The Differences Of Chinese "YOU" And The Theories Of "play" In The West

"Play"(You) is one of general phenomena of human beings, and one of ways of human life. As Huizinga, a famous Dutch scholar, said, the civilization springs up and develops in play and as a play. Therefore, many thinkers, including Chinese and the western, have attached importance to reflecting on it and studying it. Confucius put forward "play in art", while ZhuangZi advanced "Xiaoyao You". This is radically determined by their different horizon. Certainly, Confucius' "YOU" and ZhuangZi's "YOU" also are inter-supplementary, which have an important impact on the theories of "YOU" of the whole Chinese culture. Even we can say that "play in nature", "play in art" and "play in human life" all developed from Confucius' "YOU" and ZhuangZi's "YOU". Comparing with Chinese "YOU", the theories of "play" in the west have obvious historical stages. It can be divided into five stages on the basis of different themes: the theories of "play" in ancient Greek,whose theme is the world, and the representatives are Heraclitus and Plato; the theories of "play" in Middle Ages, whose theme is God, and the representative is Bible; the theories of "play" in modern times, whose theme is human nature, and the representatives are Kant and Schiller; the theories of "play" in contemporary age, whose theme is being, and the representatives are Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Gadamer; the theories of "play" in post-modern, whose theme is language, and the representatives are Derrida and Foucault. Since there are great differences between Chinese theories of play and those of the western, it is necessary to name the former "YOU" and the latter "play" as a temporary measure. Through the comparison of Chinese "YOU" with the theories of "play" in the west, on one hand, we can find many similarities between them; on the other hand, we should wake up to the great differences between them. For example, if we differentiate them in the attitude to human life and the way of thinking, we maybe call Chinese "YOU" a constituted play, while name the theories of "play" an unconstituted (vorhanden) play. The former mainly means the relation that men in the world is just like soul in the body, that is, men harmonize with the world and become one with it, which is also called oneness of heaven and man. The latter mainly means the relation that the man is stand outside of nature, that is, subject-object dichotomy. Of course, what's the most important thing is to consider the likelihood of dialog of Chinese "YOU" and the theories of "play" in the west. To sum up, it is just a road, not a literature.