《A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy》读后感锦

　　《A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy》是一本由Harvey C. Mansfield著作，Intercollegiate Studies Institute出版的Paperback图书，本书定价：USD 8.00，页数：58，特精心从网络上整理的一些读者的读后感，希望对大家能有帮助。

　　《A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy》精选点评：

　　●从头到尾兜售私货，不愧是ISI出品。

　　●虽然哲学研究从来不该指望入门读物，但是还是读了。不错的一本书。

　　●迷你版政治哲学史

　　●对个人的帮助很大，但读得太慢了。。以后不玩这么着的。。

　　●读的是中文版

　　●有心讀書者不必讀此書，無心讀書而想略知一二者可奉為入門至寶，Student Guide之名不負讀者。日前在圖書館為友人尋覓政治哲學入門書時偶然發現，見其薄薄一本五十頁且大字體，然從柏拉圖一直講到尼采，是我想提供的思路，於是借來一閱，後才發現原來是大名鼎鼎的施派學人Mansfield所著。其大體沿襲《現代性的三次浪潮》，勾勒政治哲學的關鍵時刻與概念，三言兩語間即把核心處道出，短小精悍可見功力深厚，堪稱大家小書。奈何其於洛克以先深入淺出，盧梭以降點到為止，歐美民主傳統僅存目，是施派作風也是其弊端。我欲向友人揭示如今佔據主流的歐美民主傳統以外的思路，此書堪稱絕妙選擇，然我無意直接遮蔽掉對方。為歐美民主辯護的著作和施派著作總是呈現一種二元對立的樣態，實在令我好生煩惱。取今復古才是我願。

　　●曼大师的导读，颇有意味

　　●借用去年12月份看斯金纳写《马基雅维利》（牛津通识读本）时看到的一句评价，称这本书为“大师小书”毫不为过。曼斯菲尔德围绕Partisanship展开政治哲学史的脉络，很好地勾勒了从柏拉图到尼采（或海德格尔）的发展路径。其语言通俗易懂，且极好地展现了各个时代下思想家的主要观点及各自观点之间的差别。值得一提的是，这本小书很大程度上摆脱不了施特劳斯的影子（特别是其整体的架构可以被称为《现代性的三次浪潮》的重构），且具有较强的超脱于文本的解释性（但这一问题不能完全归结于曼斯菲尔德的写法，更或许是施特劳斯学派的惯有作风）。总而言之还属不可多得的好书。

　　●吃草莓的空看完了 非常流畅的一本小册子 对mansfield而言按照自然约定 现代性 自由主义 理性浪漫这些常见进路写完不是什么难事 但他还是有意克制了这一partisan的写法 ；书末推荐译本果然是清一水施派文献

　　●靠豆友翻译刷一遍

　　《A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy》读后感(一)：Contents

　　lt;A student’s guide to POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY >

　　y Harvey Mansfield

　　一览 译

　　1 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 简介

　　2 PARTISAN DIFFERENCES 党派分歧

　　3 THE ORIGIN OF NATURAL RIGHT 自然正当的起源

　　4 THE POLITICAL ANIMAL 政治动物

　　5 GODLY POLITICS 虔诚的政治

　　6 THE PERPETUAL REPUBLIC 永恒的共和国

　　7 POLITICAL SYSTEMS 政治制度

　　8 THE BOURGEOIS SELF 中产阶级的自我

　　9 THE HISTORICAL TURN 历史的转折

　　10 BIBLIOGRAPHY 参考书目

　　11 BIOGRAPHY 作者小传

　　《A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy》读后感(二)：第1章 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 简介

　　lt;A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy>

　　一览 译

　　olitical philosophy is found in great books—those by Plato, Aristotle, Lock, Rousseau and others of the highest rank—and in books by professors. You should spend much more time with the great authors than with the professors, and you should use the professors to help you understand the great authors; you should not allow yourself to be diverted or distracted from the great books by the professors. Why not go for the gold？ Why be content with the dross？ I am a professor; so take it from me that I am only a subordinate guide, one with the office of introducing you to the true guides.

　　【1】政治哲学可在由柏拉图、亚里士多德、洛克、卢梭及其他最高级的人所写的伟大的书和教授们的著作中寻得。你花在伟大作家那里的时间应该比花在教授那里的更多，但你应该使用教授的著作来帮助你理解那些伟大的作家。你不能让教授的著作把你从伟大的书中转移或者分散开来。何以不去找寻精华，却满足于糟粕？我是一位教授，因此只需将我当作次要的向导者，我的职责是引介你走向真正的指引者。

　　olitical philosophy can also be found outside the books—in actual politics—【but here we see it only in its first strivings, before it appears under its own name】. Citizens and politicians do not claim to be philosophers, whom they rather look down on as ingenious but inept. But politics and political philosophy have one thing in common, and that is argument. If you listen to the talk shows, you will hear your fellow citizens arguing passionately pro and con with advocacy and denigration, accusation and defense. Politics means taking side; it is partisan. Not only are there sides—typically liberal and conservative in our day—but also they argue against each other, so that it is liberal versus conservatives.

　　【2】政治哲学也可在书本之外寻得，即在现实政治中，【然而在这儿我们只有在它出现于它自己的名称之前的首次斗争中见识到】。公民和政治家都没有宣称自己是哲学家，他们相当看不起这有独创性却无能的哲学家。可是政治和政治哲学具有一样相同的东西，那就是辩论。如果你听谈话节目，你会听到你的同胞们以鼓吹和诋毁、指控和辩护的方式满怀激情地争论着反对和赞同之缘由。政治意味着表明立场，它是有党派性的。不仅有立场——今天代表性的立场是自由和保守——而且他们反对彼此，因此是自由派与保守派相抗衡。

　　《A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy》读后感(三)：第6章 The Perpetual Republic 永恒的共和国

　　lt;A student’s guide to POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY>

　　一览 译

　　We turn now to Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), the first modern thinker. He was the first modern because he had the amazing ambition to bring politics, and with politics all other human problems, under a greater degree of human control than had ever before been thought possible. He launched a movement of modern philosophers who, despite their disagreements with him and even their disavowals of his influence, followed him in the essential point he set forth. From now on, politics would be less chancy, less subject to shifts of fortune, and human life would be better. More than that, Machiavelli indicated that an irreversible course of progress would be set in motion so that politics would never again regress to corruption and 【partisan excess】. This new state of affairs he called the “perpetual republic,” a remedy for political ills that he characteristically first denies and then affirms to be possible, leaving to the reader the job of seeing what he means. Machiavelli thought that men could have much greater power over events if they were “wised up,” a teaching process known later, in the eighteenth century, as Enlightenment. This grand project has not worked out as intended—which we know simply from observing the horrifying totalitarian regimes that disfigured the twentieth century. Somehow the fruits of science in these regimes were poison to liberty. But even before this grievous spectacle, the Enlightenment was subjected to two great criticisms which I shall discuss presently, from Rousseau and from Nietzsche.

　　【33】 我们现在转向尼科洛•马基雅维利（1469-1527），第一个近代思想家。他是第一个现代人，因为他拥有惊人的抱负，要将政治和伴随着政治的其他人类问题纳入到一个比以往曾被思虑过的可能性更大的人类控制程度。他发起了一场近代哲人遵循其阐明的基本观点的运动，尽管他们与其观点不一致乃至否认受其影响。今后，政治将更少不确定性，更少受命运变幻的支配，并且人类生活将更美好。更甚者，马基雅维利指出一个不可逆转的进步过程将被启动，因此政治将决不再倒退至腐败和【派性过多】。这新的事物状态他称之为“永恒的共和国”，是政治弊病的一种疗救办法。这种政治弊病他典型地首先否认，然后又坚称有可能（存在），留下了让读者去理解其意思的任务。马基雅维利认为，人们对于事件能够拥有更大的权力，如果他们被教得“聪明起来”——后来这个教育过程在十八世纪被称为“启蒙”。这一宏大的工程没有按计划发展，我们从观察毁损二十世纪形象的令人惊惧的极权政制即可知晓。在这些政制中，科学的成果以某种方式成为自由的毒药。但是，甚至在这一痛苦的景象（出现）之前，启蒙就遭到来自卢梭和尼采的两种伟大的批判，这我待会就将论述。

　　ut ever since Machiavelli, the central idea expressed in modern political philosophy—agree with it or not—has been the focus of debate. Politics not only in the West but everywhere on earth has been dominated by Machiavelli’s promise of “new modes and orders,” of modernity, issued first in the two books he wrote containing, he said, “everything he knows”—The Prince and the Discourses on Livy.

　　【34】但自马基雅维利以来，现代政治哲学的核心理念——无论赞同它与否——已成为争辩的焦点。不仅在西方，而且在地球上任何地方，政治已被马基雅维利的现代性的、“新的方式和秩序”的承诺所支配。它发端于马基雅维利所写的两本书，这两本书——《君主论》和《论李维》——包含他所说的“他知道的一切”。

　　It is thus of the utmost importance to understand what modernity is, how the moderns opposed the ancients (and the Christians, who in the moderns’ view derived from the ancients), how modernity developed in stages, the history it experienced, and the crises it has suffered. Yet none of these matters are obvious in Machiavelli—as they are somewhat later in Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and Thomas Hobbes(1588-1679). Machiavelli lived during and participated in the Renaissance, a rebirth of the influence of the ancients and a time that could easily be seen as reactionary rather than progressive. He spoke of the ancients and moderns, but he called the moderns weak and supposed they could become strong only by imitating the ancients in politics, not only in humane letters as other Renaissance thinkers believed. Although Machiavelli opposed the utopian views of the Socratic tradition, referring to them as imaginary republics and principalities, with later modern philosophers he agreed that politics was the focus of human life. The modern revolution in political philosophy against the tradition was based partly on agreement with the tradition.

　　【35】因此，最重要的是理解何为现代性、现代人如何反对古代人（基督徒——在现代人的观念里，基督徒脱胎于古代人）、现代性如何分阶段的发展、其经过的历史以及已经遭遇到的危机。然而，在马基雅维利那里，没有这些事项的明显（论述），如同它们稍后在弗朗西斯•培根（1561-1626）和托马斯•霍布斯（1588-1679）那里一样。马基雅维利生活于文艺复兴时期，并参与了文艺复兴，那是一场古代人影响力的重生（的运动）和一个容易被看做保守而非革新的时期。他论及古代人和现代人，但却认为现代人虚弱无力，并以为他们惟有在政治上——不只在人文修养上，像其他文艺复兴时期的思想家认为的那样——模仿古人才能够变得更坚强有力。虽然马基雅维利反对苏格拉底传统的乌托邦观念，将其称为虚幻的共和国和君主国，但他和后来的现代哲学家一致认为政治是人类生活的中心。政治哲学的现·代·革·命反对传统，却是部分地立足于与传统一致的。

　　To imitate the ancients, Machiavelli chose the Romans rather than the Greeks, and he analyzed their actual politics as opposed to their political philosophy. For this purpose he wrote his Discourses on Livy, a loose commentary on the Roman historian Titus Livy. As you read along in that book, you realize that Machiavelli is gradually replacing Livy’s analysis with his own; these are Machiavelli’s Romans, not the Romans as they were, or as they appeared to themselves. At the same time you begin to see that the ancients were not so strong after all, for they lost out to the Christians—the ancient Romans succumbed to the modern Romans. Yet it was Christianity that Machiavelli accused as the cause of weakness in his own time. In a day when all feared the power of the Church, he was easily its boldest critic, or better to say, attacker. The Church caused weakness, he believed, by teaching men to despise worldly glory and to seek salvation in humble contemplation instead of manly virtue. Still, there must be some reason why the Christian Church was so powerful, some reason why the effeminate moderns could conquer the strong ancients. One source of power, perhaps, was in Christian propaganda, the ability of Christians to take their message directly to peoples without having to conquer a country militarily as did the Muslims. 【Machiavelli wondered whether he might not adopt this method himself, and oppose Christian ends by Christian means】. This was the germ of the Enlightenment, a conversion of peoples away from faith in God to faith in human control, led by philosophers (of the type we now call “intellectuals”) and oriented against priests.

　　【36】模仿古人，马基雅维利选择的是古罗马人而非古希腊人，并且他分析古罗马人的现实政治而不是他们的政治哲学。为此目的，他写了《论李维》，一本关于古罗马历史学家提图斯•李维的自由评论的书。当顺沿此书而读时，你会认识到马基雅维利正逐渐以自己的分析取代李维的分析，这是马基雅维利的罗马人，不是原本所是的罗马人，或不是看起来是他们自己的罗马人。同时，你会开始看到古代人究竟没那么强大，因为他们输给了基督徒。然而，基督教却被马基雅维利指控为他自己那个时代虚弱无力的原因。在所有人都害怕教会权力的时代，他轻易地成为最勇敢的批评者，或不如说，攻击者。他认为，教会导致了虚弱，因为它教导人们鄙弃世俗的荣耀和以卑贱的沉思代替男人气概的美德去寻求救赎。还有，必定存在基督教会变得如此强有力的某种原因，存在柔弱的现代人能够征服强大的古代人的某种原因。也许，力量源头之一就在于基督教的宣传，基督徒无需像穆斯林那样武力地征服一个国家，就有能力将他们的神意直接地带给各民族。【马基雅维利想知道他自己是否可以不采纳这种方法，又赞成以基督教的方式结束基督教】。这就是启蒙运动的萌芽，一场各民族从信仰上帝到信仰人类控制力的转变，它由哲学家（我们现今称为“知识分子”的类型）带领，且专以反对牧师为目的。

　　How does Machiavelli propose to improve permanently the control we humans exercise through politics？ Machiavelli examines the partisanship of politics that was so important to Plato and Aristotle. He appreciates that Christianity tried to put an end to such partisanship with belief in God, who is above parties and directs human justice to an end above itself; but he notes that partisanship continues and that Christians actually inflame it by claiming that God is on their side—not above them, but behind them. Early in the Discourses on Livy Machiavelli looks at parties in Rome and Florence very differently than did Plato, Thucydides, and Aristotle. He pays no attention to the opinions expressed by partisans but instead turns to their underlying motives, or “humors,” as he calls them, using a medical or psycho- logical term relating to the body, not the soul. Rather than follow partisan opinions to what they imply for the best regime, he undercuts them, reducing their pretensions to the actual effects that result from their talk. This is what Machiavelli meant in The Prince when he spoke of seeking the “effectual truth” rather than imagined magnifications of fact. The strategy of reducing human pretensions to motives underlying and undercutting them was imitated by later modern thinkers, and is often called “reductionism.”

　　【37】

　　The motives Machiavelli found were two opposed but not contrary humors: that of the few, or the princes, who desire to command or dominate; and that of the many, the people, who desire only not to be dominated. For Machiavelli, as opposed to Aristotle, there is no contest as to who should rule, but only a conflict between those who want to rule and those who do not want to be ruled. Neither side understands, or can be brought to understand, the other. Political men do not see why anyone could be satisfied with a life without glory, and nonpolitical types do not see the reason why they should bother. No justice can ever come about between two such humors, as the rulers always want too much and the ruled are never willing to concede enough. Obviously, then, rulers can rule only by concealing their rule from the ruled, only by a kind of fraud. Let’s not go into the dirty details of Machiavelli’s little tricks. It’s enough to say that he has a “remedy” (his word) for the problem of partisanship as he has redefined it, a remedy in which justice has been abandoned and the common good newly understood as not including those few who on occasion may need to be murdered so as to keep everyone on his toes, ready to obey. We may be intrigued and impressed by Machiavelli, but I am obliged to say it would be wrong to approve of him. The real remedy he provides is a cold bath for those—most all of us at one time or another—who are guilty of complacent moralism and find it easy to condemn others and hard to examine themselves. But doesn’t the Bible say some such thing？

　　【38】

　　（未完待续）

　　《A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy》读后感(四)：第4章 THE POLITICAL ANIMAL 政治动物

　　lt;Student's Guide to Political Philosophy>

　　一览 译

　　Aristotle (384-322 b.c.) was a student of Plato’s, and he too makes his beginning from partisan politics. But taking a different tack from his teacher, he sets forth in his Politics a mixed regime as a more attainable standard than the best regime. He has a best regime of his own, less lofty than Plato’s because he staffs it with those excelling in moral virtue rather than philosophic virtue. And in keeping with this difference, he establishes his best regime by degrees (in Books 4 to 6 of the Politics), rejecting Plato’s drastic measures for going from the ordinary to the best (such as expelling everyone over age ten from the previous society).

　　【19】亚里士多德（公元前384-322年）是柏拉图的一位学生，他亦以党派政治为起点。然而，亚里士多德采取了一个与其师不同的航向，他在其《政治学》中阐述了一种混合政制，将其作为一套比最佳政制更易获得的规范。他自己有一套最佳政制（设想），因其为之配置的是在道德德性而不是哲学德性上卓越的人，故不如柏拉图的崇高。而且伴随此种差异，亚里士多德逐渐地建立了他的最佳政制（在《政治学》四至六章中），拒绝了柏拉图为了从一般政制过渡到最佳政制的激进措施（比如将超过十岁者从先前社会驱逐出去）。

　　The mixed regime is composed of democracy and oligarchy, of the many and the few: these are the two parties to be found, open or hidden, in all societies. Ordinarily, one of these parties dominates and suppresses the other. But Aristotle notices that each party makes a claim to justice, and this claim can be elicited from its implicit or imperfect expression in partisan speeches and brought out into broad daylight by political philosophy. This is what Plato had done to criticize the ordinary regimes against the standard of the best regime, and thereby to calm the spirits and lower the expectations of zealous youths, such as Socrates’ main interlocutors in the Republic, Glaucon and Adeimantus. But Aristotle wanted to give such youths something wholesome, yet political, to do; he did not despise moderate improvements in a political situation even though such improvements could not establish the best regime. He compares the political philosopher to a gym teacher who betters the condition of average bodies as well as the best, and who, while leading the exercise of his pupils, also gets some for himself incidentally, as it were. For philosophers live in societies with non-philosophers and can benefit from their societies’ being put into sound condition. There is in Aristotle’s view something strange about the idea, apparently to be concluded from Plato’s beautiful painting of a utopian best regime, that normal life is radically insufficient. 【For how can what is normal be unhealthy？】

　　【20】混合政制由民主政体和寡头政体、多数派和少数派构成：在所有社会中，此为或明或暗皆可被发现之两类党派。一般地，党派之一支配和压制另一党派。然亚里士多德察及各党派都声称正义，且此声称能从党派性演说之含蓄或不完善的措辞探得，但政治哲学家也能使之在光天化日之下暴露。此柏拉图曾为之事，即非难普通政制违反最佳政制之规范，并从而使激情镇定且降低热心青年的期望，如《王制》中苏格拉底之主要对话者格劳孔和阿得曼特斯。但亚里士多德想要给予此类青年某些有益之物去做，甚至政治；他没有轻视政治处境的稳健改良，即便此种改良未能建立最佳政制。他将政治哲学家比作体育教师，体育教师使平常的身体状况改善得像最佳状态一样好，而且可以说，其在带领学生锻炼之时也顺带为自身取得某些益处。因哲学家伴着非哲学家生活于社会之中，且能从他们的社会存在进入健全状态获益。在亚里士多德的观点中，关于目的有陌生之物——似乎得自于柏拉图的乌托邦式最佳政制的美丽图景——即平常生活是根本不充足的。【至于平常之物怎能变得反常？】

　　A certain degree of political controversy is not only normal but natural to human beings, Aristotle supposes. He defines man as by nature a political animal. But what is a political animal？ Other animals are gregarious, bees for example, but they are not political because they do not speak or reason about what is advantageous and harmful, just and unjust, good and bad; they are confined to feeling pain and pleasure. Human beings have to reason about these matters, as they are not perfectly clear. Nature may incline us to what is good, but it does not tell us unambiguously what that is, or move us toward it without hindrance or distraction, as it does with other animals. We humans are by nature political, but there is no single, programmed way of life as with bees. Human nature includes both the freedom and the necessity to construct a regime, for we could not have freedom if nature had done everything for us.

　　【21】亚里士多德认定，对于人类，一定程度的政治争论，不仅正常，而且自然。他规定人按天性是政治动物。然何为政治动物？其他动物是群居的，比如蜜蜂，但他们并不是政治的，因为他们不会说话或推理出利与害、义与不义、好与坏分别是什么；他们只限于感觉疼痛和欲乐。人类不得不对此类事情作出推理，当他们不是完全清楚之时。天性或使我们倾向于何为善，但它并未毫无疑义地告知我们善是什么，或驱使我们毫无阻碍或心神集中地奔向善，就像它对待其他动物那样。我们人类天生是政治的，但没有如蜜蜂似的单一的、预定程序的生活方式。人类天性含有建构一种政制的自由和必要性，因为如果自然已为我们安排了一切我们将不能拥有自由。

　　Accordingly, Aristotle says that despite the naturalness of politics, we are indebted to the one who first constituted a city or society. To constitute a city one must give it a certain principle or rule for its regime. That principle founds the city and by continually inspiring it, enables it to survive; the principle of rule is held by its current rulers as well as its past founders. One cannot make a city as one can a copper pot, and let it sit there complete, without further human intervention. A political constitution is neither entirely natural nor entirely artificial. If it were entirely natural, there would be only one regime corresponding with human nature: and we would have no freedom to choose the direction of our politics. If it were entirely artificial, we would have no guide for our choice: and the only freedom would be for the first maker, who gets to impose his creation until some other maker comes along.

　　【22】据此，亚里士多德说，尽管（存在）政治的自然性，但我们（仍需）感激第一个建构城市或社会的人。为了建构城市，人们务必给予城市的政制以一定的原则或规则。那原则建构起城市且不断地激发它，使其得以存续；而这统治原则被它过去的创立者和现今的统治者所持守。任何人不能像制作一只铜壶那样制作一座城市，且让它完整地坐落在那儿而没有进一步的人为干预。一个政体既非全然自然的，亦非全然人为的。若它是全然自然的，则将只有一个政制与人类天性相应：那么我们将毫无自由去选择我们的政治方向。若它是全然人为的，则我们将没有作出选择之指南：那么将对首创者而言才有自由，他得以强加其创造于人直到其他的制作者出现时。

　　One must distinguish between what is by nature, in which we have no choice, and what is according to nature, the standard by which we choose. If there is no single regime imposed on us by nature, what is the regime we should choose that is according to nature？ The trouble, again, is that the choice is unclear, because nature seems to give support to both the typical regimes, democracy and oligarchy. Democracy is based on our natural equality, since there are many important respects in which human beings are equal; all have reason, for one. But oligarchy is based on human inequality, for which there is also ample evidence; for instance, the superiority in reason of a few over the many. Which is more important to human life, the fact that all humans have reason, or the fact that they have it very unequally？ The answer is not obvious, and the debate continues today even within our democracy as we try to decide what inequalities to allow or encourage within our general principle that “all men are created equal.” The choice of a political principle can and will be defended with reasons, but it cannot be secured with a proof sufficiently conclusive to end political debate.

　　【23】 任何人都务必区别什么是被自然和什么是据自然，在前者中，我们没有任何选择，后者则为我们作出选择的标准。若没有被自然强加于我们的单一政制，那么我们据自然应选择的政制是什么呢？麻烦仍在于选择是含混的，因为自然似乎给予两种典型政制——民主制和君主制——以支持。民主制基于我们的自然平等，因为在许多重要的方面人类都是平等的，比如，都有理性。但君主制却基于人类的不平等，这一点也有充足的证据，例如，一些人在理性上优于大多数人。哪一个对人类生活更重要，是所有人都有理性的事实，还是他们有不平等之理性的事实？答案是不明显的，而且，当我们试图决定在我们的一般原则即人生而平等之内什么不平等（是被）允许或鼓励之时，争论现今甚至在我们的民主制内继续着。一项政治原则的选择能够且将被各种理由所捍卫，但它不能被固定在一个充分决定性的证据上以此结束政治的争论。

　　What we choose is what seems best, or is in the interest of those choosing, namely, the rulers—who of course may be the many, that is, the “people” in a democracy. You might ask, why does a choice have to be a principle of rule？ Why cannot each person choose for himself without elevating his choice into a principle of rule over others—and thus imposing his will on them？ Aristotle’s answer is a challenge to our liberal practice of toleration. A choice is not a choice without a reason, he says, but when you give a reason, you say why something is good for you—and for others like yourself. Reason transforms a personal “I” into a more general “we.” So Aristotle’s dictum that man is a rational animal leads to his definition of man as a political animal who rules himself and others, not one who merely decides for himself only on a whim.

　　【24 】我们选择之物，要么是看似最好的东西，要么是为了那些选择者的利益，即统治者的利益——这当然可能是大多数，即民主制中的“人民”。您也许会问，何以一个选择必定成为统治之原则？何以不能每人为自己选择——此选择没有抬高自己盖过他人而成统治之原则以致强加自己的意志给他人？亚里士多德的答案对我们自由的宽容实践是一个挑战。亚里士多德说，选择不是没有原因之决定，但是当你给出原因，你就说明了某物为何对你有益——且像对你一样对他人亦有益。原因将私人的“我”转换成更普遍的“我们”。因此亚里士多德的格言——人是理性的动物——导向了他那人的定义，即人作为政治动物统治着自己和他人，而不是一个单靠幻想仅为自己做决定的人。

　　A principle of rule is part rational, part conventional; what is natural has to be completed by what is conventional, and what is conventional has to be guided by the natural. This twofold character of political rule is responsible for the manyness of regimes, and for what Aristotle calls the changeableness of justice. Aristotle is no relativist, but he is also no dogmatist. He is willing to allow that though the justice of the best regime is everywhere the same, justice in the actual regimes we live in varies according to circumstance and convention. One can see that American justice, say, is more democratic than justice in most places elsewhere, and if this is not the justice of the best regime, it is justice in America at present. Every actual political regime has a principle of rule and a way of life that mix nature and convention, reason and unreason. Regimes can be ranked in a hierarchy of good to bad, but in general one cannot ignore the regime and judge matters by a standard of bare or pure morality outside of the context of rule. In sum, if you want to understand politics—anywhere and at any time— you need to know what Aristotle says about the regime.

　　【25 】统治原则部分是理性的，部分是惯例的；何为自然的必被何为习俗的所完成，且何为习俗的须被自然的所引导。这政治统治的双重性是对政制的多样化负责，也是对被亚里士多德称为正义的易变性负责。亚里士多德不是相对论者，却也不是独断论者。他愿意承认，尽管最佳政制的正义到处都一样，但是我们生活于其中的实际政制的正义依据环境与习俗却不相同。人们可以看到美国的正义，说它比大部分其他地方的正义更加民主，而且倘若这不是最佳政制的正义，它就只是美国目前的正义。每一实际的政权都有一种统治原则和一种生活方式，它们糅合了自然与习俗，理性与非理性。政制虽能被排在从好到坏的等级序列中，但通常人们无法忽视政制以及依靠统治背景之外赤裸的或纯粹的道德标准来判断事态。总之，倘若你想要理解政治——无论何时何地——你都需要知道亚里士多德对政制所讲述的话。

　　《A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy》读后感(五)：第5章 Godly Politics 虔诚的政治

　　lt;A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy>

　　一览 译

　　For the Christians, to whom we now turn, this context is too earthly or this-worldly. To them, the ancient philosophers were pagans, lacking knowledge of, and faith in, the true God. The virtues the pagans praised, described, and studied were laden with attachments to this world, uninspired by faith in the next world; they were nothing but “splendid vices,” as Saint Augustine (354-430) might have said (but did not). Before continuing with brief remarks on Augustine and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), let me record for this quick trip through the tradition of political philosophy the vital contribution of Cicero (106-43 B.C.).

　　【26】 对于基督徒，我们现在转向他们，这个情景太世俗或太现世了。对他们来说，古代哲人是异教徒，缺乏对真正上帝的知识或信仰。异教徒颂扬、描绘和研究的德性充满对此世的爱慕，未受信仰来世的鼓舞，它们只不过是“辉煌的恶习”，如圣奥古斯丁（354-430）可能会说的（但并未说）。在继续简要的评述奥古斯丁和托马斯•阿奎那之前，让我经由西塞罗（公元前106-43）对政治哲学传统至关重要的贡献叙录下这段快速的旅程。

　　It was Cicero who kept the tradition alive by enabling it to pass from the Greeks to the Christian world. He brought political philosophy to Rome for a people whose leading lights were gifted in politics and rhetoric but despised anything that derived from the Greeks, whom they had defeated. To them, philosophy smacked of Greek softness. Cicero preserved political philosophy by giving it a Roman cast in his Republic, in which he adapted Plato’s dialogue of that name to a new setting. When the Greek text disappeared for a time, Augustine learned his Plato from Cicero; and then he in turn preserved the tradition by defending political philosophy from the hostility of some of the early Church Fathers, who found it to be carnal, ungodly, and misleading. Plato and Aristotle, we should note, were kept alive by Muslims, beginning with al-Farabi (878-950), and Jews, above all Maimonides (1135-1204), both of whom also defended political philosophy from the suspicion that it did not accord with the divinely inspired law of their respective communities. Jewish and Muslim political and religious traditions are often considered not to be Western, and that view of them makes sense. But from the standpoint of the philosophical tradition, one may hold that any nation having had contact with Greek philosophy or science belongs to the West. Certainly Muslim and Jewish philosophers were essential to that tradition not only for what they said but also for transmitting ancient philosophy to the medieval or modern West (in the political or geographical sense).

　　【27】 正是西塞罗使传统能够从希腊人传递到基督徒的世界，（从而）保存了传统的活力。他将政治哲学带到了罗马，因为罗马民族的领导人物虽具有政治和修辞的天赋，但却鄙视源于他们击败了的希腊人的一切东西。对他们来说，哲学带有希腊人柔弱性的味道。西塞罗通过在他的《共和国》中给予政治哲学一个罗马的模式保存了它，在书中他使柏拉图的同名对话适应于一个新的场景。当希腊文本消失的一段时间，奥古斯丁从西塞罗学习他的柏拉图，然后反过来通过保护政治哲学免受一些具有敌意的早期教父之攻击而保存了这一传统，那些教父认为政治哲学是现世的、不虔诚的和误人的。我们还必须注意到，柏拉图和亚里士多德被穆斯林和犹太人保存着活力，（前者）始于阿尔法拉比（878-950），（后者）首要的是迈蒙尼德（1135-1204），他们俩也都保护着政治哲学免于遭受与他们各自共同体的神圣启示律法不一致的疑忌。犹太人和穆斯林的政治和宗教传统经常被认为不是西方的，人们的这一观点有道理。但从政治哲学传统的立场看，人们可以认为任何民族曾与希腊哲学或科学具有联系的都属于西方。当然，穆斯林和犹太人的哲学家是那传统必不可少的，不仅因为他们讲述了什么，而且因为（他们）传递古代哲学给中世纪或近代西方（在政治或地理的意义上）。

　　Augustine, like Plato, looked down on partisan politics. It was not that both men despised worldly goods or useful political solutions, but rather that they were concerned to emphasize the limitations of such goods and solutions. 【went so far as to say that kingdoms are nothing but grand larcenies, and ordinary larcenies nothing but small kingdoms】. Alexander the Great’s conquest of the world with a huge fleet is not essentially different from a pirate’s robbery made with a single ship. No responsible citizen or statesman could take such a view, as by itself it might lead to despondency or despair, and perhaps it is not even true. But Augustine wanted to make the point that moral virtue, contrary to Aristotle’s glowing picture, is always tainted with human self-interest, and always in need of God’s grace. Just as for Plato the only true virtue is philosophic, so for Augustine, true virtue is Christian. But whereas philosophic virtue is accessible only to a few, Christian virtue is open to everyone (though some know it better), and it is an ever-present possibility not dependent on the political situation of the moment.

　　【28】 像柏拉图一样，奥古斯丁轻视党派政治。这并不是说两人都鄙视俗世的善或实用的政治解决方法，而是说他们注重于强调这样的善和解决方法之局限性。【奥古斯丁竟至于说王国不过是大贼窝，普通贼窝即为小王国】。亚历山大大帝以一队舰队征服世界与海盗以一条船实施抢劫没有本质上的区别。任何负责任的公民或政治家都不会采取这一观点，因为它自身可能导致沮丧或绝望，而且它或许还不是真实的。但奥古斯丁想提出道德德性的观点——与亚里士多德的鲜明图景相反——始终受到人之私欲的沾染，而且始终需要上帝的恩典。正如对柏拉图而言，唯一的真实德性是哲学的，对于奥古斯丁来说，真实的德性是基督教的。但是，哲学的德性只是少数人可以取得，而基督教的德性却是向每一个人开放的（虽然有人更好地理解它），并且它是不依赖于某一时刻之政治情势的永恒可能性。

　　To explain this possibility, Augustine developed his famous doctrine of the two cities, the earthly city and the city of God. Neither is any particular city or nation (for example, the Jewish people); the earthly city is any city, and the city of God is the community of the worshippers of the true God. The latter exists in heaven but also exists on earth to the extent that men follow Christ. It is not utopian, a city only in speech like Plato’s best regime in the Republic. Nor do the two cities necessarily conflict: they may be united under a Christian prince. The earthly city, however, is tainted with original sin and lives according to the “flesh” (in the biblical sense). It is counteracted and perfected by the human conscience, the conscience to be found in all men, good and wicked, that awakens in the soul when men do wrong. Human partisanship arising from sin has its own correction, both natural and divine, in the conscience.

　　【29 】为了阐明这种可能性，奥古斯丁发展出他著名的双城学说：地上之城和上帝之城。两者都不是任何特殊的城邦或民族（例如，犹太民族），地上之城代表任何城邦，而上帝之城是真正上帝之皈依者的共同体。后者存在于天堂，但就跟随基督的人们来说也存在于地上。它不是乌托邦的，即如柏拉图《王制》中的最佳政制一样只是话语中的城邦。双城也不冲突：他们可能被基督教的王合为一体。然而，地上之城受到原罪的沾染且依靠“肉体”（圣经的意义上）生活。它被人们做错事时在灵魂中觉醒的良心所妨碍和完善，这良心在所有的人——善良的和邪恶的——那里都找得到。从罪中产生的人类党派性在良心中有它自己的修正（之途）——自然的和神圣的。

　　With Thomas Aquinas, we enter the millennium just passed, the one containing his great summation of the tradition (his books, the Summa Theologiae and the Summa

　　Contra Gentiles, were summations; he also wrote commentaries on Aristotle and the Bible, among other things), and the great revolt of modern philosophers against the tradition. Thomas was canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church in 1323 and the study of his doctrine was enjoined by Pope Leo XIII in 1879. “Thomism,” as it is known, acquired a special if not quite official status, though today in Catholic thought its reign is weakened and contested. Yet, despite its success, it was denounced by the bishop of Paris in 1277 soon after it first appeared.

　　【30】 跟随托马斯•阿奎那，我们进入刚刚过去的一千年，这一千年包括他对传统的伟大总结（他的著作——《神学大全》和《反异教大全》——在其他著作中是总结性的，他也写下了关于亚里士多德和圣经的评注），以及现代哲人背弃传统的伟大反叛。1323年，天主教会册封托马斯为圣徒，1879年，教皇利奥十三世责令（需遵从）其学说之成果。如已所知，“托马斯主义”取得了一种特殊的、即便不太正统的地位，虽然在现今的天主教思想中它的统治地位受到削弱和争夺。然而，尽管它有成就，但在它首次问世后不久的1277年就受到巴黎主教的谴责。

　　The controversy arose from Thomas’s introduction of Aristotle’s philosophy, passed along from Arab philosophers, particularly Averroes (1126-1198). To the bishop it seemed that Aquinas and his cohort were denying or endangering the truth of Christian revelation by borrowing from—even relying on—a pagan philosopher (whose works were learned of from non-Christian philosophers who did the same). Is not philosophy, the activity of human reason, based on human vanity, on the vain presumption of the sufficiency of human reason without divine revelation？ Aquinas answered that it is not. Nature, he thought, was created by God in such a way that its order can be understood by human reason unassisted by Christian revelation. Nature is open to philosophy, and its greatest knower happened to be the pagan Aristotle, whom Aquinas calls simply “the philosopher.” Unassisted human reason cannot know everything that humans can know; it cannot know the greatest truths of the divinity of Christ and His promise of salvation. But just as God’s grace adds to nature, Christian truth completes natural truth without changing it. Christians need not be wary of philosophy; they can welcome it without fear that it will lead necessarily to atheism or to belief in false gods like the Delphic oracle whom Socrates pretended to obey.

　　【31】争议起源于托马斯通过顺着阿拉伯哲人尤其是阿维洛伊（1126-1198）介绍亚里士多德哲学。这对主教而言，看来阿奎那及其同党通过借助——甚至依靠——一个异教哲人（据悉，其著作从做同样之事的非基督教哲人而来）正在否认或危害基督教启示的真理。难道哲学——人类理性的活动——不是建立在人类的虚荣心以及没有神圣启示人类理性（也已）自足的自负假定之上？阿奎那回答说它不是。他认为，自然被上帝以这样一种方式创造出来，那么它的法则就能够在没有基督教启示的帮助下被人类理性所理解。自然对哲学开放，并且它最伟大的理解者恰巧是阿奎那简称之为“哲人”的异教徒亚里士多德。单单人类理性无法知道人类能够知道的一切，它无法知道基督的神性及其拯救承诺的最伟大真理。但正如上帝的恩典加之于自然，基督教的真理成就自然的真理而没有改变它。基督教徒无需警惕哲学；他们能够欢迎它，而无需畏惧它将必然导致无神论或信仰错误的诸神——就像苏格拉底假装遵从德尔斐神谕那样。

　　For politics, Aquinas expounded a doctrine of natural law that soon acquired authority as the greatest expression of that view. Natural law in political philosophy is not to be found in the Greeks but was first seen in Cicero’s writings, where it is attributed, 【with some stretching】, to the Stoics. Similar to the natural justice or natural right of which Plato and Aristotle spoke, it is not identical. Whereas natural justice takes effect through the regime, natural law sets the basis for regimes and so precedes the regime. Natural justice is more flexible, and therefore runs a greater risk of seeming relativistic than does natural law. In Aquinas’s version, natural law, too, has a certain flexibility; it must always be applied, or promulgated, in human law. Aquinas spoke of natural justice as well as natural law, attempting perhaps to combine them. Yet on the whole Aquinas’s natural law is stricter than Aristotle’s natural justice, and consequently less supple politically. Aristotle did not speak of a conscience in all, nor of a universal natural inclination to virtue, as did Aquinas. In comparison with Aristotle, what Aquinas gains in universality he loses in political prudence. His political philosophy is necessarily affected, one could say endowed, by the superpolitical character of Christianity, which in other Christians, but not in him, produced indifference to worldly politics.

　　【32】 对于政治，阿奎那详述了自然法学说，该学说作为那种观点的最伟大表述很快获得权威（地位）。政治哲学中的自然法不是在古希腊被发现，而是在西塞罗的著作中才第一次出现，在这些著作中，【伴随着某些曲解】，它被认为属于斯多葛派。与柏拉图和亚里士多德所说的自然正义或自然正当相似，自然法不是同一的。自然正义通过政制起作用，然而自然法是为政制奠定基础并由此先于政制。自然正义更灵活，因此比起自然法，它冒着更大的看似相对主义的风险。在阿奎那的说法中，自然法也具有一定的灵活性，它必须总是在人类法中被应用或被颁布。阿奎那既谈及自然法也谈及自然正义，可能试图使他们相结合。但是总地来说阿奎那的自然法比亚里士多德的自然正义更严格，因此更少政治灵活性。在一切著述中，亚里士多德都不像阿奎那一样谈及良心和谈及对德性的普遍的自然的倾向。同亚里士多德比较，阿奎那获得了普遍性却失去了政治审慎。他的政治哲学必然受到基督精神的超政治性之影响（可以说被赋予），这种性质在其他基督徒中，而不是在阿奎那那里，造成了对世俗政治的漠不关心。