《莊子》的自由觀念 ＿ 以自由為詮釋關鍵來重建《莊子》哲學的整體＿

Abstract

本篇論文要探討《莊子》的自由觀念。《莊子》以自由化來理解自由，指的是個人從本質主義的觀點中自由化後所能達到的境界，並且行為與此相符呼應。因此，我先對《莊子》中達成自由的過程進行重構，提出自由化的過程包含了認識與行為實踐，又可以分為對「觀點主義」的察覺，對「無己」的自我關注，以及使自己處於「事實之樞紐」的三層結構。接著，我探討了自由的狀態在自我轉換與自由化中所衍伸的含意，以及至人的所有特徵。在此，我大量使用《莊子》內篇、外篇和雜篇中的內容，也探討大量的議題來處理自由的問題。我認為，以自由觀點為進路可以幫助我們對《莊子》的哲學體系有一致且全面的理解，同時在所有主題中，找到新的關聯意涵。本論文也對那些認為《莊子》沒有明確自由觀念的論證提出挑戰，指出自由不但是《莊子》的中心課題，同時在解釋學上，也是得以有意義地重新建構《莊子》哲學的首選。

This dissertation investigates the conception of Freedom in the Zhuangzi. The Zhuangzi understands Freedom as Liberation – namely, as the state of the person who has achieved liberation from a set of substantialistic views and is able to behave in a corresponding way. Thus I firstly conduct a reconstruction of the process of liberation in the Zhuangzi, which includes both epistemological and behavioral practices and can be structured in three steps: becoming aware of “perspectivism”, achieving self-regard as “non-self”, and situating oneself in “the axis of reality”. Secondly, I explore the implications of the state of Freedom to which this process of self-transformation and liberation leads, as well as the features of the liberated person. I use a wide range of texts from the Zhuangzi’s Inner, Outer and Miscellaneous chapters for this purpose, and an equally wide range of topics is discussed in dealing with the idea of Freedom. I propose that approaching the philosophy of the Zhuangzi from the point of view of Freedom is helpful in providing a consistent and comprehensive explanation of the Zhuangzian philosophical system as a whole in which all topics find a new interrelated meaning. This dissertation thus challenges the argument that the Zhuangzi does not elaborate a coherent conception of Freedom, showing that Freedom not only is a central topic in the Zhuangzi, but is also a privileged hermeneutical key to meaningfully reconstruct its philosophy.