因果与比类——中西哲学思维方式的差异

Causality and Analogy:Different Thinking Styles between Chinese Traditional Philosophy and Western Philosophy

哲学是筑家之学,要为人建造安身立命之所,中西哲学概莫能外。西方哲学通过追溯因果必然性,将人维系在超越现实世界的第一因上,从而使人摆脱了偶然性的侵扰,获得一种稳定的居家感。中国哲学则放弃了对于超越世界的追寻,而专注于现实世界,通过自我与世界万物的比类相推,从而建立起一张普遍的关联之网,将人贞定于其中。西方哲学的因果思维是一种向上纵向超越的思维,它追求自我对现世界的超越,这种思维容易导致对现实世界的否定和人神争位。中国哲学的比类思维不仅专注于现实世界,放弃了对于第一因的追求,而且面向他者,强调自我与他者的关联性,注重自我对于他者责任的承担,因而中国哲学是世间性的,它追求的不是自我的超越,而是对自我的超越。

Philosophy is the science of building a home,a place for people to live in peace.Western philosophy traces the causal necessity and maintains the human beings in the first cause of transcending the real world,thus freeing people from accidental intrusion and obtaining a stable sense of home.Chinese philosophy has abandoned the pursuit of transcending the world,and focused on the real world.Through the comparison of the self and the world,it has established a universal network of associations.The causal thinking of Western philosophy is an upward and vertical transcendent thinking,pursuing the transcendence of the self to the present world,which tends to the denial of the real world and the disappointment of human's fight with God.Chinese traditional philosophy's analogism based on the real world,giving up the pursuit of the first cause,but facing the other,emphasizing the relationship,commitment and responsibility between the self and the other.Therefore,Chinese philosophy is secular,which does not pursuit to transcend the real world but to transcend the self.