精神的目标
Mind’s goal
现在我们将跳过《精神现象学》中一大部分内容。We shall now pass over a huge chunk of the Phenomenology. 在略去的内容当中，有些冗长而晦涩，另一些则在趣味性和重要性方面与我们讨论过的内容接近。Some of what we are missing is tedious and obscure; other sections come close to equalling in interest and importance those we have just discussed. 有时谈论的话题正是我们希望在一部哲学著作中找到的那些，Sometimes the topics are just what one would expect to find in a philosophical work. 例如对费希特和康德形而上学思想的讨论，There are discussions of the metaphysical ideas of Fichte and Kant. 对享乐主义或追求快乐的批判，There is a critique of hedonism, or the pursuit of pleasure. 还有对康德伦理学的讨论，其反驳与我们讨论《法哲学原理》时看到的那些类似。There is a discussion of Kant’s ethics, making objections similar to those we have already encountered in discussing the Philosophy of Right. 对于在他那个时代因浪漫主义运动而流行的那种道德情感，黑格尔也作了批判性的分析。Moral sentimentality of the type made popular in Hegel’s time by the Romantic movement also comes in for critical analysis.
另一些论题则更加独特。Other topics are more unusual. 例如，有很长一节是讨论相面术和颅相学的——这些伪科学基于这样一种观念，即从人的脸形（相面术）或头盖骨上的隆起（颅相学）可以识别人的性格。There is, for instance; a long section on physiognomy and phrenology – the pseudo-sciences based on the idea that one can tell people’s character from (in the case of physiognomy) the shape of their faces or (according to phrenology) the bumps on their skulls. 黑格尔反对这些东西，不是因为有证据说明它们是错误的，也不是因为其他什么世俗的理由，Hegel opposes these ideas, not because he has evidence of their inaccuracy, or any reason as mundane as that, 而是出于哲学上的理由：他认为不应把精神与脸或头盖骨这样的物质性的东西联系在一起。but for the philosophical reason that mind is not to be tied to anything as material as a face or a skull.
另一个独特的章节分析了建立在亚当·斯密及其学派的自由放任经济理论基础上的社会。Another unusual section is an analysis of a society built upon the laissezfaire economic theory of Adam Smith and his school, 根据这一理论，人人都为自己积累财富而工作，但事实上却通过劳动为整体的繁荣做出了贡献。according to which each works to accumulate wealth for himself, but in fact contributes by his labours to the prosperity of the whole. 黑格尔的反驳是，由于鼓励个人追求私利，这样的经济制度使人认识不到他是更大集体的一部分。后来，自由企业经济学的批判者们（无论是否马克思主义者）吸收了这一观点并且非常重视。Hegel’s objection here – a point later to be taken up and made much of by both Marxist and non-Marxist critics of free-enterprise economics – is that by encouraging individuals to seek their own private interests, this economic system prevents individuals from seeing themselves as part of a larger community.
诸如此类的种种论题和其他许多论题一起构成了黑格尔关于精神的绝对知识之路的构想。These diverse topics, along with many others, are woven into Hegel’s conception of the path mind must travel in order to reach absolute knowledge. 我们已经看到他坚持认为，没有一个有自我意识的精神就不可能有充分的认识，以及自我意识是通过加工和改造世界而发展的。We have seen how he maintained that there could be no adequate knowledge without a self-conscious mind, and how self-consciousness was developed by working on the world and changing it. 从那里开始，黑格尔把整个人类历史都看成精神的发展。From that point on, Hegel sees all of human history as the development of mind. 和在《历史哲学》中一样，古希腊、罗马帝国、启蒙运动和法国大革命等一些历史时期在《精神现象学》中也有极其重要的意义，它们是精神朝着自由进步的诸阶段。Historical periods such as Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution have much the same significance as they do in the Philosophy of History.They are stages in the progress of mind towards freedom. 黑格尔在《法哲学原理》中描述的有机社会的许多要素也是如此。So too are many of the elements of the organic community that Hegel described in the Philosophy of Right. 然而，尽管有这些广泛的相似性，黑格尔在《精神现象学》中对这些材料的处理方式与他后来在《历史哲学》和《法哲学原理》中的处理还是有区别的。这里我提三点。Despite these broad similarities, there are some differences between the way Hegel treats this material in the Phenomenology and his later treatment in the Philosophy of History and the Philosophy of Right. I shall mention three.
读者立刻就能发现的区别是，《精神现象学》并没有给出明确的国家、时期、日期、事件或人物。The difference that strikes the reader at once is that in the Phenomenology no specific countries, periods, dates, events, or people are named. 虽然其中谈到的特定时期和事件通常都非常明显（对于熟悉《历史哲学》的读者来说尤其如此），但一切都仿佛是作为一个一般过程的例子来处理的，精神受其寻求自我实现的内在必然性的驱动而不得不经历这一过程。While the references to specific periods and events are usually obvious enough – especially to the reader familiar with the Philosophy of History – everything is dealt with as if it were an instance of a general process that mind is forced to pass through by the inner necessity of its drive to self-realization. 就好像如果谈及具体的人物、时间或地点，那么就会暗示，一旦人物或环境不同，情况就会有所不同。It is as if references to specific people, times, or places would somehow suggest that things might have turned out differently if the people or circumstances had been different. 黑格尔设法给人这样一种印象：即使精神的发展发生在火星，他所描述的过程也同样会发生。Hegel manages to give the impression that the process he is describing would have occurred if the development of mind had taken place on Mars. 事实上，《精神现象学》是如此抽象、如此缺乏时间和地点的感觉，以至于即使精神已经在火星上发展起来，黑格尔也不必改变任何东西。Indeed, so abstract is the tone of the Phenomenology, so devoid of a sense of time and place, that if mind had developed on Mars, Hegel would not have had to change anything.
第二点区别是，《历史哲学》和《法哲学原理》都以实现一个类似于普鲁士形式的君主制国家为顶点，A second difference is that whereas both the Philosophy of History and the Philosophy of Right culminate in the achievement of a state resembling the Prussian form of monarchy, 而在《精神现象学》中，这种类型的国家甚至连提都没提。this type of state is not even mentioned in the Phenomenology. 与《历史哲学》类似的章节以法国大革命结束。The sections that parallel the Philosophy of History end with the French Revolution. 法国大革命是历史的顶点，因为它代表着绝对自由状态下的精神，知道能够根据自己的意志来改变世界，塑造政治生活和社会生活。The French Revolution is a climax to history in the sense that it represents mind in a state of absolute freedom, aware of its ability to change the world and to mould political and social life according to its own will. 与《历史哲学》中给出的理由类似，黑格尔说法国大革命的抽象自由不可避免地走向了自己的反面，走向了否定自由本身的恐怖和死亡。For reasons similar to those offered in the Philosophy of History, Hegel portrays the abstract freedom of the French Revolution as leading inevitably to its opposite, the negation of the free self that is terror and death; 但《精神现象学》并没有给出更进一步的政治发展，but there is no further political development in the Phenomenology. 而是给出了精神走向更崇高层次的道路：先是走向康德、费希特和浪漫主义者所主张的道德世界观，Instead the path of mind moves to more rarefied levels, first to the moral view of the world advanced by Kant, Fichte, and the Romantics, 然后走向宗教的精神状态，最后走向由哲学来实现的绝对知识本身。then to the religious state of mind, and finally to absolute knowledge itself, which is achieved by philosophy.
至于《精神现象学》为什么没有提到普鲁士国家，有一个显而易见的解释。There is an obvious explanation for the absence of references to the Prussian state in the Phenomenology. 黑格尔写此书时正在耶拿教书，而不是在普鲁士。When Hegel wrote it he was teaching not in Prussia, but at Jena. 况且又是在拿破仑战争时期写的，当时法国是欧洲的主导力量，德意志诸国的未来无法预料。Moreover, he wrote during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, when France was the dominant power in Europe, and the future of the German states was unpredictable. 因此要想预见到普鲁士国家的复兴，并使之成为他的政治历史的顶点，黑格尔必须有一种非凡的先见之明。So Hegel would have had to be remarkably prescient to anticipate the resurgence of the Prussian state and to make it the culmination of his political history. 由于未曾提及某个这样的国家（这是可以理解的），认为黑格尔在后期著作中为了取悦其政治主子而放弃了真实想法的那些人自然会喜欢《精神现象 学》。The understandable absence of references to some such state has naturally made the Phenomenology popular with those who believe that in his later works Hegel compromised his true views in order to please his political masters.
《精神现象学》与后期著作的第三点主要区别是：在《历史哲学》中，黑格尔把历史过程描述为不过是自由观念意识的进步；The third major difference between the Phenomenology and the later works is that in the Philosophy of History Hegel describes the course of history as nothing but the progress of the consciousness of the idea of freedom, 而在《精神现象学》中，如我们所见，则是强调朝着绝对知识的发展。whereas in the Phenomenology the emphasis is, as we have seen, on development towards absolute knowledge. 如果从日常含义来理解这些术语，黑格尔在这两部著作中似乎持有互不相容的不同观点。Taking these terms in their ordinary senses, it would seem that in the two works Hegel takes different and incompatible views. 当然，一个人可以很博学，却被关在暴君的牢房里饱受煎熬；Surely one can be knowledgeable while languishing in a tyrant’s cell; 另一个人则可能对一切科学、政治和哲学一无所知，却完全自由地生活在一个热带岛屿上。and one can live in total freedom on a tropical island in blissful ignorance of all science, politics, and philosophy. 但我们现在应该很了解黑格尔了，不会贸然从日常含义去理解他的术语。But by now we should know enough about Hegel to beware of taking his terms in their ordinary senses. 对黑格尔来说，绝对知识与真正的自由是不可分的。For Hegel, absolute knowledge and true freedom are inseparable. 就《精神现象学》而言，我们最后的任务是理解他所说的绝对知识是什么意思。Our final task, so far as the Phenomenology is concerned, is to understand what he means by absolute knowledge. 为此我们首先需要理解，为什么自由观念意识的进步同时也是精神朝着绝对知识的发展。To do this we first need to understand why the progress of the consciousness of the idea of freedom is also the progress of mind towards absolute knowledge.
我们之前对黑格尔自由概念的考察表明，在他看来，只有当我们能够不受他人、社会环境或自然欲望的强迫来作选择时，我们才是自由的。Our earlier examination of Hegel’s conception of freedom revealed that for him we are free when we are able to choose uncoerced by other people, by social circumstances, or by natural desires. 在考察的最后我们曾经许诺，一旦我们对黑格尔的整个思想体系有了一定认识，就会对这种观点有更好的理解。That examination concluded with the promise that a better understanding of this view would emerge once we knew a little about his system of ideas as a whole. 现在我们已经从《精神现象学》中了解到，黑格尔把整个人类历史都看成精神发展的必然道路。We have now learnt from the Phenomenology that Hegel sees all human history as the necessary path of the development of mind. 他把精神当作历史的推动力，这一事实表明了他为什么要坚称，我们自己的欲望不论是自然的还是受社会影响的，都是对自由的限制。The fact that he takes mind as the driving force of history indicates why he insists that our own desires, whether natural or socially conditioned, are a restriction on freedom. 在黑格尔看来，自由并不是随心所欲地行事，而在于有一个自由的精神。Freedom for Hegel is not freedom to do as we please; it consists in having a free mind. 精神必须控制其他一切，而且必须知道它在控制着。Mind must be in control of everything else, and must know that it is in control. 这并不意味着（就像对康德那样）本性的非理智方面完全需要被压抑。This does not mean (as it did for Kant) that the non-intellectual side of nature is simply to be suppressed. 就像赋予了传统政治制度以位置一样，黑格尔也赋予了我们的自然欲望和受社会影响的欲望以位置，Hegel gives our natural and socially conditioned desires their place, as he gives traditional political institutions their place; 不过这个位置始终处于一个受精神安排和控制的等级结构之内。but it is always a place within a hierarchy ordered and controlled by mind.
正如我们所看到的，黑格尔所认为的真正自由可见于理性选择。The kind of freedom Hegel believes to be genuine is to be found, as we saw, in rational choice. 理性乃是理智的本质特性。Reason is the essential nature of the intellect.不为任何强迫所阻碍的自由精神会轻而易举地追随理性，正如不受崇山峻岭阻碍的河流会直奔大海。 A free mind, unimpeded by coercion of any sort, will follow reason as easily as a river unimpeded by mountains or hills would flow directly to the sea. 任何对理性的障碍都是对自由精神的限制。Anything that is an obstacle to reason is a limitation on the freedom of mind. 当一切都得到了理性安排时，精神就控制了一切。Mind controls everything when everything is rationally ordered.
我们还看到，黑格尔认为理性从本性上说就是普遍的。We also saw that Hegel regards reason as inherently universal. 如果理性是精神的重要手段，那么由此可以推出，精神从本性上说就是普遍的。If reason is the essential medium of mind, it follows that mind is inherently universal. 人类个体的特殊精神之所以相互联系，是因为它们享有一个共同的普遍理性。The particular minds of individual human beings are linked because they share a common universal reason. 黑格尔会把话说得更加坚决：人类个体的特殊精神乃是某种本性上普遍的东西即精神本身的诸方面。Hegel would put this even more strongly: the particular minds of individual human beings are aspects of something inherently universal, namely mind itself. 理性地安排世界的最大障碍不过是，人类个体没有意识到他的精神乃是这个普遍精神的一部分。The greatest obstacle to the rational ordering of the world is simply that individual human beings do not realize that their minds are part of this universal mind. 精神正是通过铲除这个障碍而向自由前进的。Mind progresses towards freedom by chipping away at this obstacle. 我们还记得在《精神现象学》开篇，意识被局限于对纯粹特殊的“这个”的认识，并且不得不接受隐含在语言中的普遍词项。Remember how at the very beginning of the Phenomenology consciousness was limited to knowledge of the bare particular ‘this’, and was compelled to accept the universal terms implicit in language. 从那一点开始，每一步都是沿着曲折的道路走向一种精神，它越来越接近于把自己设想为某种既是理性的又是普遍的东西。From that point on, every step has been a step along a winding road that leads towards a mind closer to conceiving of itself as something both rational and universal. 这就是通向自由的道路，因为当个体的人类精神还囿于自身，而没有认识到理性的力量或理性固有的普遍本性时，它们是无法在理性选择中找到自由的。This is the road to freedom, because individual human minds cannot find freedom in rational choice when they are locked into conceptions of themselves that do not acknowledge the power of reason or its inherently universal nature.
一旦理解这一点，自由与认识之间的关联就不难看出了。Once this is understood, it is not difficult to see a connection between freedom and knowledge. 我们只需要说，人类要想是自由的，就必须充分认识到其理智的那种理性的从而是普遍的本性。All that needs to be said is that for human beings to be free, they must be fully aware of the rational and hence universal nature of their intellect. 这种自我认识就是绝对知识。正如黑格尔在《历史哲学》中所说：This self-awareness is absolute knowledge. As Hegel wrote in the Philosophy of History:
埃及人的“精神”以一个问题的形式呈现给他们的意识，这一点显见于奈特女神圣庙中的著名铭文：“我是现在、过去和将来之所是；从未有人揭开过我的面纱。”That the mind of the Egyptians presented itself to their consciousness in the form of a problem is evident from the celebrated inscription in the sanctuary of the Goddess Neith: ‘I am that which is, that which was, and that which will be; no one has lifted my veil.’… ……在埃及的奈特那里，真理仍然是一个问题。In the Egyptian Neith, truth is still a problem. 希腊神阿波罗便是解答，他说：“人啊，认识你自己。”The Greek God Apollo is its solution; his utterance is: ‘Man, know thyself.’ 这句名言并不打算成为一种自我认识，要看出自己特殊的弱点和缺陷：In this dictum is not intended a self-recognition that regards the specialities of one’s own weaknesses and defects: 它并不是劝告个人去认识他的特性，而是号召一般人类去认识自己。it is not the individual that is admonished to become acquainted with his idiosyncrasy, but humanity in general is summoned to self-knowledge.
黑格尔很可能会补充说：与此同时，这一般的人类被召唤走向自由。Humanity in general, Hegel could well have added, is at the same time summoned to freedom.
绝对知识
Absolute knowledge
我们已经看到，《精神现象学》的目标是绝对知识，这与历史的目标是自由意识相关联。We have seen that the goal of the Phenomenology is absolute knowledge, and that this is linked with the goal of history being the consciousness of freedom. 自我认识（self-knowledge）既是一种知识形式，又是黑格尔自由概念的基础。Self-knowledge is both a form of knowledge and the basis of Hegel’s conception of freedom. 但为什么黑格尔要把自我认识称为“绝对知识”呢？Why, though, does Hegel describe self-knowledge as ‘absolute knowledge’? 我们难道不应该说，自我认识是知识的一部分，但绝不是它的全部吗？Should we not say that self-knowledge is part of knowledge, but by no means the whole of it? 毕竟，心理学只是诸多学科中的一种；Psychology, after all, is only one science among many; 即使我们加上人类学、生物学、历史学、演化论、社会学以及其他所有能为认识我们自身做出贡献的学科，and even if we add to it anthropology, biology, history, evolutionary theory, sociology, and all the other sciences that can contribute to our knowledge of ourselves, 也还会有许多知识领域完全超出这一范畴之外，或者至多与之有非常远的联系，比如地质学、物理学、天文学等等。there will be many areas of knowledge entirely outside this category or at best very remotely linked to it: geology, physics, astronomy, and so on. 这些难道不也是绝对知识的一部分吗？Are these not also part of absolute knowledge?
这一反驳包含着两种误解。其中一种很容易澄清。There are two misconceptions in this objection. One is easy to clear up. 黑格尔所说的“绝对知识”并不是指关于一切事物的知识。By ‘absolute knowledge’ Hegel does not mean knowledge of everything. 绝对知识乃是关于世界本身的知识，而不是关于纯粹现象的知识。Absolute knowledge is knowledge of the world as it really is, in contrast to knowledge of mere appearances. 为了获得绝对知识，我们不必知道一切可以知道的东西。To gain absolute knowledge we do not have to know all the facts it is possible to know. 越来越多地了解宇宙是科学家的任务。It is the job of scientists to learn more and more about the universe. 黑格尔的目标是哲学的目标，即表明真正的知识如何可能，而不是科学家的目标，即增加我们所拥有的知识。Hegel’s aim was the philosophical goal of showing how real knowledge is possible, not the scientist’s aim of increasing the knowledge we have.
第二种误解只有在说明了黑格尔关于终极实在本性的立场之后才能消除。The second misconception can only be eliminated by an explanation of Hegel’s position on the nature of ultimate reality. 黑格尔自称“绝对唯心主义者”。Hegel described himself as an ‘absolute idealist’. 哲学中的“唯心主义”（idealism）不同于它在日常语言中的含义，它与崇高理想或力求道德完善毫无关系。‘Idealism’ in philosophy does not mean what it means in ordinary language: it has nothing to do with having lofty ideals or striving to be morally perfect. 这一哲学术语其实应当是“观念主义”（idea-ism），而不是“理想主义”（ideal-ism），The philosophical term should really be ‘idea-ism’ rather than ‘ideal-ism’, 因为它的含义是：构成终极实在的是观念，或者更宽泛地说是我们的精神、我们的思想、我们的意识。for its sense is that it is ideas, or more broadly our minds, our thoughts, our consciousness, that constitute ultimate reality. 与其对立的观点是唯物主义，它主张终极实在是物质的，而不是精神的。The opposed view is materialism, which contends that ultimate reality is material, not mental. （二元论者则相信，精神和物质都是实在的。）(Dualists believe that both mind and matter are real.)
于是黑格尔认为，终极实在是精神而不是物质。Hegel believes, then, that the ultimate reality is mind, not matter. 他还认为《精神现象学》已经导出了这一结论。He also believes that the Phenomenology has led to this conclusion. 从感性确定性阶段开始，认识独立于精神的客观实在的每一次努力都失败了。From the stage of sense-certainty onwards, every attempt to gain knowledge of an objective reality independent of mind failed. 事实表明，在未纳入意识所产生的概念系统之前，感官所得到的未加工材料是没有意义的。The raw information received by the senses proved meaningless until it was brought under a conceptual system produced by consciousness. 在知识成为可能之前，意识必须理智地塑造世界，对它进行分类和整理。Consciousness had to shape the world intellectually, to classify and order it, before knowledge was possible. 所谓的“物质对象”原来并不是完全独立于意识而存在的东西，而是意识的构造物，包括像“属性”和“实体”这样的概念。So-called ‘material objects’ turned out to be not things existing quite independently of consciousness, but constructs of consciousness, involving concepts like ‘property’ and ‘substance’. 在自我意识层面，意识开始认识到科学定律是它自己的创造，于是精神第一次把它自己作为审察的对象。At the level of self-consciousness, consciousness became aware of the laws of science as laws of its own creation, and so for the first time mind had itself as the object of its scrutiny. 也正是在这一阶段，意识开始既从理智也从实践上塑造世界，它把物质对象拿来加工，按照自己想象的事物应该是什么样子来塑造它们。It was also at this stage that consciousness began to shape the world practically as well as intellectually, by taking material objects and working on them, fashioning them in accordance with its own images of how they should be. 接着，自我意识也开始塑造它的社会世界，这一过程以发现理性是一切事物的统治者而达到顶点。Self-consciousness then began to shape its social world too, a process culminating in the discovery that reason is sovereign over everything. 换句话说，虽然我们开始时只是追溯精神认识实在的道路，但在这一道路的尽头却发现，我们一直在观察着那个构造实在的精神。In other words, although we set out merely to trace the path of mind as it comes to know reality, at the end of the road we find that we have been watching mind as it constructs reality.
只有基于实在是精神的创造这一观念，黑格尔才能实现他在《精神现象学》导言中提出来的任务，Only on this conception of reality as the creation of mind can Hegel fulfil the undertaking he made in the introduction to the Phenomenology, 即表明我们可以拥有关于实在的真正知识。to show that we can have genuine knowledge of reality. 我们还记得，黑格尔大肆嘲讽所有那些把认识看成把握实在的某种工具，或者我们借以观察实在的媒介的观念。Remember how he poured scorn on all conceptions of knowledge as some kind of instrument for grasping reality, or as a medium through which we view reality. 他指出，所有这些观念都把认识与实在割裂了。All these conceptions, he said, divide knowledge from reality. 康德显然是这种批判的一个靶子，因为他的“自在之物”概念永远超出了认识。Kant, with his notion of the ‘thing-in-itself’ as for ever beyond knowledge, was obviously one of the targets of this criticism. 黑格尔则保证，《精神现象学》将会达到一点，“在那里认识不再必须超越它自身”，实在将不再是不可知的“彼岸”，In contrast, Hegel promised that the Phenomenology would reach a point ‘where knowledge is no longer compelled to go beyond itself’, where reality will no longer be an unknowable ‘beyond’, 而是精神直接认识实在，并与之合为一体。but instead mind will know reality directly and be at one with it. 现在我们可以理解所有这一切的意义了：当精神认识到它所努力认识的东西就是它本身时，绝对知识就达到了。Now we can understand what all this meant: absolute knowledge is reached when mind realizes that what it seeks to know is itself.
这一点是理解整个《精神现象学》的关键。This point is the key to understanding the Phenomenology as a whole. 它可能是本书所试图传达的黑格尔所有思想中最深刻的，因此我们再来考察一下。It is probably the most profound of all the ideas of Hegel that I am attempting to convey in this book, so let us go over it again.
实在是精神构造的。起初精神并没有认识到这一点。Reality is constituted by mind. At first mind does not realize this. 它把实在看成某种独立于它的东西，甚至是某种与它敌对或异己的东西。It sees reality as something independent of it, even as something hostile or alien to it. 在这一时期，精神与它自己的创造物相疏离。During this period mind is estranged or alienated from its own creation. 它试图获得对实在的认识，但这种认识并非真正的知识，因为精神并没有认识到实在的本来面目，所以把实在当成某种无法把握的神秘的东西。It tries to obtain knowledge of reality, but this knowledge is not genuine knowledge because mind does not recognize reality for what it is, and so regards it as a mysterious thing beyond its grasp. 只有当精神领悟到实在就是它自己的创造物时，它才能放弃这种对“彼岸”的追求，才能认识到在它之外没有任何东西。Only when mind awakens to the fact that reality is its own creation can it give up this reaching after the ‘beyond’.Then it understands that there is nothing beyond itself. 然后它认识实在就像它认识自己一样直接和立即，它与实在合为一体。 Then it knows reality as directly and immediately as it knows itself.It is at one with it. 正如黑格尔在《精神现象学》结尾所说：绝对知识是“精神在精神的形态中认识自己”。As Hegel puts it in the concluding section of the Phenomenology, absolute knowledge is ‘mind knowing itself in the shape of mind’.
就这样，黑格尔使其鸿篇巨制得出了一个大胆的非凡结论。Hegel has thus brought his gigantic work to a bold and brilliant conclusion. 他给哲学的基本问题提出了一种惊人的解决方案，同时也表明为什么历史必须沿着它事实上已经走过的道路前进。He has produced a startling solution to the fundamental problem of philosophy, and at the same time shown why history had to move along the paths it has in fact travelled. 至于他的这座宏伟的大厦是否安稳则是另外一个问题；Whether his vast edifice stands solidly is another question; 但即使它在我们眼前倒掉，我们也不禁要称赞其设计的宽广和原创。but even if it crumbles before our eyes, we cannot help admiring the breadth and originality of the design.
这一设计有一个特征，我作为向导禁不住想指出来。There is one feature of the design that your guide cannot resist pointing out. 请问一下你自己，绝对知识什么时候能够达到？回答当然是，一旦精神认识到实在是其本身的创造，它并没有什么“彼岸”要去认识，绝对知识就达到了。Ask yourself when absolute knowledge is achieved. The answer is, of course, that it is achieved as soon as mind understands that reality is its own creation and there is no ‘beyond’ for it to know. 这是在什么时候发生的呢？鉴于这种实在观念是黑格尔《精神现象学》的最后结果，它必定发生在黑格尔自己的精神把握了宇宙本质的时刻。And when does this occur? Well, since this conception of reality is the upshot of Hegel’s Phenomenology, it must occur when Hegel’s own mind grasps the nature of the universe. 根据黑格尔的看法，当他黑格尔理解了实在的本质时，精神就来到了它最终的栖身之地。On Hegel’s view, mind comes to its final resting-place when he, Hegel, understands the nature of reality. 对于一部哲学著作来说，几乎不会有比这更宏大的结论了。There can scarcely be a more momentous conclusion to a work of philosophy. 《精神现象学》的最后几页不仅是对整个人类历史顶点的描述，而且就是这个顶点。The closing pages of The Phenomenology of Mind are no mere description of the culmination of all human history; they are that culmination.
两个问题
Two questions
黑格尔的哲学显得如此恢弘壮丽，以至于质疑它似乎显得琐碎而不重要。So magnificent is Hegel’s philosophical cheek that to question it seems petty. 但还是有许多问题可以追问。我将简要讨论两个核心问题。Nevertheless there are many questions that virtually ask themselves. I shall briefly consider two central ones.
第一个问题与黑格尔的唯心主义有关。The first concerns Hegel’s idealism. 我们也许承认，没有理智对感官所接收的未加工材料进行构造，就不可能有知识。We may admit that there can be no knowledge without an intellect that structures the raw information received by the senses. 我们还可能承认，人类通过对世界起作用，从理论和实践两方面塑造着他们的世界。We may grant that human beings shape their world practically, as well as theoretically, by working on it. 但即使把这一切甚至更多的内容考虑进去，也仍然会有一个顽固的信念挥之不去，那就是必定存在着某种“外在的”、独立于我们经验的东西。But even when all this and more is taken into account, there remains the stubborn conviction that there must still be something ‘out there’ independently of our experience of it. 毕竟，说精神把它的范畴强加于它从感官获得的未加工材料——强加于直接呈现于感性确定性层面的意识的“这个”——等于预设了存在着来自某个地方的未加工材料。After all, to say that mind imposes its categories on the raw information it receives from the senses – on the ‘this’ that is immediately present to consciousness at the level of sense certainty – is to presuppose that there is raw information coming from somewhere. 黑格尔可以否认这种未加工材料等于知识，但他无法否认这暗示有精神本身之外的某种东西存在。Hegel can deny that this raw information amounts to knowledge, but he cannot deny that it suggests the existence of something outside mind itself. 同样的观点甚至更明显地适用于精神通过对世界起作用而实际塑造世界这一看法。The same point holds even more obviously for the view that mind shapes the world practically by working upon it. 米开朗琪罗也许是先想到了“大卫”，然后取来一块大理石，依照其思想把它变成了一尊雕像。Michelangelo may have thought of David, taken a lump of marble, and turned it into a statue that accorded with his thoughts; 但如果压根就没有大理石，他就不可能前进。but he would not have got far if there had been no marble in the first place.
这一思路引导康德（在理论领域而不是实践领域）假定了他那不可知的“自在之物”。This line of thought (in the theoretical rather than the practical sphere) led Kant to postulate his unknowable ‘thing-in-itself’. 黑格尔对这种观念作了一些敏锐的批判，但他真的表明没有这个观念也行吗？Hegel has made some acute criticisms of this idea, but has he really shown that we can do without it?
第二个问题也来自黑格尔的唯心主义。The second question also flows from Hegel’s idealism. 有些唯心主义者是主观主义者，他们坚持认为终极实在是人自己的思想和感觉。Some idealists are subjectivists. They maintain that what is ultimately real are one’s own thoughts and sensations. 不同的精神可能有不同的思想和感觉，如此一来，就不可能判定一个精神的内容正确而另一个精神的内容错误了——事实上，根据这种观点，这些划分是毫无意义的，因为他们错误地预先假定有一种客观实在超出了个人精神的思想和感觉之外。Different minds may have different thoughts and sensations, and if they do, there is no possible way of judging the contents of one mind to be true and those of the other false – indeed on this view such classifications are meaningless, for they erroneously presuppose an objective reality beyond the thoughts and sensations of individual minds. 黑格尔拒绝接受这种对应于所存在的无数不同的精神就有无数不同的“实在”的观点。Hegel rejects the view that there are countless different ‘realities’ corresponding to the countless different minds that exist. 他把这种形式的唯心主义称为绝对唯心主义，以区别于主观唯心主义。He calls his form of idealism absolute idealism to distinguish it from subjective idealism. 对黑格尔来说只有一个实在，因为最终只有一个精神。For Hegel there is only one reality, because, ultimately, there is only one mind.
现在我们就回到了一开始考察《精神现象学》时所提出的问题：Now we have returned to the question with which our investigation of the Phenomenology began. 如果黑格尔认为只有一个精神，那么他所说的“精神”（mind）到底是什么意思呢？If Hegel believes that there is only one mind, what on earth can he mean by ‘mind’? 他必定是指某种集体的或普遍的精神。那样一来，带有各种宗教含义的spirit难道不是一种更好的译法吗？He must mean some kind of collective or universal mind. In that case, would not ‘spirit’, with all its religious connotations, have been a better translation all along? 集体的精神从根本上说难道不是一种宗教观念吗？Is not the idea of a collective mind fundamentally a religious idea? 我们难道不应把它当作黑格尔的上帝观念吗？Should we not regard it as Hegel’s conception of God?
也许是这样。但如果我们到头来不得不接受这种看法，那么一开始就用spirit来翻译，比现在用mind来翻译可以更好地理解黑格尔思想中的含混不清和不明确之处。Perhaps; but if we are in the end forced to this view, it will be with a better understanding of the ambiguities and uncertainties of Hegel’s position than we would have had if we had opted for that translation from the start.
不可否认，黑格尔的精神概念仍然有不明确之处。That there remain uncertainties about Hegel’s conception of mind is undeniable. 一方面，他需要一个集体的或普遍的精神概念，不仅是为了避免一种主观形式的唯心主义，也是为了证明其观点的正确性，即精神逐渐把整个实在看成它自己的创造。On the one hand, he needs the conception of a collective or universal mind not only to avoid a subjective form of idealism, but also to make good his vision of mind coming to see all of reality as its own creation. 如果有无数个不同的个体精神，那么任何一个精神都不可能把大部分实在当作它自己的实际创造，因为大部分实在将由其他精神的实际创造所构成。If there are millions of distinct individual minds, no single mind will be able to see much of reality as its own practical creation, for a large part of reality will consist of the practical creations of other minds. 精神在达到绝对知识之前构想世界的方式——也就是把世界看成某种独立于它甚至是与它敌对的东西——将经常被证明并非欺骗，而是确确实实的事实。The manner in which mind conceives of the world before it has achieved absolute knowledge – as something independent of it and even hostile to it – will often prove to be no deception, but the literal truth. 所有这一切似乎都迫使我们不得不接受对黑格尔的一种解释，即把黑格尔的“精神”理解成某种宇宙意识。All this seems to force upon us an interpretation of Hegel that would understand his term ‘mind’ as some kind of cosmic consciousness; 当然，这并非把上帝看成与宇宙分离的传统观念，而是与那些主张“万物归一”的东方哲学更为相近。not, of course, a traditional conception of God as a being separate from the universe, but rather as something more akin to those Eastern philosophies that insist that All is One.
另一方面，黑格尔自视为理性的彻底捍卫者。On the other hand Hegel regarded himself as a thoroughgoing defender of reason. 这与他关于精神所说的话以及需要说的话能够协调起来吗？Can we reconcile this with what he says, and needs to say, about mind? 协调的一个办法也许是认真考虑黑格尔在何种程度上相信意识必然是社会的。One way of doing so might be to take very seriously the extent to which Hegel believes consciousness to be necessarily social. 从《精神现象学》的第一部分开始黑格尔就强调，知识只有在能够交流时才是知识。From the first section of the Phenomenology, Hegel insists that knowledge is only knowledge if it can be communicated. 语言的必要性将一种完全独立的意识这一观念排除在外。The necessity of language rules out the idea of an entirely independent consciousness. 意识要想发展成自我意识，就必须与其他意识发生相互作用。Consciousness must interact with other consciousnesses if it is to develop into self-consciousness. 最后，精神只有在一个合理组织起来的共同体中才能找到自由和自我理解，In the end, mind can only find freedom and self-understanding in a rationally organized community.所以诸精神并不是偶然联系在一起的分离的原子。So minds are not separate atoms, linked together by the accidents of association. 个体精神是一起存在的，否则就根本不存在。Individual minds exist together, or they do not exist at all.
黑格尔关于精神的社会理论很重要，特别是因为它对后来思想的影响，但也许这还不足以使我们把他所说的认识理解成精神与它自身相一致。Hegel’s social theory of mind is important, particularly for its influence on later thought, but it may not be enough to allow us to make sense of his idea of knowledge as mind at one with itself. 不过还有第二个要素可以拿来用，那就是他关于理性的普遍性的看法。There is still a second element to be drawn into service, however, and this is his idea of the universal nature of reason. 我们已经看到，黑格尔把理性看成精神的根本原则，把理性看成本质上普遍的。We have already seen how Hegel regards reason as the essential principle of mind, and sees reason as essentially universal. 因此他才能说：就个体精神真正是精神——而不是自私的或反复无常的欲望——而言，它们都会彼此和谐一致地思想和行为，都会彼此承认有同一个基本的本质。He could therefore say: in so far as individual minds are truly mind – and not selfish or capricious desire – they really would all think and act in harmony with each other, they really would all recognize each other as having one and the same essential nature. 这个基本的本质——这个“普遍精神”——既不是一个个体精神，也不是一个集体精神，而就是理性的意识。This essential nature – this ‘universal mind’ – is neither an individual mind, nor a collective mind, but simply rational consciousness.
这也许是对理性本质和精神本质的一种极端而片面的看法。This may be an extreme and one-sided view of the nature of reason and of mind. 它可能基于——正如我提到黑格尔的政治哲学可能基于——一种关于人类精神之间能否和谐的、受到误导的乐观主义看法。It may be based, as I suggested his political philosophy might be based, on a misguided optimism about the possibility of harmony between human minds. 但它并非退避到一种宇宙意识的神秘统一性中去。It is not, however, a retreat into the mystical unity of a cosmic consciousness. 至于它是否是对《精神现象学》核心要义的正确解释，则是另一个问题。Whether it is an accurate interpretation of the central message of the Phenomenology is another question.
