龐蒂論自由 02

龐蒂論自由 02

We often see the weakness of the will brought forward as an argument against freedom. And indeed, although I can will myself to adopt a course of conduct and act the part of a warrior or a seducer, it is not within my power to be a warrior or a seducer with ease and in a way that ‘comes naturally’; really to be one, that is.

我們時常看到,意志的軟弱被提出來,作為反駁自由的論點。的確,雖然我有意願要從事某種行為,扮演鬥士或誘拐者的角色,我不見得就有那個能力輕而易舉成為鬥士或誘拐者,那樣天然渾成,換言之,我不是天生的鬥士或誘拐者。

But neither should we seek freedom in the act of will, which is, in its very meaning, something short of an act. We have recourse to an act of will only in order to go against our true decision, and, as it were, for the purpose of proving our powerlessness.

但是我們也不應該在意志的行動中尋找自由,因為意志的行動,就其意義而言,意志先行,行動未必履行。我們訴諸於意志的行動,只是要違背我們自己的真實決定,也就是所謂,為了證明自己的無可奈何。

If we had really and truly made the conduct of the warrior or the seducer our own, then we should be one or the other. Even what are called obstacles to freedom are in reality deployed by it.

假如我們真實道地將鬥士或誘拐者的行為,表現為我們自己的行為,那麼我們應該就是鬥士或是誘拐者。即使所謂的阻礙實際上已被清除。

An unclimbable rock face, a large or small, vertical or slanting rock, are things which have no meaning for anyone who is not intending to surmount them, for a subject whose projects do not carve out such determinate forms from the uniform mass of the in itself and cause an orientated world to arise—a significance in things.

一座高不可攀的岩層,無論大小,垂直或傾斜,對於無意去征服他們的人,不具有意義,因為他們並沒有計劃要從大自然的質樸表面從事決心的舉動,產生意義,展現有向度的世界。

There is, then, ultimately nothing that can set limits to freedom, except those limits that freedom itself has set in the form of its various initiatives, so that the subject has simply the external world that he gives himself.

因此,追根究底,自由沒有任何限制,除了自由本身因為具有各種創意而豎立的那些限制,所以主體只擁有他自己所給予的外在世界。

Since it is the latter who, on coming into being, brings to light significance and value in things, and since no thing can impinge upon it except through acquiring, thanks to it, significance and value, there is no action of things on the subject, but merely a signification ( in the active sense), a centrifugal Sinngebung.

既然是具有創意的人出現時,才會使事物的意義跟價值出現,既然自由不會受到任何侵犯,除非你因為自由的創意而獲得意義跟價值,主體本身並沒有事物的行動,僅僅是一種意義(主動的意義),一種離心的意義。

The choice would seem to lie between scientism’s conception of causality, which is incompatible with the consciousness which we have of ourselves, and the assertion of an absolute freedom divorced from the outside. It is impossible to decide beyond which point things cease to be εψμων. Either they all lie within our power, or none does.

有兩種選擇,一種是科學家的因果觀念,跟我們對於自己所擁有的意識不相和諧。另一種是絕對自由的主張,跟外在世界脫離。我們無法決定,超越哪一點事物就蕩然無存。事物要就是在我們的掌控力量之內,要不就全都無法操控。

The result, however, of this first reflection on freedom would appear to be to rule it out altogether. If indeed it is the case that our freedom is the same in all our actions, and even in our passions, if it is not to be measured in terms of our conduct, and if the slave displays freedom as much by living in fear as by breaking this chains, then it cannot be held that there is such a thing as free action, freedom being anterior to all actions.

可是,對於自由最初反省的結果常是將自由完全地排除掉。的確,假如我們的自由都一樣,不論在我們所有的行動,或在我們的激情,假如我們的自由不是以我們的行為的表現來衡量,假如奴隸生活於恐懼中的自由,跟打破鎖鏈的自由沒什麼兩樣,那麼我們很難相信有自由行動這樣的東西,早先於行動的自由。

In any case it will not be possible to declare: “ Here freedom makes its appearance”, since free action, in order to be discernible, has to stand out against a background of life from which it is entirely, or almost entirely, absent. We may say in this case that it is everywhere, but equally nowhere. In the name of freedom we reject the idea of acquisition, since freedom has become a primordial acquisition and, as it were, our state of nature.

無論如何,我們不可能宣稱:「自由出現在此」,因為自由行動要能被覺察出來,必先要有一個生活的背景作為對抗,而在那裡,自由完全,或近乎完全不存在。在此情形,我們可以說,人無處不自由,但同樣的也無處自由。以自由之名,我們排除獲得的觀念,因為自由已經變成原初的獲得,也就是我們的自然狀態。

Since we do not have to provide it, it is the gift granted to us of having no gift, it is the nature of consciousness which consists in having no nature, and in no case can it find external expression or a place in our life. The idea of action, therefore, disappears: nothing can pass from us to the world, since we are nothing that can be specified, and since the non-being which constitutes us could not possibly find its way into the world’s plenum.

既然自由不是我們必須提供,而是一種上天賦予我們的不是天賦的天賦,是一種不需要有任何特性的意識的特性,它無法在我們的生活中找到外在的表達或位置。行動的觀念因此消失,因為沒有一樣東西能從我們身上傳遞到世界,因為我們不是任何所被指定的東西,因為組成我們的空性,不可能在世界的空間找到一個安身立命之處。

There are merely intentions immediately followed by their effects, and we are very near to the Kantian idea of an intention which is tantamount to the act, which Scheler countered with the argument that the cripple who would like to be able to save a drowning man and the good swimmer who actually saves him do not have the same experience of autonomy.

緊跟隨他們的情意而來的僅僅是意向性。在此,我們跟康德的意向就是行動的觀念頗為接近。希勒曾經反駁說:想要拯救溺水的殘障者跟實際上救起他的游泳高手,他們的自主的經驗並不相同。

The very idea of choice vanishes, for to choose is to choose something in which freedom sees, at least for a moment, a symbol of itself. There is free choice only if freedom comes into play in its decision, and posits the situation chosen as a situation of freedom.

選擇的觀念消失不見,因為選擇是要選擇某件自由看得到本身的符號,至少有那麼一個時刻。只有自由在做決定時運作,並假設有一個情況,可以選擇來當自由的情況,這樣才有自由的選擇。

A freedom which has no need to be exercised because it is already acquired could not commit itself in this way: it knows that the following instant will find it, come way may, just as free and just as indeterminate. The very notion of freedom demands that our decision should plunge into the future, that something should have been done by it, that the subsequent instant should benefit from its predecessor and, though not necessitated, should be at least required by it.

一個已經擁有的自由,就不需要去運用,無法以這個方式呈現:它無時無刻不自由,無論發生何事,同樣自由,同樣任性。自由的觀念要求,我們的決定應該投入未來,自由本來應該有所作為,隨後的瞬間應該從前頭的瞬間得到益處,至少應該受到它所要求,雖然未必有此需要。

If freedom is doing, it is necessary that what it does should not be immediately undone by a new freedom.

假如自由正在運用,它所運用的不應該立刻被新的自由所破壞。

Each instant, therefore, must not be a closed world; one instant must be able to commit its successors and, a decision once taken and action once begun, I must have something acquired at my disposal, I must benefit from my impetus, I must be inclined to carry on, and there must be a bent or propensity of the mind.

因此,每個瞬間切不可是一個封閉的世界,一個瞬間必須能夠銜接前一個瞬間。一但下定決心,一但採取行動,我必須要有某件聽由我支配的東西,我必須要從我的動機得到益處。我必須要有執行的意向,我的心必須意志堅決。

It was Descartes who held that conservation demands a power as great as does creation; a view which implies a realistic notion of the instant. It is true that the instant is not a philosopher’s fiction. It is the point at which one project is brought to fruition and another begun—the point at which my gaze is transferred from one end to another, it is the Augen-Blick.

笛卡爾認為,保存所需要的力量跟創造一樣強烈。這個觀點暗示著瞬間有著實際的觀念。的確,瞬間並非是哲學家的幻想。它是一個計劃圓滿達成,另一個計劃開始的時刻。此時,我的眼光從一端轉移到另一端,這被稱為「創造瞬間」。

But this break in time cannot occur unless each of the two spans is of a piece. Consciousness, it is said, though not atomized into instants, at least haunted by the specter of the instant which it is obliged continually to exorcise by a free act.

但是這個時間的中斷不會發生,除非兩段時間有一段尾隨在後。據說,意識雖然不會分裂成為瞬間,至少會被瞬間所縈迴,因此它不得不用自由的行動,將瞬間驅除。

We shall soon see that we have indeed always the power to interrupt, but it implies in any case a power to begin, for there would be no severance unless freedom had taken up its abode somewhere and were preparing to move it.

我們不久將看到,我們總是有中斷的力量,但它意味著隨時都有開始的力量。因為除非自由曾經停駐,並且正準備離開,否則不會有分劣

Unless there are cycles of behavior , open situations requiring a certain completion and capable of constituting a background to either a confirmatory or transformatory decision, we never experience freedom.

除非有行為的循環及開放的情境,要求某種的完成,並且能夠形成可以驗證或轉移的決定的背景,我們永遠不會經驗到自由。

雄伯譯
32hsiung@pchome.com.tw

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