认知视域下的理学之“诚”

On Conception of“Cheng”in Neo-Confucianism from Cognitive Perspective

在理学中,抽象的诚是人性的内容,人生的境界,是事物得以存在的本质。因其抽象,先贤对它的解释和理解只能通过隐喻的手段。“立诚”“推诚”“尽诚”“至诚”等是诚的本体隐喻的典型表达,此时诚是静态的实体。但是诚的作用和意义主要体现在它的事件-结构隐喻中,在其中,诚既是事物发展的起点和动因,也是贯穿事物终始的状态,伴随着事物发展的动态过程。

In Neo-Confucianism,the abstract cheng(sincerity,genuineness)is the content of human nature,ideal state of moral life,essence of being.Ancient people can only interpret and understand it by means of metaphor because of its abstraction.Typical metaphorical expressions of ontological metaphors of Cheng are licheng(set up cheng),tuicheng(practise cheng),jincheng(put all one’s cheng to use),zhicheng(sincerest cheng).At this point cheng is a static entity.However,the function and significance of cheng lie in its event-structure metaphor,where cheng is not only the starting point and the cause of development of things,but also a state throughout the development,together with a dynamic process of change.