过程哲学视域中的身心关系

Mind-body Relation from the Perspective of Process Philosophy

从怀特海过程哲学视域探讨身心关系问题,认为传统西方实体哲学在身心关系上陷入难以自拔的困境,其主要原因在于各派实体哲学都以把身和心视作两个相互独立的实体为前提,在此基础上探讨两者的关系一定不能自圆其说,尤其不能合理地说明精神对物质的反作用。而各种把身心等同的学说,包括庸俗唯物主义学说,实际是抹杀了身心的相对独立性,因而也难以真正说明二者的相互关系。怀特海过程哲学从现实存在皆有身和心两极为前提,既坚持两者不可绝对分割,又坚持两者有本质的区别,并在相对论和量子力学等科学理论基础上,从过程和关系视域探讨两者的相互作用、相互影响和相互作用。身和心作为现实存在的两个方面,在摄入、创造性和主体性等诸多原理支配下而永恒地生生不息,呈现为永恒的创造性进展过程和"多生成一并由一而长"的过程。没有物质性存在形式的精神、意识、心灵是抽象的和空洞的,不是现实的存在;而没有精神性存在形式的纯粹物质、实体乃至信息、场等,也都是抽象的存在,不是现实的存在。

This paper deals with the problem of body and mind from the perspective of Whitehead＇s process philoso- phy, insisting on that the traditional western philosophy of substance was already caught in the dilemma, its main reason is that it takes the body and mind as the mutual independent, and deals with their relation on that premise. So that it cannot reasonably interpret the mind＇s re-action to the body. Other philosophical schools which identify body and mind such as the vulgar materialism indeed obliterated the difference between body and mind, therefore they also cannot really explain the inter-relationship between the body and mind. Whitehead＇s process philosophy takes the following point as its promise, namely every actual entity has its pole of body and its pole of mind, just as everything has its Yin and Yang according to Daoism, these two poles cannot be separated absolutely, but they have an essential difference. So the process philosophy has explained the real inter-relation between the body and mind on the base of modern sciences such as the Theory of Relativity and Quantum, and analyzed its inter-connected relation by the principles of Prehension, Creativity and Subjectivity and etc. It holds that body and mind, as a whole unity in the cosmos, is eternally in the process of creative advance and is present as ＂the many becomes one and is increased by one＂. Mind will be empty without its form of material body and body will be an abstract being without the mind in it.