论庄子“无名”的内涵及意义

On the Connotation and Significance of Zhuangzi’s “Nameless” Concept

先秦时期,诸子以“名”进行理论表达和思想争鸣是思想史上的重要现象。诸子所论之“名”双关语言和政治,然而庄子却认为,诸子“名”论皆局限于“物”而无法上达“道”,因此他力图越过“名”以立“无名”之道。从表面上看,“无名”似乎是对诸子论“名”的一种反动,但其本质上依然是借助“名”这一工具从反面来论说“道”,力图通过“无名”来阐述其道物无际的理想秩序。“无名”一方面显示出庄子直指人心而非借由外在秩序、规范进行社会治理的特色,另一方面则反向说明了注重秩序建构的时代思潮即将到来,即便是道家自身的发展也被此思潮席卷而走向了实用性与制度化。

In the pre-Qin period, it was an important phenomenon in the history of thoughts that the philosophers used “names” to express their theories and contend for ideas. The “name” discussed by the pre-Qin masters concerned both language and politics, yet Zhuangzi believed that their understandings of “name” were all limited to “things” and failed to reach the height of “Tao”, so he tried to transcend “name” to establish the “nameless” approach. On the surface, “Namelessness” seems to be a countermeasure to the theory of “name” advocated by the pre-Qin masters, but in essence, it still used the instrument of “name” to discuss “Tao” from the opposite side, and tried to explain it through “namelessness” as an infinite ideal order. On the one hand, “namelessness” shows that Zhuangzi’s characteristic of directing the people’s hearts instead of building social governance on external order and norms;on the other hand, it indicated the arrival of a trend that order-building would be emphasized;even the development of Taoism itself had been carried by this trend towards practicality and institutionalization.