| 摘要: | With regard to the ultimate end/ideal of human life, Aristotle's view looks very far away from Mencius': Aristotle takes it to be eudaimonia (happiness), while Mencius views it as Ch'eng-Sheng (becoming a sage). But, in this paper I argue that, while deeply going into their theories, we find that they share the very basic view: whoever reaches the ultimate end/ideal of human life becomes immortal (in spiritual sense), though there still are some differences between them. First, I inquiry onto the question: What kind of activity human engages can make him/her become immortal for both? Secondly, I focus on the foundation for such kind of activity in Aristotle and in Mencius. For Aristotle, the activity is a God-like activity, i.e. theoria (contemplation); whereas for Mencius it is a Heaven-like activity, i.e. continuously bringing out moral activity to the world and invisibly helping others to cultivate their virtue with no intention. As to the foundation, in Aristotle, it is nous (reason, intellect, mind), but in Mencius, it is Hsin (Human nature) or Hsing (Mind). Though they look so different at issue, they in several important respects are very similar or the same: (1) Aristotle's God and Mencius' Heaven are the same in the sense of their always being active. (2)For both, the human has a double identity, i.e. being human and being partially divine, and, of the two, being human has priority in human life. (3) In their view, the highest life or ideal can be actualized not for the many but for the few only. For Aristotle, that is the god-like man (whose life is immortal) but such sort of human is rarely found , and for Mencius only the sages who reach the highest level of life can attend (such as Yao, Shun and Confucius,) are actually capable of becoming as great as Heaven, i.e. immortal. (4)For both Aristotle and Mencius, the foundation for human's becoming immortal is immanent in human's life; based upon it, human can become immortal in terms of his/her own effort. And (5), their ethics, unlike most ethical theories, reach something immortal and contain a religious dimension. |
