我思、上帝与世界——论“笛卡尔循环”的内在性根据

Cogito,God and the world: A study of the immanent foundation of the Cartician circle

通过文本的详细考察可以发现,我思并未在笛卡尔那里占据独一奠基者的地位,它与上帝是互为前提的,即我思在思考的意义上优先于上帝,而上帝在存在的意义上优先于我思。这种看似循环的相互支撑结构在中世纪的奥古斯丁、库萨那里已屡见不鲜,但这并不意味着笛卡尔回到了经院哲学。笛卡尔哲学以及近现代哲学之不同于中世纪经院哲学的特殊之处是,自我与上帝都以一个理性在原则上可以彻底理解、定义乃至掌控的整体世界结构为前提,因此我们不应仅仅纠缠于自我与上帝何者优先的问题,而要回到更重要的世界结构问题上去。

Through a detailed analysis,this paper argues that cogito is not the unique grounding element in Descartes' theory. Cogito and God set each other as the precondition. Cogito lays a foundation for God cognitively,while God lays a foundation for cogito ontologically. This structure of mutual support in a seeming recycle is nothing new in the Middle Ages,for example in the works of Augustin and Cusa,but it does not mean that Descartes has returned to scholasticism. The distinct characteristics of the Cartecian philosophy and even the whole modern philosophy which are different from the scholasticism of the Middle Ages are as follows: the ego and God take the world as the precondition,which in principle is understandable,definable and controllable in terms of reason; so we shouldn't be tangled in the problem whether cogito or God is the foundation,but return to the more important problem of the structure of this world.