现代伦理意义下的“阴阳”概念再认识

Updating Yin and Yang

近来,伦理学家们还未能更多地关注中国阴阳互补,这需要重新考虑阴阳互补并进而使之成为当前伦理学思考的基础所在。笔者在《从启蒙到感受性》一书中,讨论了西方过分强调理性控制和自主性,而以牺牲感受性价值为代价的问题。阴阳互补已经预示与廓清了近年来西方哲学思想所呈现出来的重视感受性和理性控制间互补的发展趋势。但是正像西方哲学过于强调理性自主一样,中国思想还没有完全领会理性自主的重要性,中西方思想都需要寻找一种自主控制和感受性之间的平衡。不过我们认为这样一个平衡观念更多地来自中国阴阳而不是以往西方哲学的其它概念。

Ethicists haven＇t paid much attention recently to the Chinese complementarity of yin and yang.That complementarity can be updated to take into account and also from the basis for some of our contemporary ethical thinking.In my From Enlightenment to Receptivity,I argue that Western thought has overemphasized rational control/autonomy at the expense of the countervailing virtue of receptivity,and it turns out that the yin/yang complementarity can be profitably viewed as anticipating and clarifying a complementarity between receptivity and rational control that recent developments in Western philosophical thought point us toward.But just as Western philosophy has overemphasized rational autonomy,Chinese thinking hasn＇t sufficiently appreciated its importance.Both Chinese and Western thought need to seek a more even balance between autonomy/control and receptivity,but the idea of such balance comes more from anything in previous Western philosophy.