道家“自然”观念的演变——从老子的“非他然”到王充的“无意志”

The Evolution of the Concept Ziran in Taoism:From Laozi's “Absence of External Force” to Wang Chong's “Absence of Internal Intention”

"自然"是道家思想中极为重要的观念,在此我们尝试用一种新的理路对它的演变情况加以再探讨。在通常的"自然无为"的并称中,"自然"也被视作"道"的谓词,这种理解更能反映汉代道家的观念,而在老庄思想中情况并非如此。老子思想中的"自然"是描述万物或百姓的自发性状态,而其成因则是道或王的"无为",呈现出"主体无为而客体自然"的因果关系。通过这种视域继续考察庄子到严遵的情况,可发现"自然"的主要意义仍是老子类型的客体非他然,被用来表示主体无意志的情况还不是很显著,但其间的某些情形也表现出这方面的倾向。这种倾向后来在王充的言论里得到了强化,王充通过"自然"来强调天道运行没有目的,以此批判天人感应学说,在天道"自然无为"等相关表述中,"自然"的意义与"无为"相趋近。现今常用"自然无为"去概括老庄哲学,一定程度上是受到了后世观念的影响,其实应该用"无为而自然"的思路去理解,这样更能反映老庄思想的特质。

The concept Ziran is very important in Taoism, and this paper tries to reexamine it from a new perspec- tive. Generally, the concept Ziran is regarded as the predicate of Dao in the expression Ziran-Inaction. However, this view is more suitable for Taoist belief in Han Dynasty than it would be for the thoughts of Lao-Zhuang. Indeed, the con- cept Ziran in Laozi＇s thought is to describe a spontaneous state of things or people, which depends on the Inaction of Dao or the king. Therefore, there is causality between the Inaction of subject and the Ziran of object. In this regard, the con- cept of Ziran for Zhuangzi and Yanzun is still similar to that of Laozi. Although there were cases in which the term was used to suggest the lack of subjective intention, this usage was not really prevalent. This usage became more evident in Wang Chong＇s thought. Wang Chong emphasized that the behavior of Tian-Dao had no intention by adopting the concept Ziran, and intended to criticize the theory of the interaction between heaven and human. Thus, the meaning of Ziran in his case was close to Inaction in the expression of Tian-Dao being Ziran-Inaction. Today, we often use the later expres- sion of Ziran-lnaction to generalize the philosophy of Lao-Zhuang, which is in fact not really consistent with the teach- ings of Lao-Zhuang. Instead, the belief in ＂Ziran caused by Inaction＂ is more revealing about the properties of Lao- Zhuang＇ s thought.