怀特海对传统主体性原理的反思和改造

On the Reflection and Reform of the Subjectivist Principle by Whitehead

怀特海是20世纪少有的形而上学哲学家。他从有机体哲学的立场出发,批判传统哲学的独断论,提出了"改造了的主体性原理"。他认为,亚里士多德的实体和主体观念对传统哲学具有奠基意义。近代的笛卡尔恰恰通过凸显"自我"的第一实体地位来表达人的意识的主体性,由此开启近代哲学摆脱客体的主体观念的形成。在怀特海看来,现实的事物是构成宇宙的终极实在,任何现实的存在者的存在意味着它的生成,而一个现实的存在者的生成又意味着该现实的存在者作为主体把握一切现有的现实存在者的合生过程。他进一步认为,任何现实的存在者都是一个经验主体,而且其主体性都是以客体性为前提的。可以说,怀特海的主体性原理为克服近代以来的狭隘的人类中心主义提供了形而上学的理论根据。

Alfred North Whitehead,as a metaphysician in 20 th century,is very unusual. He has criticized the solipsism and dogmatism of traditional philosophy and proposed the reformed subjectivist principle. According to Whitehead,the ideas of entity and subjectivity in Aristotle have laid the foundation of traditional philosophy and Descartes has derived the modern subjectivist principle that gets rid of the object through regarding the self as the first entity. But in the fact,the actual entity is the ultimate reality of the universe. This is one hand. On the other hand,being of every actual entity means its becoming that is a concrescence progress,a progress in which the actual entity understands and grasps all existing actual entities as subject. Further,he thinks every actual entity is an empirical subject whose subjectivity is on the premise of object. In general,Whitehead's subjectivist principle can be thought as a metaphysical basis of overcoming the narrow anthropocentrism that has been well known from modern times.