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.