第三段哲学史从17世纪至今,由科学主导,传统信仰并未消失殆尽但总需要科学的背书。
The third period, from the seventeenth century to the present day, is dominated, more than either of its predecessors, by science; traditional religious beliefs remain important, but are felt to need justification, and are modified wherever science seems to make this imperative.
今天这段,因为我不熟悉,可能诠释上有些问题,但还是受到从历史研究思想这个脉络的启发。如果你考察过历史上不那么强调个人主观的时代,你或许就会对当代“只要我喜欢有什么不可以”的主张,有更少的迷惑,而能更直面的直接批评“这是一种精神错乱”吧。
人类从对自然世界的迷信走出来已经许久了,但人类可能陷入一场更困难的迷信,就是”自己“,对自我的盲目崇拜,以个人作为衡量万物的尺度,不顾及客观自然界的事实,纵欲的破坏生存环境并逼迫其他物种;又不顾及同类,或是放纵的炫富,或是成为宅居的米虫,或是戕害伦理和社会秩序,造成家庭悲剧和社会不安,都是问题。
内心真诚,同时考虑社会效用和自然生态,可能是修养的大道。
个人主观的强调
现代思潮的特点是主观性,无论是哲学还是政治理论。现代哲学始于笛卡尔,他通过确定性他自己和他的思想存在,来认为可以推断出外部世界。 这只是主观性发展的第一阶段,接下来,从伯克利、康德、到费希特(Berkeley and Kant, to Fichte),一切都只是自我的散发。 作者认为,“这是一种精神错乱”,而且,从这个极端开始,哲学一直试图逃到日常常识的世界中。
Modern philosophy begins with Descartes, whose fundamental certainty is the existence of himself and his thoughts, from which the external world is to be inferred. This was only the first stage in a development, through Berkeley and Kant, to Fichte, for whom everything is only an emanation of the ego. This was insanity, and, from this extreme, philosophy has been attempting, ever since, to escape into the world of every-day common sense.
路德反抗教宗的精神,产生奇妙的变化,先是宗教理解上的主观性,后是政治中的无政府主义。在路德的一生中,一派新的“重洗派”(Anabaptisn)发展了出来,他们认为好人将在每时每刻受到圣灵的引导,圣灵不受常理的约束,因而否认(repudiated )所有法律,招致物质均分和性滥交(promiscuity)的后果,后来被消灭(exterminated )了。他们的学说以软化的形式传播到荷兰、英国和美国。 从历史上看,它是贵格会(Quakerism)的源头。后来,19 世纪出现了一种不再与宗教联系在一起的激烈无政府主义形式,遍及俄国、西班牙和美国,思想来源也可追溯至路德。
主观性也冲击了社会伦常,新教教徒还是遵守社会常规的,但后期在18 世纪,人们对“感性”的崇拜开始瓦解规范:一种行为受到赞赏,不再是因为它后果良好,或是遵守道德准则,而是因为出于激发它的情感——个人是美学上令人愉悦的沉思对象。 感性的态度发展出“英雄崇拜”,正如卡莱尔和尼采(Carlyle and Nietzsche)的哲学,以及拜伦式(Byronic cult)对暴力激情的崇拜。其后果,用作者生动的比喻来说,就是你非要拆除铁栏观赏老虎,结果可能你不堪负荷(The typical romantic removes the bars and enjoys the magnificent leaps with which the tiger annihilates the sheep. He exhorts men to imagine themselves tigers, and when he succeeds the results are not wholly pleasant.)。
But this was a precarious equilibrium. The eighteenth-century cult of "sensibility" began to break it down: an act was admired, not for its good consequences, or for its conformity to a moral code, but for the emotion that inspired it. Out of this attitude developed the cult of the hero, as it is expressed by Carlyle and Nietzsche, and the Byronic cult of violent passion of no matter what kind.
反对极端浪漫思潮的哲学(但可能也是浪漫主义的分支?)
反对主观浪漫思潮的哲学也有,如,修正派的洛克,他既反对重洗派的极端主观,同时也不同意盲从权威和传统;更加绝对的反叛导致国家崇拜(过去天主教地位的另一种形式再现), 霍布斯、卢梭和黑格尔(Hobbes, Rousseau, and Hegel)代表了这一理论的不同阶段,他们的学说在克伦威尔、拿破仑和现代德国(共产主义在理论上与这些哲学相去甚远,但在实践中却产生一种与国家崇拜所产生的社区非常相似的社区)都有实际体现。
First, a half-way compromise philosophy, the doctrine of liberalism, which attempted to assign the respective spheres of government and the individual. This begins, in its modern form, with Locke, who is as much opposed to "enthusiasm"--the individualism of the Anabaptists--as to absolute authority and blind subservience to tradition. A more thoroughgoing revolt leads to the doctrine of State worship, which assigns to the State the position that Catholicism gave to the Church, or even, sometimes, to God. Hobbes, Rousseau, and Hegel represent different phases of this theory, and their doctrines are embodied practically in Cromwell, Napoleon, and modern Germany. Communism, in theory, is far removed from such philosophies, but is driven, in practice, to a type of community very similar to that which results from State worship.
两极社会政治背景下取舍的西方哲学史
总结作者的前言来说,作者呼应了开头他说的本书将在社会政治的背景下理解哲学(“My purpose is to exhibit philosophy as an integral part of social and political life.”),而整部西方哲学史,都在两极的社会政治背景下取舍,一端是社会团结,一端是个人自由。
个人自由派,强调主观性,而不得不或多或少地敌视科学,因为他们的教条无法被经验证明。 他们几乎一成不变地教导说,幸福不是好事,而是更喜欢“高贵”或“英雄主义”。他们的反科学的思维倾向,使他们虽然强调个人自由,但却反而常“提倡某种教条体系”,因此作者甚至称他们为“规训者”(disciplinarians)。他们对个人主观自由的强调,使他们同情人性中非理性的部分,并认为为了个人的自由,有理由反抗(to be inimical to)社会凝聚力。
The disciplinarians have advocated some system of dogma, either old or new, and have therefore been compelled to be, in a greater or less degree, hostile to science, since their dogmas could not be proved empirically. They have almost invariably taught that happiness is not the good, but that "nobility" or "heroism" is to be preferred. They have had a sympathy with the irrational parts of human nature, since they have felt reason to be inimical to social cohesion.
社会团结派,会倾向科学的、功利的、理性的、对暴力激情的敌意。而作者认为,由于社会团结派科学功利的思维倾向,他们也反对于所有太过僵化的教条和宗教形式。除了极端的无政府主义者之外,他们的思想有助团结社会。
The libertarians, on the other hand, with the exception of the extreme anarchists, have tended to be scientific, utilitarian, rationalistic, hostile to violent passion, and enemies of all the more profound forms of religion.
一般来说,重要的文明都是从僵化的迷信体系开始,逐渐放松,到了一定阶段,进入了天才辉煌时期,而旧传统的善依然存在,导致解体的恶尚未发展(如雅典、文艺复兴)。 但随着极端主观主义的展开,它会导致无政府状态,因此,不可避免地会导致新的暴政,产生由新的教条体系保护的新综合(如罗马走向衰落时,基督宗教从斯多葛的摇篮崛起,步入西方哲学的中古时期;如宗教改革发展到极端后的浪漫主义、和英雄乃至威权崇拜)。
In general, important civilizations start with a rigid and superstitious system, gradually relaxed, and leading, at a certain stage, to a period of brilliant genius, while the good of the old tradition remains and the evil inherent in its dissolution has not yet developed. But as the evil unfolds, it leads to anarchy, thence, inevitably, to a new tyranny, producing a new synthesis secured by a new system of dogma.
谁能不基于理性教条,使个人自由发挥,又能维持社会秩序,那可能就是政治社会层面上最好的哲学了。