《老子》“德经”首章新解

A New Interpretation of the First Chapter of Dejing in Laozi

《老子》"德经"首章之"上德不德,是以有德;下德不失德,是以无德"当解释为"上德"所以"有德",是因为它不去外部寻求"德",而"下德"所以"无德",是因为它是依靠外部手段而寻求"德"。这种解释可以使得"德经"首章文意连贯,解释"前识"一句为何出现在此章。我们发现老子"德经"首章的思想与孔子、郭店竹书《五行》、孟子等人的思想有相通之处,反映出老子思想的影响。通过对《老子》众本"德经"、"道经"次序的探讨,我们发现"德经"在前、"道经"在后的次序可能出于战国时期述老学派之手,而"道经"在前、"德经"在后的次序可能出于西汉易学家,"德经""道经"次序的变化突出了《老子》思想对于先秦儒家的批判作用。

The first chapter of Dejing that ＂the highest De does not cling to De, for it has De itself; the lowest De does not loseDe, for it has no De itself＂ should be interpreted as follows： the reason that the highest De has De is that it does not seek De ex-ternally; the reason that the lowest De has no De is that it explores De externally. This new interpretation can make the firstchapter of Defing be consistent in contents and also can explain the reason why the ＂Qianshi＂ sentence is included in this chap-ter. It also can be seen that the first chapter of Dejing shares some commonplace with Confucius, Mencius and the Gnodian man-uscript Wuxing. By studying the sequence of Daojing and Dejing, a conclusion can be drawn that the order of Dejing before Dao-jing may be attributed to the scholars studying Laozi in the Warring States Period and the order of Daojing before Defing may beattributed to experts on Yijing in Western Han, and pre - Qin Confucianism＇ s criticism of Laozi can be.reflected in the variationof the sequence of Daojing and Dejing.