老子之道是存在本体与价值本体的统一

老子之道是一种本体论意义的道体,这已成为学界共识。那么,这种道体是如何体现的?我们又该如何从完整的意义上理解它,以便更贴近老子道论哲学思想的主旨?笔者认为,老子道论哲学存在着一个坐标体系:如果说其纵坐标是存在本体的话,那么其横坐标则是价值本体;老子之道是存在本体与价值本体的统一。从纵坐标上说,道体作为形而上的存在本体,是相对于形而下的具体存     

自然之德性与无为的智慧——老子哲学的本体与方法

一、老子对“道”的诠释“道”是老子哲学的基本范畴。“道”在老子哲学逻辑结构中有生成论、本体论二重含义。生成论意义上的“道”似万物之宗 ,是天地万物赖以产生的本根 ;本体论意义上的“道”是天地万物之为天地万物之根据。关于宇宙生成论之“道” ,亦即天地万物赖以产生的本根 ,老子提出道为“天地之始”、“万物之母”、“似万物之宗”的思想。此种生成之“道” ,指先天地而生且混沌未分的实体性存在。这里说“实体性存在”而不说“具体性存在” ,宜作辨析。具体性存在是已经生成之物 ,此具体之物具有质的规定性和时空的有限性 ;实体…     

道“悦”与道“救”:老子之道的情意性特征

学界通常把老子之道理解为无情感、无意志的道,而难以整体自洽打通全文,而《老子》文本里多处原文涉及超越性的意志存在。道不是无生命的死道,作为情意性存在,具有情感性与意志性。楚简《老子》里,作者用“悦”(“敚”)来规定道,具有喜悦之情感性,可以理解为喜神(老子还用“谷神不死”言道,道是一种神性存在);今本《老子》里的“以慈卫之”也是道的情感性,用“道亦乐得之”来论述情感性的人·道关系;今本《老子》的“天将救之”“有罪以免”“天网恢恢、疏而不失”“天道无亲,常与善人”等系统体现了天道的意志性,可以解读为天道的救赎性与终极价值性。道有情意性,同时又不干预人的主体性,“衣养万物而不为主”“夫莫之命而常自然”“生而不有,为而不恃,长而不宰”,这具有人文主义色彩。     

老子“道”的定义及实质之我见

“道”是老子哲学的最高范畴, 是老子整个思想体系的基础、核心和逻辑起点, 因此对道的规定性及实质的把握, 成为更好地理解老子乃至道家思想、批判地继承这一珍贵的思想遗产的关键性环节。但是, 老子虽然对道的特点、性质和功能进行了诸多描述, 却未能从总体上对道作出一个明确的定义。韩非以降至清末的两千多年中, 我国研老学者众多、论著如林, 亦皆未对道的规定性作出集中的概括。笔者认为, 老子所说的“道”是既超越又内在于一切形下之物及社会人生的形而上的存在本体和价值本体, 它的实质是矛盾法则或对立统一规律。一“道”不是物质性…     

关于老子之道的几个问题

一、老子之道是否实际的存在?老子之道究竟是实际的存在，或者只是概念上的存在?这个问题是由陈鼓应先生提出来的。他自己回答说：“关于这个问题，我们可以直截了当地说，‘道’只是概念上存在而已。‘道’所具有的一切特性的描写，都是老子所预设的。”(陈鼓应《老庄新论》，上海古籍出版社1992年版，第36页)这个回答恐怕并不符合老子作为一位中国古代先哲的思维特性。按这种说法，老子关于“道”的一切特性的描写，就仿佛一位数学家在随意构造、推导关于纯数学方面的定理，而不受任何主、客观条件的限制。若是如此，这个“道”不仅“可道…     

《管子》四篇“《老子》注”研究——兼及《管子》四篇的老学思想

《管子》四篇并非专门注解《老子》的著作,只是为建构自己的哲学体系而解读、发挥老子思想、注解《老子》文本。《管子》四篇的"《老子》注"不是独立的存在,而是分散于《管子》四篇。并且,主要是对《老子》"道经"的部分内容的注解。而且,其注解《老子》具有主观性。这种主观性构成了其注解《老子》的特色,也是其注解《老子》新意之所在。从《管子》四篇注解《老子》的文字,并结合《管子》四篇对老子思想的阐发来看,《管子》四篇认为老子思想包括道、圣人、人生修持等方面。这些,大体不谬。《管子》四篇把老子道之无为解读为"道贵因",以"因"释"无为",是其《老子》注的最大特色。     

现象性生活与超越性追求的统一——论老子哲学的两难及其解决之可能

先秦思想家普遍认为人应该依据对于真理的认识来行为 ,但对于究竟什么是人应当据以行为的真理 ,不同的思想家则有不同的回答。道家鼻祖老子强调在道本体论上的自然无为 ,认为真理即道 ,据道的行为则是自然无为。然而 ,这恰恰与老子提出这一看法的形式———“言”是相矛盾的。因为言作为辩诘 ,作为表达 ,是人之社会化的表现 ,是一种人文、一种有为。人文有为的“言”与自然无为的“道” ,显然有着本质的差异。因此 ,在“言”与“道”的关系上 ,老子的处境是两难的。本文希望通过对老子重要命题“不言之教”的分析 ,来论述其两难解决之可能 ,…     

老子论教育

老子是道家学派的创始人,其教育思想丰富而富有辩证法,是中国古代教育思想的一大渊源。 一、论教育与人、教育与社会 老子将“道”改造成为一个特定的哲学范畴,认为道是世界万物的本原。他说：“道生一,一生二,二生三,三生万物。”（《老子·第四十二章》,以下凡引《老子》只注章数）道“渊兮,似万物之宗”（《第七章》）。不仅如此,老子认为这个“万物恃之以生”的道又是世界万物发展、变化、灭亡莫不遵循的规律和法则。老子把道与天、地、人并为宇宙中的“四大”,并且认为四者的关系是“人法地,地法天,天法道,道法自然”（《…     

老子“六和”思想发微

"道"乃老子思想之核心,亦为老子幸千学之最高范畴,然老子"道"之指称却义充满模糊性、多义性,此亦是"道可道,非常道"之要因.无疑,道之"多义性指称"为后人创造性"解读"拓展了无限的空间.已故国学大师张岱年先生认为"中国传统文化的特点可以用‘和合'二字来概括",窃以为,老子之"道"亦包含丰富的"和合"思想.自然,此"念"固然与笔者"和合"的主观解读意向有关,但终其要旨仍归于老子之"道"本身确实蕴涵、孕育着和谐之思.     

老子“行动”论

老子认为,"欲"对于外物的区分为"知"。老子将"知"区分为合于自然物类的"常知"和背离自然物类的"妄知"。基于此,老子对人类的行为进行了评价。"作"通过对物的创制构造了新的关系,从而使得进入这一关系的人与物都背离了其原始自然之分位,最终改变了整体存在的自然状态,颠覆了道、物关系。"为"所据之"知"是非自然性知识,它以人欲对于万物的重新分类取消了万物本有的自然性关联,建构了非自然性关联,使道丧失了万物之整体性根据的地位。"动"是内心清静的行为。"行"的内涵是只要合于道,无不可为。     

Relative truth and the first person

In recent work on context-dependency, it has been argued that certain types of sentences give rise to a notion of relative truth. In particular, sentences containing predicates of personal taste and moral or aesthetic evaluation as well as epistemic modals are held to express a proposition (relative to a context of use) which is true or false not only relative to a world of evaluation, but other parameters as well, such as standards of taste or knowledge or an agent. I will argue that the sentences that apparently give rise to relative truth should be understood by relating them in a certain way to the first person. More precisely, such sentences express what I will call ‘first-person-based genericity’, a form of generalization that is based on an essential first-person application of the predicate. The account differs from standard relative truth account in crucial respects: it is not the truth of the proposition expressed that is relative to the first person; the proposition expressed by a sentence with a predicate of taste rather has absolute truth conditions. Instead it is the propositional content itself that requires a first-personal cognitive access whenever it is entertained. This account, I will argue, avoids a range of problems that standard relative truth theories of the sentences in question face and explains a number of further peculiarities that such sentences display.     

The Need for Absolute Truth and Self-Rumination as Basic Suppressors in the Relationship Between Private Self-Consciousness and Mental Health

Self-reflection has not so far been shown to have any specific benefits for mental health except for self-knowledge. Recent research showed that the controversy concerning the relationship between self-reflection and mental health could completely be eliminated if self-rumination and the need for absolute truth, especially the need for absolute truth, were considered as suppressor variables. This research replicated these findings in a different sample and expanded these findings by showing that the same is true for private self-consciousness. The need for absolute truth as a new variable was shown to be highly important in understanding the effects of self-consciousness on mental health.     

"RATIONALITY" IN SCIENCE AND MORALS

Abstract. Martin Eger's comparison of controversies in science and morals is extended to a consideration of the nature of "rationality" in each. Both theoretical science and moral philosophy are held to be relativist in social and historical terms, but science also has definitive non-relativist pragmatic criteria of truth. The problem for moral philosophy is to delineate its own appropriate types of social criteria of validity.     

Meaning and Truth in Habermas's Pragmatics

The article examines Habermas's formal-pragmatic theory of meaning from the point of view of his attempt to defend a postmetaphysical yet context-transcendent conception of validity. It considers his attempt to develop a pragmatic account of understanding utterances that emphasises the mediation of knowledge through socio-cultural practices while simultaneously stressing that understanding has a cognitive dimension that is inherently context-transcendent. It focuses on his recent "Janus-faced" conception of truth, looking more briefly at his purely epistemic conception of moral validity. It raises three objections: the first to his attempt to maintain a notion of "unconditionality" that has no otherworldly origins but is purely immanent to this world, the second to the alleged non-arbitrary status of his conception of truth, and the third to his rejection of metaphysical thinking. It concludes that the objections, if valid, have profound implications for Habermas's postmetaphysical enterprise and for his programme of formal pragmatics.     

Radical interpretation and the permutation principle

Davidson has claimed that to conclude that reference is inscrutable, one must assume that If some theory of truth ... is satisfactory in the light of all relevant evidence ... then any theory that is generated from the first theory by a permutation will also be satisfactory in the light of all relevant evidence. However, given that theories of truth are not directly read off the world, but rather serve as parts of larger theories of behavior, this assumption is far from self-evident. A proper understanding of the role truth theories play in theories of interpretation makes the inscrutability of reference much less wide-spread than Davidson suggests, and, as a result, the radical interpretation methodology is much less likely to saddle its defenders with counterintuitive cases of indeterminacy than is commonly supposed.     

Descartes and the Labyrinth of the World

In the Rules the young Descartes likens his method to the thread that guided Theseus. The simile is born of a confidence that he has seen through the art of the followers of Daedalus and this has given him a model of how to unriddle the labyrinth of the world. From the very beginning Descartes had an interest not only in optics, perspective, and painting, but in using his knowledge of them to duplicate some of the effects said to have been created by the thaumaturgic magicians. Anamorphoses and automata not only provided Descartes with examples of deceptive appearance, but also pointed the way to the solution of the riddle they posed. Yet it is precisely the attempt to take this exit from the labyrinth of the world that threatens to lead back into it, as the search for truth is threatened by the infinity of space. To claim absolute truth, the natural philosopher would have to show that the mechanical model he has proposed is the only one that could account for the phenomena in question. This, as Descartes himself is forced to recognize, he is unable to do. Are we back in the labyrinth? Instead of seeing in Descartes's method an Ariadne's thread, Father Bourdin likens that method to Icarus. Annoyed, Descartes ridicules the good Father. But Bourdin's too often empty rhetoric raises a serious question: is Descartes Theseus, Daedalus, or Icarus? At stake is our understanding of the world we live in.     

The analyst's knowledge and authority: a critique of the "new view" in psychoanalysis

A critical assessment is presented of positions recently taken by Mitchell and Renik, who are taken as representatives of a "new view" in psychoanalysis. One article by Mitchell and two by Renik are examined as paradigmatic of certain ways of construing the nature of mind, the analyst's knowledge and authority, and the analytic process that are unduly influenced by the postmodern turn in psychoanalysis. Although "new view" theorists have made valid criticisms of traditional psychoanalytic theory and practice, they wind up taking untenable positions. Specifically called into question are their views on the relation between language and interpretation, on the one hand, and the mental contents of the patient on the other. A disjunction is noted between their discussion of clinical material and their conceptual stance, and their idiosyncratic redefinitions of truth and objectivity are criticized. Finally, a "humble realism" is suggested as the most appropriate philosophical position for psychoanalysts to adopt.     

"Scientific" Theology/"Theological" Science: Pannenberg and the Dialogue Between Theology and Science

Throughout his distinguished career, Wolfhart Pannenberg has sought to show that the Christian understanding of God is crucial to the pursuit of knowledge. As the essays in Beginning with the End indicate, Pannenberg has attempted to construct a bridge between theology and science via the idea of contingency and the concept of field. His interest in dialogue, however, arises out of a deeper theological foundation, which views theology as a public discipline and sees the human quest for truth as the quest for God. Although susceptible to criticisms that all objectivist approaches at-tract, this focus on "reasonable faith" provides a helpful point of departure for dialogue.     

German philosophy, Freud, and the riddle of the woman

After Kant's critique of empiricism, subjectivist epistemologies cropped up in 19th-century German philosophy. Schopenhauer argued that the true essence of every object was an irrational and sexual will. This underlying will distorted a subject's knowledge of the world. Schopenhauer's notion of this true essence was analogous to his portrayal of women; they too were natural, irrational, and instinctual. Nietzsche postulated a will-to-power that structured and hence distorted a chaotic world. That structureless "real" world Nietzsche symbolized as the essential "truth of a woman," a truth which for Nietzsche was unknowable to the desirous male philosopher. Freud, while maintaining belief in empirical truth, developed a psychology of mis-knowledge which had much in common with Schopenhauer's epistemology. His theory of transference grew from a need to explain how female patients libidinally distorted the reality of their male analysts. Conversely, Freud's later writings on women are hampered by the author's realization of his own precarious and subjective position as man trying to know woman. These counter-transferential concerns ultimately made the woman's psychological essence an unknowable riddle for Freud.     

Presentism and the grounding of truth

Many philosophers believe that truth is grounded: True propositions depend for their truth on the world. Some philosophers believe that truth??s grounding has implications for our ontology of time. If truth is grounded, then truth supervenes on being. But if truth supervenes on being, then presentism is false since, on presentism, e.g., that there were dinosaurs fails to supervene on the whole of being plus the instantiation pattern of properties and relations. Call this the grounding argument against presentism. Many presentists claim that the grounding argument fails because, despite appearances, supervenience is compatible with presentism. In this paper, I claim that the grounding argument fails because, despite appearances, truth??s grounding gives the presentist no compelling reason to adopt the sort of supervenience principle at work in the grounding argument. I begin by giving two precisifications of the grounding principle: truthmaking and supervenience. In Sect.?2, I give the grounding argument against presentism. In Sect.?3, I argue that we should distinguish between eternalist and presentist notions of grounding; once this distinction is in hand, the grounding argument is undercut. In Sect.?4, I show how the presentist??s notion of grounding leads to presentist-friendly truthmaking and supervenience principles. In Sect.?5, I address some potential objections.