Unity Nature And Freedom: A Comparative Study Of Zhuangzi And Kant

It is imperative that we should review the relationship between human and nature. Ancient Chinese philosophers try their best to explore the ship relationship between universe and human, whose achievements provide us with a wealth of intellectual resources. Western philosophical discussion on the relationship between nature and freedom also involves the problem of the relationship between man and nature. The thought of Zhangzi and Kant on this problem were typical in their respective culture. Comparative studies of the ideas of Zhuangzi and Kant, therefore, will help us to rethink this problem.Zhuangzi and Kant were divided nature into unknowable nature and knowable nature:they are the Dao(道)and Wu(物\things) for Zhuangzi and the thing-in-itself and appearances and Sensible World for Kant. As far as the relationship between unknown nature and freedom is concerned, the concept of Dao and thing-in-itself play a similar function in their respective Ideology, both of which are transcendental ground of freedom and provide the possibility for freedom. Wu and appearances belong to knowable territory. Zhuangzi considered Wu that substantial and objective as a temporary pattern that Diverged from the entirety of the transformation of Qi(气\matter-energy), and all things on earth are opposed to each other, and at the same time interdependent, for the reason that everything is limited, and not free. Kant thought that appearances are essentially represented in the mind by thing-in-itself. According to the natural categories that mind could be used to describe the nature, all things must comply with the causal inevitable law. So, there is no freedom in the natural areas.Zhuangzi and Kant divided self-concept into true self and experiential self. On the one hand, Zhuangzi advocated expanding the scope of self-identity, free from the limitations of the body to the whole of nature and regard the whole nature as the house of spirit, on the other hand he advocated weakening the cheng-xin (成心\fixed minds) ie. Experiential self, and make spirit remain open and free from the shackles of any dogmatic ideas and concepts. Kant thought that the true self is not within nature, but a boundary of nature and legislator of nature. Kant treated pure reason as as the true self of human being occupies the position of thing-in-itself and transformed the negative noumenon of epistemological into positive noumenon of the the practical activiticy. On the contrary, Zhuangzi deny any single mental property or spiritual force is eligible to become a true self, but the de-zhi-he (德之�'�\harmony of virtues)" virtue" as the essence of the human self.Kant’s transcendental freedom is incompatible with nature, not exist within nature; and his autonomy should be corrected to an acquired idealized freedom which should be the main goal of rational agent which has free will. The conception of Zhuangzi’s zi-ran(自然\nature) that itself contains the meaning of freedom, and his xiao-yao(逍遥\free and easy) is an acquired idealized freedom like Kant’s autonomy, however, autonomy is a rational moral freedom that along with the awareness of the suffering caused by perceptual restraining, while xiao-yao is a freedom associated with the aesthetic sense of freedom, which is the harmony between variety of variety of mental abilities.There is a gulf between Kant’s conception of nature and freedom, thence Kant wanted to connected nature and freedom by aesthetics and teleological. Kant unified nature and freedom through the aesthetic judgement of taste, but this unity is just a bridge to freedom, whereas Kant’s ultimate goal is to go beyond the nature to reach the other side world of freedom. The kind of unity that Kant envisaged in teleological is actually a hierarchical relationship between human being and nature that human is the purpose of nature and nature is the tool of the people. Zhuangzi believe that egocentrism and anthropocentrism, rooted in Cheng-xin, make human and nature opposite to each other and bring about a non-free survival. Kant argued that the autonomy lies in the transformation of a way of thinking, and Zhuangzi also think that xiao-yao depends on the transformation of the use way of xin(心\heart-mind). Zhuangzi hoped that through the survival of an aesthetic, human could overcome egocentrism and anthropocentrism through aesthetic life, and restore the harmony between man and nature. For Zhuangzi, the unity of nature and freedom is not a bridge but the ultimate goal.