方東美的文化理想觀與跨文化探索

「人文化成」不僅代表方東美的貫通性思路，而且代表其文化理想觀。方氏基於中西跨文化融合的視域，提出九層塔喻與六境三界之說，旨在憑藉文化教育的創化歷程培養出完善的人格。這一文化理想的實現，有賴於古希臘、現代歐洲與中國等三種文化模式的有機整合。就其實踐邏輯而言，似乎涉及一種三重性歷程策略，即：跨文化認知的比較階段，跨文化認同的移情階段與跨文化轉換的創構階段。上述三個階段相互關聯、彼此推衍，在選擇性整合與揚棄中走向跨文化的和諧會通之美。方氏所描繪的文化理想藍圖，旨在突出人類生命與宇宙精神的交互作用或上達下貫的雙向感通流程。實際上，從人文化成的角度觀之，下貫似虛設，上達乃實為，天心之立在乎人心，民命之立在乎人為，所謂天聽、天視或天道流行等玄妙之說，均有賴於生活在現實世界裏有覺解、有道德、有理想和有作為之人。

關鍵字

文化理想；九層塔喻；跨文化探索；轉化型超人；歷程

並列摘要

The basic line of Thomé Fang's thought in his writings features his permanent preoccupation with the possibility of human enculturation as his cultural ideal. By such an ideal is meant an idealized paradigm for the development of human personality. This paradigm is by no means to build a castle in the air but intended to be grounded, as it were, on a conceivable blueprint of a nine-storied pagoda largely composed of three kinds of world, say, the material world at the bottom, the life world in the middle, and the soul world on the top. What is perceived within the structure is a process of two-way progression characterized by a dynamic interaction between a downward and an upward movement for the sake of human perfection. The process of this ultimate and noble telos as such is constructive, interactive and progressive by nature. In order to facilitate the pursuit of the abovementioned ideal, there arises the necessary involvement of the threefold process strategy as far as I could observe from Fang's transcultural pondering over the three cultural origins including Greek, modern European and Chinese altogether, and also from the Whiteheadian philosophy of process thinking in principle. To my mind the strategy itself is primarily composed of three sub-processes, namely, the comparative process for cross-cultural cognition or awareness, the empathetic process for cross-cultural transpection, and the creative process for cross-cultural transformation. Quite naturally, these three approaches par excellence are assumed to be correlative and interdependent, all serving to demolish the cultural boundaries, break the homo-culture-centerism of any kind, and promote cross-culturally the creative transformation in a healthy and cosmopolitan sense, so to speak. Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling…What we should aim at producing is men who possess both culture and expert knowledge in some special direction. Their expert knowledge will give them the ground to start from, and their culture will lead them as deep as philosophy and as high as art. (Alfred North Whitehead)^24 Ever since the New Culture Movement that took place in China in 1920s, most of Chinese thinkers tend to reflect on the possibility of reconstructing the indigenous culture upon the model of its occidental counterpart. They have been preoccupied with this ambition to rebuild the country and national identity as well. In this regard what has turned out to be most influential is the fruit of labour by the modern Confucianists. Among them Thomé Fang (Fang Dongmei 1899-1977) is typical in a sense that he attempts to contemplate this task via a transformational perspective. This then leads him to philosophize in view of cosmopolitan harmonism characterized by his cultural ideal and transcultural pursuit. A second reflection on what he ponders over in this regard attempts to expose some hidden aspects of his theoretical hypothesis in question, and also to reconsider the possible alternative to transcultural interaction and transformational synthesis with reference to a threefold process strategy.