HoP 005 - 老人河 - 赫拉克利特

大家好，我是彼得·亚当森，欢迎收听由伦敦国王学院与利弗休姆信托基金会联合支持的《哲学史》播客。

Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast brought to you with the support of King's College London and the Leverhulme Trust.

今天这一期，我们讲‘老河’——赫拉克利特的谜题与悖论。

Today's episode, Old Man River, the Puzzles and Paradoxes of Heraclitus.

可以说，以弗所的赫拉克利特是最典型的前苏格拉底哲学家。

Heraclitus of Ephesus is, you might say, the ultimate pre Socratic.

他集中体现了苏格拉底、柏拉图和亚里士多德出现之前，古希腊哲学的诸多特点。

He brings together many of the features we associate with Greek philosophy before Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle came along.

比如，我们之前讨论过的那些思想家，大多都想把整个宇宙还原为一个根本原则：泰勒斯选了水，阿那克西美尼选了气，阿那克西曼德则提出更抽象的‘无限’。

For instance, most of the thinkers we've looked at in previous episodes wanted to reduce the whole cosmos to one fundamental principle: Thales chooses water, Anaximenes chooses air, and Axymander has his more abstract principle, the unlimited.

赫拉克利特也有自己的基本元素，那就是火。

Heraclitus too has his basic element, namely fire.

再比如，这些哲学家都试图解释变化与对立，而赫拉克利特一出现，他们之前的探索就仿佛只是为他的‘对立统一’理论做了铺垫。

Another example: these thinkers also wanted to explain change and opposition, and once Heraclitus comes along, their forays in this direction seem like a mere prologue to his theory of the unity of opposites.

当然，前苏格拉底哲学家最根本的特点是，我们如今只能读到他们思想的残篇断简。

But of course, the most basic thing about the Pre Socratics is that we read only fragments of their thought.

我们只能看到后人引用和转述的一些精彩片段。

We're left with intriguing quotations and paraphrases from later authors.

但赫拉克利特本人确实是以碎片形式写作的。

But Heraclitus actually wrote in fragments.

赫拉克利特的作品风格，有点像上世纪五十年代的脱口秀喜剧演员。

Heraclitus' body of work is not unlike that of a comedian from the 1950s.

他的内容 mostly 是一句句精炼的俏皮话。

It consists mostly of one liners.

据说赫拉克利特确实写过一本书。

Heraclitus did apparently write a book.

和大多数前苏格拉底哲学家一样，他被归为著有《论自然》一书。

Like most of the Pre Socratics, he's credited with having written a work called On Nature.

这个书名并不意味着他是个自然科学家，也不代表他只研究自然科学。

That title doesn't mean he was a natural scientist, or that he was only a natural scientist.

希腊语中‘自然’是 phusis，我们今天的‘physics’这个词就来源于此。

The Greek word for nature is phusis, which is where we get the word physics.

但当这些早期思想家使用这个词时，它的含义可能非常广泛。

But when it was used by these early thinkers, it could have a very broad meaning.

‘自然’就是一切存在的总和，这正是赫拉克利特那本书的主题。

Nature was just everything there was, and that was the topic of the book Heraclitus wrote.

书中，据传他探讨了宇宙本身、政治问题，还有神明。

In it, he reportedly dealt with the cosmos itself, political questions, and the gods.

我们手头有这些主题的残篇，但除了一个重大例外，赫拉克利特留下的这些片段根本不像出自一本书。

We have fragments on all these topics, but with one major exception, the fragments we have from Heraclitus don't look like excerpts from a book, really.

它们更像是一句句俏皮话，像是哲学谜语。

They look, as I say, more like one liners, like philosophical riddles.

比如：‘上行之路与下行之路，其实是同一条路。’

For example, The road up and down is one and the same.

或者稍微改写一下：‘海水对鱼来说是健康的，对人来说却是有害的。’

Or, to paraphrase slightly, Sea water, healthy for fish, unhealthy for men.

再比如这一句：‘自然喜欢隐藏自己。’

Or how about this one, Nature knows how to hide.

或者，最著名的那句：人不能两次踏入同一条河流。

Or, the most famous of all: You can't step into the same river twice.

因此，古人称他为‘谜语者’或‘晦涩的赫拉克利特’，实在是有道理的。

So it is with good reason that the ancients referred to him as the Riddler, or Heraclitus the Obscure.

他在家乡以弗所的这种哲学风格并不讨喜，而以弗所，就像米利都、科洛丰和萨摩斯一样，也是爱奥尼亚的另一座城市——我们迄今为止的哲学家都来自这些地方。

He didn't make himself popular with this sort of philosophy in his hometown of Ephesus, which inevitably was yet another city in Ionia, like Meletus, Colophon, and Samos, where our philosophers have come from so far.

与他同时代的毕达哥拉斯和色诺芬尼不同，赫拉克利特没有向西旅行。

Unlike his contemporaries in the sixth century BC, Pythagoras and Xenophanes, Heraclitus didn't travel to the West.

他似乎很乐意留在东方，用他的谜语让人深思，或者干脆惹人烦。

It seems he was quite happy to stay in the East and provoke people into deep thought, or just plain annoyance, with his riddles.

正如我所说，这种哲学表达方式有个明显的例外，那就是一段明显是他书的开篇的残篇。

As I said, there is a notable exception to this way of philosophizing, namely a fragment which is apparently the start of his book.

在这段开篇文字里，关键词是‘逻各斯’。

In this opening passage, the keyword is logos.

遗憾的是，这个词在希腊哲学文本中总是难以准确翻译。

This is unfortunately a word that is always difficult to translate in Greek philosophical texts.

这种情况下，翻译起来更难了。

In this case, it's even harder.

‘Logos’字面上意思是‘话语’，但它还延伸出许多其他含义，比如解释、理性，甚至比例或尺度。

Logos basically means word, but it expands to mean many other things too, like account and reason, or even proportion or measure.

我们英语里所有以‘-ology’结尾的词，都源自这个词。

It's where we get all those English words that end in ology.

比如，神学就是对上帝的解释，也就是一种logos；人类学则是对人的解释。可见这个词有多重要。

So for example, theology is giving an account, a logos, of God, and anthropology is giving an account of man So quite an important word.

而正是在赫拉克利特这里，这个词首次在希腊哲学中变得至关重要。

And it's here in Heraclitus that it first becomes really crucial in philosophical Greek.

在书的开篇，赫拉克利特说，他所讲的这个logos，哪怕人们听到了，也依然无法理解。

At the beginning of his book, Heraclitus tells us that the logos he speaks of is something nobody understands, even once they've heard it.

人们一生都在无视这个logos，尽管它的痕迹明明就摆在眼前。

People go through life blissfully unaware of the logos, even though evidence of it is staring them in the face.

这实在可惜，因为赫拉克利特想让你听的这个logos，据他说，能解释一切。

Which is a shame, because the logos Heraclitus is trying to get you to listen to is one that he claims explains absolutely everything.

在这里，他用了‘自然’这个词，也就是phusis。

And here, he uses that word nature or phusis.

所以这将是关于一切存在的完整阐述。

So this will be an account of everything there is.

这个阐述里包含了什么内容呢？

What was contained in this account?

书中早期的另一个片段以熟悉的简短句式写道：与其听我，不如听那逻各斯，明智的人会认同万物一体。

Another fragment from early in the book, which has the familiar one liner form, says, Hearing not me but the logos, it is wise to agree that all things are one.

这句话引发了大量讨论。

A lot of ink has been spilled over this sentence.

一方面，他为什么要把听逻各斯和听他本人区分开来？

For one thing, why is he distinguishing between listening to the logos and hearing him Heraclitus?

这不就是他的阐述、他的逻各斯吗？

Isn't this his account, his logos?

也许他的意思是，我们不该因为是他这么说就相信，而应该因为它是对的才信。

Maybe the idea is we shouldn't believe this because he's saying it, but because it's true.

有些人提出了其他的解释。

Some people have offered other explanations.

比如，这里的‘逻各斯’并不是指赫拉克利特书中所表达的观点，而是指那种将万物联结成一体的内在比例。

For example, that logos doesn't really mean account here, meaning the views being put forward in Heraclitus' book, but rather the proportion that binds together all things so that they turn out to be one.

但另一方面，这个‘逻各斯’也得是能被听见、能被倾听的东西。

On the other hand, this logos needs to be something you can hear or listen to.

我觉得赫拉克利特这个人喜欢玩弄希腊词的多重含义，写这句话时，他心里可能同时想到了‘逻各斯’的几种不同意思。

Actually, I suspect Heraclitus, who liked to play around with the double meanings of Greek words, may have had several different aspects of the word logos in mind when he wrote this.

那这句话的后半部分——‘万物是一’——又该怎么理解呢？

What about the other part of this fragment, that we should agree all things are one?

这很引人注目，因为这意味着赫拉克利特是第一个支持‘一元论’的哲学家，也就是认为万物在某种意义上本质上是统一的。

This is pretty exciting, because it makes Heraclitus the first philosopher to endorse what is called monism, the idea that everything is, in some sense, a unity.

在这里，赫拉克利特其实已经预示了巴门尼德的思想。

Here Heraclitus is anticipating the theory of Parmenides.

巴门尼德，正如我们待会儿会看到的，认为‘一’才是唯一真实的存在，因此他完全否定了我们日常经验中所感知到的万物纷繁。

Parmenides, as we'll see, thought that unity is all there is, and he accordingly rejected our experience of the world that tells us there are many things.

不过，赫拉克利特并没有走那么远。

Heraclitus wasn't going this far, though.

事实上，他常说‘万物’是统一的，这种表达方式很符合他的风格。

In fact, it's typical of him that he says that all things, plural, things, are one.

他的观点并不是说现实只能是单一的，而不是多元的，而是认为现实既是多元的，又是统一的。

His idea isn't that reality is one and not multiple, his idea is that reality is both a multiplicity and a unity.

赫拉克利特在这里强调统一性，是因为他认为，正是这一面最容易被我们忽略。

Heraclitus stresses the unity here, because he thinks this is the aspect of reality that tends to escape us.

我们活着的时候，听不见那‘逻各斯’，因为我们的眼光太局限，每次只能看到世界的一小部分。

We go through life not hearing the logos, because our limited vision only takes in one little bit of the world at a time.

赫拉克利特的哲学，就是要教我们把整个自然、所有存在，看作一个统一的整体，而这个整体里头，又包含着无数不同的事物。

Heraclitus' philosophy is designed to teach us to see all of nature, everything there is, as one unified whole, but a whole which includes many different things.

这就引出了赫拉克利特的核心思想——对立面的统一。

And that brings us to Heraclitus' core idea, which is the so called unity of opposites.

我们之前已经在他的那些简短谜语里，见过这个思想的例子了。

We've already seen examples of this idea in some of Heraclitus' one liner riddles.

比如，海水对人类来说是毒药，但鱼却离不开它。

For example, seawater poisons humans, but fish need it to live.

同样是水，却有着截然相反的特性。

It's the same water, but it has opposite properties.

还有一个类似的说法是，驴子宁可吃垃圾也不选黄金。

A similar one says that donkeys prefer garbage to gold.

黄金对我们有价值，垃圾对我们毫无用处，但对驴子来说，情况正好相反。

The gold is valuable for us, and garbage has no value for us, but for the donkey, things are the other way around.

最经典的例子是赫拉克利特说：上山的路就是下山的路。

The most classic example is when Heraclitus says the road up is the road down.

他想表达的，并不是说这条路是上山还是下山取决于你的视角——比如你是往山顶走还是往山脚走。

His point here is not incidentally that whether it is the road up or the road down depends on your perspective, namely whether you are headed to the peak of the mountain or to the foothills.

而是说，这条路本身同时就是上山的路，也是下山的路。

Instead, his point is that the same thing really is the road up and it really is the road down at the same time.

黄金本身既是宝贵的，也是无价值的，垃圾也是如此。

The gold really is both valuable and worthless, as is the garbage.

这里关于视角的要点是，人的视角限制了他们，只能看到每样事物中对立的其中一个方面。

The only point about perspective here is that people's perspective limits them to grasping only one of the opposed aspects of each thing.

他们还是没在听那个‘逻各斯’。

Again, they're not listening to that logos.

凭着有限的理解，他们只知道黄金能买东西，海水不能喝，走路得往上走。

With their limited understanding, they're only aware that they can buy things with gold, need to avoid drinking seawater, and are walking uphill.

当然，世界上不是所有东西都这么明显地把对立面统一在一起，但赫拉克利特还有别的招数来说服你。

Of course, not everything in the world so obviously unites opposites in this way, but Heraclitus has something else up his sleeve to persuade you.

这正是他最出名的地方——他对变化现象的关注。

This is the thing he's most famous for, his attention to the phenomenon of change.

他有个很妙的说法，讲的是古希腊人常喝的一种用葡萄酒、大麦和奶酪调制的饮品。

One of his nicest sayings is about a popular beverage drunk by the ancient Greeks made of wine, barley, and cheese.

他说，这种大麦饮料一旦不搅拌，就会散开。

He said that this barley drink falls apart when it is not stirred.

举个我们更熟悉的例子，想想沙拉酱。

For an example we're more familiar with, think about a salad vinaigrette.

你得先把它搅匀，再淋到沙拉上，不然油和醋就会分层。

How you have to stir it and then pour it over the salad before the oil separates from the vinegar.

这种饮料或者酱汁的本质，就在于它始终处于运动和变化之中。

The nature of the drink or the dressing depends on the fact that it is in motion or changing.

就像沙拉酱一样，世界的统一性在于赫拉克利特所说的万物之间永恒的冲突与对抗。

Like the vinaigrette, the unity of the world consists in what Heraclitus called a constant war or strife between all things.

也许我们现在能明白，为什么赫拉克利特要用这些神秘而碎片化的谜语来表达他的思想。

Maybe we see here why Heraclitus decided to express his philosophy in these mysterious fragmentary riddles.

他想传达的真理本身就是一个悖论：稳定恰恰存在于变化之中，统一恰恰存在于对立之中。

The truth he was trying to express was itself paradoxical, that stability resides precisely in change, that unity resides precisely in opposition.

我知道你现在在想什么。

Now, I know what you're thinking.

你在想，我读过赫拉克利特，或者在大学里学过他，反正我记得他说的是，一切都在不断变化，根本不存在稳定和统一。

You're thinking, I've read about Heraclitus, or I've studied him in college, or whatever, and what I seem to recall is that Heraclitus says that everything is always changing, and that there is no stability, no unity.

简而言之，赫拉克利特认为，万物皆流。

Heraclitus, in short, thought that everything is in flux.

这种对赫拉克利特的理解，最经典的表达就是那句名言：人不能两次踏入同一条河流。

This version of Heraclitus is epitomized in his most famous statement, you can't step into the same river twice.

世界就像这条河流。

The world is like the river.

它不会固定不变，而是一直在流动。

It doesn't persist, but is constantly flowing.

唯一真实的就是变化，每一刻都与前一刻截然不同。

There is only change, and nothing ever remains the same from one moment to the next.

这种对赫拉克利特的解读有个好处，就是能清晰地和巴门尼德形成对比——巴门尼德认为变化只是幻觉。

One nice thing about this interpretation of Heraclitus is that it provides a clear contrast to Parmenides, who thinks that change is an illusion.

他之所以这么想，我们待会儿会看到，是因为万物本为一体。

He thinks this, as we'll see, because all things are one.

如果要发生改变，一样东西就得变成别的东西，但根本就不存在别的东西。

For change to happen, one thing would need to become something else, and there is nothing else.

所以，赫拉克利特是主张变化的，巴门尼德则是主张恒常的。

So, we'd have Heraclitus the change guy, and Parmenides the stability guy.

很好记，简单明了。

Nice and easy to remember.

我本人也支持把事情弄得容易记住。

Now, I'm all for making things easy to remember.

记住啊，赫拉克利特的流变说其实是错的，这都怪柏拉图。

So remember this, the flux interpretation of Heraclitus is wrong, and it's all Plato's fault.

在《泰阿泰德篇》里，柏拉图把巴门尼德的一元论和赫拉克利特的激进流变论对立起来，就这么搭了个清晰的框架。

It's Plato, in his dialogue, The Thietidas, who sets up this neat opposition between the unity theory of Parmenides and the radical flux theory of Heraclitus.

他也许本来是出于真诚。

He may have been doing so honestly.

我们知道，柏拉图那个时代真有人自称是赫拉克利特的追随者，他们确实信奉这种流变观点。

We know of people who lived in Plato's day who styled themselves as followers of Heraclitus, and they did apparently believe in this flux doctrine.

其中一位叫克拉底鲁，柏拉图还专门写了一篇对话录以他命名。

One of them was Cratulus, a philosopher after whom Plato actually named a dialogue.

克拉底鲁特别有名，他认为根本没法给任何东西命名，因为你刚想命名，它就已经变了。

Cratulus is famous for having held that it's impossible to name anything, because whatever you try to name is always changing.

你只能用手指指着那些彼此消融的所谓事物。

Instead, you can only point with your finger at the so called things that are melting one into another.

他更机智地声称，你连一次都踏不进同一条河。

Rather wittily, he tried to outdo Heraclitus by saying that you can't even step into the same river once.

但这种所谓的改进，恰恰暴露了克拉底鲁，或许连带柏拉图，对赫拉克利特的严重误解。

But this supposed improvement shows how badly Cradulus, and perhaps as a result Plato, understood Heraclitus.

因为赫拉克利特确实相信，不同时间的同一条河依然是同一条河。

Because Heraclitus did believe that there was one in the same river on different occasions.

我们可以从另一个版本的名言看出这一点，这个版本的语言和意图更贴近赫拉克利特原本的表达，也许他两种说法都说过。

We can see this from a different version of the famous saying, which from its language and point, seems more likely to be what Heraclitus actually said, or maybe he said both.

在这个版本里，他说：踏入同一条河的人，遇到的水流每次都不同。

In this version, he said, different waters flow over those who step into the same rivers.

河还是那条河，只是每次流过的水都不一样。

It is the same river on different occasions, but with different bits of water each time.

这正好说明了我们一直在谈的观点——对立面的统一。

This illustrates the point we've been talking about, the unity of opposites.

就像黄金既有价值又毫无用处，河流既是同一的又是不同的。

Just like the gold is both valuable and worthless, the river is both the same and different.

所以，如果他认为万物都在不断变化，那他也相信在变化中万物依然保持同一与稳定。

So, if he did think that all things were constantly changing and in flux, he also thought that they remained the same and stable throughout change.

这能解释他为何把战争或冲突视为一种普遍原则，同时也保留了他‘万物一体’的观点。

This would explain his making war or strife a kind of universal principle, but it would leave standing his idea that all things are one.

事实上，这正说明了他为何认为万物是一体的。

In fact, it explains why he thinks all things are one.

或许正是因为对变化与毁灭深感震撼，赫拉克利特才选择火作为他宇宙观的基本元素。

It's perhaps because he was so impressed by change and destruction that Heraclitus chose fire for the fundamental element of his cosmology.

在另一段残篇中，他说：‘万物皆可转化为火，火也可转化为万物，就像黄金换货物，货物换黄金。’

In another fragment, he says, quote, all things are exchanged for fire and fire for all things, like gold for goods and goods for gold, unquote.

他的观点部分在于，火会吞噬万物，并将它们真正转化为自身。

His idea here is in part that fire will consume things and actually turn them into itself.

想象一小簇火焰吞噬整片森林，仿佛将一切化为烈焰，直到燃料耗尽，大火最终熄灭。

Think of a small blaze engulfing a whole forest and seemingly transforming it into flame, until it is all used up and the conflagration dies out.

但赫拉克利特认为，这个过程也可以反过来，火能变成水和土。

But Heraclitus thinks it can go the other way too, with fire being turned into water and earth.

事实上，他把火和水看作一对根本对立的力量。

In fact, he sees a fundamental opposition between fire and water.

两者可以相互转化，就像阿那克西美尼的空气，也能变成其他元素。

One is transformed into the other, though, like Anaximenes' air, which can become the other elements.

如果你还记得第二集的内容，赫拉克利特说火像黄金一样被‘支付’出去，这和阿那克西曼德的观点异曲同工——万物彼此偿还代价。

We can find a parallel to Heraclitus' image of paying out fire, like gold, in Anaximander's idea that all things pay retribution to one another, if you remember that from episode two.

核心思想是一样的，只是赫拉克利特用的是经济隐喻，而不是法律隐喻。

Same basic thought, even if Heraclitus uses an economic analogy instead of a legal one.

赫拉克利特之所以特别强调火，另一个原因是他对天体印象极深，想在宇宙观中给它们一个核心地位。

Another reason that Heraclitus emphasized fire was, it seems, that he was very impressed by the heavenly bodies, and wanted to give them a primary place in his cosmology.

他说，太阳、月亮、行星和恒星其实都是盛满火焰的碗，碗口朝向我们，所以我们看到的是碗里的火。

He said that the sun, moon, planets, and stars are actually bowls full of fire turned towards us so that we're looking into the bowls.

他有个很生动的比喻：月亮每月的盈亏，是因为这个碗在缓慢转动，我们只能从侧面看到部分火焰。

In a nice image, he suggested that the reason the moon waxes and wanes each month is because that bowl is slowly turning, so we can only see some of the fire from the side.

因此，赫拉克利特虽然对事物的根本原理充满兴趣，却依然延续了前苏格拉底哲学家对自然现象、尤其是星辰的关注。

Thus Heraclitus, despite his obvious interest in the fundamental principles of things, continues the Pre Socratics' interest in specific phenomena of the natural world, and especially the stars.

正如我们所见，这种传统可以追溯到泰勒斯，他可是位天文学专家。

As we've seen, this goes back to Thales with his expertise in astronomy.

他们对星辰如此着迷，其实也不难理解。

And their interest in the stars isn't so surprising.

毕竟，这些哲学家生活的时代还没有电，自然也没有光污染。

After all, these philosophers lived in a time before electricity, and hence before light pollution.

如果你在夜晚走出家门，哪怕是在雅典这样的大城市里，抬头也能看到一片令人惊叹的星空，星星的数量远超今天大多数欧洲人能见到的。

If you walked outside at night, even within the walls of a big city like Athens, you would see a stunning night sky, with more stars than most Europeans ever get to see nowadays.

在古希腊人的世界里，再没有什么比天空更值得解释的了。

If anything in the world of the ancient Greeks cried out for explanation, it was the heavens.

所以，说天体是倒扣的火碗，又有什么奇怪的呢？

So overturned bowls of fire, why not?

赫拉克利特哲学中另一个火扮演重要角色的领域，是他对人类灵魂的理论。

Another area of Heraclitus' philosophy where fire plays a major role is his theory of the human soul.

实际上，他认为人的灵魂就是由火构成的。

Actually, he thinks that the human soul is just made of fire.

人死后，是因为灵魂变成了水。

When we die, it is because our souls have turned into water.

赫拉克利特把最炽热的灵魂称为‘干燥的灵魂’，认为它们最智慧。

The most fiery souls, Heraclitus calls them drier souls, are the ones which are wisest.

我最喜欢赫拉克利特的一句话是：醉汉行为失常，是因为他们的灵魂潮湿了——显然是喝酒喝的。

And here's my favorite thing Heraclitus said, We can explain the pathetic behavior of drunk people by the fact that their souls are moist, presumably from the wine they've been drinking.

说灵魂是火做的，其实没你一开始想的那么荒谬。

This idea that the soul is made of fire makes more sense than you might at first think.

毕竟，人和动物活着的时候都是温热的，一死，体温很快就降下来，这点很容易观察到。

After all, when humans and other animals are alive, they are warm, and it's easy to notice that they cool down fast as soon as they die.

赫拉克利特不会是最后一个提出灵魂带有火性特质的希腊思想家。

Heraclitus won't be the last Greek thinker to suggest that the soul has some fiery aspect.

他还说，呼吸与灵魂密切相关，甚至认为我们通过呼吸，从宇宙中吸入了火。

He adds that our breath is closely related to the soul, suggesting even that we take fire in from the cosmos by breathing it in along with the air.

这说明他所说的‘火’并不仅仅是壁炉或蜡烛里那种火焰，而是一种更抽象的概念——一种干燥、温暖、快速流动的东西，是宇宙中最崇高的物质。

This shows that his conception of fire is not just flame, such as you see in a fireplace or a candle, It's a more abstract conception of some dry, warm, fast moving stuff that is the most exalted substance in the universe.

还要注意到，他把星辰和我们的灵魂都描述为火性的，暗示我们与神圣的天界有着相同的本质。

Notice also how he makes both the stars and our souls fiery, and thus suggests that we share a nature with the divine heavenly world.

赫拉克利特思想中还有一个方面，通常很少被强调。

A final aspect of Heraclitus' thought is one that doesn't usually get much emphasis.

我之前提到，后世文献说他写过关于政治的内容，但有个调皮的古希腊传说称，以弗所的市民曾找上赫拉克利特，希望他像梭伦为雅典那样，为他们制定一套法律。

I mentioned that later sources have him writing on politics, though a mischievous ancient anecdote claims that Heraclitus was approached by the people of his city of Ephesus and asked to write a set of laws for them, as Solon did for Athens.

他拒绝了，说宁愿跟城里的孩子们一起玩。

He declined, saying he'd rather play with the town's children.

这听起来确实挺可爱的，但可惜，这个故事可信度很低。

That's actually rather charming, but unfortunately, it's not a story with much plausibility.

无论如何，我们手头关于他政治思想的材料并不多，但现有的内容都强调要服从城邦的法律。

In any case, we don't have a great deal of his political thought, but what we do have emphasizes obedience to the laws of the city.

人应当像保卫围城中的城墙一样，去守护这些法律。

One should protect them as one protects the walls in a siege.

他还说，人类的法律依赖于神的法则才能得以维系。

He also says that human laws are given sustenance by the laws of the god.

至于这里的‘法律’是否应与赫拉克利特的‘逻各斯’和对立统一联系起来，尚不明确，但很容易让人联想到，这些是人类法律所效仿的绝对正义准则。

Whether this reference to law should be connected to Heraclitus' logos and the unity of opposites is not clear, but it's tempting to think that these are the absolute rules of justice which our human laws imitate.

在这里，我们看到赫拉克利特在哲学的不同领域之间建立了紧密的联系。

Here we see Heraclitus building a strong connection between different parts of philosophy.

这在前苏格拉底哲学家身上很典型，他们探讨的哲学领域，如今我们已划分为不同分支，但他们却视作一个整体的探究。

And this is typical of the presocratics, who explore areas of philosophy that we now distinguish as if they were all more or less one interconnected inquiry.

真正开始系统区分哲学各分支的，其实是亚里士多德。

It was really Aristotle who first got into the business of distinguishing the branches of philosophy.

如今，专业哲学家只专注于伦理学，或只研究心灵哲学，这种分工很常见，甚至被视为理所当然。

Nowadays it's common, even expected, that a professional philosopher might work only on ethics, for example, or only on the philosophy of mind.

但赫拉克利特对哲学的每一个领域都有见解，而且他的各种观点彼此贯通。

Heraclitus, though, had something to say about every philosophical subject, and the different things he had to say all tied together.

在这方面，赫拉克利特预示了柏拉图和亚里士多德的系统性思维，比如，他们把‘人是什么’这个问题和‘人应当如何生活’紧密联系在一起。

In this, Heraclitus anticipates the systematic interests of Plato and Aristotle, who, for instance, connect the question of what it is to be a human being to the question of how humans should conduct themselves.

换句话说，对他们来说，伦理学和人性研究是紧密相连的。

In other words, for them, ethics and the study of human nature are intimately related.

颇具讽刺意味的是，据我们所知，真正最早开始以这种系统化方式做哲学的，反而是赫拉克利特——这位总爱用碎片式语录打哑谜的人。

It's not a little ironic that as far as we can tell, it was Heraclitus, a riddler with his ready made fragments, who really first began to indulge in this systematic way of doing philosophy.

所以现在我有个消息要宣布。

So now I have an announcement.

如果一切顺利，下周的节目将是我们《哲学史》播客的首位嘉宾登场。

If all goes according to plan, next week's episode will feature our first guest here on the History of Philosophy podcast.

我们将邀请我的同事M教授做客。

We'll be joined by my colleague, Professor M.

M。

M.

麦凯布教授，来和我们进一步聊聊赫拉克利特。

McCabe, to talk some more about Heraclitus.

这将是系列访谈中的第一期，未来我们希望能定期推出这类对话，深入探讨一些重要话题。

This will be one of the first of several interviews, which will I hope be a regular offering on the podcast, and will allow us to go into greater depth on some topics.

所以再过两周，我们就要谈到另一位哲学家了，他在系统性方面比赫拉克利特更胜一筹。

So it will be in two weeks that we get to another philosopher, and one who outdoes Heraclitus when it comes to being systematic.

我的意思是，当然是巴门尼德。

I mean, of course, Parmenides.

他给我们提供了两个体系，而不是一个。

He offers us not one, but two systems.

一个是真理体系，告诉你所有你自以为知道的东西都是错的；另一个是意见体系，虽然只是意见，但也和你原先的想法大不相同。

The true system, which tells you that everything you think you knew was wrong, and the system which consists of mere opinion, but is still pretty different from what you thought you knew.

巴门尼德和赫拉克利特的共同点，其实比柏拉图让我们以为的要多得多，但毫无疑问，从他开始，我们真正进入了哲学的新时代——我们可以称之为形而上学的时代。

Parmenides has much more in common with Heraclitus than Plato would have us believe, but there's little doubt that, with him, we are really stepping into a new era of philosophy, which we might call the era of metaphysics.

这个时代，至今还没有结束。

It's an era which still hasn't ended.

所以，别只听赫拉克利特的逻各斯，也要听听M的逻各斯。

So, be sure to listen to the Logos, not of Heraclitus, but of M.

M。

M.

下下周，我们会继续讲麦凯布和巴门尼德，哲学史全程无缝衔接。

McCabe, and then of Parmenides, next week and the week after, on the history of philosophy without any gaps.