君子必慎其“独”——论王船山的“人之独”

On the Uniqueness of Human Being in Wang Chuanshan’s Thoughts

王船山是中国传统学术思想的总结者,其思想有一个特别之处,即提出了所谓"人之独"的观念,从人物之别、人禽之异、天人之辨等方面凸显了人之于天地万物的特殊意义,进而在继承周敦颐"立人极"和庄子"相天"为代表的中国古代诸家思想的基础上创造出自己独特的"依人建极"而"相天造命"的"人之独"论。并非人人都可以成为这样的有"独"之人,唯有人之为人之人才可以。这便是船山所说的君子。故君子必有其独,不可不慎。船山的这一思想是对中国传统自古以来形成的天地以人为贵的观念高度继承总结后的系统发扬和创造。

The idea of Wang Chuan-shan, a great summarizer of Chinese traditional thought, is featured by the doctrine of "human uniqueness", which means to "establish the ultimate according to the mankind", to "create lives according to heaven" and to confirm the specific meaning of the mankind compared with the milliards of things in the universe by distinguishing between humans and things, discriminating humans from animals and differentiating between humans and heaven. The doctrine is evolved from Zhou Dun-yi’s doctrine of "establishing the highest standard for mankind", based on the ideas of various traditional Chinese schools of thought represented by Zhuang Zi’s doctrine of "following what is of nature". However, it does not mean that everyone will necessarily become a human being with the "uniqueness of the mankind". Only authentic humans, as what Wang called "junzi(gentlemen)", can become humans with the "uniqueness of the mankind". Therefore, "junzi" has his uniqueness, so he has to be cautious. Wang’s doctrine is the product through systemic development and production after concluding and inheriting the traditional Chinese idea that humans are precious since the ancient times.