求治与求智:中西天人合一观念学术发微

Pursuit of Government and Pursuit of Wisdom:A Deep Inquiry into the Concepts of the Unity of Nature and Man Between China and the West

从19世纪上半叶之前的存在论的视阈看,中西方都提出了丰富的天人合一观念。定量而论,中西方的天人合一观念各自呈现出形态演变的历史态势,从而分别形成了不同的传统。比如,中国基本上形成道家和儒家两大传统,两者的相克相生以及其他社会文化因素的影响成为中国天人合一观念形态演变的动因;西方基本上形成了理性和宗教信仰两大传统,理性传统发端于古希腊,中世纪时在一定程度上被宗教信仰传统所阻滞,近代经过对宗教信仰传统的祛魅得以发扬光大。定性而论,中国的天人合一观念以求治为主旨,致力于社会现实问题的解决,中心在于人,所涉及的存在结构层次主要有天和人两层,天被赋予各种人性(道家例外);而西方的天人合一观念以求智为主旨,主要致力于追问宇宙的最初原因和本原,不关注现实社会的问题(中世纪算是例外),中心在天(即宇宙)所涉及的存在结构主要包括三个层次:各种作为精神性实体的宇宙本原、宇宙(即天)、人,天一般就是指作为纯粹物质世界的宇宙。西方的天人合一观念实质上是以追求绝对确定性(逻辑必然性)为目标的纯粹思辨的产物,这种思辨被视为一种崇高精神。

From the perspective of existentialism before the first half of the 19 th century, both Chinese and the Western have put forward the concepts of the unity of nature and man. Quantitatively speaking, the concepts of the unity of nature and man in China and the West each presented a historical trend of morphological evolution, thus formed different traditions. For example,China basically formed two traditions of Taoism and Confucianism, whose succeeding one another while overcoming one another and the influence of other social and cultural factors became the motivation for the evolution of the concept of the unity of nature and man in China;the West basically formed the two major traditions of reason and religious belief, the rational tradition originated in ancient Greece, which was blocked by religious belief tradition to some extent in the Middle Ages, and was carried forward by the disenchantment of religious belief tradition in modern times. Qualitatively speaking, Chinese concept of the unity of nature and man was aimed at the pursuit of government, devoting itself to the solution of social reality problems, treating man as its core, whose levels of existence structure were two: nature and man, and nature was endowed with all kinds of human nature(except Taoism);but the western concept of the unity of nature and man was aimed at the pursuit of wisdom, mainly focusing on the original cause and the arche of the universe, not paying attention to the problems of the actual society(the Middle Ages is the exception), treating nature(namely, universe) as its core, whose levels of existence structure were three: all kinds of universal arches as spiritual entities, universe(namely, nature) and man, here the nature generally refers to the universe as a pure material world. The concept of the unity of nature and man in the West was essentially the product of pure speculation aimed at the pursuit of absolute certainty(logical inevitability), which was regarded as a noble spirit.