Eight Solipsism and Intersubjectivity
第八章 唯我论和主体间性
THE SPECTER OF NIHILISM
虚无主义的幽灵
Of all the problems Hegel faced in attempting to base metaphysics on the critique of knowledge the most serious was the challenge of ‘nihilism’. As we have already seen (pp. 28–9), in the late 1790s and early 1800s in Germany, nihilism was understood as radical doubt about the existence of everything: God, the external world, other minds, and even my own self. Since he doubts the existence of everything, the nihilist believes in nothing at all. Nihilism was therefore closely associated with skepticism; and the paradigm nihilist was David Hume, who, at the close of the first book of the Treatise of Human Nature, famously declared that he could find no reason to believe in the existence of anything beyond his own passing impressions. After the publication of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason in 1781, there was something of a Hume revival in Germany when Kant’s many critics cited Hume to point out the insufficiencies of transcendental idealism. If Kant were only consistent, his critics charged, he would become a nihilist, a Prussian David Hume.1
黑格尔在试图把形而上学奠基于知识批判的尝试中所面临的所有难题中，最严重的难题是“虚无主义”的挑战。正如我们已经看见的那样（第28—29页），在18世纪90年代末和19世纪初的德国，虚无主义被理解为对于一切事物的存在的怀疑：上帝，外部世界，其他心灵，甚至我自己。既然虚无主义者怀疑所有事物的存在，那么，他就压根儿什么也不相信。因此，虚无主义就和怀疑主义紧密联系在一起；最具典范意义的怀疑主义是大卫·休谟，他在《人性论》第一卷的结尾发表了一个著名的宣言，他发现没有任何理由可以相信在他自己的转瞬即逝的印象之外的任何事物的存在。在康德于1871年发表《纯粹理性批判》之后，在康德的批评者援引休谟来指出先验唯心主义的各种不足之时，在德国曾经有过某种程度的休谟的复兴。如果康德仅仅是始终如一，而他的批评者归罪于他的话，他有可能变成一个虚无主义者，一个普鲁士的大卫·休谟。1
The nihilistic theme gained in urgency and popularity in 1799 when Jacobi, in his Letter to Fichte, charged Kant’s and Fichte’s transcendental idealism with nihilism.2 Jacobi argued that the fundamental principle of Kant’s and Fichte’s idealism, ‘the principle of subject–object identity’, traps the self inside the circle of its own consciousness. According to this principle, the self knows a priori of objects only what it creates, or only what it produces according to its own inherent laws. Since its a priori activity is the condition of all knowlege, the self knows only its own creations, not reality as it exists in itself, prior to the deployment of its knowing activity. Of course, Kant himself acknowledged that we know objects only as appearances; but he sometimes held that these appearances are more than representations because they are appearances of thingsin-themselves. But here Jacobi was ready with another objection. For in his David Hume he had famously argued that Kant, on his own premises, had no right to postulate the reality of things-inthemselves.3 Kant held that we know nothing beyond experience, and that things-in-themselves are not within experience. How, then, is it possible to know that things-in-themselves exist? If Kant were only consistent, Jacobi claimed, he would have to admit that appearances are only representations, representations of nothing at all. The Kantian philosophy is therefore ‘a philosophy of nothingness’.
虚无主义的主题是在1799年的紧急情况下广为流传的。当时，雅可比在他的《致费希特的信》中用虚无主义来指责康德和费希特的先验观念论。2雅可比论证说，康德和费希特观念论的基本原则，“主体—客体同一性的原则”，诱使自我陷入到它自己的意识圆圈之内。依照这种原则，自我在对象之中先天地认识的只是它所创造的东西，或者只是它依照自己固有的法则所产生的东西。既然它的先天活动是所有知识的条件，那么自我认识的就只是它的认识活动展开之前的它自己的创造物，而不是自在地存在着的实在。当然，康德本人承认，我们认识的对象仅仅是显现；但是他有时坚持认为，这些显现不仅仅是表象，因为它们是物自身的显现。但是在这里，雅可比随时可以提出另外一种异议。因为在他的《大卫·休谟》中，他提出过一个著名的论证，即康德基于他自己的前提，是没有权利假设物自身的实在性的。3康德认为，我们不能认识经验之外的任何东西，而物自身不在经验之中。那么，我们又是如何可能知道物自身存在着呢？如果康德是始终如一的，雅可比会说，他就不得不承认显现根本上仅仅是表象，虚无的表象了。因此，康德的哲学是“关于虚无的哲学”。
No one worried more about nihilism than Hegel himself. The reason for his concern was plain enough. Nihilism seemed to be the inevitable result of epistemology, the very foundation for his new critical metaphysics. Hegel alluded to this very problem in the first paragraph of his Introduction to the Phenomenology (63–4/¶73). Epistemology seems to show us that the faculty of knowledge is either an instrument or a medium for knowing the truth, so that it appears we cannot know the object in itself, as it exists prior to the application of the instrument or medium. So if the phenomenology affirms epistemology as an immanent critique of consciousness, how does it avoid trapping consciousness inside the circle of appearances?
没有谁比黑格尔本人更担心虚无主义了。他担忧的理由已经足够简单了。虚无主义似乎是认识论不可避免的后果，而认识论是他的新型的批判的形而上学的真正基础。在《精神现象学》的“导论”的第一段中（63—64/73），黑格尔间接提到了这个难题。认识论似乎向我们指出了，认识的能力既不是认识真理的工具，也不是认识真理的媒介，因此，看起来，我们不能认识自在的对象，因为它存在于任何工具和媒介的运用之先。因此，如果现象学把认识论肯定为内在的意识批判，那么它又如何避免使意识陷入显现的源泉之陷阱？
Hegel’s concern with nihilism appears more explicitly in an early treatise he co-authored with Schelling, the 1802 Further Presentation from the System of Philosophy.4 Here Hegel and Schelling, under the influence of Jacobi, pondered Fichte’s dilemma at the close of his 1794 Wissenschaftslehre (Doctrine of Science).5 This dilemma consists in the fact that the Fichtean ego is caught between two impossible extremes: the circle of its own consciousness and an unknowable thing-in-itself. The vocation of the Fichtean ego is infinite striving, a ceaseless struggle to make nature conform to the laws of its own activity. In so far as it conquers nature, the ego knows it; but in so far as nature remains resistant, it is an unknowable thing-in-itself. The dilemma is the inevitable result, Schelling and Hegel argue, of Fichte’s principle of subject–object identity.
黑格尔对于虚无主义的担忧更加明确地显现在他早期与谢林合作撰写的一篇论文中——1802年的《哲学体系的进一步阐述》。4在这里，黑格尔和谢林，在雅可比的影响下，沉思费希特1794年《知识学》（Wissenschaft）的结尾陷入的困境。5这种困境在如下事实之中，费希特的自我陷入到两种极端之间：它自己意识的圆圈和一个不可知的物自身。费希特的自我的天职是无限的奋斗，为使自然符合它自己的活动的法则而进行的永不停止的斗争。就自我征服了自然而言，它认识它；但是，就自然保持着抵抗而言，它是一个不可认识的物自身。谢林和黑格尔论证说，这种困境是费希特主客同一原则不可避免的结果。
It was just this dilemma that Schelling and Hegel wanted to overcome with their absolute idealism. But, by 1804, Hegel realized that Schelling did not have a solution to Jacobi’s challenge. Schelling had argued that to attain the standpoint of the absolute – to have insight into reality in itself – it was only necessary to abstract from the subjective.6 But he never fully explained how such abstraction is possible. This only begged the question against Kant and Fichte, who had insisted that the ‘I’ is a necessary condition of all knowing. We cannot think away the ‘I’, they argued, without presupposing it in the very attempt. Hegel’s dissatisfaction with Schelling’s cavalier treatment of the problem appears in his famous damning lines in the preface to the Phenomenology: that Schelling had shot absolute knowledge out of a pistol.
谢林和黑格尔想要用他们的绝对观念论加以克服的，正是这种困境。但是，到1804年为止，黑格尔意识到，谢林没有给出一个应对雅可比的挑战的解决方案。谢林已经论证了，要达到绝对的立场——要获得关于实在自身的洞见——唯一必要的是从主观的立场中退出来。6但是他从来没有充分地解释这种退出是如何可能的。这只能以尚未解决的问题作为论据来反对康德和费希特，他们坚持认为，“我”是所有认识的必要条件。他们论证说，在这种尝试中，如果我们不预设“我”，就不能想离开“我”。黑格尔对谢林这种傲慢地处理这个问题的态度表示不满，这表现在《精神现象学》序言中那几行最著名的强烈反对之中：谢林用手枪击中了绝对。
Hegel’s problem was how to avoid Fichte’s dilemma without making Schelling’s dogmatic leap. To avoid such a leap he would have to begin with the critique of knowledge; consciousness would have to examine itself according to its own standards, and by its own immanent necessity rise to the standpoint of absolute knowledge. But it was just the critique of knowledge that seemed to lead to nihilism. Somehow, then, Hegel would have to show how criticism, from its own internal dialectic, breaks outside the circle of consciousness so that the self knows a reality independent of itself.
黑格尔的问题是，如何避免费希特的困境而又不做谢林式独断的跳跃。为了避免这种跳跃，他不得不从知识的批判开始；意识不得不根据它自己的标准来检查它自身，并且经由它自己内在的必然性而上升到绝对知识的立场。但是导向虚无主义的似乎正是知识的批判。那么，黑格尔不得不以某种方式指出，批判是如何从它自己内部的辩证法向外打破意识的圆圈，以至于自我认识独立于它自身的实在。
Hegel’s essential moves toward achieving this end appear in some of the most celebrated and discussed chapters of the Phenomenology, chapters IV and IVA of ‘Self-Consciousness’, ‘The Truth of Self-Certainty’ and ‘Lordship and Bondage’.7 It is here that Hegel attempts to break outside the circle of consciousness, leading the self to its intersubjective self-awareness as spirit. The essence of Hegel’s strategy is simple. He argues that self-knowledge as a rational being is possible only through mutual recognition; in other words, the self knows itself as a rational being only if it grants to the other the same status it would have the other grant to itself. This common structure of self-awareness in mutual recognition – that the self knows itself through the other as the other knows itself through the self – Hegel calls ‘spirit’ (Geist).
黑格尔根本上朝向达到这个目的的移动出现在《精神现象学》在某些最为著名也是讨论得最多的章节之中，IV章和IVA章中的“自我意识”“自我确定性的真理”和“主人和奴隶”等。7正是在这里，黑格尔试图向外打破意识的圆圈，把自我引向作为精神的主体间的自我觉察。黑格尔的策略本质上是简单明了的。他论证说，自我认识作为理性的存在者只有通过相互承认才是可能的；换言之，自我认识到自己是一个理性的存在者，只有在它授予他者以它使他者授予他的同样的身份之时。相互承认中自我觉察的这种共同的结构——自我只有通过对方认识它自身，正如对方只有通过自我才能认识对方——黑格尔称之为“精神”（Geist）。
The central target of Hegel’s argument is the claim that there is a privileged realm of subjectivity where the self knows itself independent of others and the world outside itself. Against the Cartesian tradition, Hegel contends that the self knows itself to be a rational being only if it recognizes the equal and independent reality of others, and only if the others recognize its own equal and independent reality. Without the recognition of others the self cannot prove its claim to be a rational being, and so it cannot know itself as rational. Hegel does not deny that the self might be conscious of itself without recognizing the equal and independent reality of others; but he does claim that it could not know itself without such recognition. Here knowledge is used in the strong sense of a claim that would have to be tested and proved through experience.
黑格尔的论证的核心目标是这种主张，在自我认识独立于他者和在它之外的世界的它自身的地方，存在着某种具有优先性的主体性的领域。和这种笛卡尔的传统相反，黑格尔争辩说，仅当自我承认他者的平等的和独立的实在性，以及他者承认它自己的平等的和独立的实在性之时，自我才认识到它自身是一个理性的存在者。如果不承认他者，自我就不能证明它是一个理性的存在者的主张，而因此，它也不能认识到它自身是理性的。黑格尔并没有否认，不承认他者的平等的和独立的实在性，自身可能意识到它自身；但是他的确主张，没有这种承认，它就不可能认识它自身。在这里，认识是在以下这种主张的强烈意义上使用的，即认识必须经过经验的检验和证明。
Seen from a broader perspective, Hegel’s argument is striking because of the connection it forges between realism and intersubjectivity. Apparently paradoxically, Hegel combines realism with an emphasis on the social dimension of knowledge, an emphasis that has been all too often anti-realistic.8 But, for Hegel, intersubjectivity is not a replacement for realism but its very foundation. What Hegel essentially does in these chapters is to socialize Kant’s idealism, so that the ‘I’ of Kant’s ‘I think’ must be part of a ‘We think’.
从一个更广阔的视野来看，黑格尔的论证是引人注目的，因为它在实在论和主体间性之间锻造了一种关联。明显的悖论是，黑格尔把实在论和对于知识的社会维度的强调结合在了一起，而这种强调一直是常常强烈反对实在论的。8但是，对黑格尔而言，主体间性并不是实在论的替代物，而是它的基础。黑格尔在这些章节本质上所作的事情是把康德的观念论社会化，因此，康德的“我思”中的“我”必定是“我们思”的一部分。
Chapters IV and IVA of the Phenomenology have been some of the most discussed in the entire work. They have been read from many different angles, ethical, existential, anthropological, psychological and political.9 All these perspectives are interesting, valid and fruitful; but they fail to take into account the original epistemological and metaphysical context of these chapters that are essential for a full understanding of Hegel’s meaning. The main problem with most interpretations is that they read into the text, as if it were a given, the very conclusion Hegel intends to prove: the equal and independent reality of the other. Such interpretations do violence to the whole purpose and argument of the Phenomenology, for these never permit Hegel to take for granted such a significant conclusion. The context of these chapters, and Hegel’s general goal in the Phenomenology, make it necessary to read these chapters as a single coherent argument that attempts to break outside the circle of consciousness and to establish the equal and independent reality of the other. Here again, then, it is important to stress the metaphysical dimension of Hegel’s general project.
《精神现象学》的IV章和IVA章一直是整本著作中讨论得最多的一些章节。它们被从许多不同的角度，伦理学的、生存论的、人类学的、心理学的和政治的角度等，作出解读。9所有这些视角都兴味盎然、正确有效并硕果累累；但是它们都没有能够把这些章节的原本的认识论的和形而上学的语境考虑在内，而这些章节对于完全理解黑格尔的意义来说是本质性的。大部分阐释中的主要问题是，它们把黑格尔意欲证明的结论读进了文本之中，就好像它是预先给定的：他者的平等的和独立的实在性。这些阐释粗暴地对待了《精神现象学》的整体的目标和论证，因为这些阐释从来没有允许黑格尔把这样一个至关重要的结论视为理所当然。这些章节的语境，以及黑格尔在《精神现象学》中的一般目标，使得把这些章节解读为一个首尾一贯的论证是必然的，而这个论证试图向外打破意识的圆圈，并建立起他者的平等的和独立的实在性。那么，在这里再一次，重要的是强调黑格尔的总体筹划的形而上学的维度。
The primary task of the next two sections will be to provide just such an interpretation. Each section will focus on the relevant transitions of chapters IV and IVA. In the reading provided here I take into account Hegel’s formulation of the argument in other texts, especially the expositions in the Nurnberg Propadeutic and the Encyclopedia.
接下来两节的首要任务就是提供这样一个阐释。每一节分别致力于IV章和和IVA章的相关的过渡。在这里提供的解读中，我把黑格尔在其他文本中形成的论证也考虑在内，尤其是在《纽伦堡预备教育》和《哲学百科全书》中的阐述。
THE CONTEXT OF THE ARGUMENT
论证的语境
Never in chapters IV and IVA does Hegel mention the word nihilism, nor does he directly and explicitly consider the doctrine that we know only our representations. However, it is significant that Hegel does consider directly and explicitly the view Jacobi charges with nihilism: Fichte’s idealism. Hegel’s essential concern is to determine whether Fichte’s idealism can provide an adequate account of our ordinary knowledge-claims. His allusions in chapter IV leave little doubt that he has Fichte in mind. Thus he refers to the ‘ego’ or ‘I’, which is Fichte’s central concept, and to the ‘I am I’, which is his first principle (134/¶167). It is also striking that Hegel treats this ‘I’ in an active role, just as Fichte had in the third part of his 1794 Wissenschaftslehre. Furthermore, Fichte too had treated this active self in terms of drives and feelings, just as Hegel will write of desire. Some of the most difficult transitions are easily explained if we focus on their Fichtean context, and more specifically Hegel’s concern to break outside the circle of consciousness of the 1794 Wissenschaftslehre.
黑格尔既没有在IV章和IVA章提到过虚无主义，也没有直接而明确地考察过这个学说，即我们只能认识我们的表象。然而，重要的是，黑格尔的确直接而明确地考察雅可比用虚无主义来指责的观点：费希特的观念论。黑格尔本质上担忧的是确定费希特的观念论是否能够提供一个胜任的关于我们日常知识——主张的说明。他在IV章的某些暗示让人毫不怀疑，他当时想着的是费希特。例如，他提到“自我”或者“我”，这是费希特的核心概念，还提到“我是我”，这是费希特的第一原则（134/167）。令人印象深刻的还有，黑格尔是在某种积极的角色中处理这个“我”的，就像费希特在他的1794年版的《知识学》第三部分中所作的那样。此外，费希特也根据冲动和情感处理了这个积极的自我，正如黑格尔关于欲望所写到的那样。如果我们把注意力集中在它们的费希特的语境上，以及更具体地说，黑格尔关心如何向外打破1794年版《知识学》的意识圆圈之上的话，某些最为困难的过渡很容易得到解释。
Hegel’s concern with Fichte’s idealism is also apparent from the context of chapter IV. After its experience in ‘Consciousness’, the ego feels justified in assuming that its self-knowledge is absolute, i.e. that to know anything is only to know itself. It has discovered through several stages of experience – ‘Sense Certainty’ (chapter I), ‘Perception’ (chapter II), and ‘Force and Understanding’ (chapter III) – that its knowledge of an object is simply an externalization of its self-knowledge. The ego that begins chapter IV now wants to confirm the result of its previous experience. It aims to establish that everything in its experience is its self-consciousness and not consciousness of an external object (134–5/¶¶166–7). This ego wants to show that it is all reality, and that everything exists only for it (143/¶186).
黑格尔对于费希特观念论的担心也很明显地体现在第IV章的语境中。在“意识”部分中的经验之后，自我感觉得到了证明，它假定它的自我认识是绝对的，也就是说，对任何事物的认识都是对自我的认识。它已经通过经验的好几个阶段——“感性确定性”（第一章），“知觉”（第二章），和“力与知性”（第三章）——发现了，对于一个对象的认识纯粹就是它的自我认识的外在化。现在从第四章开始的自我想要确证它之前经验的结果。它旨在确立，在它的经验之中的任何事物都是它的自我意识，而并非对于外在对象的意识（134-135/166-167）。这个自我想要指出，它是所有实在，一切事物都只是为它而存在（143/？186）。
Although self-consciousness has shown itself to be the truth of consciousness, this truth too must now be put to the test. The self has to prove this thesis against its actual experience. But a problem immediately arises: it does not appear to be self-conscious in its experience since what appears to its senses comes and goes independent of its will and imagination; what is given appears independent of its conscious control. Thus Hegel writes that the ego consists at this stage in two opposing moments: self-consciousness, where it is conscious only of itself; and consciousness, where it is conscious of something distinct from itself, a manifold of given and contingent representations, which it considers only as an appearance (134–5/¶167). What the ego has to demonstrate now is that, despite the apparent givenness of its sense experience, it is still all reality, that it is still self-conscious despite its consciousness in experience. Somehow, it has to show that these representations are also within its conscious control, and that they are not independent of its will and imagination after all.
尽管自我意识已经把自身显示为意识的真理，但是现在这个真理也必须接受检验。自我已经证明这个与它的现实经验相对立的论题。但是旋即产生了一个困难：它看起来在它的经验之中并非自我意识着的，因为对它的感官显示出来的东西来来回回都独立于它的意志和想象力；被给与的东西看起来独立于它的意识的控制。因此，黑格尔写道，自我在这个阶段就在于两个对立的环节之中：自我意识，在这个环节中，它只意识到它自身；意识，在这个环节，它意识到不同于它自身的某物，多重被给与的和不可预知的表象，而它仅仅把这些表象看作是显现（134-135/167）。现在，自我不得不去证明的是，尽管它的感官经验具有明显的被给与性，它仍然是一切实在——尽管它是在经验中的意识，它仍然是自我意识着的。它必须以某种方式指出，这些表象也在它有意识的控制之内，它们根本上并不独立于它的意志和想象力。
Hegel poses the problem facing consciousness here in these terms: How is it possible to establish the identity of identity and non-identity? This is only a more abstract formulation for the idealist’s problem of how to explain ordinary experience on the basis of self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is subject–object identity, because the subject and object of knowledge are the same; ordinary experience, however, involves subject–object non-identity because the object is given for the subject, appearing independent of its will and imagination. The dilemma facing the idealist is that there must be and cannot be such an identity of identity and non-identity. According to idealist principles, there must be such an identity because subject–object identity is the first principle of all knowledge, even the awareness of an apparently distinct object in experience; but there also cannot be such an identity because the principle of subject–object identity contradicts the subject–object dualism of experience. Hence the problem Hegel considers here is that confronting any idealism: If all reality is only my consciousness, how is it possible to explain the origin of my experience, the fact that there are representions that apparently do not depend on my conscious activity? This was precisely the problem that Fichte tried to solve in his Wissenschaftslehre, and that he considers the central problem of his idealism.10 So in setting forth this problem in chapter IV, Hegel is only asking if and how Fichte comes to terms with his own problem.
在这里面对意识时，黑格尔以如下方式提出了问题：是否有可能建立起同一性和非同一性的同一性？这仅仅是对观念论的问题——如何在自我认识的基础上解释日常经验——更加抽象的阐述。自我认识是主客同一，因为认识的主体和客体是相同者；然而，日常经验涉及到主体—客体的非同一性，因为对于主体而言，客体是被给与的，显现为独立于它的意志和想象力。观念论者面对的这种困境是，必须有而且又决不能是同一性和非同一性的同一性。依照观念论者的原则，必须有这样一种原则，因为主客同一是所有知识的第一原则，甚至是在经验中觉知一个明显不同的客体的第一原则；但是也不可能有这样一种同一性，因为主客同一的原则和经验的主客二元论产生了矛盾。因此，黑格尔在这里考虑的问题是，对抗任何观念论：如果所有实在仅只是我的意识，那么如何可能解释我的经验的起源，亦即这样一个事实，存在着明显不依赖于我的有意识的活动的表象？确切地说，这也就是费希特试图在他的《知识学》中解决的问题，而且他认为这是他的观念论中最为核心的问题。10因此，在第四章提出这个问题之时，黑格尔只是问，费希特是否以及如何与他自己的问题达成协议。
With the start of chapter IV, the ego enters into a new realm of experience: it ceases to intuit, perceive or explain, as in chapters I–III, and it begins to act. In short, it moves from the realm of theory into that of practice (134/¶167). The reason for the transition is not hard to fathom when we keep in mind the idealist’s fundamental problem. The ego now has to begin acting since action is the decisive test for its thesis that all reality is under its control. If it wants to demonstrate that it is all reality, it has to show that it is so by making the world conform to its will. In making action into the test of the ego’s thesis, Hegel almost certainly had in mind Fichte’s practical deduction of consciousness in Part III of his 1794 Wissenschaftslehre, where Fichte argues that the ego proves that it is all reality through its infinite striving to control the non-ego. Thus the dialectic of chapter IV is nothing less than an internal critique of Fichte’s idealism. Hegel tests the Fichtean ego by its own standard: action.
在第四章的一开始，自我就进入了一个新的经验领域：它不再像从第一到第三章那样直观、知觉或解释，它开始行动。简而言之，它从理论的领域移动到了实践的领域（134/167）。这一过渡的理由并不难以探究，如果我们时时记住观念论的基本问题。现在自我必须开始行动，因为行动是它的这一论题——所有实在都在它的控制之下——的决定性证明。如果它想要证明，它是所有实在，那么，它就必须指出，它是通过把世界变成符合它的意志而如此存在的。在把行动变成自我的论题的检验之时，黑格尔肯定时时考虑到费希特1794年版《知识学》第三部分中意识的实践演绎，在那里，费希特论证说，自我证明了，通过它那想要控制非我的无限奋斗，它就是所有实在。因此，第四章的辩证法不多不少就是费希特的观念论的内在批判。黑格尔通过他自己的标准——行动——检验了费希特的自我。
At this early stage of ‘Self-Consciousness’, the ego knows itself only through actions directed by desire (Begierde). It knows itself through desire rather than through another form of volition, such as choice or love, since its earlier dialectic in ‘Force and Understanding’ had only led it to its self-consciousness as life, and the form of volition appropriate for a merely living being, as opposed to a fully rational one, is desire. On this level, then, the ego knows itself only as a sensible being with animal desires, not as a rational being with a will. Hence it is first as a living being, or through its animal desires, that it attempts to establish its claim that it is all reality. This means that it tries to demonstrate its conscious control over objects by consuming them.
在“自我意识”部分这个较早的阶段，自我只是通过为欲望（Begierde）所指导的行动才认识它自身。它通过欲望，而不是通过意志的其他形式，比如选择或爱，认识它自身，因为它在“力与知性”中更早的辩证法仅仅把它引向它那作为生命的自我意识，而仅仅和有生命物相称的意志形式，和完全理性的存在者相反，是欲望。那么，在这个水平上，自我仅仅把自身认识为是具有动物欲望的感性存在者，而不是具有意志的理性存在者。因此，首先是作为一个有生命物，或者通过它的动物性欲望，它试图建立起它是一切实在这种主张。这就意味着，它试图通过消灭它们而证明它对于对象的有意识的控制。
Although it is not fully self-conscious of its goal at this stage, the end of the ego’s actions is what Hegel calls ‘absolute independence’.11 Absolute independence means that the ego does not depend on anything outside itself, and that it has power over its entire world. When the ego attains its absolute independence, it has made all nature submit to the laws of its activity; hence when it is conscious of its object it is really only self-conscious of its own creations. So, when it establishes its thesis that all consciousness of an external object is really only its self-consciousness, the ego will realize its absolute independence.
尽管在这个阶段自我没有完全意识到它的目标，但是自我的行动的目的是黑格尔所说的“绝对独立”。11绝对依独立意味着，自我不能依赖任何在它之外的事物，而且它有权力凌驾于整个世界之上。在自我获得它的绝对独立之时，它就已经使得所有自然臣服于它的行动的法则之下；因此，在它意识到它的对象之时，它就真的对于它自己的创造物仅只有自我意识。因此，在它建立起它的论点——对于一个外部客体的所有意识都仅仅是它的自我意识——之时，自我也将意识到它的绝对独立。
To appreciate the moves behind the dialectic of chapters IV and IVA, it is important to keep in mind that the ego’s constant goal is absolute independence. For what the ego’s experience amounts to throughout the dialectic is so many attempts to discover the conditions for the fulfillment of its goal. The ego goes through several stages: desire, the life/death struggle, the master/slave conflict; and only in the end with the mutual recognition between equal and independent persons does it learn the conditions for its absolute independence: self-consciousness as spirit. It is only when the ego is self-conscious as spirit that it knows that it is absolute, that it is all reality, and that it is not determined by anything outside itself. And it is only then that it discovers what it has struggled for all along: absolute independence, complete authority where it obeys only self-imposed laws. This has always been known by the philosopher; but only at the end of the dialectic does it become known for consciousness itself. To follow Hegel’s dialectic in these chapters, then, it is necessary to follow what experience the ego must go through to attain its absolute independence.
为了理解第四章和第四章A部分的辩证法后面的步骤，重要的是牢记，自我的持续不断的目标是绝对独立。因此，自我的经验在辩证法中取得的成就是，许多次试图发现完成它的目标的条件。自我经历了好几个阶段：欲望、生死斗争、主奴冲突；只有在最后，随着平等的和独立的个人的相互承认，它才认识了它的绝对独立所需条件：作为精神的自我意识。只有当自我意识到自我是精神之时，它才知道它是绝对的，它是一切实在，它不是由任何在它之外的东西决定的。也只有在这个时候，它才发现，它始终是在为什么而斗争：绝对独立，完全的权威，在这种绝对独立中，它服从的只是自己强加给自己的法则。哲学家总是已经知道这一切；但是只有在辩证法的终端，它才为意识自身所知道。那么，为了在这些章节遵从黑格尔的辩证法，就有必要遵从自我在为了达到它的绝对独立之时必须经受的那些经验。
THE DIALECTIC OF DESIRE
欲望辩证法
The ego’s first experience is that it cannot attain absolute independence on the level of animal desire. The aim of desire is ‘to negate’ its object; desire destroys its object by consuming it, by forcing it to conform to its life-processes (digestion, excretion). The ego feels that it shows control over its experience just as long as it destroys objects through its desires. But it soon recognizes, if only through a glass darkly, that this is not good enough for absolute independence. Desire falls between two uncomfortable extremes. On the one hand, it still depends upon an independent object, an object that is completely alien to itself, for desire by its very nature is the desire for something that one does not have. Of course, desires are sometimes satisfied; but this dependence upon an independent object is inescapable because desire regenerates, and it always requires another object to consume and assimilate. An infinite regress then arises where desire follows upon desire, object upon object. On the other hand, though, the ego does not depend upon an object, for it has consumed it; but it then only returns to its empty self-identity as an individual. It has not shown that it has control over its experience since it has only brought the object inside itself by consuming it. The ego has not demonstrated that it is all reality, for it has only made one object conform to its individual nature. So the ego confronts either something completely alien to itself or only itself: something alien to itself, in that the object is independent of itself and only something to be negated; and only itself, in that the object is destroyed and consumed and it returns to its self-identity. In other words, there is either identity or non-identity but not the required identity of identity and non-identity. The predicament of consciousness here is very much that of Fichte’s ego in Part III of the Wissenschaftslehre.
自我的第一个经验是，它不能在动物性欲望的层面上达到绝对独立。欲望的目标是“否定”它的对象；欲望通过消灭它的的对象毁灭它，迫使它符合它的生命过程（消化、排泄）。自我感觉到，只要它通过它的欲望毁灭对象，它就显示出对于它的经验的控制。但是，不久它就认识到，如果仅仅透过一块黑色玻璃，这绝不足以达到绝对独立。欲望陷入到两种不舒服的极端之间。一方面，它仍然依赖于某个独立的对象，这个对象完全外在于它自身，因为欲望依其本性而言是对一个它并不拥有的某物的欲望。当然，欲望有时会得到满足；但是这种对于独立对象的依赖是不可回避的，因为欲望会不断再生，而它总需要消费和同化另一个对象。那么，在欲望接踵而至、对象接踵产生的地方，就会产生无限后退。另一方面，尽管自我并不依赖于对象，但是它消灭了它；但是，它随后才返回到它作为个体的空洞的自我同一性。它不再显示出它可以控制它的经验，因为它只能通过消灭对象才能把对象带到它自身之中。自我还没有证明它是一切实在，因为它只是使一个对象符合它的个体本性。因此，自我要么遭遇某种完全外在于它自身的某物，要么仅仅遭遇它自身：之所以是某种外在于它自身的某物，是因为对象独立于它自身，仅仅是可以否定的某物；之所以是它自身，是因为对象被毁灭和被消灭了，而它返回到它的自我同一性。换句话说，存在的要么是同一性，要么是非同一性，但是绝不是同一性和非同一性的同一性。自我意识在这里的困境也正是费希特的自我在《知识学》第三部分所处的困境。
After this experience, the philosopher who observes the ego is justified in concluding that there are two conditions for the fulfillment of its absolute independence. The first condition is nonidentity: that the object is independent of the individual and that it is not just negated or destroyed by it. This is necessary to avoid the relapse into individual self-identity, a self-identity that is abstract and opposed to all the determinations of experience. The second condition is identity: that the ego sees its identity in its object, so that it is not completely alien to it. This condition is required so that the ego does not lose its absolute independence and depend on something else outside itself; otherwise, a subject–object dualism returns and the ego cannot claim to be all reality. Both these conditions must be joined, so that consciousness seeks the identity of identity and non-identity. Its goal is therefore paradoxical: self-consciousness in an other, or what Hegel calls ‘the unity of itself in its otherness’ (die Einheit seiner selbst in seinem Andersein) (140/¶177).
在这种经验之后，观察着自我的哲学家可以正当地推断说，这种绝对独立的完成需要两个条件。第一个条件是非同一性：对象独立于个体，而且它不仅仅是为个体所否定和毁灭的。这就必然可以避免重新陷入个体的自我同一性，这种自我同一性是抽象的，违反了所有经验的规定性。第二个条件是同一性：自我在它的对象中看到它的同一性，因此，它不可能完全外在于对象。这个条件是必需的，因此，自我没有失去它的绝对独立，而依赖于在它之外的其他某物；否则，主客二元论就会重新发生，自我就不能声称是一切实在。这两个条件必须结合在一起，因此，意识寻求同一性和非同一性的同一性。它的目标因此就是悖论式的：自我意识在某个他者之中，或者黑格尔所说的“在它的他者性中它自身的统一性”（Die Einheit seiner seblst in seinem Andersein）（140/177）。
Surprisingly, at this point Hegel introduces a new factor in the dialectic: another ego, another self-conscious agent (139/¶175). He reaches this result by reflecting on the conditions for unity with oneself in otherness. Since the subject cannot negate the otherness of its object, there can be unity in otherness only if the object negates its otherness to the subject (139/¶175). What can negate its otherness to the subject must be another subject, another self-conscious being. Hence Hegel declares: ‘Self-consciousness achieves its satisfaction only in another self-consciousness’ (139/¶175).
奇怪的是，在这个点上，黑格尔引入了辩证法的一个新的因素：另一个自我，另一个有着自我意识的行动者（139/175）。黑格尔通过反思在他者性中和它自身的统一性而达到这个结果。既然主体不能否定它的对象中的他者性，那就只有在对象否定了它对于主体而言的他者性时，才可能存在在他者性中的统一性（139/175）。能够否定它对主体而言的他者性的必定是另一个主体，另一个有自我意识的存在者。因此，黑格尔宣称；“自我意识只有在另一个自我意识中才能获得满足”（139/175）。
So, it seems at this point as if Hegel has already reached – virtually by a sleight-of-hand – his intended conclusion: the equal and independent reality of something else outside the subject’s consciousness. But it is important to see that Hegel’s reasoning here is only provisional and from the standpoint of the philosopher. This is a truth that will have to be earned through the experience of consciousness itself in the next chapter.
因此，在这一点上，似乎黑格尔已经达到了——实质上是通过变戏法——他意欲达到的目的：在主体的意识之外存在着其他某物平等而独立的实在。但是重要的是要看到，黑格尔在这里的推理只是临时策略，且从哲学家的立场出发。这是一个必须通过下一章意识自身的经验才能赢得的真理。
Still writing from the standpoint of the philosopher, Hegel asks: What fully satisfies the conditions of absolute independence? He answers: Only the mutual recognition between equal and independent persons (139–40/¶175–7). Mutual recognition satisfies the condition of non-identity since both persons are equal to and independent of one another; by its very nature such recognition requires that the self and other accept their equal and independent status. Mutual recognition also fulfills the condition of identity because the self is self-conscious only through its other; it sees itself in the other as the other sees itself in the self. This mutual recognition is nothing less than self-consciousness as spirit, for spirit arises from the mutual recognition between equal and independent persons. It is that single act of self-consciousness between two selves where each recognizes itself in the other as the other recognizes itself in it. As Hegel famously put it, it is the ‘I that is We and the We that is an I’ (Ich, das Wir, und Wir, das Ich ist) (140/¶177). Hence Hegel is now in a position to draw the conclusion that the ego realizes its absolute independence only through its selfconsciousness as spirit.
在仍旧从一个哲学家的立场写作时，黑格尔问道：完全满足了绝对独立的条件是什么？他回答说：只有在平等而独立的个人之见的相互承认（139-140/175-177）。相互承认满足了非同一性的条件，因为两个人都是平等而相互独立的；依其本性而言，这种承认的前提是，自我和他者承认他们平等而独立的身份。相互承认也满足了同一性的条件，因为自我只有通过它的他者才是自我意识的；它看见自我在他者之中，而他者也在自我之中看见它自身。这种相互承认无非是作为精神的自我意识，因为精神是从平等而独立的个人之见的相互承认中产生的。正是在两个自我的自我意识的单一行为之中，一方在对方中认识到它自身，同样，对方也在它之中认识到它自身。正如黑格尔提出的那个著名的说法，这就是“我就是我们，我们就是我”（Ich，das Wir，und wir，das Ich ist）（140/177）。因此，现在黑格尔站在一个立场上得出结论说，自我只有通过它那作为精神的自我意识才意识到它的绝对独立。
There is another argument implicit in the text for selfconsciousness as spirit. Only such self-consciousness, Hegel implies, upholds the ideal of independence and remains true to the experience of consciousness. If absolute independence means that the self does not depend upon anything outside itself, and if its experience as an individual is that it does depend upon something else outside itself (the object of desire), then there is one, and only one, way in which its ideal can be consistent with its experience: through self-consciousness as spirit. Self-consciousness as spirit realizes absolute independence since it of necessity incorporates both individual egos within itself, so that, as a whole, it does not have anything outside itself. This keeps to the meaning of absolute independence; and it accommodates the experience of consciousness, since the self recognizes that it depends upon an other that has equal and independent status to its own consciousenss. What the ego learns through this dialectic is that it cannot satisfy its ideal of independence as an isolated individual but only as one part of a whole.
在讨论作为精神的自我意识的文本中，还隐含着另一个论证。黑格尔暗示说，只有这样一个自我意识支持独立的理想，对于意识经验保持真实。如果绝对独立意味着，自我不依赖于任何在它自身之外的东西，以及如果它作为个体的经验就是它的确依赖于某种在它自身之外的东西（欲望的对象），那么，就有——而且只有通过一种方式，它的理性能够与它的经验协调一致：通过作为精神的自我意识。作为精神的自我意识意识到绝对的对立，因为它出于必然把两个自身之内的自我融合为一，以至于作为一个整体，它没有任何在它之外的东西。这就保持着绝对独立的意义；它提供意识的经验，因为自我承认，它依赖于一个对它自己的意识而言平等而独立的他者。自我通过这种辩证法学会的是，它不能满足作为一个孤零零的个体的独立理想，而只是作为整体的一部分。
LORDSHIP AND BONDAGE
主人和奴隶
Hegel’s argument in chapter IV is chiefly from the standpoint of the philosopher. Although the self that he observes has had the experience of the futility of desire, and although it has discovered the independence of its object, it has still been left to the philosopher to conclude that the necessary condition of absolute independence is mutual recognition or self-awareness as spirit. What is only for the philosopher in chapter IV, though, must now be confirmed by consciousness itself in chapter IVA. Through its own selfexamination, the ego has to discover the necessity of mutual recognition and self-awareness as spirit. So Hegel’s task in chapter IVA is to narrate those stages of self-consciousness that emerge from the self’s inner experience. What are these stages? And how does their dialectic add up to self-awareness in spirit?
黑格尔在第四章所作的论证主要是从哲学家的立场出发的。尽管他观察到的自我已经具有了欲望无用的经验，尽管它已经发现了对象的独立性，但是它仍然让哲学家推断说，绝对独立的必要条件是相互承认或者作为精神的自我觉察，对于第四章的哲学家来说唯一存在的东西，现在必须由第四章A部分中的意识自身来证明。经过它自己的自我检查，自我不得不发现相互承认的必然性和作为精神的自我觉察。因此，黑格尔在第四章A部分的任务就是叙述从自我的内部经验中形成的自我意识的诸阶段。这些阶段有哪些？它们的辩证法又是如何总计达到精神中的自我觉察的？
The dialectic in IVA begins from where it left off in IV. The subject aims to prove its absolute independence, its power over the world.12 It now recognizes, however, that it cannot achieve such control through desire, by compelling objects to satisfy its physical needs. It is now forced to admit that there is something outside itself, something recalcitrant to its efforts at conscious control: all those objects that it cannot consume, all those objects that continue to come and go independent of its will and imagination. These objects first confronted it in the form of other living beings, because these were the kinds of things that it could consume. Still, the subject refuses to give equal and independent status to any other living beings, even those that appear to have the same organic structure and physical appearance as its own; it refuses to acknowledge that among them there are others that have its status as a rational being. To establish its independence, it will attempt to show its control and power over the others; it will attempt to make them obey.
在第四章A部分的辩证法开始于它在第四章中停止下来的地方。主体旨在证明它的绝对独立，它凌驾于世界之上的权力。12然而，现在，它承认，它不能达到那样一种对于欲望的控制，强迫对象满足它的生理需要。现在它被迫承认，在它自身之外有某种对象，某种在它有意识地控制之时抵抗它的努力的东西：所有那些不能被消灭的对象，所有那些独立于它的意志和想象力而继续存在的对象。这些对象首先以其他有生命物的形式和它相对抗，因为这些对象是它能够消灭的那些类型的东西。主体仍然拒绝赋予任何其他有生命物——甚至是那些和它自己一样看起来具有同样的有机结构物和生理外观的有生命物——以平等而独立的身份；它拒绝承认，在它们之中，有一些他者具有它的理性存在者的身份。为了建立起它的独立性，他要试图显示它对于他者的控制和凌驾于它们之上的权力；它要想方设法让它们服从。
The self’s attempt to establish its independence is the mainspring of the forthcoming dialectic. The self will have to pass through several stages of experience – the need for recognition, the life/ death struggle, the master/slave conflict – before it discovers in what its real independence consists. Through this dialectic, the self will eventually break outside its solipsistic shell. In the end, it will realize that its independence requires giving equal and independent status to the other, and that its independence consists in the selfawareness of equal and independent beings through one another.
自我建立起它的独立性的尝试就是即将到来的辩证法的主要源泉。自我将不得不经历经验的几个阶段——对承认的需要，生死斗争，主奴冲突，在它发现它的真正独立存在于哪里之前。通过这种辩证法，自我终于向外打破了它的唯我论的外壳。最终，它将意识到，它的独立的前提是，赋予他者以平等而独立的身份，它的独立就在于通过一个他者而达到的对于平等而独立的他者的自我觉察之中。
The task now at hand, then, is to reconstruct the stages of the self’s experience, seeing how each is necessary for the achievement of absolute independence, and noting how they progressively crack the self’s solipsistic shell. Let us take each stage in turn.
那么，我们手头的这项任务，就是重建自我经验的诸阶段，看看每一个阶段对于绝对独立的获得而言如何是必不可少的，并注意到它们是如何循序渐进地粉碎自我的唯我论的外壳的。让我们来依次考察每一个阶段。
The first stage: the need for recognition
第一个阶段：承认的需要
If the self is to prove its independence, it must gain the recognition of others, which it regards only as living beings. It can gain its independence only if it has control over the world, and it has such control only if it can make these beings obey its commands. Otherwise, if they refuse, it proves its lack of power.
如果自我想要证明它的独立，它就必须赢得他者的承认，而它把他者仅仅看作有生命物。只有在它获得对于世界的控制之时，它才能赢得它的独立，而只有在它能够使这些存在者服从它的命令之时，它才能获得那种控制。
This need for recognition already seems to presuppose the existence of other rational beings. It is important to see, however, that, at this stage of the argument, the self has still not granted the equal and independent existence of the other. It does not demand recognition from another rational agent that it believes stands on the same footing as itself. What it seeks in its demand for recognition is that the other, whatever it might be, obey its commands, or at the very least that it not interfere with its activity. For all the self knows at this stage, the other could still be a robot or an animal.13
这种承认的需要似乎已经预设了其他有理性存在者的存在。然而，重要的是看到，在论证的这个阶段，自我还没有同意他者的平等而独立的存在。它并不需要来自于另一个，它认为像它自身一样站着走路的理性的行动者的承认。在它要求承认时它所寻求的东西是，他者，无论它可能是什么，服从它的命令，或者至少，他者不要干涉它的行动。因为所有自我在这个阶段认识到，他者仍有可能是一个机器人或者动物。13
To be sure, Hegel has already introduced other rational persons into his argument in chapter IV (139–40/¶175). But, again, this was only from the standpoint of the philosopher; the self now has to discover from its own experience in IVA what the philosopher has already known in IV. Failure to note the precise status of Hegel’s argument in IV has blinded some from seeing the argument against solipsism in IVA, since it then seems as if Hegel already presupposes the existence of other minds.14
可以肯定的是，黑格尔已经把其他理性的个人引入到他在第四章的论证中（139-140/175）。但是，又一次，这仅仅是从哲学家的立场出发而言的；自我现在必须从第四章A部分中它自己的经验中发现哲学家在第四章已经发现了的东西。没有能够注意到第四章中黑格尔论证的确切身份，阻碍了一些人看到第四章A部分反对唯我论的论证，因为看起来，似乎黑格尔已经预设了其他心灵的存在。14
The second stage: the life/death struggle
第二个阶段：生死斗争
If the self is to gain the recognition of others, it must enter into a life/death struggle with them. It must struggle against others, for they too attempt to realize their absolute independence. If the self demands obedience from the other, the other demands obedience from the self. The self cannot establish its independence, then, unless it defends itself against the other and prevents the other from dominating it. This struggle has to be a matter of life and death where the self risks its own life, for it is only in risking its life that it demonstrates its rational status, that it has a power over the realm of mere biological life and its animal desires.15
如果自我想要获得他者的承认，它必须进入到和他们之间的生死斗争之中。它必须通过斗争反对他者，因为他们也想方设法实现他们的独立。如果自我要求他者的服从，那么他者也要求来自自我的服从。那么，如果自我不反对他者而捍卫自身并且防止他者统治它的话，自我就不能建立起它的独立。这场斗争必须关乎生和死，在斗争中，自我拿它自己的生命冒险，因为只有在拿自己的生命冒险时，它才能证明它的理性的身份，它才有权力凌驾于纯粹的生物学的生命和动物性欲望的领域之上。15
This struggle is not Hobbes’s war of all against all. The self fights for recognition of itself as a rational being; and, unlike Hobbes’s state of nature, it does not compete with others to satisfy its desires or to gain power to satisfy them. For Hegel, right arises from the recognition of a person’s rational status; it is not simply the permission to act on my wants. In making the self ready to risk its life to gain its independence, Hegel is taking issue with Hobbes’s own analysis of human nature, according to which the dominating drive in human beings is self-preservation. Against Hobbes, Hegel is saying that freedom is a much more vital end than selfpreservation, which is proven by the mere fact that a person is willing to risk his life to attain it.
这场斗争不是霍布斯式的一切人反对一切人的斗争。自我为了承认自己是一个理性的存在者而斗争；而且，不像霍布斯的自然状态，它并不和他者竞争以满足它的欲望或者赢得权力以满足它的欲望。对黑格尔而言权利来自于对个人的理性身份的承认；它不仅仅是同意为了我的需求而采取行动。在使自我乐于投身到冒生命的危险以赢得它的独立之时，黑格尔和霍布斯自己关于人类本性的分析发生争执，依照霍布斯的分析，人类主要的冲动是自我保存。和霍布斯相反，黑格尔说，比起自我保存来，自由是更重要的目的，一个人愿意冒着生命的危险而获得它这个事实就足以证明这一点。
The third stage: mercy to the foe
第三个阶段：对敌人的仁慈
If the self is to gain recognition through the life/death struggle, then it cannot kill its opponent. For to kill its opponent means that it has no one to recognize it. A corpse cannot salute. Hence it must grant its enemy at least life.16
如果自我想要通过生死斗争获得承认，那么，它就不能杀死敌对者。因为杀死敌对者意味着，它就没有一个人会去承认它。一具尸体是不会致敬的。因此，它必须授予它的敌人以最起码的生命。16
The fourth stage: master versus slave
第四个阶段：主人与奴隶的对立
If, to gain recognition, the victor cannot kill its vanquished foe, and if, to protect itself from further attack, it cannot grant its foe freedom, then the victor has no choice: it must enslave its foe, making it submit to its demands. The victor and the vanquished are now to one another as master and slave. Although the master grants the slave its life, he still does not consider it as his equal or as a rational being. Even though he respects the slave as a living being – for example, he acknowledges the slave’s desires by allowing it food – he still cannot respect the slave as another equal rational being, because he uses it as a means to his own ends. The slave is only an animal, an instrument to satisfy his desires. The master has his reason for treating the slave as an animal. After all, the slave prefers his life over death in the struggle for recognition. Hence the slave fails to prove itself a rational being, worthy of the same respect as the master.17
如果为了获得承认，胜利者不杀死它所征服的敌人，而如果为了保护它自身不受到进一步的攻击，它不能授予它的敌人以自由，那么，胜利者就别无选择：它必须使它的敌人成为奴隶，使它服从它的命令。现在，胜利者和被征服者相互之间变成了主人和奴隶。尽管主人授予奴隶以生命，但是他仍旧不会认为奴隶和他平等或者是理性的存在者。尽管他尊重奴隶是一个有生命者——例如，他通过给与奴隶食物而承认奴隶的欲望——但是他仍然不能承认奴隶是另一个平等的理性存在者，因为他只是把他当做达到自己目的的一种工具。奴隶只是一个动物，一种为了满足他的欲望的工具。主人有理由把奴隶当作个动物。毕竟，在为承认的斗争中，奴隶爱生命胜于爱死亡。因此，奴隶不能证明自己是一个有理性的存在者，配享和主人同样的尊重。17
The master/slave relationship is a crucial step down the road toward mutual recognition. The master has to recognize the independent life of the slave – his status as a living being – even if he has not granted him a rational status equal to himself. This is a greater experience of an independent reality than that on the stage of desire. Although desire experiences the independence of its object, that is only because it is caught in an infinite regress; there is no definite object that it still cannot consume, although any object is always succeeded by another. Now, though, the self has to restrain its desires – such restraint is a great step forward in its education as a rational being – and admit that there is one definite object that it cannot consume: its vanquished foe, the slave.
主奴关系是朝向相互承认的道路中的关键步骤。主人必须承认奴隶的独立的生命——他作为有生命物的身份——即使他还没有同意他具有和他平等的理性身份。这是一个比欲望的极端更重要的对于独立实在的经验。尽管欲望经验了它的对象的独立性，但是那只是因为它陷入到了无限后退之中；存在着它仍然不能消灭的有限对象，尽管任何对象总是要被另一个所战胜。尽管现在，自我必须约束它的欲望，——这种约束是朝向作为一个理性存在者的教育前进中的巨大步骤，而且自我承认，存在着一个它不能消灭的有限对象：它所征服的敌人，奴隶。
The master’s recognition of the slave is therefore a decisive step outside the circle of consciousness. What is within that circle is only what is within the self’s conscious control. The self now discovers, however, that there is a living being that is outside its conscious control. This is because it cannot kill or consume this creature, making it conform to its desires; rather, it must respect its desires as a living creature. To kill it, or to treat it only as an object of desire, is to undermine the recognition it needs.
主人对于奴隶的承认因此是走出意识圆圈的关键性的一步。在那个圆圈中存在着的仅仅是在自我的意识控制之中的东西。然而，自我现在发现，有一个有生命物存在于它的意识控制之外。这是因为它不能杀死或者消灭这种生物，使它遵从它的欲望；相反，它必须尊重它作为有生命物的欲望。杀死它，或者仅仅把它看作欲望的对象，就削弱了它所必需的承认的基础。
The fifth stage: collapse of the master/slave relationship
第五个阶段：主奴关系的坍塌
If the self and other are to one another as master and slave, then the master still does not get the required recognition of himself as autonomous and independent. The master degrades the slave to the status of an animal and reduces him to an instrument for his own ends. The recognition of the slave is therefore of little value, if not worthless, to him. It is not the free recognition of another rational being, but it is only the humbled submission of an animal. Recognition loses all value if it comes from domination or coercion; it is only of value when it derives from the free choice and judgment of another. Since the master despises the slave, he does not get the assurance that he is after.18
如果自我和他者相互之间将要变成主人和奴隶，那么主人就不能获得必需的承认，承认他自身是自律的和独立的。主人把奴隶贬低为动物的身份，并且把他降低为一种达到他自己的目的的工具。因此，对他而言，对于奴隶的承认并没有太大的价值，如果不是全无价值的话。他不是另一个有理性的存在者的自由的承认，而只是一个动物的低声下气的服从。如果承认来自统治或者强制，那他就失去它的全部价值。只有当承认来自于另一个人的自由的选择和判断之时，他才是有价值的。尽然主人鄙视奴隶，那么他就没有得到他在寻求的确信。18
Not only does the master/slave relationship not give the master the recognition that he demands, but it also degrades his status as a rational being. The master regresses back to the stage of his animal desires. This is for two reasons: (1) he treats the slave only as a means to his own ends, and as an instrument to satisfy his desires; (2) he simply consumes the products of the slave’s labor; he does not gain independence over his objects through labor, like the slave who labors for him, but he depends upon the slave’s labor for his idle enjoyment. So if the slave is not worthy of giving recognition, the master is not worthy of receiving it.
不仅仅主奴关系没有给与主人他所需要的承认，而且他还贬低了他作为一个理性存在者的身份。主人退回到他的动物欲望的阶段。这是因为如下两个原因：（1）他把奴隶仅仅当作实现他的目的的手段，作为满足他的欲望的工具；（2）他仅仅消费奴隶劳动的产品；和奴隶一样，他没有通过劳动而赢得凌驾于对象之上的独立，但是为了他那慵懒的享受，他还得依赖奴隶的劳动。因此，如果奴隶不值得给予承认，主人也不值得接受他。
The sixth stage: liberation of the slave
第六个阶段：奴隶的解放
If the master is to gain recognition as a free being, then he has to recognize the slave as a free being. For the master gains reassurance not from the submissive acknowledgment of an inferior but only from the recognition of an equal. If the master recognizes the slave as a free being, then he also ceases to degrade himself to the level of his animal desires. He proves that he is rational because he recognizes that another person is an end in itself.19
如果主人想要赢得作为自由存在者的承认，那么他就必须承认奴隶是一个自由的存在者。因为主人赢得的肯定，不是来自于一个下属的服从性的承认，而是仅仅来自于平等者的承认。如果主人承认奴隶是一个自由的存在者，那么，他就会不再把他自己贬低到动物的水平。他证明，他是理性的，因为他承认另一个人是目的自身。19
There is an implicit Kantian or Rousseauian theme lurking behind this stage of the dialectic: that the self demonstrates that it is rational only when it acts according to self-imposed universal laws that oblige it no less than others. If the self acts according to such laws, there are two reasons why it must be rational: first, because only a rational being acts according to the idea of the law (i.e. its universalizability); and, second, because only a rational being restrains its desires to act for the sake of the law. In the context of the master/slave dialectic, this theme means that the master proves his rationality when he finally recognizes the equal and independent reality of the slave. If he does this, that shows that he acts according to universal laws that grant someone else the same rights as himself. The master proves his freedom not by dominating this slave, then, but by treating him as his equal.20 Thus Hegel proves the wisdom behind Rousseau’s famous lines: ‘He who believes himself a master of others is more a slave than they.’21 The entire dialectic of chapters IV and IVA is really only an elaborate defense of Rousseau’s dictum.
在辩证法的这个阶段背后隐藏着一个晦而不彰的康德或者说卢梭的主题（旨）：自我证明了，只有当它依照自我添加的普遍法则时，它才是理性的，这种法则同等程度地强迫它和他者。如果自我依照这种法则行动，那么，它何以是理性的，就有两个这个问题的理由：首先，因为一个理性的存在者依照法则的观念（例如，可普遍化）来行动；以及，其次，因为只有一个理性存在者才会限制它的欲望，才会为了法则的利益而行动。在主奴辩证法的语境中，这个主题意味着，主人在他最终承认奴隶平等而独立的实在之时才证明了他的理性。如果他做到了这点，这就显示出，他依照着授予其他人和他本人同样权利的法则行动。主人证明他的自由，不是通过统治这个奴隶，而是通过把他当作与他平等的人。20因此，黑格尔证明卢梭那著名的格言背后的智慧：“那个认为自己是他人的主人的人，比他人更是奴隶。”21第四章以及第四章A部分的整个辩证法实际上只是卢梭格言的精心阐释。
This experience brings the dialectic to its conclusion. The self knows that it is rational because another rational being recognizes its autonomy. But it also knows that it is rational because it recognizes the autonomy of another rational being. In other words, the self knows that it is rational only through mutual recognition. This is nothing less than its self-awareness as spirit, though, since spirit is that unifying act of self-awareness that arises from the mutual recognition between free rational beings. The self has now come to the same conclusion as the philosopher at the close of chapter IV.
这种经验把辩证法带向它的结论。自我认识到，它之所以是理性的，是因为另一个理性的存在者承认它的自律，但是它也认识到，它之所以是理性的，是因为它承认另一个有理性的存在者的自律。这无非就是它那作为精神的自我察觉，因为精神就是从自由的理性存在者的相互承认当中产生出来的自我察觉那个的统一的行动。在第四章的结尾，自我现在已经达到了和哲学家同样的结论。
Now the nihilist takes his final step outside the darkness of the circle of consciousness and into the broad daylight of reality. If, on the stage of desire, he acknowledges the reality of an external object, and if on the stage of the life/death struggle he grants that there is another living being, now after the master/slave dialectic he recognizes the equal and independent reality of another rational being. He finally admits that he is not the only self-conscious being, but that there is another such being. The self acknowledges that the other is not simply its own representations because it sees that the other is outside its conscious control. It cannot consume the other, as if it were an inanimate object; and it cannot treat it as a means to satisfy its desires, as if it were a slave. Rather, it admits that the other is outside its conscious control because it is an end in itself, a being that has a right to live according to its own self-appointed ends, even if they do not agree with the self’s own ends. So, for Hegel, to recognize another rational being as an end in itself is the refutation of nihilism. By such recognition, the solipsist has to concede that not all reality is within its conscious control, and that there is another rational being having equal status to itself.
现在，虚无主义者采取了他最后的步骤，走出意识圈圈的黑暗之外，进入到实在的清楚的白天。如果在欲望的阶段，他认识到外在对象的实在性，而且如果在生死斗争的阶段，他批准存在着另一个有生命物，现在，在主奴辩证法之后，他承认另一个有理性的存在者的平等而独立的存在。他最终承认，他不是唯一自我意识的存在者，而是存在着另一个这样的存在者。自我认识到，他者不仅仅是它自己的表象，因为它看到，对方在它的意识控制之外。它不能消灭对方就像它只是一个无生命的对象；它也不能把对方当作满足它的欲望的手段，就好像它是一个奴隶。毋宁说，它承认，对方在它的意识控制之外，因为它自在地就是目的——一个有权利依据它自己设定的目的生活的存在者，即使他们不同意自我自己的目的。因此，对黑格尔而言，承认另一个有意识的存在者自在地就是目的，就是对虚无主义的拒斥。通过这种承认，唯我论者必须让步说，并非所有的实在都在它的意识控制之内，存在着另一个具有与它自身具有平等身份的理性存在者。
It is important to be clear about the precise status and limits of Hegel’s argument. All that he has established is that a rational being ought to recognize the equal and independent reality of others, or that the self should give the same status to others as it would have them give to itself. In the end, this is more a moral than a metaphysical refutation of nihilism. The radical nihilist might object that it is still possible for the other to be an automaton. Even though I have to recognize its equal status to myself – even though I am obliged to treat it as I would have it treat me – it is still possible that it is not really equal. Hegel would have to accept this point. But his main objection to it would be that it is impossible to live according to such nihilism. Even if we forever doubt the reality of the other, we still cannot act on those doubts. We have to grant it equal and independent reality to ourselves; for only then do we confirm our own status as free and rational beings.
非常重要的是，要澄清黑格尔的论证的确切身份与限制。他已经建立起来的全部是这样的：一个理性的存在者应该承认他者平等而独立的实在，或者自我应当赋予他者的以它要让它们赋予它自身的同样的身份。最终，这与其说是一种对虚无主义的形而上学的拒斥，毋宁说是一种道德的拒斥。彻底的虚无主义可能会提出异议说，他者仍有可能是一个自动机器（automoton）。即使我必须承认它与我本人平等的身份——即使我被迫像我让它对待我那样对待它——仍有可能的是，它实际上是不平等的。黑格尔也许会承认这个观点。但是他对此所持的主要异议也许会是，它不可能依据那样一种虚无主义而生活。即使我们永远怀疑他者的实在性，我们仍然不能依据这些怀疑而行动。我们必须把对我们而言平等而独立的实在性授予它；因为，只有这时，我们才能证实我们自己作为自由而理性的存在者的身份。
