The Value of Philosophy

Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy - Chapter XV: The Value of Philosophy。 ‘罗素 哲学的价值’

HAVING now come to the end of our brief and very incomplete review of the problems of philosophy, it will be well to consider, in conclusion, what is the value of philosophy and why it ought to be studied. It is the more necessary to consider this question, in view of the fact that many men, under the influence of science or of practical affairs, are inclined to doubt whether philosophy is anything better than innocent but useless trifling, hair-splitting distinctions, and controversies on matters concerning which knowledge is impossible.

现在，对于哲学上的一些问题我们总算已经作了一番简略而远不完备的评论。在结束本书时，最好再来考虑一下：哲学的价值是什么？为什么应当研究哲学？在科学和实际事务的影响之下，许多人都倾向于怀疑：比起不关利害又毫无足取的辨析毫芒，比起在知识所不能达到的问题上进行论战，哲学比起它们来又能强多少？所以，现在就更需要考虑这个问题了。

This view of philosophy appears to result, partly from a wrong conception of the ends of life, partly from a wrong conception of the kind of goods which philosophy strives to achieve. Physical science, through the medium of inventions, is useful to innumerable people who are wholly ignorant of it; thus the study of physical science is to be recommended, not only, or primarily, because of the effect on the student, but rather because of the effect on mankind in general. This utility does not belong to philosophy. If the study of philosophy has any value at all for others than students of philosophy, it must be only indirectly, through its effects upon the lives of those who study it. It is in these effects, therefore, if anywhere, that the value of philosophy must be primarily sought.

对于哲学所以出现了这种看法，一部分是由于在人生的目的上有一种错误的看法，一部分也由于对哲学所争取达到的东西没有一个正确的概念。现在，物理科学上的发明创造使无数不认识这门学问的人已经认为物理科学是有用的东西了；因此，现在所以要推荐研究物理科学，与其说根本原因在于它对学生的影响，不如说在于它对整个人类的影响。这种实用性是哲学所没有的。除了对于哲学学者之外，如果研究哲学对别人也有价值的话，那也必然只是通过对于学习哲学的人的生活所起的影响而间接地在发生作用。因此，哲学的价值根本就必须求之于这些影响。

But further, if we are not to fail in our endeavour to determine the value of philosophy, we must first free our minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called 'practical' men. The 'practical' man, as this word is often used, is one who recognizes only material needs, who realizes that men must have food for the body, but is oblivious of the necessity of providing food for the mind. If all men were well off, if poverty and disease had been reduced to their lowest possible point, there would still remain much to be done to produce a valuable society; and even in the existing world the goods of the mind are at least as important as the goods of the body. It is exclusively among the goods of the mind that the value of philosophy is to be found; and only those who are not indifferent to these goods can be persuaded that the study of philosophy is not a waste of time.

但是，更进一步说，倘使我们想要使评定哲学的价值的企图不致失败，那么我们首先必须在思想上摆脱掉“现实”的人的偏见。“现实”的人，照这个词的通常用法，是指只承认物质需要的人，只晓得人体需要食粮，却忽略了为心灵提供食粮的必要性。即使人人都是经济充裕的，即使贫困和疾病已经减少到不能再小的程度，为了创造一个有价值的社会，还是会有很多事情要做的；即使是在目前的社会之中，心灵所需要的东西至少也是和肉体所需要的东西同样重要。只有在心灵的食粮中才能够找到哲学的价值；也只有不漠视心灵食粮的人，才相信研究哲学并不是白白浪费时间。

Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge. The knowledge it aims at is the kind of knowledge which gives unity and system to the body of the sciences, and the kind which results from a critical examination of the grounds of our convictions, prejudices, and beliefs. But it cannot be maintained that philosophy has had any very great measure of success in its attempts to provide definite answers to its questions. If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he is candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as have been achieved by other sciences. It is true that this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science. The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton's great work was called 'the mathematical principles of natural philosophy'. Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology. Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy.

哲学和别的学科一样，其目的首先是要获得知识。哲学所追求的是可以提供一套科学统一体系的知识，和由于批判我们的成见、偏见和信仰的基础而得来的知识。但是我们却不能够认为它对于它的问题提供确定的答案时，会有极高度的成就。倘使你问一位数学家、一位矿物学家、一位历史学家或者任何一门的博学之士，在他那门科学里所肯定的一套真理是什么，他的答案会长得让你听得厌烦为止。但是，倘使你把这个问题拿来问一位哲学家的话，如果他的态度是坦率的，他一定承认他的研究还没有能获得像别种科学所达到的那样肯定的结果。当然，下述的事实可以部分地说明这种情况：任何一门科学，只要关于它的知识一旦可能确定，这门科学便不再称为哲学，而变成为一门独立的科学了。关于天体的全部研究现在属于天文学，但是过去曾包含在哲学之内；牛顿的伟大著作就叫作《自然哲学之数学原理》。同样，研究人类心理的学问，直到晚近为止还是哲学的一部分，但是现在已经脱离哲学而变成为心理学。因此，哲学的不确定性在很大程度上不但是真实的，而且还是明显的：有了确定答案的问题，都已经放到各种科学里面去了；而现在还提不出确定答案的问题，便仍构成为叫作哲学的这门学问的残存部分。

This is, however, only a part of the truth concerning the uncertainty of philosophy. There are many questions -- and among them those that are of the profoundest interest to our spiritual life -- which, so far as we can see, must remain insoluble to the human intellect unless its powers become of quite a different order from what they are now. Has the universe any unity of plan or purpose, or is it a fortuitous concourse of atoms? Is consciousness a permanent part of the universe, giving hope of indefinite growth in wisdom, or is it a transitory accident on a small planet on which life must ultimately become impossible? Are good and evil of importance to the universe or only to man? Such questions are asked by philosophy, and variously answered by various philosophers. But it would seem that, whether answers be otherwise discoverable or not, the answers suggested by philosophy are none of them demonstrably true. Yet, however slight may be the hope of discovering an answer, it is part of the business of philosophy to continue the consideration of such questions, to make us aware of their importance, to examine all the approaches to them, and to keep alive that speculative interest in the universe which is apt to be killed by confining ourselves to definitely ascertainable knowledge.

然而，关于哲学的不确定性，这一点还只是部分的真理。有许多问题——其中那些和我们心灵生活最有深切关系的——就我们所知，乃是人类才智所始终不能解决的，除非人类的才智变得和现在完全不同了。宇宙是否有一个统一的计划或目的呢？抑或宇宙仅仅是许多原子的一种偶然的集合呢？意识是不是宇宙中的一个永恒不变的部分，它使得智慧有着无限扩充的希望呢？抑或它只是一颗小行星上一桩昙花一现的偶然事件，在这颗行星上，最后连生命也要归于消灭呢？善和恶对于宇宙是否重要呢？或者它们只有对于人类才是重要的呢？这些问题都是哲学所设问的，不同的哲学家有不同的答案。但是，不论答案是否可以用别的方法找出来，看来哲学所提出来的答案并不是可以用实验来证明其真确性的。然而，不论找出一个答案的希望是如何地微乎其微，哲学的一部分责任就是要继续研究这类问题，使我们觉察到它们的重要性，研究解决它们的门径，并保持对于宇宙的思考兴趣，使之蓬勃不衰，而如果我们局限于可明确地肯定的知识范围之内，这种兴趣是很易被扼杀的。

Many philosophers, it is true, have held that philosophy could establish the truth of certain answers to such fundamental questions. They have supposed that what is of most importance in religious beliefs could be proved by strict demonstration to be true. In order to judge of such attempts, it is necessary to take a survey of human knowledge, and to form an opinion as to its methods and its limitations. On such a subject it would be unwise to pronounce dogmatically; but if the investigations of our previous chapters have not led us astray, we shall be compelled to renounce the hope of finding philosophical proofs of religious beliefs. We cannot, therefore, include as part of the value of philosophy any definite set of answers to such questions. Hence, once more, the value of philosophy must not depend upon any supposed body of definitely ascertainable knowledge to be acquired by those who study it.

不错，许多哲学家都曾抱有这种见解，认为对于上述那些基本问题的某些答案，哲学可以确定它们的真假。他们认为宗教信仰中最重要的部分是可以用严谨的验证证明其为真确的。要判断这些想法，就必须通盘考虑一下人类的知识，对于它的方法和范围就必须形成一种见解。对于这样一个问题，独断是不明智的；但是前几章的研究如果没有把我们引入歧途的话，我们便不得不放弃为宗教信仰寻找哲学证据的希望了。因此，对于这些问题的任何一套确定的答案，我们都不能容纳其成为哲学的价值的一部分。因此，我们要再一次说明，哲学的价值必然不在于哲学研究者可以获得任何一套可明确肯定的知识的假设体系。

The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find, as we saw in our opening chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect.

事实上，哲学的价值大部分须在它的极其不确定性之中去追求。没有哲学色彩的人一生总免不了受束缚于种种偏见，由常识、由他那个时代或民族的习见、由末经深思熟虑而滋长的自信等等所形成的偏见。对于这样的人，世界是固定的、有穷的、一目了然的；普通的客体引不起他的疑问，可能发生的未知事物他会傲慢地否定。但是反之，正如在开头几章中我们所已明了的，只要我们一开始采取哲学的态度，我们就会发觉，连最平常的事情也有问题，而我们能提供的答案又只能是极不完善的。哲学虽然对于所提出的疑问，不能肯定告诉我们哪个答案对，但却能扩展我们的思想境界，使我们摆脱习俗的控制。因此，哲学虽然对于例如事物是什么这个问题减轻了我们可以肯定的感觉，但却大大增长了我们对于事物可能是什么这个问题的知识。它把从未进入过自由怀疑的境地的人们的狂妄独断的说法排除掉了，并且指出所熟悉的事物中那不熟悉的一面，使我们的好奇感永远保持着敏锐状态。

Apart from its utility in showing unsuspected possibilities, philosophy has a value -- perhaps its chief value -- through the greatness of the objects which it contemplates, and the freedom from narrow and personal aims resulting from this contemplation. The life of the instinctive man is shut up within the circle of his private interests: family and friends may be included, but the outer world is not regarded except as it may help or hinder what comes within the circle of instinctive wishes. In such a life there is something feverish and confined, in comparison with which the philosophic life is calm and free. The private world of instinctive interests is a small one, set in the midst of a great and powerful world which must, sooner or later, lay our private world in ruins. Unless we can so enlarge our interests as to include the whole outer world, we remain like a garrison in a beleagured fortress, knowing that the enemy prevents escape and that ultimate surrender is inevitable. In such a life there is no peace, but a constant strife between the insistence of desire and the powerlessness of will. In one way or another, if our life is to be great and free, we must escape this prison and this strife.

哲学的用处在于能够指点出人所不疑的各种可能性。此外，哲学的价值（也许是它的主要价值）就在于哲学所考虑的对象是重大的，而这种思考又能使人摆脱个人那些狭隘的打算。一个听凭本能支配的人，他的生活总是禁闭在他个人利害的圈子里：这个圈子可能也包括他的家庭和朋友，但是外部世界是绝不受到重视的，除非外部世界有利或者有碍于发生在他本能欲望圈子内的事物。这样的生活和哲学式的恬淡的、逍遥的生活比较起来，就是一种类似狂热的和被囚禁的生活了。追求本能兴趣的个人世界是狭小的，它局促在一个庞大有力的世界之内，迟早我们的个人世界会被颠覆。除非我们能够扩大我们的趣味，把整个外部世界包罗在内；不然，我们就会像一支受困在堡垒中的守军，深知敌人不让自己逃脱，最后不免投降。在这样的生活里，没有安宁可言，只有坚持抵抗的欲望和无能为力的意志经常在不断斗争。倘使要我们的生活伟大而自由，我们就必须用种种方法躲避这种囚禁和斗争。

One way of escape is by philosophic contemplation. Philosophic contemplation does not, in its widest survey, divide the universe into two hostile camps -- friends and foes, helpful and hostile, good and bad -- it views the whole impartially. Philosophic contemplation, when it is unalloyed, does not aim at proving that the rest of the universe is akin to man. All acquisition of knowledge is an enlargement of the Self, but this enlargement is best attained when it is not directly sought. It is obtained when the desire for knowledge is alone operative, by a study which does not wish in advance that its objects should have this or that character, but adapts the Self to the characters which it finds in its objects. This enlargement of Self is not obtained when, taking the Self as it is, we try to show that the world is so similar to this Self that knowledge of it is possible without any admission of what seems alien. The desire to prove this is a form of self-assertion and, like all self-assertion, it is an obstacle to the growth of Self which it desires, and of which the Self knows that it is capable. Self-assertion, in philosophic speculation as elsewhere, views the world as a means to its own ends; thus it makes the world of less account than Self, and the Self sets bounds to the greatness of its goods. In contemplation, on the contrary, we start from the not-Self, and through its greatness the boundaries of Self are enlarged; through the infinity of the universe the mind which contemplates it achieves some share in infinity.

哲学的冥想就是一条出路。哲学的冥想在其最广阔的视野上并不把宇宙分成两个相互对立的阵营，——朋友和仇敌，支援的和敌对的，好的和坏的，——它廓然大公，纵观整体。哲学的冥想只要是纯粹的，其目的便不在于证明宇宙其余部分和人类相似。知识方面的一切收获，都是自我的一种扩张，但是要达到这种扩张，最好是不直接去追求。在求知欲单独起作用的时候，不要预先期望研究对象具有这样或那样的性质，而是要使自我适合于在对象中所发现的性质；只有通过这样的研究，才能达到自我扩张。如果我们把自我看成就是现在的样子，而想指出世界和这个自我是如此之相似，以至于不承认那些似乎与之相异的一切，还是可以得到关于世界的知识；这样是根本无法达到这种自我扩张的。想证明这一点的那种欲望，乃是一种自我独断；像所有的自我独断一样，它对于其所迫切希求的自我发展是一个阻碍，而且自我也知道它会是这样的。自我独断，在哲学的冥想之中正如在其他地方一样，是把世界看成是达到它自己目的的一种手段；因此它对于自我看得比世界还重。而且自我还为世界上有价值的东西之伟大立定了界限。在冥想中，如果我们从非我出发，便完全不同了，通过非我之伟大，自我的界限便扩大了；通过宇宙的无限，那个冥想宇宙的心灵便分享了无限。

For this reason greatness of soul is not fostered by those philosophies which assimilate the universe to Man. Knowledge is a form of union of Self and not-Self; like all union, it is impaired by dominion, and therefore by any attempt to force the universe into conformity with what we find in ourselves. There is a widespread philosophical tendency towards the view which tells us that Man is the measure of all things, that truth is man-made, that space and time and the world of universals are properties of the mind, and that, if there be anything not created by the mind, it is unknowable and of no account for us. This view, if our previous discussions were correct, is untrue; but in addition to being untrue, it has the effect of robbing philosophic contemplation of all that gives it value, since it fetters contemplation to Self. What it calls knowledge is not a union with the not-Self, but a set of prejudices, habits, and desires, making an impenetrable veil between us and the world beyond. The man who finds pleasure in such a theory of knowledge is like the man who never leaves the domestic circle for fear his word might not be law.

因此心灵的伟大并非是那些要把宇宙同化于人类的哲学所培养出来的。知识乃是自我和非我的一种结合；像所有的结合一样，它会被支配欲所破坏，因此也就会被那想要强使宇宙服从于我们在自身中所发现的东西的任何企图所破坏。现在有一种广泛的哲学趋势是倾向于告诉我们：人是一切事物的尺度，真理是人造的，空间、时间和共相世界都是心灵的性质，如果有什么东西不是。动灵创造的，那便是不可知的，对于我们也便不关重要了。倘使我们以往的讨论是正确的，那么这种见解便是不对的。但是，它岂只是不对的而已，更有甚者，因为它让冥想受到自我束缚，终于是把哲学冥想中有价值的一切东西都给剥夺掉了。它所称为知识的，并不是和非我的结合，而是一套偏见、习惯和欲望，并在外界和我们之间拉上了一层穿不透的帷幕。能在这样一种知识论中找到乐趣的人，就正像惟恐自己的话不能成为法律的人，永远也离不开家庭的圈子。

The true philosophic contemplation, on the contrary, finds its satisfaction in every enlargement of the not-Self, in everything that magnifies the objects contemplated, and thereby the subject contemplating. Everything, in contemplation, that is personal or private, everything that depends upon habit, self-interest, or desire, distorts the object, and hence impairs the union which the intellect seeks. By thus making a barrier between subject and object, such personal and private things become a prison to the intellect. The free intellect will see as God might see, without a here and now, without hopes and fears, without the trammels of customary beliefs and traditional prejudices, calmly, dispassionately, in the sole and exclusive desire of knowledge -- knowledge as impersonal, as purely contemplative, as it is possible for man to attain. Hence also the free intellect will value more the abstract and universal knowledge into which the accidents of private history do not enter, than the knowledge brought by the senses, and dependent, as such knowledge must be, upon an exclusive and personal point of view and a body whose sense-organs distort as much as they reveal.

真正的哲学冥想便完全相反，它在自我的种种扩张之中，在可以扩大冥想的客体的种种事物之中，因而也在扩大冥想着的主体之中，能找到满足。在冥想中，样样属于个人的或者自己的事物，样样依靠习惯、个人兴趣或者欲望的事物，都歪曲了客体，因而便破坏了心智所追求的那种结合。像这种个人的和私人的事物，就这样在主体和客体之间造成了一道屏障，结果成为了心智的囹圄。一个自由的心智是像上帝那样在观看的，不是从一个此地和此刻在观看的，它不期望，不恐惧，也不受习惯的信仰和传统的偏见所束缚，而是恬淡地、冷静地、以纯粹追求知识的态度去看，把知识看成是不含个人成分的、纯粹可以冥想的，是人类可以达到的。为此，自由的心智对于抽象的和共相的知识，便比对于得自感官的知识更为重视；抽象的和共相的知识是个人经历的事件所不能渗入的，感官的知识则必定依赖于独特的个人观点，依赖于人身，而躯体的感官在表现事物时是会歪曲它们的。

The mind which has become accustomed to the freedom and impartiality of philosophic contemplation will preserve something of the same freedom and impartiality in the world of action and emotion. It will view its purposes and desires as parts of the whole, with the absence of insistence that results from seeing them as infinitesimal fragments in a world of which all the rest is unaffected by any one man's deeds. The impartiality which, in contemplation, is the unalloyed desire for truth, is the very same quality of mind which, in action, is justice, and in emotion is that universal love which can be given to all, and not only to those who are judged useful or admirable. Thus contemplation enlarges not only the objects of our thoughts, but also the objects of our actions and our affections: it makes us citizens of the universe, not only of one walled city at war with all the rest. In this citizenship of the universe consists man's true freedom, and his liberation from the thraldom of narrow hopes and fears.

只要心灵已经习惯于哲学冥想的自由和公正，便会在行动和感情的世界中保持某些同样的自由和公正。它会把它的目的和欲望看成是整体的一部分，而绝没有由于把它们看成是属于其余不受任何人为影响的那个世界中的一些极细琐的片断而产生的固执己见。冥想中的公正乃是追求真理的一种纯粹欲望，是和心灵的性质相同的，就行为方面来说，它就是公道，就感情方面说，它就是博爱；这种博爱可以施及一切，不只是施及那些被断定为有用的或者可尊崇的人们。因此，冥想不但扩大我们思考中的客体，而且也扩大我们行为中的和感情中的客体；它使我们不只是属于一座和其余一切相对立的围城中的公民，而是使我们成为宇宙的公民。在宇宙公民的身份之中，就包括人的真正自由和从狭隘的希望与恐怖的奴役中获得的解放。

Thus, to sum up our discussion of the value of philosophy; Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

因此，关于哲学的价值的讨论，我们就可以总结说：哲学之应当学习并不在于它能对于所提出的问题提供任何确定的答案，因为通常不可能知道有什么确定的答案是真确的，而是在于这些问题本身；原因是，这些问题可以扩充我们对于一切可能事物的概念，丰富我们心灵方面的想象力，并且减低教条式的自信，这些都可能禁锢心灵的思考作用。此外，尤其在于通过哲学冥想中的宇宙之大，心灵便会变得伟大起来，因而就能够和那成其为至善的宇宙结合在一起。