评杜维明“存有的连续性”——兼谈中西哲学气论

On Tu Weiming’s “Continuity of Being” and the Ch’i Theory in Chinese and Western Philosophy

杜维明先生以中国哲学的气论为依据,以“存有的连续性”为中国哲学的特质,认为“气”是既非精神、也非物质的“精神生理的东西”,因而不存在“中国唯物论思想家的系谱”。本文则试图证明,在中国哲学中,“气”是一个物质性的概念;西方哲学也有两千年源远流长的气论传统,主张“存有的连续性”乃中西所同,不能构成中国哲学区别于西方哲学的特质;哲学具有时代性,中西气本论基本上都属于朴素唯物主义形态的有机整体的自然宇宙观。中国哲人比西方哲人更早具有区分“唯物”与“唯心”的自觉意识,把思维与存在的关系规定为“全部哲学重大的基本问题”是对哲学作为世界观和方法论的普遍性品格的科学论定,对于中西哲学史研究都是不可回避的基本方法。

Based on the ch’i theory in Chinese philosophy and“the continuity of being”as the feature of Chinese philosophy,Tu Weiming argues that ch’i is a“psychophysiological power”that is neither spiritual nor material.Therefore,there is no“Chinese materialist thinker’s pedigree.”This article attempts to prove the following:in Chinese philosophy,ch’i is a material concept;Western philosophy also has a long tradition of ch’i theory in the past two thousand years,and it proposes“the continuity of being”the same as China,so this cannot constitute a trait of Chinese philosophy that is different from that in Western philosophy;Philosophy carries the features of its time,and the Chinese and Western ch’i theories basically belong to the same organic integral natural cosmic view in simple materialistic form.Chinese philosophers had a self-awareness of distinguishing“materialism”and“idealism”earlier than Western philosophers.Regarding the relationship between thinking and being as“the major fundamental problem of all of philosophy”is a scientific summary of the universal character of philosophy as a worldview and methodology.It is an unavoidable basic method for the study of Chinese and Western history of philosophy.