由"理想。

“Morality and practice”is the core categories in the philosophical systems of Lao-Tzu and Kant,but people often consider their ideological standpoints from a general philosophical aspect,and ignore their important function of transforming the aesthetic concepts into moral practice.This paper mainly gives an explanation to the moral practice view from Lao-Tzu’s“doing nothing with everything done”and Kant’s“purposiveness without purpose”,in order to show that Lao-Tzu’s“doing nothing”is not a complete submission to nature or negation of formal beauty,but a proper governance of nature,which is an aesthetic mentality of void and quietness.While Kant’s“purposelessness”does not completely deny the beauty on the aspect of experience,but rather emphasizes the harmony between the natural transcendence and cognitive experience,so that the experience can be integrated into the universal law of the natural transcendence,and further be turned into the“purposiveness”of the perfect formal beauty in internal harmony.Thus,both of them affirm the formal beauty of pure nature without utility and realize their highest pursuit of“freedom”in the way of aesthetics-to-morality.