“学以成人”:论儒学对世界文化秩序变革的贡献

‘Human Becomings’:Confucianism’s Contribution to a Changing World Cultural Order

杜威(John Dewey)抵制原教旨的个人主义,宣称据此认定的个人自由意志是虚构的;而关联性才是事实。用他自己的话说:“追究个人如何关联是毫无意义的,因为人们本来就生活在关联之中。”杜威的眼光是革命性的,与儒家角色伦理相呼应,他通过发展一种独特、稳定、关系造就人的习俗构想,使关联性这个人类生活事实具体化,并使之成为稳固的现实。也就是说,他发展了一种独特而通俗的习惯性和“个体性”的话语来描述人类的多种关联模式,认为关联性能够增益人们的活动,并将简单的关系转变为交流互动的社群关系。从儒家角色伦理学的角度来看,杜威使用另一套话语重述了关联性是一个基本事实,以具体的人物角色而非独特的习俗来规定关联性在家庭和社群生活中所采取的具体形式:即我们在生活中的各种身份,如儿子、老师、祖母、邻居等。对于儒家而言,这些身份角色不仅诠释了人们的关联性,而且由于家庭及社群中的角色都有相应的规范,从而指导人们采取与自己身份相符的适当行为。对于儒家和杜威而言,单纯的关联性是给定的,而只有蓬勃兴旺的家庭和社群才能实现人类的最大成就。我的论点是,儒家的“学以成人”概念,能够为当代西方哲学论述中杜威等早期哲学家以及迈克尔·桑德尔(Michael Sandel)、查尔斯·泰勒(Charles Taylor)、马克·约翰逊(Mark Johnson)等新近哲学家所提出的关于人的新观念给出另一种阐释。

John Dewey,in his resistance to foundational individualism,declares that individual autonomy so conceived is a ction;for Dewey,it is association that is a fact.In his own language:“There is no sense in asking how individuals come to be associated.They exist and operate in association.”In a way that resonates with Confucian role ethics,the revolutionary Dewey particularizes the fact of associated living and valorizes it by developing a vision of the habitude of unique,defused,relationally-constituted human beings.That is,he develops a distinctive,if not idiosyncratic language of habits and“individuality”to describe the various modalities of association that enable human beings to add value to their activities and to transform mere relations into a communicating community.In Confucian role ethics,Dewey’s contention that association is a fact is restated in a dierent vocabulary by appealing to speci c roles rather than unique habitudes for stipulating the speci c forms that association takes within lives lived in family and community—that is,the various roles we live as sons and teachers,grandmothers and neighbors.For Confucianism,not only are these roles descriptive of our associations,they are also prescriptive in the sense that roles in family and community are themselves normative,guiding us in the direction of appropriate conduct.Whereas for both Confucianism and Dewey,mere association is a given,ourishing families and communities are what we are able to make of our facticity as the highest human achievement.My argument will be that the Confucian conception of“human becomings”can bring additional clarity to a new notion of person being developed within the contemporary Western philosophical narrative by early philosophers such as Dewey,and more recent voices such as Michael Sandel,Charles Taylor,and Mark Johnson.