荀子天论与先秦儒家天人观的转折

Studies on Xunzi's Views Towards Heaven and the Turning Point View About the Relationship Between Heaven and Human Beings of the Pre-qin Confucians

儒学被称为天人之学,儒家对于人道的考量历来与天命和天道问题密切相关,对于天命和天道的思考奠定了儒家道德形而上学的基础。作为先秦最后一位儒学大师,荀子论天的方向却发生了根本性转折:他强调天人之分,将天定义为质料化的存在物,消解了传统上天在儒家思想中所具有的神圣性和超越性,从而瓦解了儒家道德形而上学的根基。荀子物化的天论导致了儒家思想史上天与人之间内在联系的断裂,使得他的天论成了对以孔子的天命观和《易传》的天道观为代表的儒家形上思想的颠覆。否定天的形上意义并没有使他的天论为科学的自然观开辟道路,因为对于大自然深处的奥秘和律则的好奇与追问乃是科学产生的必要条件,此种态度却是为荀子所坚决排斥的。同时,天与人之间的断裂也使得他表面看来达到了顶峰的人文主义成了失去天道支撑的寡头人文主义,这种寡头人文主义本身已经包含着走向自身反面的可能,也为韩非的法家思想提供了一个可乘的思想缺口。

Confucianism has been called the philosophy of heaven and humanity. The evaluation of Confucianism to humanity always kept close relationship with the questions of mandate of heaven and natural law,and the thinking towards mandate of heaven and natural law laid the foundation of metaphysical Confucian ethics. As the last master of Confucianism in the pre-Qin period,Xunzi's views towards heaven was totally different from the previous Confucians,he emphasized the separation of heaven and human beings and defined heaven as the materialized existence,which dispelled the holiness and transcendence of traditional heaven in Confucianism and dissolved the foundation of metaphysical Confucian ethics. At the same time,judging by appearance,the rupture of heaven and human beings made his philosophy come to the submit of humanism,in nature,his philosophy was an oligarchic humanism which lost the support of natural law. The oligarchic humanism was possible to develop towards the reverse side of itself and provided a chance for Han Fei's legalism to refute the philosophy of Xunzi.