經濟學的最後基礎_第07章一元論在認識論上的根源
来自: 无端(勾萌绝朕,枯槁在前。)
The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science 經濟學的最後基礎 Ludwig von Mises 7 The Epistemological Roots of Monism 第7章 一元論在認識論上的根源 1. The Nonexperimental Character of Monism 一、一元論的非經驗性 Man's world view is, as has been pointed out, deterministic. Man cannot conceive the idea of an absolute nothing or of something originating out of nothing and invading the universe from without. The human concept of the universe comprehends everything that exists. The human concept of time knows neither of any beginning nor of any end of the flux of time. All that is and will be was potentially present in something that was already existing before. What happens was bound to happen. The full interpretation of every event leads to a regressus in infinitum. 前面曾經提到,人的世界觀,是宿命論的。人不能想像到一個絕對的無,也即不能想像從無生出某些東西,而這些東西從宇宙以外進到宇宙裏面。人的宇宙概念,包括存在的一切。人的時間概念,是無始無終的。現在的和將來的都潛存於原已存在的事物中。發生的事情都是必然要發生的。要充分解釋每一事件就得回溯到無窮盡。 This unbroken determinism, which is the epistemological starting point of all that the experimental natural sciences do and teach, is not derived from experience; it is a priori.[1] Logical positivists realize the aprioristic character of determinism and, faithful to their dogmatic empiricism, passionately reject determinism. But they are not aware of the fact that there is no logical or empirical basis whatever for the essential dogma of their creed, their monistic interpretation of all phenomena. What the empiricism of the natural sciences shows is a dualism of two spheres about the mutual relations of which we know very little. There is, on the one hand, the orbit of external events about which our senses convey information to us, and there is, on the other hand, the orbit of invisible and intangible thoughts and ideas. If we not only assume that the faculty to develop what is called mind was already potentially inwrought in the original structure of things that existed from eternity on and was brought to fruition by the succession of events that the nature of these things necessarily produced, but also that in this process there was nothing that could not be reduced to physical and chemical events, we are resorting to deduction from an arbitrary theorem. There is no experience that could either support or refute such a doctrine. 這種連續不斷的宿命論,是實驗的自然科學所作、所教的認識論的出發點,可是,它並不是來自經驗,而是先驗的[1]。邏輯實證論者了解宿命論的先驗性,又因爲忠於教條式的經驗主義,他們激烈反對宿命論,但是,他們沒有察覺到:他們信念中的主要教條——對於一切現象的一元論的解釋,沒有任何邏輯的或經驗的基礎。自然科學的經驗主義,所展示的是二元論,這個二元的相互關係,我們知道的非常少。一方面是外在事物的常軌,爲我們的諸感官所可感受的;另一方面是無形的、看不見的思想與觀念的常軌。如果我們不僅是假定,「發展到叫做心靈的那個能力,是原已潛存於從無始的過去即已存在的事物的原始結構中,再經這些事物的性能所必然產生的事件之連績而達於完成」,而且我們也假定,「在這個過程中,沒有什麼東西不可以還原到物理的與化學的結果」,那麼,我們就是從一個武斷的命題來演繹。對於這樣的一種學說,沒有經驗可以支持或反對。 All that the experimental natural sciences up to now have taught us about the mind-body problem is that there prevails some connection between a man's faculty of thinking and acting and the conditions of his body. We know that injuries to the brain can seriously impair or even entirely destroy man's mental abilities and that death, the total disintegration of the physiological functions of the living tissues, invariably blots out those activities of the mind that can be noticed by other peoples' minds. But we know nothing about the process that produces within the body of a living man thoughts and ideas. Almost identical external events that impinge on the human mind result with different people and with the same people at different moments in different thoughts and ideas. Physiology does not have any method that could adequately deal with the phenomena of the mind's reaction to stimuli. The natural sciences are unable to employ their methods for the analysis of the meaning a man attaches to any event of the external world or to other peoples' meaning. The materialistic philosophy of La Mettrie and Feuerbach and the monism of Haeckel are not natural science; they are metaphysical doctrines aiming at an explanation of something that the natural sciences could not explore. So are the monistic doctrines of positivism and neopositivism. 截至現在爲止,關於身心問題,實驗的自然科學所已告訴我們的,只是說,人的思想和行爲能力與他的身體情況,其間有些關係而已,我們知道,腦筋受了傷害,就會嚴重地損傷或甚至完全毀滅人的心智活動;死,是生理機能的完全解體,一定會消掉別人的心智所能察覺到的那些心智活動。但是,關於在身體內部產生思想與觀念的這個過程,我們一無所知。幾乎完全相同的外界事象,對於不同的人,或在不同的時間對於同一個人,常會引起不同的思想與觀念。生理學沒有任何方法可以適當處理人心對於刺激的反應這個現象。自然科學不能用它們自己的方法,來分析一個人對於外界任何事象所附加的意義。拉美特理(La Mettrie)和費爾巴哈(Feuerbach)的唯物哲學,以及赫克爾(Haeckel)的一元論,都不是自然科學,而是形而上學,其目的在於,解釋自然科學所不能探究的事情。實證論與新實證論也是如此。 In establishing these facts one does not intend to ridicule the doctrines of materialistic monism and to qualify them as nonsense. Only the positivists consider all metaphysical speculations as nonsense and reject any kind of apriorism. Judicious philosophers and scientists have admitted without any reservation that the natural sciences have not contributed anything that could justify the tenets of positivism and materialism and that all these schools of thought are teaching is metaphysics, and a very unsatisfactory brand of metaphysics. 對於這些事實的認定,並不是要嘲笑唯物的一元論的那些學說,而把它們形容?胡說。只有寊證論者把所有的形而上學的思考看作胡說,而拒絕任何先驗論。腦子?醒的哲學家和科學家,毫無保留地承認:自然科學當中,沒有任何東西可以用來支持實證論與唯物論的?義,而這些思想派別所?的,都是形而上學,而且是形而上學當中,最難叫人滿意的一個品種。 The doctrines that claim for themselves the epithet of radical or pure empiricism and stigmatize all that is not experimental natural science as nonsense fail to realize that the allegedly empiricist nucleus of their philosophy is entirely based upon deduction from an unwarranted premise. All that the natural sciences can do is to trace back all the phenomena that can be—directly or indirectly—perceived by the human senses to an array of ultimately given data. One may reject a dualistic or pluralistic interpretation of experience and assume that all these ultimate data might in the future development of scientific knowledge be traced back to a common source. But such an assumption is not experimental natural science. It is a metaphysical interpretation. And so is the further assumption that this source will also appear as the root out of which all mental phenomena evolved. 凡是把自己稱之爲徹底的或純粹的經驗主義,而把實驗的自然科學以外的學問都斥之爲胡說的那些學說,卻不了解所謂經驗主義的理論核心完全是建立於一個不能成立的前提上面。凡是自然科學所能作的,只是把人的感官所可直接或間接察覺的一切現象,追溯到一些最後的設定。我們固然可以反對對於經驗給以二元或多元的解釋,而認爲所有的那些最後設定,在將來的科學發展中,可能追溯到一個共同的原因。但是,像這樣的一個假說,就不是實驗的自然科學,它是形而上學的解釋。如果再進一步說,這個原因也即一切心靈現象所由發生的根源,那也是形而上學的解釋。 On the other hand, all the attempts of philosophers to demonstrate the existence of a supreme being by mundane methods of thinking, either by aprioristic reasoning or drawing inferences from certain observed qualities of visible and tangible phenomena, have led to an impasse. But we have to realize that it is no less impossible to demonstrate logically by the same philosophical methods the nonexistence of God or to reject the thesis that God created the X from which everything the natural sciences deal with is derived and the further thesis that the inexplicable powers of the human mind came and come into being by reiterated divine intervention in the affairs of the universe. The Christian doctrine according to which God creates the soul of every individual cannot be refuted by discursive reasoning as it cannot be proved in this way. There is neither in the brilliant achievements of the natural sciences nor in aprioristic reasoning anything that could contradict Du Bois-Reymond's Ignorabimus. 另—方面,哲學家們想以凡人的思想方法(或以先驗的推理,或以經驗的推證)來論說一種超人的存在,這是一條走不通的思路。相反地,我們也得了解:凡是想以我們凡人的思想方法,來邏輯地論證上帝的不存在,或反對上帝創造萬物之說,也同樣是不可能的。關於肯定上帝創造每一個體的靈魂的基督教義,既不能以推理來反對,也不能以推理來證明。在自然科學的輝煌成就中,或在先驗的推理中,都與杜步瑞蒙(Du Bois-Reymond)所說的「對於生命的由來永不了解」(Ignorabimus),沒有任何衝突之處。 There cannot be such a thing as scientific philosophy in the sense that logical positivism and empiricism ascribe to the adjective "scientific." The human mind in its search for knowledge resorts to philosophy or theology precisely because it aims at an explanation of problems that the natural sciences cannot answer. Philosophy deals with things beyond the limits that the logical structure of the human mind enables man to infer from the exploits of the natural sciences. 哲學就是哲學,絕沒有像邏輯實證論與經驗主義所形容的「科學的」哲學。人心藉哲學或神學來尋求知識,正因爲它要解釋自然科學所不能解釋的那些問題。哲學所處理的東西,超出了自然科學的範圍。 ---------- [1] "La science est déterministe; elle l'est a priori; elle posture le déterminisme, parce que sans lui elle ne pourrait être." Henri Poincaré, Dernières pensées (Paris, 1913), P. 244. [1] "La science est déterministe; elle l'est a priori; elle posture le déterminisme, parce que sans lui elle ne pourrait être." Henri Poincaré, Dernières pensées (Paris, 1913), P. 244. The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science 經濟學的最後基礎 Ludwig von Mises 7 The Epistemological Roots of Monism 第7章 一元論在認識論上的根源 2. The Historical Setting of Positivism 二、實證論的歷史背景 One does not satisfactorily characterize the problems of human action if one says that the natural sciences have—up to now, at least—failed to provide anything for their elucidation. A correct description of the situation would have to stress the fact that the natural sciences do not even have the mental tools to become aware of the existence of such problems. Ideas and final causes are categories for which there is no room left in the system and in the structure of the natural sciences. Their terminology lacks all the concepts and words that could provide an adequate orientation in the orbit of the mind and of action. And all their achievements, however marvelous and beneficial they are, do not even superficially touch the essential problems of philosophy with which metaphysical and religious doctrines try to cope. 如果有人說,自然科學,至少截至現在爲止,對於人的行爲問題之闡釋,還沒有提供任何貢獻,這種說法,並沒有把人的行爲問題的特徵表明出來。這種情況的正確描述,應該是強調地說:自然科學連察知這類問題的思想工具都沒有。在自然科學的體系與結構中,根本沒有觀念與最後原因這些元範的地位。自然科學的術語也沒有關於心靈與行爲的一切概念與詞彙。而且它們的成就,儘管是如何地叫人驚奇而有用,但對於形而上學與宗教教義所要處理的一些哲學問題,甚至連膚淺的接觸都沒有。 The development of the almost generally accepted opinion to the contrary can easily be explained. All metaphysical and religious doctrines contained, besides their theological and moral teachings, also untenable theorems about natural events that, with the progressive development of the natural sciences, could be not only refuted but frequently even ridiculed. Theologians and metaphysicians stubbornly tried to defend theses, only superficially connected with the core of their moral message, which to the scientifically trained mind appeared as most absurd fables and myths. The secular power of the churches persecuted scientists who had the courage to deviate from such teachings. The history of science in the orbit of Western Christianity is a history of conflicts in which the doctrines of science were always better founded than those of the official theology. Meekly the theologians had finally in every controversy to admit that their adversaries were right and that they themselves were wrong. The most spectacular instance of such an inglorious defeat—perhaps not of theology as such, but certainly of the theologians—was the outcome of the debates concerning evolution. 相反的意見之所以普遍發展,是很容易解釋的。所有形而上學的與宗教的學說,除棹它們的神學與道德教條以外,還包括些站不住的關於自然事象的命題;而這些命題,由於自然科學的進步,不僅會被駁倒,而且還常常遭人嘲笑。神學家與形而上學者,只是很庸淺地就他們道德使命的核心而頑強辯護。這些辯護,從一個有科學訓練的人看來,都是些荒唐的神話。在西方基督教社會中的科學發展史,是科學理論與官方神學的衝突史,在這個衝突中,總歸是前者佔優勢。每一爭論的結果,總是神學家承認對方是對的,自己是錯的。其中最難堪的一次失敗(也許不是神學的失敗,而是神學家的失敗)就是關於進化論的爭辯的結果。 Thus originated the illusion that all the issues theology used to deal with could be one day fully and irrefutably solved by the natural sciences. In the same way in which Copernicus and Galilei had substituted a better theory of the celestial movements for the untenable doctrines supported by the Church, one expected future scientists to succeed in replacing all other "superstitious" doctrines by "scientific" truth. If one criticizes the rather naive epistemology and philosophy of Comte, Marx, and Haeckel, one ought not to forget that their simplism was the reaction to the even more simplicist teachings of what is today labeled Fundamentalism, a dogmatism that no wise theologian would dare to adopt any longer. 由於這個根源,於是有了一個錯覺:以爲神學所處理的一切問題,總有一天會由自然科學給以充分解決。哥白尼(Copernicus)和伽利略曾經以較好的天體運動說,代替了教會所主張的站不住的學說,於是,有人以爲,將來的科學家也會同樣地以「科學的」真理來代替其他的一切「迷信的」學說。如果你要批評孔德(Comte)、馬克斯(Marx)和赫克爾(Haeckel)諸人那些頗爲天真的認識論與哲學,你就應當不忘記這些認識論與哲學之過份簡單,正是今天叫做「原教旨主義」(fundamentalism)[2]的那種更簡單的教義之反動。而「原教旨主義」,爲聰明的神學家再也不敢採信的教條主義。 Reference to these facts in no way excuses, still less justifies, the crudities of contemporary positivism. It merely aims at a better understanding of the intellectual environment in which positivism developed and became popular. Unfortunately, the vulgarity of positivistic fanatics is now on the point of provoking a reaction that may seriously obstruct mankind's intellectual future. Again, as in the late Roman Empire, various sects of idolatry are flourishing. There are spiritualism, voodoo, and similar doctrines and practices, many of them borrowed from the cults of primitive tribes. There is a revival of astrology. Our age is not only an age of science. It is also an age in which the most absurd superstitions are finding credulous adepts. 我們提到這些事實,並不是原諒現代實驗論的那些粗疏理論,更不是爲它們辯護,而只是要大家比較清楚地了解:實證論之所以發展而且流行,是因爲有這樣的知識環境。不幸地,實證論的狂熱信徒們的粗鄙見解,現在又激發了一個反動,而這一反動可能會嚴重地妨礙人類知識的前途。正像羅馬帝國的末期,各種偶像崇拜的宗派又復興起。精靈邪說、巫毒教(Voodoo)等等,不一而足,其中有些是來自原始部落的迷信。占星卜卦的勾當又復盛行。我們這個時代,雖然說是個科學時代,可是,在這個時代當中,也有一些最荒謬的迷信正在物色信徒。 ---------- [2] 譯者註:二十世紀初期,美國的基督新教掀起了一個運動,反抗基督教的現代化主義,他們強調聖經無誤。所謂無誤,不僅是指道德與信仰方面的事情,而且也包括聖母童貞受孕、基督死而復活、贖罪、再臨這一類的記載。這個運動的宗旨,時人稱之「原教旨主義」。 The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science 經濟學的最後基礎 Ludwig von Mises 7 The Epistemological Roots of Monism 第7章 一元論在認識論上的根源 3. The Case of the Natural Sciences 三、自然科學的情境 In view of these disastrous effects of a beginning excessive reaction against the excrescences of positivism, there is need to repeat again that the experimental methods of the natural sciences are the only ones adequate for the treatment of the problems involved. Without discussing anew the endeavors to discredit the category of causality and determinism, we have to emphasize the fact that what is wrong with positivism is not what it teaches about the methods of the empirical natural sciences, but what it asserts about matters concerning which—up to now at least—the natural sciences have not succeeded in contributing any information. The positivistic principle of verifiability as rectified by Popper[2] is unassailable as an epistemological principle of the natural sciences. But it is meaningless when applied to anything about which the natural sciences cannot supply any information. 實證論的狂熱信徒之過份誇張,激起了過份的反動。鑒於這一反動所將引起的一些惡果,我們又不得不重覆地說,自然科學的試驗法只是處理其有關問題的適當方法。這裏,不再重新檢討那些否認因果律與宿命論這個元範的企圖,我們必須強調一個事實,即:實證論的錯誤,不在於它關於自然科學的方法所教的那些東西,而在於它關於自然科學不能(至少到現在爲止)有任何貢獻的事情所說的那些話。經過了薄帕爾(Popper)修正的實證論的證實原則[3],作爲自然科學的一個認識論的原則,那是無懈可擊的。但是,一旦把它應用到自然科學不能供給任何消息的事情上面,那就無意義了。 It is not the task of this essay to deal with the claims of any metaphysical doctrine or with metaphysics as such. As the nature and logical structure of the human mind is, many a man is not satisfied with ignorance concerning any problem and does not easily acquiesce in the agnosticism in which the most fervent search for knowledge results. Metaphysics and theology are not, as the positivists pretend, products of an activity unworthy of Homo sapiens, remnants of mankind's primitive age that civilized people ought to discard. They are a manifestation of man's unappeasable craving for knowledge. No matter whether this thirsting after omniscience can ever be fully gratified or not, man will not cease to strive after it passionately.[3] Neither positivism nor any other doctrine is called upon to condemn a religious or metaphysical tenet that does not contradict any of the reliable teachings of the a priori and of experience. 這本論文並不是要檢討任何形而上學的論點或形而上學本身。人心的性質與其邏輯結構既然如此,許多人是不會滿足於對任何問題的無知,不可知論(agnosticism)不是一般人易於默認的,而是最熱烈的求知慾所求得的結局。形而上學與神學,並不是像實證論者所說的,是初民無價值活動的成果、人類原始時代的殘餘,而爲文明人所應放棄的。形而上學與神學,是人的忍不住的求知慾的一番表現。不管這種慾求——無所不知的慾求——能否充分滿足,人總歸是有這種熱情不停地去追求的。宗教的,或形而上學的教義,只要不與任何可信賴的學說(先驗的與經驗的)相衝突,我們就不能靠實證論或其他任何學說來譴責它。 ---------- [2] See above, p. 69. [3] 見第四章第八節。 [4] 譯者註:對於behaviorism這個名詞,Darrian Apple Sweetser有一篇最簡明的介紹,刊在Julius Gould and William L. Kolb (ed.) Dictionary of the Social Sciences (1964). [3] "Lhomme fait de la métaphysique comme il respire, sans le vouloir et surtout sans s'en douter la plupart du temps." E. Meyerson, De l'explication dans les sciences (Paris, 1927), p. 20. The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science 經濟學的最後基礎 Ludwig von Mises 7 The Epistemological Roots of Monism 第7章 一元論在認識論上的根源 4. The Case of the Sciences of Human Action 四、行爲學科的情境 However, this essay does not deal with theology or metaphysics and the rejection of their doctrines by positivism. It deals with positivism's attack upon the sciences of human action. 可是,這本論文並不討論神學或形而上學,也不討論實證論的排斥神學與形而上學,它只討論實證論對於人的行爲學科之攻擊。 The fundamental doctrine of positivism is the thesis that the experimental procedures of the natural sciences are the only method to be applied in the search for knowledge. As the positivists see it, the natural sciences, entirely absorbed by the more urgent task of elucidating the problems of physics and chemistry, have in the past neglected and may also in the near future neglect to pay attention to the problems of human action. But, they add, there cannot be any doubt that once the men imbued with a scientific outlook and trained in the exact methods of laboratory work have the leisure to turn toward the study of such "minor" issues as human behavior, they will substitute authentic knowledge of all these matters for the worthless palaver that is now in vogue. "Unified science" will solve all the problems involved and will inaugurate a blissful age of "social engineering" in which all human affairs will be handled in the same satisfactory way in which modern technology supplies electric current. 實證論的基本教義是說,自然科學的一些試驗程序,是尋求知識的唯一方法。照實證論者的想法,自然科學把全力用在物理學與化學方面,因爲研究理化方面的問題是較迫切的工作。因此,自然科學沒有注意到人的行爲問題,過去如此,最近的將來也會如此。但是,他們又說,毫無疑問地,一旦到了人們習於科學的見地與實驗室的精確方法的時候,他們就有了閒暇轉過來研究人的行爲這類的「次要的」問題。他們將以有根據的知識,來代替目前風行的無價值空談。「統合的科學」將會解決一切有關的問題,而一個屬於「社會工程」的極樂時代,將會從此開始,在這個時代中,一切人事的處理,正同現代技術之供給電流那樣地叫人滿意。 Some rather significant steps on the way to this result, pretend the less cautious harbingers of this creed, have already been made by behaviorism (or, as Neurath preferred to call it, behavioristics). They point to the discovery of tropisms and to that of conditioned reflexes. Progressing further with the aid of the methods that brought about these achievements, science will one day be able to make good all the promises of positivism. It is a vain conceit of man to presume that his conduct is not entirely determined by the same impulses that determine the behavior of plants and of dogs. 抱持這個信念的先驅們,其中比較粗心的就認爲「唯動作論」[4](behaviorism,用Neurath的稱謂就是behavioristics)已經向這個方向開步走了。他們所指的是生物學的向性(tropisms)與條件反射(conditioned reflexes)這一類的發現。藉助於獲致這些成就的方法而再向前發展,總有一天,科學會使實證論的一切希望一一現實。決定人的行爲的那些衝動,與決定植物與狗的行爲的那些衝動,並不完全相同。這種想法,自他們看來,只是人的妄自尊大。 Against all this impassioned talk we have to stress the hard fact that the natural sciences have no intellectual tool to deal with ideas and with finality. 針對所有這些狂熱的說法,我們必須強調這個確定的事實:自然科學沒有處理觀念與最後原因的知識工具。 An assured positivist may hope that one day physiologists may succeed in describing in terms of physics and chemistry all the events that resulted in the production of definite individuals and in modifying their inborn substance during their lives. We may neglect raising the question whether such knowledge would be sufficient to explain fully the behavior of animals in any situation they may have to face. But it cannot be doubted that it would not enable the student to deal with the way in which a man reacts to external stimuli. For this human reaction is determined by ideas, a phenomenon the description of which is beyond the reach of physics, chemistry, and physiology. There is no explanation in terms of the natural sciences of what causes hosts of people to remain faithful to the religious creed in which they were brought up and others to change their faith, why people join or desert political parties, why there are different schools of philosophy and different opinions concerning a multiplicity of problems. 自負的實證論者也許希望,有一天生理學家會用物理學與化學的知識,來處理形成各個人之天性的那些因素。我們不必追究,這一類的知識會不會充分解釋其他動物在任何情況下的行爲,但是,這類知識不能解釋人類對於外來刺激的如何反應,則是不容置疑的。因爲人的反應,決定於觀念:觀念這個現象,不是物理學、化學和生理學所可描述的。什麼原因使得許多人終生忠於他們的宗教信仰,而另外一些人改變他們的信仰,爲什麼有人加入或返出政黨,爲什麼有許多不同的哲學派別,而對於許多問題有不同的意見,這都不是自然科學所能解釋的。 The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science 經濟學的最後基礎 Ludwig von Mises 7 The Epistemological Roots of Monism 第7章 一元論在認識論上的根源 5. The Fallacies of Positivism 五、實證論的一些謬見 Consistently aiming at an improvement of the conditions under which men have to live, the nations of Western and Central Europe and their scions settled in overseas territories have succeeded in developing what is called —and more often smeared as—Western bourgeois civilization. Its foundation is the economic system of capitalism, the political corollary of which is representative government and freedom of thought and interpersonal communication. Although continually sabotaged by the folly and the malice of the masses and the ideological remnants of the precapitalistic methods of thinking and acting, free enterprise has radically changed the fate of man. It has reduced mortality rates and prolonged the average length of life, thus multiplying population figures. It has, in an unprecedented way, raised the standard of living of the average man in those nations that did not too severely impede the acquisitive spirit of enterprising individuals. All people, however fanatical they may be in their zeal to disparage and to fight capitalism, implicitly pay homage to it by passionately clamoring for the products it turns out. 西歐與中歐的邦國和這些邦國在海外領土的人民及其後裔,一貫地以改善生活環境爲目的,因而發展了所謂西方資産階級的文明(這個名稱通常含有污衊的意味)。這個文明的基礎是資本主義經濟制度,而其政治後果就是代議政制、思想自由和人際的交通自由等等。儘管不斷地受到大衆的愚昧與惡意,以及資本主義以前的思想殘餘的阻撓,自由企業已經大大地改變了人的命運。它減低了死亡率,延長了人的生命期,因而使人口倍增;它以空前的方法,提高了那些對於企業精神沒有嚴重妨礙的國邦的一般人民的生活水準。所有的人,不管他們如何污衊與攻擊資本主義,總不免因羨求它的產品而暗地贊賞它。 The wealth capitalism has brought to mankind is not an achievement of a mythical force called progress. Neither is it an achievement of the natural sciences and of the application of their teachings for the perfection of technology and therapeutics. No technological and therapeutical improvements can be practically utilized if the material means for its utilization have not been previously made available by saving and capital accumulation. The reason why not everything about the production and the use of which technology provides information can be made accessible to everybody is the insufficiency of the supply of capital accumulated. What transformed the stagnant conditions of the good old days into the activism of capitalism was not changes in the natural sciences and in technology, but the adoption of the free enterprise principle. The great ideological movement that started with the Renaissance, continued in the Enlightenment, and in the nineteenth century culminated in Liberalism[4] produced both capitalism—the free market economy—and its political corollary or—as the Marxians have to say, its political "superstructure"—representative government and the individuals' civic rights: freedom of conscience, of thought, of speech, and of all other methods of communication. It was in the climate created by this capitalistic system of individualism that all the modern intellectual achievements thrived. Never before had mankind lived under conditions like those of the second part of the nineteenth century, when, in the civilized countries, the most momentous problems of philosophy, religion, and science could be freely discussed without any fear of reprisals on the part of the powers that be. It was an age of productive and salutary dissent. 資本主義爲人類帶來的財富與福利,並不是什麼叫做「進步」的一種神秘力量的成就。也不是自然科學以及自然料學所促進的工藝學與治療學的成就。改進了工藝學與治療學,如果沒有儲蓄與資本累積預先準備了物質條件,也就無法實際利用了。工藝學所提供的種種知識或消息,不是每個人所可利用的,其原因就是累積的資本不足夠。從古代停滯狀態,轉變到資本主義的蓬蓬勃勃,這並不是由於自然科學和工藝學的變革,而是由於自由企業這個原則的採用。發動於文藝復興,繼纊於啓蒙時代,而在十九世紀達到自由主義[5]之高峰的這涸偉大的意理運動,一方面產生了資本主義——自由市場經濟,一方面產生了政治的後果(照馬克斯的說法,就是政治的上層結構)——代議政制、個人的公民權利、良心自由、思想自由、言論自由和其他一切交通方法的自由。所有現代知識的造詣,都是在個人主義的資本主義制度所創造的這種氣氛中興起的。人類自有史以來從末生活在像十九世紀後半期那樣的環境。當時,在若干文明邦國裏面,舉凡哲學、宗?和科學方面最重大的問題,都可毫無戒懼地自由討論。那個時代,是反對份子——建設性促成進步的反對份子——的時代。 A countermovement evolved, but not from a regeneration of the discredited sinister forces that in the past had made for conformity. It sprouted from the authoritarian and dictatorial complex deeply inwrought in the souls of the many who were benefited by the fruits of freedom and individualism without having contributed anything to their growing and ripening. The masses do not like those who surpass them in any regard. The average man envies and hates those who are different. 一個反動的運動也展開了。但這個運動並不是過去的那種強迫一致服從的邪惡勢力之死灰復燃,而是發源於某些人內心深處的極權的、獨裁的情結(complex)。這些人享受了自由與個人主義的成果,而對於這種成果的生長與成熟卻無任何貢獻。至於一般大衆,對於凡是超越他們的人,無論是那一方面超越,都是不喜歡的。超異者是他們妒忌和怨恨的對象。 What pushes the masses into the camp of socialism is, even more than the illusion that socialism will make them richer, the expectation that it will curb all those who are better than they themselves are. The characteristic feature of all utopian plans from that of Plato down to that of Marx is the rigid petrification of all human conditions. Once the "perfect" state of social affairs is attained, no further changes ought to be tolerated. There will no longer be any room left for innovators and reformers. --般大衆總希望社會主義把那些比他們優裕的人們削平,這個希望是推進他們加入社會陣營【社會主義陣營】的主要力暈,其強度甚至大於「社會主義會使他們更富有」的幻想。所有的烏托邦計畫,從柏拉圖的到馬克斯的,其特徵都是要把一切人事情況嚴密地僵化。一旦達到了所謂「完善的」社會情境,就再也不容有何變動。那時,對於創新者、改革者,再也不容有存在的餘地。 In the intellectual sphere the advocacy of this intolerant tyranny is represented by positivism. Its champion, Auguste Comte, did not contribute anything to the advancement of knowledge. He merely drafted the scheme of a social order under which, in the name of progress, science, and humanity, any deviation from his own ideas was to be prohibited. 在知識界,擁護這種不寬容的專制的,以實證論爲代表。實證論的主將孔德(Auguste Comte),對於知識的增進毫無貢獻。他只是假借進步、科學、和人道之名,制訂了一個社會秩序的計畫,在這個計畫下,凡是不同於他的觀念都被禁止。 The intellectual heirs of Comte are the contemporary positivists. Like Comte himself, these, advocates of "Unified Science," of panphysicalism, of "logical" or "empirical positivism," and of "scientific" philosophy did not themselves contribute to the advancement of the natural sciences. The future historians of physics, chemistry, biology, and physiology will not have to mention their names and their work. All that "Unified Science" brought forward was to recommend the proscription of the methods applied by the sciences of human action and their replacement by the methods of the experimental natural sciences. It is not remarkable for that which it contributed, but only for that which it wants to see prohibited. Its protagonists are the champions of intolerance and of a narrow-minded dogmatism. 孔德的後繼者就是現代的實證論者。這些人就是「統合的科學」、「泛物理學主義」、「邏輯的」或「試驗的」實證哲學、以及「料學的哲學」的鼓吹者。他們也和孔德一樣,對於自然科學的進步並無貢獻。將來寫物理學史、化學史、生物學史、和生理學史的歷史家,不會提到他們的姓名和其著作。「統合科學」所講的一切,只是叫我們放棄行爲學所專用的方法,而代之以自然科學的方法。「統合科學」之受人注意,不是因爲它有所貢獻,而只是因爲它有所禁止。它的一些要角們都是窄心眼的、不寬容異己的獨斷主義者。 Historians have to understand the political, economic, and intellectual conditions that brought about positivism, old and new. But the specific historical understanding of the milieu out of which definite ideas developed can neither justify nor reject the teachings of any school of thought. It is the task of epistemology to unmask the fallacies of positivism and to refute them. 歷史家應當了解,新舊實證論之所以產生的政治、經濟和知識環境。但是,對於產生某些觀念的環境有了個別的歷史了解,既不等於贊成,也不等於反對。揭發實證論的一切謬見,因而駁斥它們,這是認識論的任務。 ---------- [4] The term Liberalism as employed in this essay is to be understood in its classical nineteenth-century connotation, not in its present-day American sense, in which it signifies the opposite of everything that it used to signify in the nineteenth century. [5] 本文所用的「自由主義」一詞,應以古典的十九世紀的含義來了解,而不是今天美國人的意義。後者正是十九世紀自由主義的反面。
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