the unexamined life is not worth living?未经审视的人生是不值得的?

哲学与心理学
the unexamined life is not worth living苏格拉底未经审视的生活不值得的

最近晚上熬夜做网站,明显有点亢奋了。

所以昨晚看到了一个微博好友又提起这句话,就想起来以前其实我还去研究过这个unexamined life到底能不能表达苏格拉底的本意。本来看到一个从拉丁文和希腊文词源来分析这个话的英文博客。不过因为博客数据几经丢失也找不到了。

刚刚和claude探讨了一下。它也没有比“未经审视”更符合原意的说法。

不过今天再搜索,有个作者的注释很不错,他说其实苏格拉底这个话,背后的意思是,那些劳作忙碌到没有时间“审视”自己的人生的劳苦大众,供养了苏格拉底和柏拉图这样的“精英”的大众,按照他的这个话,那他们的人生毫无意义。

写到:

The idea of nobility suggests elevation of the few over the ignoble many, which is why if you scratch many a noble ideal you can sniff the unmistakable aroma of elitism. The ideal of the examined life is noble for precisely this reason. It sounds unobjectionable: an encouragement to be fully human, to use our highly developed faculty of thought to raise our existence above that of mere beasts. For if we don't think, we are no more than animals, simply eating, sleeping, working and procreating. And though it may be a bit strong to say such lives are not worth living, all but a minority of ethical vegetarians would agree that they are much less valuable than fully human ones.

However, there would be no need to exhort us to examine our lives if we did not think that there were human beings who do not, and so have valueless, bestial lives. The noble ideal has a harsh implication: some in the herd of humankind may as well be animals, or dead.

This thought becomes even more chilling when you consider what Plato would consider an examined life to be like. For though almost everyone questions the way they live at some point, it is probably only a minority who subject it to Socratic scrutiny. The bulk of humankind, today and in history, has been far too busy struggling for survival to engage in lengthy philosophical analyses. So if an examined life is one in which more than just a little investigation takes place, by implication, huge swathes of humanity are ignorant beasts.

Look at those who actually appeal to Plato's maxim and you'll find it is quite clear that their message implies that only elites have worthwhile lives, while the great unwashed merely exist. To praise this noble ideal is thus to deny the value of millions of your fellow humans' lives.

所以其实人生值不值得,也不是非得有什么公式的。想起士兵突击里许三多那句话,好好活,有意义。有空就去审视,没时间就得过且过也行的,反正谁都是一辈子。总是记得《一生》里面最末尾乞丐佬的话,“死了,我们还不都一样”。所以其实“living”没有什么可比性,death反而更无差别了。

上次我是去查那个“anexétastos”转到英文unexamined词不达意。这次看到julian劝我们不要太过于在意哲人的微言大义,感觉他还是很有才华的。

写到这里才觉得对于是否应该“审视人生”,其实挺合我们现在的“内卷”与“躺平”之争的。