康德自然概念的辩证发展

The Dialectical Development of Kant s Concept of Nature

自然是康德哲学中与自由相对立的中枢性概念,在理论与实践领域,它的三个基本要素可以表述为与超感性之物相对的感性(从质料上而言)、与自发性相对的被动性(从状态上而言)和与道德法则相对的作为感性对象之内在原则的机械因果性(从本质上而言)。三要素之间(尤其是被动性与本质性之间)是有张力的,这种张力随着批判哲学在第三批判中的发展愈发凸显,以至于自然概念在这种张力的推动下不断拓展和异化自己:审美中自然与自由的对立被引入自然概念内部并被转化为自然与艺术的对立,但不管是自然美还是艺术美都在对审美理念的表达中展现了主体的超感性基底;目的论中自然的范围从具体的机械性对象扩展到有机体和自然整体,自然概念在人类理性的引导下逐渐在感性现象中展现超感性的维度、向自由过渡。

Nature in Kant s philosophy is a core concept in opposition to the concept of freedom.Three basic elements can be identified in this concept:sensibility as opposed to super sensibility(in terms of its matter),passivity as opposed to spontaneity(in terms of its state)and mechanical lawfulness of natural things as opposed to moral laws(in terms of its essence).There is a tension between these three elements(predominantly between passivity and lawfulness).This internal tension becomes more prominent with the development of Kant s critical philosophy in his third Critique and actuates the expansion of the concept as well as its alienation.First,concept of nature itself transformed into the opposition between nature and art.However,both natural beauty and artistic beauty embody the supersensible substrate of the subject in terms of their expression of aesthetic ideas.Second,the range of nature is expanded from specific mechanical objects to organisms and nature as a whole,and it gradually transits to freedom under the regulation of human rationality.