E26 重建哲学(上)
IV. The Great Reconstruction
第四部分 《伟大的复兴》
培根在哲学领域上的贡献。
哲学从本质上来讲是建设,不断进步就是reconstruction,不是完全的destruction.
Unconsciously, in the midst of his triumphs, his heart was with philosophy.
不由自主地,培根在获得了一系列胜利之后,他的内心进入了哲学领域。
It had been his nurse in youth, it was his companion in office, it was to be his consolation in prison and disgrace.
哲学是他青年时的保姆、官场上的伙伴,以及沦为阶下囚和受到别的侮辱时的安慰。
动词的时态的多样性--西方语言的优势。
He lamented the ill repute into which, he thought, philosophy had fallen, and blamed an arid scholasticism.
他为哲学的声名狼藉而感到痛心疾首,并将这种局面归罪于枯燥的经院哲学。
"People are very apt to contemn truth, on account of the controversies raised about it, and to think those all in a wrong way who never meet."
“人们是非常习惯于否定批判真理,由于真理会带来很多争议,将一切有关真理的学说当成谬论了,他们在思考的这种逻辑,是因为他们从没见过而否定的错过,由于他们没见过,没思考到而步入了歧途。因为这些学说总是相互矛盾,前后不一。”
中世纪的经院哲学是服务于神学的。不要考虑什么真理,只要有信仰就好,有了所谓真理的追寻反而带来了很多不便,他们犯错不是因为故意犯错,是因为他们从来未遇见过正确的道路,直接被神学的经院哲学封闭了,所以犯下了这样的错误。
面对争议时,人的心态就是搁置证,否定引起争议的这件事,而没有focus在这个争议上。
如:A和B吵架,C劝架会搬出第三方原因。
"The sciences... stand almost at a stay, without receiving any augmentations worthy of the human race; ...and all the tradition and succession of schools is still a succession of masters and scholars, not of inventors... In what is now done in the matter of science there is only a whirling about, and perpetual agitation, ending where it began."
“那时几乎一切科学都停滞了,这对人类的进步毫无助益......所有学校的传统和继承就是大师和学者的继承,没有发明者和颠覆者出现......所以,如今科学所做的不过是顾左右而言他,永远有这种焦虑,原地踏步,虽然是无休止的辩论,但它的终点恰是它的起点。”
All through the years of his rise and exaltation he brooded over the restoration or reconstruction of philosophy; "Meditor Instaurationem philosophiae."
培根在其政治生涯上升的岁月,一直在思考如何重振或改造哲学;“哲学的再次复建”。
这段核心提到的是:中世纪哲学没多大长进,培根为此忧心忡忡,一直在思考重建。
语言点
disgrace: n. 奇耻大辱
lament: vt. 哀怨
arid: adj. 干枯的,干燥的
whirling about: 顾左右而言他
perpetual: adj. 永久的
exaltation: n. 上升