友邻哲学旅人 E40 谬误之“市场偶像”和“剧场偶像”

Thirdly, Idols of the Market-place,  arising " from the commerce and association of men with one another.For men converse by means of language; but words are imposed according to the understanding of the crowd; and there arises from a bad and inapt formation of words, a wonderful obstruction to the mind."
第三种错误则是“市场偶像”，它来自于“人与人之间的交流与联系。因为人是通过语言来交谈的；而词汇的含义是根据大众的理解强加给个人的，所以不当的措辞会给人的思想造成严重的阻隔”。

the idol of language语言崇拜

Philosophers deal out infinites with the careless assurance of grammarians handling infinitives.
哲学家们讨论“无限”，粗心的语言学家总是毫无顾忌的玩弄“不定式”，有谁真正知道这个“无限”究竟是什么，或者它到底存不存在呢？

哲学家目空一切的去追求无限，就是语法专家在谈论冠词不仔细的处理之上。

有定冠词是有指向性的，而没有冠词是无限性的。

Philosophers talk about "first cause uncaused," or "first mover unmoved"; but are not these again fig-leaf phrases used to cover naked ignorance, and perhaps indicative of a guilty conscience in the user?
哲学家们经常讨论“无因的第一因”或“不动的第一动力”，可难道这些词汇不正是掩盖赤裸裸的无知的遮羞布吗？它们或许还暗示了那些使用者的良心上的罪恶吧？

真正的自信是沉默的

真正的无知才是聒噪的

the confidence is silence, and noise is ignorance.

真正的自信是安静的，它讲出来的东西你都是知道的，它不会故弄玄虚去讲一些，然后你没听懂，去掩盖了他不知道这件事情的真相。

Every clear and honest head knows that no cause can be causeless, nor any mover unmoved.
所有诚实与理智的人都明白，没有无原因的原因，也不存在不动的推动力。

Perhaps the greatest reconstruction in philosophy would be simply this—that we should stop lying.
或许，对于哲学最伟大的构建复兴仅此而已--那便是停止说谎。

语言带来的脆弱之处，它会有意无意透视出对这个世界的曲解，听众在看听读的时候也会曲解，充满了满嘴荒唐之言。

不自欺--做很多事情思考的一个起点。

"Lastly, there are idols which have migrated into men’s minds from the various dogmas of philosophers, and also from wrong laws of demonstration.
“最后还有一类，有可能迁徙到人的思想脑海里，来自哲学家各种各样的教条，也来自于错误的展示方法。

These I call Idols of the Theatre, because in my judgment all the received systems of philosophy are but so many stage-plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion...
我称其为‘剧场偶像’，因为就我来判断，所有这些被接受的哲学体系，有可能就是一幕一幕的戏，是展现着这些哲学家们按照幻想与戏剧形式创造出来的各种世界......

这里就暗指柏拉图--很美，语言精炼，走出洞穴看到了真理。你怎么知道你看到的阳光就是真正的真理呢？这里是戏剧，不是人的思考。

And in the plays of this philosophic theater you may observe the same thing which is found in the theater of the poets,—that stories invented for the stage are more compact and elegant, and more as we would wish them to be, than true stories out of history."
所以在这个哲学的剧场当中，你能观察到相同的一件事情，在诗人的剧场当中能找到的，--为了这个剧场去做的一些故事，会更加的简洁和更加的高雅，也更像我们希望的情节的发展而来，而不是历史真实的故事。”

The world as Plato describes it is merely a world constructed by Plato, and pictures Plato rather than the world.
所以柏拉图描绘的也不过是他虚构的世界，它体现的也只是柏拉图的思想。

哲学家说的只是他看到的世界，没有一个哲学家说的是对的，我们要回答的是让哲学在你这发生。

语言点

converse: vi. 交流

inapt: adj. 不适当的

grammarian: n. 语法学家

fig-leaf: n. 遮羞布

stage-play: n. 一幕一幕的戏

compact: adj. 简洁的