儒道视阈中的权宜与变通:对不确定性问题的思考

The Idea of Expediency and Accommodation of Confucianism and Taoism:Refl ection on the Issue of Uncertainty

如何应对不确定性的挑战已经成为现代人不可回避的重要问题,然而极端主义倾向极大地削弱了现代西方文化回应这一问题的可行性与灵活性。相对于现代西方思想文化而言,中国的传统主流思想文化反对极端主义的思维方式,这可以从儒家对权的重视中看出来,它构成了儒家中庸思想的灵魂。深入把握这一思想灵魂,需要驳斥那种将中国文化解释为折中主义的常识路径。权的思想是一种植根于不确定性的宇宙观,要求以一种天人合一的方式来因应无法预测的现实,在不勉和不思的纯熟的自然状态中达权通变,而这样的宇宙观在庄子的宇宙论中以一种看似悖论的方式近乎极端地呈现出来。

How to deal with the challenge of uncertainties has been one of the key problems of modern society. But the extremism of modern Western culture weakens its ability to respond to this issue. Compared with the modern Western thought, the traditional mainstream thought of China opposes the extreme thinking. We can find this inclination in Confucian thought of quan, which is the soul of the thought of zhong yong. It refutes the eclectic commonsense of Chinese culture, because the thought of quan is rooted in the Confucian world view of uncertainty. The thought of quan is rooted in an uncertain outlook on the world, which requires that the unpredictable reality should be dealt with in a way of harmony between man and nature, so that the quan can be communicated and mediated in a state of nature that is neither reluctant nor thoughtful. This kind of world view has a seemingly paradoxical and almost extreme presentation in Chuang-zi’s cosmology.