【安乐哲】在2022年国际儒学与中华文化师资班开幕式上的发言

栏目:演讲访谈
发布时间:2022-07-20 15:41:03
标签:国际儒学与中华文化师资班、安乐哲教授

原标题:安乐哲教授在2022年国际儒学与中华文化师资班开幕式发言

来源:“一多不分”微信公众号

时间:孔子二五七二年岁次壬寅六月廿一日癸酉

          耶稣2022年7月19日

 

我们相聚在这个暑期班,是要来共同解决一个全人类正面临的重大困境。可以说,我们身处的当下,是最好的时代,也是最坏的时代。之所以说这是一个最好的时代,是因为身为人类的我们取得了很多成就。我们可以当之无愧地宣称,世界性的饥饿问题已经得以解决。因为我们人类这种伟大动物,现已发展出了能够通过全球性举措迅速地解决世界各地饥饿问题的科学和技术。如果我们已经找到了解决问题的办法,那么这个问题就已经不再是问题了。所以,我们目前的困境,其实并不在于技术,而在于道德。我们无疑有了解决世界性饥饿问题的科学,却缺乏去采取行动的道德决心。

 

 

 

We come together for this Summer Institute to address a serious predicament and in common cause.We might say that we are living in the best of times,and in the worst of times.We can assert that it is the best of times because of what we humans as a species have become.That is,a fair claim can be made that world hunger is no longer a problem for us.This magnificent animal called the human being has now developed the science and the technology that could enable a global initiative to quickly address the world’s hunger problem in all of its parts.We do not have a problem if we already have its solution.Our present predicament,then,is not a technological one;it is ethical.While we clearly have the science to solve world hunger,we lack the moral resolution to act upon it.

 

就此而言,现今的确是最好的时代。但同时也是最糟糕的时代。令人不安的全球风暴,裹挟着近来世界地缘政治定位的剧烈变化,正来势汹汹:全球变暖、疫病流行、食物和用水短缺、环境恶化、大量物种灭绝、国际恐怖主义、代理人战争、核扩散等等,不胜枚举。我们在科学和技术上取得了前所未有的成就,同时也面临着日益严峻的环境、政治和社会挑战。事实上,促成这一全面危机的几个深层原因,或许可以激发我们,透过目前的困境,从优先以技术方案为解决这一全球危机,转向更为根本的对道德困境思考——即承认我们缺乏道德决心去做我们认为正确的事情。问题和困境之间的根本区别在于,问题可以通过某种办法得到“解决”,而困境只能通过使人类的意图、价值观和实践发生根本性的改变来“扭转”。人类这种物种,如果要生存下去,就需要转变生活和思考方式。

 

On this score then,it is the best of times.But it is also the worst of times.Our recent and dramatic geopolitical reorientation has remained largely entrained within the troubling dynamics of a“perfect storm:”global warming,pandemics,food and water shortages,environmental degradation,massive species extinction,international terrorism,proxy wars,nuclear proliferation,and the list goes on.Our unprecedented scientific and technological successes are mixed with ever-amplifying environmental,political,and social challenges.Indeed,this perfect storm has several underlying conditions that might encourage us to view our current predicament as requiring a shift from prioritizing technical solutions for world problems to giving privilege to what is ultimately an ethical dilemma—that is,for us to acknowledge our lack of commitment to do what we know is right.After all,the fundamental difference between problems and a predicament is that where problems are to be“solved,”a predicament can only be“resolved”by effecting a radical change in human intentions,values,and practices.Human beings as a species,if we are to survive,will need to live and to think differently.

 

造成这种困境的原因之一是零和个人主义的意识形态,这种意识形态将人碎片化为私人的、社会的、政治的以及漫画式的个人。鉴于这种困境,我们需要认识和理解世界上所有的文化,并考虑将它们作为人类应对困境的资源。那么,中国哲学和文化可以为我们提供什么呢?源远流长的中国文化在世界文明中之独一无二,既在于其绵延至今未曾断绝,也在于中国人民所创造的丰富多样的制度、物质以及观念。在中国古代的历史长河中,一些主题再三地显现于中国人生活的方方面面。其中一个主题是以家庭为中心,它至少从新石器时代早期开始,就已经渗透到中国历史的社会政治、经济、形而上学、道德和宗教方面。可以说,在中国人的世界里,所有的关系——社会的,政治的,甚至是宇宙的关系——都被视作家庭关系。早在公元前五千年的考古遗迹中就发现了祖先祭祀的实物证据。因此,孝是中国人,尤其是早期儒家最为基本和典型的价值观之一,也就不足为奇了。事实上,对他们而言,说孝是发展人类的其他优秀品质的必备条件也不足为过。在儒家传统中,人类的道德性及其所激发的个体德行之实现,都是植根于家庭中情感的培养。

 

One pernicious source of this predicament is an ideology of a zero-sum individualism that has fragmented humanity at a personal,social,political,and comic level.Given this predicament,we need access to and an understanding of all of the world’s cultures as a resource for shaping our human response.What then,does Chinese philosophy and culture have on offer?From its origins in the prehistoric past,an ever-evolving Chinese culture has been unique among the world’s civilizations,both in terms of its unbroken continuity,and in the rich and varied institutional,material,and conceptual artifacts its peoples have produced.Upon entering into China’s past,certain major themes emerge as they are repeatedly expressed in different facets of Chinese life.One of these themes is the centrality of the family that has thoroughly permeated the socio-political,economic,metaphysical,moral,and religious dimensions of Chinese history since at least the early Neolithic period.A fair argument can be made that all relationships within a Chinese world—social,political,and indeed cosmic relations—are conceived of as familial.Physical evidence of ancestral sacrifices has been found in archaeological remains from as early as the fifth millennium BCE.It should therefore come as no surprise that family reverence(xiao孝)was one of the most basic and defining values of the Chinese people,especially the early Confucians.Indeed,one may even go so far as to say that for them,filial reverence was a necessary condition for developing any of the other human qualities of excellence.In the Confucian tradition,human morality and the personal realization it inspires is grounded in the cultivation of family feeling.

 

赵汀阳对儒家所讲以扎根为起始、以在此基础上的成长为循序渐进之终结的成人(仁)之道有所思考:

 

Zhao Tingyang赵汀阳reflects on how first setting the root,and then on that basis,pursuing growth is the beginning and the projected end in the Confucian way of becoming consummately human:

 

人道问题首先正是“生生,”而“生生”的第一步便是生长,这正是中国思想演化线索的始发点。生长之事,必求生长之物“深根固柢”而使存在获得生长的依据,因此生长首先要扎根。“生长”和“扎根”这两个隐喻表示了中国思想的行径。

 

The primary issue for the human way is that of generation and regeneration,and the first step herein is growth.This is the starting point for the evolutionary thread of Chinese thought.The“doing”of growth must seek what a thing relies upon to be“deeply rooted and firmly planted”in its growth.Therefore,growth first of all requires putting down roots.The two metaphors of growth and putting down roots set out the path for Chinese thought.

 

在儒家的修身过程中,其根本必须牢固地植于家庭之中。在将儒家哲学作为生态地缘政治秩序的资源来思考时,我们必须充分重视家庭、政治和全球秩序之间所存在的明显的同构性,因为它们归根结底,都根植并成长于家庭对个人的滋养之中。在确立儒家修身次第的经典四书之首《大学》中,我们读到:

 

In the Confucian project of personal growth,the root must be set and firmly planted within the family itself.In reflecting on Confucian philosophy as a resource for an ecological geopolitical order,we must give full weight to the perceived isomorphism that obtains among the familial,political,and global orders as they are rooted in and emerge from a regimen of personal cultivation within the family.In Expansive Learning(Daxue)as the first among the canonical Four Books that sets the Confucian project,we read:

 

古之欲明明德于天下者先治其国;欲治其国者先齐其家;欲齐其家者先修其身……自天子以至于庶人,壹是皆以修身为本。

 

The ancients who sought to display their brilliant virtuosity to the whole world first effected proper order in their states;in seeking to effect proper order in their states,they first set their families right;in seeking to set their families right,they first cultivated their own persons...From the emperor down to the common folk,everything is rooted in personal cultivation.

 

同样的有机共生在四书中的第二本《孟子》中也有描述:

 

This same organic symbiosis is described in a second of the Four Books,the Mencius:

 

人有恒言,皆曰“天下国家”。天下之本在国,国之本在家,家之本在身。

 

There is a popular adage heard among the people who all say:“The world,the state,the family.”The world is rooted in the state,the state in the family,and the family in one’s own person.

 

作为五经之一的《尚书》明确提出了治国之根本在于家庭制度的观点。孔子所言在这种文化传统中,家庭制度的正常运作是国家社会政治秩序之产生不可或缺的部分,是一个敏锐的洞见:

 

The idea that the root of governance lies in the institution of family is made explicit in the Book of Documents as one of the Five Classics.Confucius is making an astute observation when he asserts that within this cultural tradition,the proper functioning of the institution of family is integral to the production of the sociopolitical order of the state:

 

或谓孔子曰:“子奚不为政?”子曰:“《书》云:‘孝乎惟孝、友于兄弟,施于有政。’是亦为政,奚其为为政?”

 

Someone asked Confucius,“Why are you not employed in government?”The Master replied,“The Book of Documents says:‘It all lies in family reverence.Being filial to your parents and finding fraternity with your brothers is in fact carrying out the work of governing.’In doing these things I am participating in governing.Why must I be employed in government?”

 

从很早的时候开始,“孝”一直是儒家传统的首要道德准则。一个人的道德是通过在其角色和关系中努力做到圆满(仁)而培养起来的,因此是直接的家庭感情的延伸和表达。在《论语》中,我们读到:

 

From earliest times,“family reverence”has served as the Confucian tradition as its prime moral imperative.Morality as it is cultivated through the commitment to“consummate conduct in one’s roles and relations”(ren仁)is thus an extension and expression of immediate family feeling.In the Analects we read:

 

君子务本,本立而道生。孝弟也者,其为仁之本与.

 

Exemplary persons concentrate their efforts on the root,for the root having been properly set,the vision of the moral life will grow therefrom.As for family reverence and fraternal deference,they are I suspect,the root of consummate conduct(ren仁).

 

在这个儒家创造世界的过程中,人在家庭、政治和宇宙中处在一种独特的、关系性的多重视角。通过在自己的关系中专注努力而获得有意义的成长,每个人都有能力赋予构成他们的角色和关系以决心和更独特、更有意义的焦点。在这样的个人成长的中心,家庭的意义涉及并依赖于每个成员的修养提升。这种人作为家庭成员所获得的成长,可以通过放射状的扩展,逐步延伸,最终形成社区的意义、国家的意义,乃至整个宇宙的意义。

 

In this Confucian process of world-making,persons are imbricated as unique,relationally-constituted perspectives within family,polity,and cosmos.Through dedication to the cultivation of deliberate growth in their own relations,every person has the capacity for bringing resolution and more distinctive,meaningful focus to the roles and relations that constitute them.At the center of this personal project,the meaning of the family is implicated in and dependent upon the productive cultivation of each of its members.Then by radial extension,the meaning of the community,polity,and the entire cosmos is in turn implicated in and ultimately derived from the cultivation of each person as a family member.

 

虽然所有层次的秩序最终都源于个人修养,但为了清楚地表达这个有机的、生态的“根”的隐喻,我们就必须避免把根源当作原因,把秩序当作结果的根深蒂固的习惯。事实上,树根和树冠是共生生长的,当树根向大地深处伸展的同时,树枝同时向天空伸展。根确实在生长树,而树也反过来生长它的根。树根和它繁茂的树冠是一个相互作用的有机整体,它们相互依存,共生共长。重要的是,虽然人类存在这一叙事本身植根于特定家庭中的特定人物的生活,但它们同时也是没有边界的、相互渗透的故事,这些故事形成了全部的自然、社会和文化的生态。同构性意味着每一个层次的秩序在每一个层次上都是共生的,个人修养扩展了宇宙的意义,而一个更有意义的宇宙反过来又为个人修养提供了重要的资源。

 

To clarify this organic,ecological root metaphor,while allowing that all levels of order are ultimately derived from personal cultivation,we must avoid the inveterate habit of separating root as cause from the order as effect.Rather,root and canopy grow together symbiotically,with the tree spreading its roots outward beneath the earth and simultaneously stretching its branches upward towards the sky.While the root is certainly growing the tree,the tree is also in turn growing its roots.The root and its flourishing canopy are aspects of an interactive and organic whole that grow together symbiotically,or not at all.Importantly,while existential narratives themselves are certainly rooted in the lived lives of particular persons in particular families,they are also the unbounded and interpenetrating stories that in sum constitute their natural,social,and cultural ecologies.The isomorphism means that order at every level is inflected symbiotically in every other,where personal cultivation expands the meaning of the cosmos,and a more meaningful cosmos in turn provides an important resource for personal cultivation.

 

这一论证并不是说中国的儒家文化可以解决世界上的所有问题。它当然是不能的。但在当前人类经历的这个关键时刻,也许正是儒家哲学对“家庭情感”的强调,为我们提供了一种极简的道德,我们可以由之获得一种人类亟需的团结意识。

 

The argument is not that China’s Confucian culture can solve all of the world’s problems.It cannot.But at this juncture in the human experience,it is perhaps Confucian philosophy’s emphasis on“family feeling”that can provide the minimalist morality we can draw upon for a desperately needed sense of human solidarity.

 

责任编辑:近复

 


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