美国世俗化的宗教与威廉·詹姆斯的彻底经验主义
作者 尚新建
出版社 上海人民出版社
出版日期 2001
ISBN 7-208-03875-9
页数 321页
主题关键词 哲学宗教 彻底经验主义 詹姆斯,W(1842——1910)
作者简介:尚新建,男,1953年12月出生,1996年09月师从于北京大学赵敦华教授,于2000年06月获博士学位。
内容简介
本书从美国世俗化宗教的视角,透视威廉·詹姆斯的彻底经验主义,证明彻底经验主义是哲学史上的一次重大变革,不仅破除了西方传统哲学的心物二元对立,为未来的哲学发展指出了新的方向,而且创造性地阐释了宗教的性质、意义和目的,建立了一种新的宗教哲学,为美国世俗化宗教奠定了坚实的理论基础。本书的一个基本出发点是,詹姆斯的哲学气质是宗教的,他的整个学术生涯始终渗透着深切的宗教关怀,他的心理学和哲学体系隐含着深刻的宗教动机,其主导线索是解决“科学时代的宗教如何可能”的问题。
目录
总序
引言
第一部分 世俗化问题
第一章 世俗化的宗教
1 美国基督教的三个思想来源
2 “世俗化”之辨
3 实用主义与世俗化的宗教
第二章 詹姆斯的宗教关怀
第二部分 彻底经验主义
第三章 经验
1 “直觉的”经验
2 所与(given)
3 思想流
第四章 纯粹经验
1 何为“纯粹的”?
2 关系理论
3 意识是如何派生的?
第五章 自我
1 《原理》中的自我学说
2 《彻底》中的自我学说
第六章 彻底经验主义与宗教
第三部分 宗教经验
第七章 神秘经验
1 神秘经验的四个特征
2 一个隐藏的定义
第八章 上帝
1 有限的上帝
2 人与上帝的连续性
第四部分 宗教信仰
第九章 信仰意志
1 理性宗教走进了死胡同
2 帕斯卡赌博
3 詹姆斯眼里的帕斯卡赌博
4 选择的三个条件
5 信仰的意志
6 宗教信仰的情感基础
第十章 宗教真理
1 哲学选择取决于人类气质
2 实用主义的真理概念
3 上帝就是希望
4 信仰的结果
结束语
詹姆斯生平年表
参考文献
后记
摘 要
本书试图从美国世俗化宗教的视角,透视威廉·詹姆斯的彻底经验主义,证明彻底经验主义是哲学史上的一次重大变革。它不仅破除了西方传统哲学的心物二元对立,为未来的哲学发展指引新的方向,而且建立了一种新的宗教哲学,为美国世俗化的宗教奠定坚实的理论基础。论文的一个基本出发点是,詹姆斯的哲学气质是宗教的,其主导线索是解决“科学时代的宗教如何可能”的问题。若要正确地把握詹姆斯的哲学思想,就必须从他的宗教关怀入手,必须在美国独特的世俗化宗教的氛围里加以审视。詹姆斯哲学的核心,并非实用主义真理观,而是彻底经验主义。
第一章 世俗化的宗教。影响美国基督教历程的主要有三大思潮:清教主义、启蒙运动和实用主义。美国基督教的特征可以用“世俗化”来概括。世俗化宗教的特点在于,不要人服侍上帝,而是劳驾上帝为人服务,为人的目的服务。“世俗化的宗教”不同于“宗教的世俗化”。考克斯过分强调希伯莱时间之流,从而忽略了世俗化过程的不同层面,最终将世俗化等同于宗教的衰亡。美国基督教是世俗化的宗教,强调信仰的私人性和多元化。其结果是宗教直接进入人的现实生活,非但没有衰亡,反而更加繁荣。美国实用主义哲学始终对“世俗化的宗教”产生重要影响。实用主义的自然主义强调自然和人也有创造方式,向超越的潜能和转化开放。因而这种实用主义的自然主义为宗教神学开辟了空间,赋予宗教以普遍的公众意义,从而促进世俗化的宗教,使实用主义哲学与世俗的宗教之间形成内在的联系,彼此贯通,相互补充。
第二章 詹姆斯的宗教关怀。詹姆斯的全部思想,都是围绕宗教问题展开的。有三个关键问题:生活值得过吗?人们能够引起他所意欲的变化吗?是否有神灵或不可见的力量存在,与我们这些社会的主人和主顾一起合作?这些问题实际上正是世俗化的宗教如何可能的问题,也是从宗教关怀出发,解决在科学世界里宗教信仰如何可能的问题。詹姆斯的宗教关怀来自切身的体验,来自他的信仰危机。因而,他所理解的宗教不是从来世出发,而是从现世出发。我们不能详细描述不可见的世界,但可以站在现世推及它的存在,相信它存在。这种相信是现世生活的需要,是人们现实行为的需要,是个人的感受和体验,这是人性的事实。人生的最后基础要求这种附加的精神世界,它使最艰难的生活也值得一过。
第三章 经验。詹姆斯的整个哲学是“彻底的经验主义”,其基石就是他的“经验”概念。“经验”一词的历史内涵具有“直接性”特征,也有为身心的焦虑所折磨的意思。“经验”的“直接性”,其根源是指人在亲自参与的过程中有所体味和感悟,人在事情的展开过程直觉到某种东西。因此,经验首先是经历过程,是经验者直接投身于具体事物的展开过程,体味和把握特殊事物的特殊走向。经验的“直接性”是与“所与”联系在一起的。詹姆斯将人理解为历史的人,理解为生存环境里的人,并试图从生存的角度理解人的心理生活。他的经验“所与”是复杂的、流动的思想,是正在发生功能和效力的思想过程。从这个意义说,经验“所与”的起点应该是“思想流”。思想流即意识流,也就是进行中的思想。
第四章 纯粹经验。纯粹经验指“当前的瞬间场”,可以“纯粹地”被经验到。与纯粹经验相应的是最源始(primordial)的“所与场”。纯粹经验的“所与”没有任何二元对立:只有相互关联的所与模式。纯粹经验把我们带进经验之源。这个源头本质上既不是主观的,也不是客观的,而是一个更为广阔的领域。关系是纯粹经验不可分割的组成部分。将关系纳入纯粹经验,是经验主义走向彻底的一个重要步骤。关系有亲疏之别。在一个论域里,事物间的纯粹“与”的关系是最外层的。然后是同时和时间间隔,其次是空间毗邻和距离,再次是相同和相异。纯粹经验原本无二元对立,只是由于其他经验加于其上,进入不同的关系结构,才派生出二元区分。主客区分不是源始的,而是派生的,是一种关系和功能,是反思的结果。
第五章 自我。詹姆斯的自我学说与他的关系理论有密切联系。自我分为经验的自我与纯粹的自我。自我必然是多元的、变化的。我们始终能够直接感受到机体的某种程度的激动。伴随这些感受,我们目前的活动产生了一种“温热和亲密之感”,使我们觉出“精神自我的内在核心”,这就是纯粹的自我。所以,个人同一也是实际存在的一种感受。所经验的世界始终伴随我们“活的”身体一起出现,把我们的身体作为它的中心,观察的中心、活动的中心以及兴趣的中心。
第六章 彻底经验主义与宗教。詹姆斯运用彻底经验主义,一方面批判笛卡尔二元对立的理性主义结构,另一方面建立一种新的宗教。一切都依赖于彻底经验主义。“彻底的”这个形容词有两层含义:它意味着回归经验的源始状态,剔除狭义经验中的理性成分,恢复经验的本来面目;也意味着必须在经验的范围才能理解宗教。宗教是信仰,宗教是生活,宗教是个人体验的一个重要方面。詹姆斯热烈地鼓吹宗教经验,推崇个人宗教。他认为,宗教经验是个人与神灵的直接接触,是个人真切的体会。个人的宗教经验才是宗教的实质内容,才是信仰本身。至于宗教典仪、教会组织、教义学说等等,都不过是派生的附属品,是宗教信仰制度化的结果。詹姆斯的彻底经验主义,无疑为美国世俗化的宗教提供了理论依据。
第七章 神秘经验。个人宗教经验的根源和中心是意识的神秘状态。神秘经验有四个基本特征:不可言传性;可知性质;暂时性;被动性。这里隐藏着没有明说的定义,即“神秘经验是经验到与超自然的实在相接触,力量强大,改天换地,并包含个人的理解”。神秘经验的核心就是与这种神圣生活的连续感,即经验者在经验场的边缘感受到MORE,这个MORE具有拯救功能。神秘经验是第一手事件,它们“被看”,“被感受”,“被直觉”,而不仅仅是“被阅读”,“被思想”,“被相信”。神秘经验总伴随着强烈的感受、高贵的谕示和深刻的意义,只有当它们的力量达到某种程度时才是“神秘的”。神秘经验有巨大的改造作用,能使个人(甚至宗教团体)生活发生革命性的变化。最后,它们包含着个人对接触超自然实在的解释,引导人们体会不可见的世界。
第八章 上帝。上帝是有限的。在普通人的宗教生活中,“上帝”决不是事物整体的名称,只是用来指谓事物的理想趋势。人们相信上帝是一个超人的人格,召唤我们携手合作,以实现他的种种目的,而且,倘若我们的目的有价值,他也促成我们的目的。他在外部环境里起作用,有他的局限性,也有他的敌人。一旦从生活经验的角度理解“有限的上帝”,就会看到,这个概念隐含着另一个更重要的内涵,即人与上帝是连续的。一方面,上帝在人的内心之中,意识上帝就是意识自我,个人意识能够与上帝直接感通;另一方面,上帝又不同于自我,超越自我的界限,因而可以提升自我,给人以慰籍和希望,具有救赎的作用。人与神是连续的,神与人又是有差别的。
第九章 信仰意志。著名的帕斯卡赌博认定,根据理智我们既不能确定或否定上帝的存在。既然如此,我们应该赌相信上帝或者不相信上帝。赌博只能在末日审判时才能见分晓。有两件东西可赌:或理智或意志,或知识或福祉;而人的天性是趋利避害。詹姆斯认为,帕斯卡企图通过人类的趋利避害本能,说服人们信仰基督教。人必须在信与不信之间做出选择,选择的基础是信仰的意志。信仰的意志不是这种熟虑的意志,而是意志的本质,即“恐惧和希望、成见和激情、模仿和偏好、我们的等级和阶层所带来的整个压力等”,是建立在人类生存本能基础上的原始意志和情感。它是来自源始经验。
第十章 宗教真理。詹姆斯指出,真理是能生效,能确定,能核实的观念。观念的真实性就是证实观念真实性的过程,也是使之生效的过程。问题在于是否所有有效应或者有实效的东西都是真理?詹姆斯从真理与信仰的关系上来解决实效的判定问题。“相信一个观念对我们的生活是有益的,它就是‘真的’”。这里的 “对生活有益”,指能够使人过上健康向上的生活。要是我们由于它的帮助做出来的事情是善的,你们一定会同意这个观念本身也是善的。上帝对人生的积极意义是为人营造快乐、善的生活。这是上帝观念的效果,也是人们信仰的结果。
Abstract
This dissertation attempts, from the angle of American secularized religion, to think over William James’s radical empiricism. It reveals that the radical empiricism makes a significant reformation in history of philosophy, which not only breaks with the mind-body dualism in western philosophy, pointing to a new direction, but also originally develops a kind of nature, significance, and purpose of religion, setting up a new religious philosophy. American secularized religion is founded on the radical empiricism. The dissertation assumes that William James’s temperament of philosophy is religious; that the main question William James confronts is how religion is possible in scientific times. In order to grasp his philosophy, it is necessary to put it into the secularized religious environment of America. The center of James’s philosophy is not his pragmatic theory of truth, but his radical empiricism.
Chapter 1 Secularized Religion
There were three main trends of thought that influenced the development of American Christianity: the Puritanism, the Enlightenment, and the Pragmatism. The character of American Christianity may be summarized as “secularized”. The secularized religion meant a kind of religion in which it is not man who serves God, but God who is mobilized and made to serve man and his purposes. “Secularized religion” is different from “secularization of Religion”. Cox emphasizes Hebrew flow of time so much that different levels or realms of secularization are ignored, and finally he equates secularization with the decline of religion. The American Christianity is a secularized religion, stressing private faith and pluralism of religion. In the result, the religion in America, not declining but booming, directly permeates through real life of human beings. The American pragmatic philosophy has significantly an effect on the “secularized religion” from beginning to end. The pragmatic naturalism emphasizes that the nature and human being have also their patterns of creation, bringing out the latent potentialities and transformation of the transcendental. So the pragmatic naturalism opens a space for religious theology and gives public meanings to religion, so that the secularized religion has been prompted, and a connection between the pragmatic philosophy and the secularized religion formed.
Chapter 2 James’s Religious Concern
James's whole thought concentrates on religious questions. There are three main issues: Is life worth living? Could man produce the changes that he desires? Is there God or unseen power, which cooperates with us—masters and customers in the society? In fact, these questions may be reduced to a question: how secularized religion is possible, namely, how religious faith in the scientific time is possible. James’s religious concern originates from his personal experience, from his religious crisis. Therefore, he understands religion in view of rather this life than the other life. We can’t describe an unseen world in detail, but can infer it from this life and believe that it is. The belief is a need of this life, of a real life. It is personal feeling and experience. The life of human being needs this kind of spirit world. It makes life be worth living, however hard life is.
Chapter 3 Experience
James’philosophy is the“radical empiricism”, the cornerstone of which is“experience”. In the history, “experience” meant “immediacy”, as well as physical and mental suffering. The immediacy of experience means that man goes into a process of thing, savoring what he feels and experiences. Therefore, experience, above all things, is a process of undergoing, that is, man throws himself into unfolding of a particular thing, feels and experiences the particular going of the particular thing. Immediacy of experience is concerned with “given”. James thinks that man is historical and lives in the given circumstance. He attempts to understand man’s mental life from the angles of existence. His experienced “given” is a complex, flowing thought, and is a process of thinking that is functioning and taking effect. So, the stating point of the given is “the stream of thought”. The stream of thought is just the stream of consciousness, namely, the thought that is going.
Chapter 4 Pure Experience
“Pure experience”means an“instant field of the present”, may be“purely”experienced. The correlation of pure experience is the most primordial “field of given”. There is no dualistic opposition in the “given” of pure experience: there are only the patterns of given that they have relations each other. Pure experience leads us into the source of experience. The source essentially is neither subjective nor objective, but belongs to a broader sphere. Relations are inseparable part of pure experience. To bring the relations into pure experience is an important step by which James makes his empiricism radical. Maybe the relations are close or estranged. In the universe of discourse, pure “with” is in the most outwards, then the same time and interval, next adjacency in space and distance, once again, the same and difference. There is no dualistic opposition in pure experience. When other experiences are imposed on it and it enters a new structure of relations, the dualistic opposition is derived. The distinction between subject and object is not primordial, but derived, being a relation and function, a result of reflection.
Chapter 5 Self
James’s theory of self concerns closely with his theory of relations. Self may be divided into empirical self and pure self. Self is plural and changeable. We immediately feel some degree of organic emotion. Our action at the present gives rise to the character of warmth and intimacy, and makes us feel“the inner nucleus of the spiritual self”. This is pure self. So personal identity is real feeling as well. The experienced world appears in company with our living bodies and takes our bodies as its center, a center of observing, acting, and interesting.
Chapter 6 Radical Empiricism and Religion
William James uses his radical empiricism to criticize Descartes’ rationalistic structure of dualistic opposition and to set up a new religion. Everything is dependent upon his radical empiricism. Adjective “Radical’ has two meanings: (1) to come back to primordial experience, reject rationalistic elements in narrow experience, in order to resume true colors of experience; (2) to understand religion in sphere of experience. Religion is faith; religion is life; and religion is an important aspect of personal experience. James enthusiastically advocates religious experience, praising highly personal religion. For him, religious experience is an immediate contact between person and God, and is a real experiencing of man. Religious experience of person is the most important meaning of religion. It is religious belief itself. As to religious rituals, organizations of church, doctrines and so on, they are nothing but the secondary and derived products, resulting from institutionalizing religious belief. Undoubtedly, William James’s radical empiricism provides a foundation of theory for the American secularized religion.
Chapter 7 Mystical Experience
The source and core of personal religious experience consist in the mystical state of consciousness. There are four features in mystical experiences: Ineffability, Noetic quality, Transiency, and Passivity. There is a latent definition: mystical experiences are experiences of contact with supernatural realities, which is powerful, transformative, and personally interpreted. The center of mystical experiences is a feeling of touch with a holy life, that is, experiencing the MORE at the fringe of the field. The mystical experiences are the firsthand materials. Not only they are “read”, “thought”, and “believed”, but also “seen”, “felt”, and “intuited”. They always company with some strong feeling, noble revelation, and deep meaning. They are “mystical” when their forces attain to certain degree. The mystical experiences can change the personal (even religious groups) life. Finally, they personally interpreted supernatural realities that they contact with.
Chapter 8 God
God is finite. In the life of average persons, “God” is never a name of whole affairs, but symbolizes the ideal trend of affairs. Men believe that God is a person who is out of the common run and call forth us joined hands, in order to realize his purposes. If our purposes are valuable, God will facilities them. God brings into play in external circumstances and has his limitations and enemies. Once we understand “finite God’ from the angel of life experiences, we will discover that the conception implies another more significant meaning, namely, the persons are linked together God. On the one hand, God is in our hearts, and when we cognize God, we just have a consciousness of ourselves. The personal consciousness can be immediately united with God. On other hand, God is different from us. He transcends the limitation of self, so God may prompt self and presents persons some hope and comfort. The God may save persons. The persons are linked together God, but are different from each other.
Chapter 9 The Will to Believe
The famous Pascal’s wager believed that we neither define nor deny God exists, if we depend on the reason. Since it is so, we should wager whether we believe in God. When Judgment Day comes to, we could see the results. We may wager two things: reason or will, knowledge or blessedness; personal nature is to go after profit or gain and avoid any harm. James thinks that Pascal attempts, making use of the personal nature, to persuade persons to believe in Christianity. The persons may choose to believe in God or not, but the persons must choose. The choice will be based on the will to believe. The will to believe is not the will that considered carefully, but willing nature, namely, fear and hope, prejudice and passion, copy and partiality, the pressure upon us by our classes and stratum, and so on. This is primordial willing and affection based on personal instinct to exist. It is derived from primordial experience.
Chapter 10 Religious Truth
James indicated that truth is effective, definable, and verifiable ideas. Truth of ideas is a process in which man verifies the truth of ideas and makes them effective. A key question is whether all effective things are truth? By means of relations between truth and faith, James solves the question how to judge effects. If we believe in an idea effective for our life, it is true. “Effective for life” means to make persons live healthily and nobly. If an idea helps us do good deed, you must admit that the idea is good also. To make persons live happy and good is a positive meaning of God. This is an effect of idea “God” on us, and a result from person’s faith.
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