奎因：我的信念

What I Believe

我的信念 

摘要：在本体论方面，可以用两个标签表示奎因的立场：柏拉图主义——除了存在具体对象外，还存在着抽象对象（最终可以归结为类）；唯物主义——具体对象的世界中只存在物质，不存在精神实体。在这篇文章中，奎因还讨论了道德的哲学基础问题，指出因果决定论作用所不及的微物理事件和上帝都不能成为这样的基础。这个基础只和人有关，道德的目的大致说来，是通过协调成员间的利益冲突而增进社会的福祉。

关键词：柏拉图主义、唯物主义、自由意志、上帝、道德

Abstract: On the ontological side, Quine is both a Platonist and a materialist. He is a Platonist because he admits abstract entity as well as concrete object; He is a materialist because he admits only physical object and denies mental entity as concrete object. On the ethical side, Quine denies both free will inconsistent with causal determinism and God as the foundations of moral values; Moral values are utterly human; Their point, broadly speaking, is the fostering of the well-being of society by reconciling the conflicting desires of its members.

Key words: Platonism, materialism, Free will, God, morality

The world is a multitude of minute twitches in the void. They are microphysical event, related one to another by any of three or four forces. It is convenient to say that what do the twitching are particles, but the stricter line is to rest with the twitches and let the particles go. A particle is subject to identity crises; it can pass so close to another, for instance, that it makes no sense to say, from there on, which was which. The particle may be regarded as just a conceptually convenient serial grouping of microphysical events, in much the way that a crowd or a race is a conceptually grouping of persons. Like a crowd or a race, it need not be assured of precise identification at all points. Still it enjoys a more stubborn integrity than the crowd or the race, and this makes the particle concept so convenient as to be practically indispensable.

世界由虚空中的无数颤动所组成。这些颤动是微物理事件，它们之间靠某种力——共有三种或四种——发生联系。将这些颤动的主体称为粒子是很方便的，但更严格地说，我们还是满足于颤动为好，而不要谈什么粒子。粒子的同一性标准很成问题；它们可以靠得很近，根本无法分辨出哪个是哪个。粒子可以视为一系列的微物理事件的方便称呼，就像人群和人种可以视为对一群人的方便称呼一样。它像人群和人种一样，无需对它的组成成分处处作出精确的分辨。但是它有着比人群或人种更强的整合功能，它对于物理学几乎是一个不可或缺的方便概念。

In declaring for microphysical events, or indeed particles, I am not denying the robust reality of our ordinary objects, our sticks and stones. Just as a forest is seen from afar as a mass in which no tree stands forth, so the stick or stone is seen as a mass in which no particle stands forth, but the stick or stone, like the forest, is none the less real for that. Eyesight sharper than ours could show those familiar solids to be swarms of vibrating molecules. Discrimination of still smaller particles does ultimately exceed all optical possibilities, because of the coarseness of light itself; but physicists have their more devious resources.

我在承认微物理事件（或者粒子）作为世界的基本组成的同时，并不否定平凡对象（如棍棒和石头）的实在性。从远处看，我们只能看见作为一个整体的森林，而看不见组成它的树木；同样地，我们也只能看见作为一个整体的棍棒或石头，而看不见组成它的粒子。但我们不能借口看不见棍棒或石头中的粒子而否定棍棒或石头的实在性，就像远处的人不能因为看不见森林中的树木而否定森林的实在性一样。比我们眼尖的生物可以看到，在我们看来很结实的棍棒和石头其实是由很多震动着的分子所组成的。要分辨更小尺度的粒子——它们的尺度与光的波长相当——将最终越出所有的视觉可能性，但物理学家可以用间接的手段确认它们。

How something looks is a relation of the object to the eye of the beholder. An ink blot is continuous to the naked eye and diffuse when magnified. We can imagine extra-terrestrials who are sensitive to radiation outside our visual range, and they might see vaporous clouds, unimaginably coloured, where we see only emptiness. But everything in the world comes down to elementary particles or microphysical events, whatever the point of view.

某个东西看上去像什么，取决于它与观察者的眼睛的关系。一个墨点在祼眼看来是连续的，但在放大镜下看却是离散的。我们可以设想一种外星人，他们能感觉到在我们视觉范围之外的辐射，因此能在我们看来空空如也的天空里看到色彩无可名状的蒸气云。但是世界上的任何事物——不管处于什么视角——都可以归结为基本粒子或微物理事件。

Everything in the world. The qualification is significant, for it sets aside the question of abstract objects such as properties and numbers. These are not in the world, for they are not anywhere; but it may still be held that there are such objects, out of space, out of time. We should be happy to repudiate them, but wishful thinking is not the way of science or true philosophy. Numbers, surely, are appealed to in the theoretical physics at every turn. I am not thinking of the mere uses of specific numerals; words used need not always be presumed to name anything. The point is rather that numbers are invoked collectively, not just by name but as values of variable. On any reasonable criterion for assessing the ontological commitments of a theory, our natural science is as firmly committed to numbers as it is to anything. Accepting science as I do, subject of course to subsequent scientific correction, I am constrained to acknowledge the reality of numbers.

世界上的所有事物归根到底都是微物理事件。“世界上的”这一限定不是可有可无的，因为它可以将抽象对象（如性质和数）的问题隔离开来。它们并不存在于世界之中，因为它们不在任何地方；但人们仍然可以坚持它们是存在的，只是存在于空间之外，存在于时间之外。我倒是希望我们能够不要它们，但一厢情愿并不是科学和真正的哲学之道。一个显然的事实是，理论物理学离开了数便寸步难行。我在这里想到的并不是对特定数字的纯粹使用；我们没有必要假定，被使用的词一定命名了对象。这里的要点是，数学诉诸的是作为集体的数：不只是那些得到命名的数，而是所有作为变项取值的数。根据任何评估本体论承诺的合理标准，自然科学对数的承诺，其可靠性并不稍逊于它对其他事物的承诺。我既然接受自然科学（当然它们可能会在将来得到科学的修正），那就得承认数的实在性。

The same applies to functions, and to classes. Actually, we know from set theory that the classes are enough; they can serve also as numbers and functions. But I draw the line at other abstract objects, notably properties. These are beset with problems of identity and other logical difficulties, and anyway they serve no really clear purposes that are not served by classes.

以上所说也适用于函数和集合。事实上，我们从集合论里知道，集合就已经足够了；数和函数所能做到的一切，集合也能做到。但我并不笼统地承认所有抽象对象，特别地，我不承认性质。性质为同一性问题和其他逻辑困难所困扰；无论如何，性质所能做到的事情，只要是清楚的，没有一样是集合所不能做到的。 

I said that everything in the world resolves into elementary particles or microphysical events, and then I noted that this does not apply to abstract objects. It applies emphatically to man, however, and to the mind of man. Mind is part of the activity of a physical object, the human animal. Self-awareness is just one of the various perspectives upon a physical object. Here the object is oneself, observed from within.

我说到世界上的任何事物都可以归结为基本粒子或微物理事件，然后我又补充说，这并不适用于抽象对象。但我要强调的是，它适用于人和人的心灵。心灵是人类动物这种物理对象的活动的一部分。自我意识只是对物理对象的无数观察方式中的一种，这里执行观察的物理对象和被观察的物理对象是同一个人。

  Some Pow’r did us the giftie grant

To see oursels as others can’t.

我们确实被赋予了这样的能力

能看到别人看不到的我们自己。 

One’s acts and decisions are activities of a physical object, and are subject to outside causes as are the movements of any physical objects. If nature is deterministic, so that its state at any time is causally determined by its previous states, then determinism applies in particular to human behavior. This point has been resisted by some philosophers, who see it as precluding freedom of the will.

人的行动和决定是一个物理对象的行动，也像任何其他物理对象的运动一样，是由外界的原因引起的。如果决定论适用于自然界，即自然界在任何时候的状态都是由它在先前的状态所因果地决定的，那么决定论也适用于人的行为。这个观点遭到一些哲学家的抵制，他们认为如此一来自由意志便无处立身了。

It must be said that determinism has also been challenged from a very different quarter. The quantum physics of microphysical events has engendered quandaries regarding the very notion of cause and effect as traditionally conceived. However, that is an unlikely quarter in which to seek loopholes for freedom of the will.

必须指出，决定论还遇到了来自另一个不同方面的挑战。在关于微物理事件的量子力学面前，传统的原因和结果概念本身就出现了问题。不过，这个漏洞不大可能是自由意志的藏身之地。

I hold rather, as have many before me, that determinism has no bearing on freedom of the will. One’s behavior is free when it is caused by one’s internal drives, be they ideals or appetites; and it is no curb to freedom that these drives are caused in turn.

而我像许多先行者一样认为，决定论对自由意志并无影响。只要人的行为出于内在的动机，它便是自由的，这种动机可以是理想，也可以是欲望。至于这些动机本身也是被决定的，并不影响由此所带来的行为的自由。

Given than that one’s acts are determined ultimately by outside causes, is there any warrant for praise or blame? There is indeed. Good men, like good paintings and good machines, are justly admired and commended, and bad ones disparaged; and there need be no suspension of causality. On the contrary, praise and reward help to cause good behavior as well as good art and good technology; and censure and punishment can help to discourage the bad.

既然人的行为最终是由外部的原因所决定的，那么还存在着任何正当的赞扬和指责吗？答案是肯定的。好人，就像好画和好机器一样，理应受到羡慕和好评，而坏人则理应被贬低。我们在进行褒贬性评价时，无需把因果性概念悬置起来；恰恰相反，赞扬和奖赏有利于引起好的行为、好的艺术和技术，而谴责和处罚则有利于阻止坏人坏事。

Praise and blame in the moral sphere raise the problem, still, of how our standards of good and evil are justified. The hypothesis of the existence of God has offered an objective basis for moral values, in God’s decrees. Is this hypotheses not comparable to scientific hypotheses, which are supported by the explanations that they offer of known states of affairs? It is not. What this hypothesis explains is not a known state of affairs, but only a desired one: the objectivity of moral values. The God hypotheses is, insofar a case of wishful thinking, equal and opposite to the case noted earlier of the wishful repudiation of numbers and kindred abstract objects.

但道德领域的褒贬确实带来了一个问题，即善恶标准的合理性问题。关于上帝存在的假说提供了道德价值的客观基础：它们来自于上帝的律令。这个假说能与科学的假说相提并论吗？不能。科学的假说因为能够解释已知的事实而得到了支持；但上帝假说所解释的并不是已知的事实，它所解释的道德价值的客观性只是我们希望出现的事态。因此上帝假说也是一个一厢情愿的假说；就此而论，它可与前面提到的对数和其他与之有亲缘关系的抽象对象的一厢情愿的假说相提并论，不同之处仅在于一个是肯定性的假说，一个是否定性的假说。

Theism is rich in comforts. It is associated with the dream of life after death and of reward for virtue unrewarded on earth. On the latter point, and the correlative threat of hellfire, religion has been a boon to society, promoting charity and curbing crime. These social benefits, unlike mere wishful thinking, are a sound reason for propounding religious doctrine. Whether they are a sufficient reason, I hesitate to say; but they afford no evidence of truth.

有神论富含安慰价值。它承诺，生活在死后仍将继续；它承诺，今世未得好报的善行终将得到好报。与后一点对应的是地狱之火的威胁；在这两点上，宗教通过促进慈善和遏制犯罪，发挥着造福社会的作用。这些社会效益——与单纯的一厢情愿不同——是倡导宗教学说的有力理由。我不知道它们是不是充足的理由，但即使是，它们也并不构成有神论为真的证据。

Arguments for truth of theism there have been, but they fall short. The intricacies of organic nature have been said to bear witness to God as designer; but then God’s modus operandi is fully as hard to explain as the intricacies of organic nature. Another argument begins by defining God as a being that necessarily exists. I am spared trying to do justice to this elusive argument, for it is swept aside if we reject as gratuitous, as I do, the very notion of metaphysical necessity. Necessity makes sense to me only relative to passing contexts: something holds necessarily, relative to a going dialogue, if it follows from the beliefs or assumptions shared by the participants of the dialogue at the time. Absolutely there are just the true and the false, without benefit of adverb.

对有神论的论证一直都有，但都不能成立。令人费解的有机自然界，据说是出于上帝的设计；但上帝的设计本身正好和有机自然界的机制一样令人费解。另外一个论证是以把上帝定义为一个必然存在的存在物开始的。我不拟展开对这个飘忽性的论证的详细分析，因为这个论证中所用到的形而上学必然性概念本身，在我看来就是不合法的。对我来说，必然性只有相对于语境的意义：某个论断对于某个正在进行的对话来说是必然的，如果它为对话参与者一致接受的信念或假定所蕴含的话。绝对说来，只有真假两极，在这两极之间不存在由副词所意指的中间地带。

Metaphysical necessity is one of the mainstays of theology that hark back to Aristotle. Another of them is a startling restriction on contingent statements about the future: that they are neither true nor false, and become true only when the event is clinched. The theological bearing of the doctrine is as follows. If the sentences were true along, then God in his omniscience would already know they were true, and thus the future would be determined in advance by God’s knowledge; and determinism is thought, however wrongly, to preclude free will. In my philosophy this hedging of futures gets short shrift, as did metaphysical necessity. I view statements about the future as true or false and forever, though in most cases we shall never know which; and determinism is as may be.

形而上学必然性作为神学的一个支柱，可以追溯到亚里士多德。神学的另一个支柱是对关于未来的偶然陈述的一个令人惊讶的限制：它们在相关事件未发生之前是既不真也不假的。这一学说与神学的关系如下：如果关于未来的陈述一直就是真的，那么全知的上帝就会知道它们是真的，未来就这样事先被上帝的知识所决定了；而在决定论中，据说是没有自由意志的地位的。在我的哲学里，这种对未来的限制，和形而上学必然性一样，是受到漠视的。我认为关于未来的陈述是有真假的，而且是恒真或恒假的，尽管在多数情形中，我们并不知道哪些陈述是真的；这与决定论并没有什么关系。

Notions and distinctions have been devised with a view to theism, we see, that are better cleared away. But, we may still ask, do we know that theism is false? ‘Know’ is a pernicious verb. Science is refined common sense, and is fallible at various points in various degrees. It is open always to correction by further scientific advances, but there are no alternative avenues of discovery. Barring one or another inordinate reinterpretation of terms, it can be affirmed with all the confidence of sound scientific judgment that there is no God or afterlife.

我们看到，那些服务于有神论的概念和区别还是被清除掉为好。但是，我们仍可能问一个问题：我们知道有神论是假的吗？“知道”是一个有害的动词。科学是对常识的精致化，在很多地方都有着程度不一的可错性，它将随着科学的进一步发展而得到修正。但尽管如此，除了科学的方法之外，我们并没有更好的发现之道。对有神论中所涉术语的各种再解释混乱不堪，并不值得认真对待；鉴于此，我们可以满怀信心地说，“上帝和来生都不存在”是一个有效的科学判断。

What then is the ground of moral value? Utterly human. Partly they are imposed by legislation, child-rearing, and religion, and partly they are presumably inherited through natural selection. Their point, broadly, is the fostering of society by reconciling the conflicting desires of its members. Moral issues can arise, therefore, over the relative weighting of benefits. One moralist may espouse charity for the retarded; another may interpose reservations on eugenic grounds. One may oppose torture categorically; another may condone it for punishment or for extorting information beneficial to society. One who favours torture for its own sake, however, represents no moral positions, and indeed conflict usually reflects rather an aloofness from moral values than disagreement over them.

那么，道德价值的基础究竟是什么？这个基础只和人有关。有些道德价值为法律、儿童养育和宗教所赋予；有些很可能得之于遗传，它们是自然选择的结果。它们的目的大致说来，是通过协调成员间的利益冲突而增进社会的福祉。由于各方对利益的不同估价，便产生了道德问题。某个道德学家可能倡导针对智障人士的慈善事业，另一个道德学家则基于优生学的理由对此持保留意见。某个道德学家可能断然反对酷刑，另一个道德学家则希望保留它以惩治恶人或从恶人嘴里得出对社会有用的信息。然而，如果某个人只是为了酷刑而支持酷刑，那么他代表的并不是道德的立场。实际上，冲突常常并不反映当事各方对有关道德价值的不同意见，而只是反映冷漠与否的不同态度。

Directed as it is to the welfare of a society, morality hinges on demarcation of the pertinent society. An isolated tribe could rest with a crystalline moral law, seemingly absolute and eternal, recognized by all and obeyed by most. Conflict between societies is outside of society and is thus morally neutral, until we widen our horizons and fuse many societies as one. For most of us the demarcation of society is manifold, marking tighter societies that variously overlap within looser ones; thus family, clan, nation, culture, species, phylum, posterity. Besides the moral issues over the weighting of benefits, therefore, there arise moral issues over the weighting of beneficiaries. Moral dilemma is rife.

道德是相对于它所要造福的社会而言的。一个隔绝的部落可以有一个透明的道德法则，看上去绝对而永恒，为所有人承认并为多数人遵守。不同社会之间的冲突属于外部冲突，因此在道德上是中立的，除非我们扩大我们的视野，将它们合并成一个社会。多数人的社会角色是多元的，每一个角色都对应着一种不同的社会划分；经过划分而区隔出来的社会关系有的狭窄，有的宽泛，比如家庭、宗族、民族、文化、生物学意义上的种和门、后代，它们之间的重叠方式是多种多样的。由于这种划分，道德冲突除了来自对利益的不同评估外，也可以来自对收益者边界的不同评估。道德困境是很普遍的。

I might gracefully conclude this brief sheaf of beliefs with some cheerful ones about the future of man. My practice down the years of withstanding the lures of wishful thinking has steeled me, but I will say what I can.

在这篇叙述我的信念的小文即将结束之际，我本可以体面地对人类的未来发表一些乐观的评论，但多年来对一厢情愿思考方式的抵制使我无法做到这一点。不过，我想说一些我能够说的话。

Man’s abuse of the earth’s atmosphere, hydrosphere, chthonosphere, and biosphere has aroused at last a laudable host of nature lovers and conservationists, for whose success my hopes are only moderately high but immoderately fervent. The appalling population explosion has become the concern of increasingly vigorous campaigns worldwide for family planning, and I gather that in recent statistics there is some cheer for sanguine hearts. The soaring of violence in recent decades threatens to trim the figures in harsher ways. Meanwhile man’s understanding of the cosmos and its fine texture has advanced at an unprecedented rate and is accelerating. Young people athirst for knowledge have prospects of unimaginable gratification, if the fabric holds.

人类对地球的大气圈、水圈、地圈和生物圈的滥用，终于唤醒了很多人，他们成了值得赞赏的自然爱好者和自然资源保护主义者。我对他们的事业并不抱太大的希望，但怀有极高的热情。骇人听闻的人口爆炸已经使全球范围内的计划生育呼声日渐高涨，我猜测近来的统计学数据给一些乐观者带来了一些鼓舞。而近来不断升级的暴力冲突则可能使人口的减少以一种更加残酷的方式得到实现。与此同时，人类对自然及其微妙结构的理解正在以空前的速度向前推进，而且这一速度还在变得越来越快。如果地球不毁灭的话，渴求知识的年轻人在这方面将会得到空前的满足感。