理性秩序：客观的理论基础 Rational Order: The Theoretical Basis for Objectivity

在西方传统里，理性秩序基于世界是一个整体的秩序的这样假设；同时，为了要达到他们四周环境的社会稳定，西方人崇尚和谐、秩序及统一性，而不是不调和、混乱与无主宰。

对西方人来说，事物的秩序的思考始于这类的问题：‘那是什么样的东西？’‘这些东西的本质是什么？’为提供对这些事物的解释提供途径时，罗各斯，就是说理性解释，开始扮演重要角色。在理性思维中，罗各斯所要寻找的是事物中的永恒真理。

只要认为事物的本性是流动的是对的，那么世上所有事物应被自然法规所指导也是对的。只要认为法规是客观的、永恒的与不变的，理论本身就应当被看成是超越的。这里，古典希腊的两个世界观给传统西方的客观主义一个理论依据，那就是我们可以置身事外并谈事务的整个外观。

对古典希腊哲学家而言，知识就是对不断变化的现象后面的本质、形式与功能的发掘与掌握。所以知识的语言包括‘概念’、‘意想’及‘理解’。永恒才是实在，实在的常态是惰性。知识的范式是数学，或者更具体地说是几何学。柏拉图学院的门口就贴了‘没有学过几何学者不得进入’这几个字。一般倾向于以表象词汇来理解知识，而这些表象词汇是同构与清晰的，把外面客观的事物真实地反映于心中。

但是，对永恒而不是流动的崇尚却产生了各种各样的二元论来理解他们对世界的体验：实在/现象、知识/意见、真理/虚假、存在/非存在、造物者/万物、灵魂/肉体，等等。

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In the Western tradition, rational order lies in the assumption of the world as ‘a single-ordered whole’ and in order to achieve social stability in their surroundings, the Westerners favour harmony, cosmos (order) and unity rather the discord, chaos and anarchy.

For them, thinking about the order of things begins with questions such as ‘What kinds of things are there?’ and ‘What is the nature of things?’ In providing the means of explaining the way things are, logos meaning rational account begin to play a significant role. In rational way of thinking, logos seeks permanent truth in the way things are.

As far as it is true that the nature of things is in flux, it is also true that all events in the world must be guided by necessary laws. And as far as the laws can be said to be objective, permanent and unchanging, reason itself should be regarded as transcendent. Here, it is the two-world worldview of classical Greece that gives the Western tradition a theoretical basis for objectivity – the possibility of standing outside and talking a wholly external view of things.

For the classical Greece philosophers, knowledge entails the discovery and grasping of defining essence, forms, or functions behind elusively changing appearance. Hence the language of knowing includes ‘concept’, ‘conceive’, and ‘comprehend’. Reality is what is permanent, and hence its natural state is inertia. The paradigm for knowledge, then, is mathematics, and more specifically, geometry. Over the door of Plato’s Academy was written: ‘Let none who have studied geometry entered here.’ Knowledge tends to be understood in representational terms that are isomorphic and unambiguous – a true impressed on the mind of that which exists externally and objectively.

However, the preference for permanence over flux has produced many kinds of dualism in order to organise their experience of the world: reality/appearance, knowledge/opinion, truth/falsity, Being/Non-being, Creator/creature, soul/body, and so on.

理性秩序与审美秩序 The Rational and Aesthetic Orders

东西以不同眼光来看世界，他们对秩序的概念也是不同的。西方称理性或逻辑性秩序，而东方则是审美秩序。

西方的两个世界学说区分实在世界与变化世界，这个区分就促进以二元思维来看世界。他们寻找永恒与不变的第一原理来克服最初的混乱，欲把变化世界达成统一、有序与设计的世界。他们寻找变化背后的‘实在’建构；这个‘实在’一经理解后，生命就会变得可预测与安全了。

为了要在他们的四周围达到社会和谐，西方人钟情于和谐、秩序、统一，而不喜欢不一致、混乱、无主宰（无政府状态）。所以，西方对秩序的理解所最熟悉是与统一性、模式规则性相联系的。这些所谓理性或逻辑性秩序牵涉到宇宙的设想；这个设想以由因果定律及形式模式形成的宇宙的罗各斯为特征。它也同时反映了一个假设，那就是这个秩序有一个原初及独立的源头；这个秩序源头一经被发掘与理解，就能够对人类经验给予一个贯通性的解释。

在审美秩序式的思维中，由个别个体所界定的世界秩序是独特的。这是因为在这个秩序中，个体成员的世界中并没有一个能够称为统一的超越原理。古代中国人相信我们所看到的世界秩序并不是来自一个独立的、激活的力量所给予的。世界与世界任何时刻的秩序都是自我造化，自发的自然。每样事务都是按每样事务之意。

所以，华人对秩序的意识以具体特殊性为特征，而这些特殊性对秩序本身很重要。在这个观点中，最后的统一是不可能的；因为如果是这样，整体的秩序会压倒各部分的秩序，取消了各个体成员的特殊性。因此，审美秩序最终是非秩序（非宇宙）的，因为没有一个压倒性的秩序。

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The West and East see the world differently, and they also have different concepts of order, which can be called rational or logical order and aesthetic order respectively.

The Western thinkers’ two-world theory distinguishes the world of reality from the world of change, a distinction that fosters a dualistic way of thinking about it. They seek that permanent and unchanging first principle that has overcome initial chaos to give unity, order and design to a changing world. They seek the ‘real’ structure behind change that, when understood, made life predictable and secure.

In order to achieve social stability in their surroundings, the Westerners favour harmony, order, unity rather than discord, chaos and anarchy. Therefore, the most familiar understanding of order in the West is associated with uniformity and pattern regularity. This ‘logical’ or ‘rational’ ordering is an implication of the cosmological assumptions which characterize the logos of a cosmos in terms of causal laws and formal patterns. It also reflects a presumption that there is some originative and independent source of order that, once discovered and understood, will provide a coherent explanation for human experience.

In the aesthetic way of thinking, the particular individuals defining the world order are said to be unique. This is because in this order, there is no transcendent principle by which its constituent particulars in the world can be called to be unified. The classical Chinese believe that the order this world evidences is not derived from or imposed upon it by some independent, activating power, but inheres in the world as a source of reconstrual. The world and its order at any particular time are self-causing – spontaneously ‘so-of-itself’ (ziren). Everything is what it is at the pleasure of everything else.

Therefore, the Chinese sense of order is characterized by concrete particularities whose uniqueness is essential to the order itself. No final unity is possible in this view since, were this so, the order of the whole would dominate the order of the parts, cancelling the uniqueness of its constituent particulars. Thus, ‘aesthetic’ order is ultimately acosmological in the sense that no single order dominates.