子曰：人能弘道 Confucius Said: Human Beings Extend Order in the World

华人思想家通过艺术性地处置事物来理解秩序的含义，所以就叫做‘审美秩序’。他们的秩序观念专注于具体个体，是显现的，并在成员内部成长与演变。就是说，审美式的秩序是指秩序主要是由内部之间的联系形成，每个成员相互依赖。

在审美秩序里，自然事物可以有无数秩序，因为自然肯定是动态的、自我造化的、自我组织的与有活力的。所有存在的事物都在和谐状态中、被相反的力所平衡。两种基本的与互相对抗的阴阳原理组成了所有行动后面的驱动力，负责事物的审美秩序的自然的演变。阳一直是负责改革的积极与创造元素，而阴则是消极与反应性原理。他们互相补助并杂乱地联系在一起；就是它们共同合作与互相排斥而产生了我们生命中逐渐得到的经验的所有事物，并在宇宙中显现。

和谐的概念在华人思维中十分重要；指导性的原理是不要其干涉生命的和谐。可以说，华人文化向来是要维持人与自然的平衡，在生活的每一方面都与自然配合，而不是违背自然。

宇宙的秩序也被称为‘道’；如果每个人能依着道的价值与德行来行动，一个和平与和谐的社会就会长久存在。

孔子把道德概念转化为道德实践原理，指导人与人之间的行为与应该如何建设一个和谐社会。在儒家传统里，真善美都不是‘给定’的，也没有所谓的原本与决定性的起源，或者终极的、目的论的终止。基于这个理由，孔子说：‘人能弘道，非道弘人。’

.

The Chinese thinkers understand the meaning of order through the artful disposition of things and thus it is known as Aesthetic Order. Their view of order focuses on the concrete individuals and is emergent, and growing and transforming within things themselves. That means that something aesthetic is ordered primarily in terms of internal relations, the basic elements being dependent on one another.

In the Aesthetic Order, the things of nature may be ordered in any number of ways as it is resolutely dynamic, auto-generative, self-organising and alive. All things that exist are in harmony, balanced by opposing forces. The two fundamental and antagonistic principles of Yin and Yang constitute the driving force behind all movements and accountable for the natural evolution of Aesthetic Order of things. Yang is always the proactive and creative element accountable for change, whereas Yin is the passive and reactive principle. They complement each other and are intricately interconnected; and it is their working together and against each other that produce everything that we experience progressively in life and manifests in the cosmos.

The concept of harmony is very important to the Chinese thoughts and the guiding principle is not to disturb the harmony of life. It may therefore be said that Chinese culture has always maintained a balance with and attempt to work with Nature in all aspects of the living, rather than against it.

The order in the universe is also referred to as Dao and a peaceful and harmonious society can exist for a long period of time if the values and virtues are exercised among its members in tune with the Dao. Dao is what the world is and how it is.

It was Confucius that translated the concepts of Dao into practical ethical guidelines as to how one should behave towards each other and to create a harmonious society. In the Confucian tradition, truth, beauty, and goodness as standards of order are not ‘given’ and there is no initial, determinative beginning or ultimate, teleological end. It is for this reason that Confucius declared: ‘It is human beings who extend order in the world (dao), not order that extends human beings.’

华人的审美秩序The Chinese Aesthetic order

在西方，再解释宇宙秩序时，他们设想有存在者的存在或普世原理之类的一般特性，这些特性告示我们事务是如何形成秩序的。这些设想的依据是那些有关混乱如何被秩序克服的神话。

在另一方面，中国传统文化很少受到以非理性的混乱与有秩序的宇宙相对比的神话的影响。他们对以理性推理来解释混乱如何被宇宙秩序克服的兴趣不大。反而，中国思想家通过艺术性地处置事务来了解秩序，这是一种参与式的过程，并不假设具有重要特色、事先决定好的原理来当作秩序的超越来源。

传统的中国思想家在自然世界中寻找转化与变动的气之所在，发现周围个体成员差不多是和谐地联系在一起，由此而成为事务的自然状态，因而不需要借助于一个秩序原理或代理人来解释秩序。宇宙被当成是是自发性自我生成的生命过程。

所以事务的秩序并不是神灵安排，也不是一个依据自然科学规律来安排好了的关联性模式。恰恰相反，它是由各自成员自我组织而成的审美秩序。审美秩序并不是事先决定好的，而是由独特与自发性的成员在自然形成的复杂模式中协作。

自然（万物）与社会都是审美产物，它们的秩序是成员们在其境域中的创造物。审美感悟意味着人类犹如艺术家，在不断的演变中的新奇环境的内外有创意地构筑我们的生命。

.

In the West, in interpreting the order of the cosmos, it is supposed that there are general characteristics – the being of beings, or universal principles – which tell us how things are ordered. They are grounded upon cosmogonic myths that celebrate the victory of an ordered cosmos over chaos.

The classical Chinese culture, on the other hand, was little influenced by myths which contrasted an irrational Chaos with an ordered Cosmos. There is therefore lack of interest in using rational reasoning to explain how the Chaos was overcome by ordered Cosmos. Instead, the Chinese thinkers sought the understanding of order through the artful disposition of things, a participatory process which does not presume that there are essential features, or antecedent-determining principles, serving as transcendent sources of order.

Classical Chinese thinkers located the energy of transformation and change within a world that is ziran, literally ‘so-of-itself’, and found the more or less harmonious interrelations among the particular things around them to be the natural condition of things, requiring no appeal to an ordering principle or agency for explanation. The universe is seen as a spontaneously self generating life process.

So the order of things is not a rational order based on a divine plan or on scientific laws of nature, a ‘pre-assigned pattern of relatedness’. Rather it is an aesthetic order arising from the self-organization of particular elements. An aesthetic order is in no way predetermined but arises from the uniqueness and spontaneity of particulars in collaboration in an emergent complex pattern.

Nature (‘the ten thousand things’) and society are both aesthetic products whose order is a creation of the elements of the contexts. An aesthetic sensibility implies that human beings, like artists, creatively construct our lives both within and out of always evolving novel situations.