天台=Tiantai; 理解=understanding; 前見=prejudice; 語言=Linguistics; 詮釋學循環=hermeneutic circle; 哲學詮釋學=Philosophical Hermeneutics; 觀心詮釋=Hermeneutics of “Contemplation of Mental Activity”
摘要
高達美的哲學詮釋學，順著海德格所解析的詮釋學循環之說，強調理解必以前見為首要條件，一切前見的出現乃在於生存理解者，生存於語言之中，而語言又不斷累積流傳而為生存之歷史處境，因此語言、歷史、文化等等是作為生存理解者一切理解與生存活動的前見而存在。本文透過對高達美之於理解與前見問題的反思，用以論述天台智顗之一心三觀之觀心詮釋理論中，相關問題之見解。筆者以為天台佛教或可同意於高達美關於前見對於理解之影響的說法，亦或可認同生存與理解之歷史性，但並不會同意於高達美之存有者不可能脫離歷史性的說法，否則佛教的解脫實踐頓成不可能之事。然而天台又與印度大乘佛教之二諦思想傳統有所不同，印度佛教以揭露一切語言及語言所形構的生存世界為虛妄，便以為足以解脫；天台佛教則進一步地發展出三諦圓融的思想，以一心三觀之觀心詮釋法門，理解生存所面對的任一對象，以為除了消解理解所依之前見或者歷史文化的虛妄性外，尚須真正入於虛妄而以假名救度一切眾生，爾後更須超越空與有（假名）的相對性，臻至空有雙泯的中道圓融之境，肯定即在此當下的煩惱即是涅槃菩提。對於天台而言，生存與理解的前見，不是簡單加以消除的問題，而是如何加以恰當運用，用以度脫一切眾生的問題。從這角度而言，天台智顗倒也重新肯定了語言、歷史與文化之於解脫的必要性。 Based on Heidegger’s account of the hermeneutic circle, Gadamer emphasizes that prejudices are necessary and primary conditions for our understanding. All types of prejudices occur with our efforts to understand our existence. This existence is linguistically disclosed, and since language unceasingly accumulates and transmits, it constitutes the historical setting of our existence. Therefore language, history and culture account for the prejudices in all of our understanding and in the ways we exist. This paper tries to achieve insight into issues related with the hermeneutics in Zhiyi’s “contemplation of mental activity,” also called “threefold contemplation within/qua one instant of mental activity,” by resorting to Gadamer’s account of understanding and prejudices. I believe that Tiantai Buddhism may agree with Gadamer’s view on the relevance of prejudices for our understanding, and that it also harmonizes with the historicity of our understanding and our existence; however, it definitely would not agree with Gadamer’s claim that being is indivisible from its historicity, otherwise the practice of liberation in Buddhism would immediately become impossible. There are differences between the Tiantai and Indian Mahayana traditions regarding the “two truths.” Indian Buddhism considers both language and our existential habitat linguistically construed to be illusory, and revealing this illusion already qualifies for liberation. Tiantai Buddhism, however, goes one step further and develops its concept of the “threefold truth perfectly integrated,” that is, it understands anything we encounter in our existential habitat according to the hermeneutics in the “contemplation of mental activity” based on the “threefold contemplation within/qua one instant of mental activity”; moreover, it proposes that, except for deconstructing prejudices sustaining our understanding, or falsity in culture and history, one must also immerse oneself into this falsity and actively participate in the salvation of sentient beings utilizing “provisional designations,” in order to go beyond the polarity between “emptiness and existence as provisional designation,” achieving the realm of the “middle way perfectly integrated” in which “emptiness and existence” are extinguished, and simultaneously realizing that actual “affliction and delusion” inversely embodies “nirvana and wisdom.” According to the Tiantai Buddhist viewpoint, it is not a matter of concern that prejudices in our existence and understanding are simply to be extinguished, it rather matters how they are properly utilized in order to save sentient beings. Viewed from that standpoint, Zhiyi’s Tiantai Buddhism (in contrast to the Indian tradition), reaffirms the necessary role that language, history, and culture play in realizing liberation.
