第21句见：Day21
《哲学的故事》的第22句：序言中的第2段第9句。
Some ungentle reader will check us here by informing us that philosophy is as useless as chess, as obscure as ignorance, and as stagnant as content. "There is nothing so absurd," said Cicero, "but that it may be found in the books of the philosophers." Doubtless some philosophers have had all sorts of wisdom except common sense; and many a philosophic flight has been due to the elevating power of thin air. Let us resolve, on this voyage of ours, to put in only at the ports of light, to keep out of the muddy streams of metaphysics and the "many-sounding seas" of theological dispute. But is philosophy stagnant? Science seems always to advance, while philosophy seems always to lose ground. Yet this is only because philosophy accepts the hard and hazardous task of dealing with problems not yet open to the methods of science--problems like good and evil, beauty and ugliness, order and freedom, life and death; so soon as a field of inquiry yields knowledge susceptible of exact formulation it is called science. Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement. Philosophy is a hypothetical interpretation of the unknown (as in metaphysics), or of the inexactly known (as in ethics or political philosophy); it is the front trench in the siege of truth. Science is the captured territory; and behind it are those secure regions in which knowledge and art build our imperfect and marvelous world. Philosophy seems to stand still, perplexed; but only because she leaves the fruits of victory to her daughters the sciences, and herself passes on, divinely discontent, to the uncertain and unexplored.
浙江大学版本：哲学是对未知（譬如形而上学）或不尽知（譬如道德论或政治哲学）的臆想式诠释，站在以围堵策略获取真理的最前沿。
解析
这句话细化了哲学的科学的探索范围，并强调了其在追求真理过程中的重要性。句子画面感十足，想像我们在与真理作战，哲学是排头兵，处于最前线。
1、Philosophy is a hypothetical interpretation of the unknown (as in metaphysics),…”哲学对未知的事物进行假设性解释。
2、”...or of the inexactly known (as in ethics or political philosophy) ;…”哲学的另一个研究对象：不完全已知。在伦理学和政治哲学等领域，哲学处理的就是部分了解或是了解不够精确的问题。
"the inexactly known”
在短语 "the inexactly known" 中，"inexactly" 仍然是作为副词使用，用来修饰动词 "known"（知道）。不过，这里的 "known" 是用作一个过去分词，与 "the" 一起构成名词短语，表示一类事物。整个短语 "the inexactly known" 可以翻译为“不完全知晓的事物”或“不确切已知的事物”。
3、”...it is the front trench in the siege of truth." 这里使用军事比喻来描述哲学的探索性。trench与siege都是军事用语，
trench: a long, narrow hole that is dug in the ground : ditch 壕沟；沟
The first port of call was to create a trench all the way around the skeleton.要做的第一件事就是围着骨架旁边挖一个壕沟。
siege：a situation in which soldiers or police officers surround a city, building, etc., in order to try to take control of it包围圈
They called family around the world, including in America, begging for help to escape the siege.他们呼求世界各地的亲人，包括美国的亲人们，祈求他们的帮助，以逃离这种被围攻的日子。
哲学是对未知事物（如在形而上学中）或不完全知晓的事物（如在伦理学或政治哲学中）进行的假设性演绎。在对追求真理的攻坚战中，它是前线战壕。
