現代新儒學的內在開展與「儒門內的莊子」

Modern New Confucianism’s Internal Development and the Notion of “a Zhuangzi From Within the Confucian Tradition”

隨著經學在清末民初發生崩解，現代新儒學自其產生之日，便承擔起重建中國文化主體性的重任。但由於清代兩百餘年的挫折，無論是熊十力的返本復性、還是牟宗三的主體性哲學，都依然呈現出中國文化的受難形象。一方面，西方近代的主體性哲學已在各種現代思潮的質疑下逐漸走向消解；另一方面，中國文化為了獲得與近代科學對話的資格，又不得不發展出一套新的主體性哲學。如何迴應二十世紀中西哲學關於主體性立場的錯位，是「後牟宗三時代」新儒學所面臨的基本問題之一。在這一背景下，楊儒賓教授的一系列研究，可以視作在與現代西方哲學，特別是現象學家梅洛．龐蒂所提出的「身體主體」等觀念對話基礎上，對現代新儒學基本問題的一次極有意義的重建。作為心學之外、圓教的另一範型，晚明時代的天均哲學，不僅能夠規避中西兩種主體性的對立，同時也可以消解那種通過「良知的自我坎陷」以開出知性的疑難。這是莊子重新迴歸儒門的意義所在。在主體性問題得以重置的背景之下，經學內部新的孟、莊對話也在醞釀之中。

With the collapse of the field of jingxue (the exegetical study of the Chinese classics) in the early Republic, the field of modern new Confucianism emerged, accepting upon itself the task of reconstructing a sense of Chinese cultural subjectivity. However, because of the failures endured by the Qing dynasty over two hundred years, new Confucian scholarship continued to be marked by a sense of the trauma endured by Chinese culture, regardless of whether it was seen in Mou Zongsan’s notion of a philosophy of subjectivity, or in Xiong Shili’s notion of returning to roots to revitalize cultural sensibility. On the one hand, a modern Western philosophy of subjectivity had already begun to collapse under the pressure of critique produced by various modern movements of thought; on the other hand, if Chinese culture was to engage in a meaningful dialogue with modern science, it had to develop a new philosophy of subjectivity for itself. How to respond to the dislocations regarding the question of subjectivity that defined Chinese and Western philosophy in the twentieth century was a critical question for the new Confucianism represented by the post Mou Zongsan generation.
It is within this context that Yang Rubin’s academic work can be understood as a particularly meaningful attempt at engaging with the core problematics of new Confucianism. Interestingly, an important interlocutor for Yang’s work is modern Western philosophy, particularly the notion of “the embodied subject” as developed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The late Ming philosophy of “celestial equality” (tianjun), being a different paradigm for a form of comprehensive teaching that exists outside of of “the study of heart-mind” (xinxue), can not only avoid the conflict between Western and Chinese modes of subjectivity, it can also dispel the difficulties in developing inherent knowledge from “the self-throwenness of conscience”(liangzhi de ziwo kanke) . This is where Zhuangzi’s return to the Confucian tradition becomes meaningful. Within the context of the reconstitution of the question of subjectivity, a new dialogue between Mencius and Zhuangzi can develop within jingxue as a field.