HoP 009 - 最终剪辑 - 德谟克利特与留基伯

大家好，我是彼得·亚当森，欢迎收听由伦敦国王学院和利弗休姆信托基金支持的哲学史播客。

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.

本期节目是最后一期，主题是留基伯和德谟克利特的原子论。

Today's episode, the final cut, the atomic theory of Leuccipus and Democritus.

如果你在街上拦住一位哲学史学家，让他或她举出一个来自前苏格拉底哲学且被证明是正确的观点，你最可能得到的回答就是原子论。

If you stop a historian of philosophy in the street and ask him or her to name one idea from presocratic philosophy that turns out actually to be true, the answer you're most likely to get is atomism.

在这个播客系列中，我们探讨过不少相当离经叛道的理论。

We've looked at some pretty extravagant theories in this series of podcasts.

我们一开始听泰勒斯说，万物的本原是水，连磁铁都有灵魂；上周芝诺又试图说服我们，连穿过网球场都做不到。

We started with Thales telling us that the principle of everything is water and that magnets have souls, and last week, Zeno was trying to persuade us that it's impossible to walk across a tennis court.

经历了这些之后，遇到一个看起来挺熟悉的观点，心里会踏实不少：所有物体都是由粒子构成的，这些粒子小到肉眼看不见，而我们肉眼所见的各种现象，都可以用这些粒子之间的相互作用来解释。

After all this, it's comforting to come across an idea that looks familiar: that all bodies are made of particles, so tiny they are invisible to the naked eye, and that the interaction of these particles explains the phenomena we see in the visible world around us.

这些粒子当然就是原子。

The particles are, of course, atoms.

希望听了这么多期播客之后，大家已经能猜到“原子”这个词是从哪儿来的了。

And hopefully you've listened to enough of these podcasts to guess where the word atoms comes from.

对，这是古希腊语。

Yes, it's ancient Greek.

Tomein 意思是切割，而 atoma 字面意思就是不可分割的东西。

Tomein means to cut, and atoma means, quite literally, uncuttables.

换句话说，原子是那些无法再分成更小部分的东西，不是因为你的刀不够快，而是因为它们本质上就是不可分割的。

In other words, atoms are things that cannot be divided into smaller parts, not because you don't have a sharp enough knife, but because they are, by their nature, indivisible.

不过，光从原子这个词来看，我们已经能看出古代原子论和现代科学中的原子论有一个很大的区别。

But here we've gone no further than the word atoms, and already discovered a big difference between ancient atomism and the atomism of modern science.

现代科学里的原子，这个名字其实不太准确。

The atoms of modern science are misnamed.

它们其实是由更小的部分组成的，这些部分是可以被分开的。

They do have parts which can be divided from one another.

如今，原子可以被分裂，这完全不顾及词源上的含义了。

Atoms can nowadays be split, with callous disregard to etymology.

而且，这些现代原子的组成部分，也就是质子、中子和电子，它们本身又是由更小的粒子构成的，比如那些胶子、夸克之类的。

Furthermore, the parts of these modern atoms, namely protons, neutrons, and electrons, are themselves made up of smaller particles, all those gluons and quarks and whatnot.

所以现代科学家的这些粒子，其实根本算不上真正的原子。

The particles of the modern scientists then are a pretty poor excuse for atoms.

也许有一天，科学家们会告诉我们，存在某种最小或最基本的粒子，或者是一组这样的粒子，它们确实是不可再分的。

Maybe someday the scientists will tell us that there is some smallest or most fundamental particle, or a whole bunch of such particles, which really are indivisible.

如果他们真的这么说了——也许他们早就说了，毕竟坦白讲，我最近没怎么关注这方面的进展——那么这些最基本的粒子就能跟古希腊的原子相提并论了。

If they do tell us this, and maybe they already have because quite frankly I haven't been paying much attention, then these most fundamental particles will be comparable to Greek atoms.

当然，古代原子论者得出他们的理论，方式也和现代科学完全不同。

Of course, the ancient atomists also arrived at their theory in a very different way than modern science has done.

没有化学实验，也没有元素周期表。

No chemical experiments, no periodic table.

相反，公元前五世纪思想家留基伯和德谟克利特提出的原子论，是通过抽象推理得出的。

Instead, the atomism put forward by the fifth century BCE thinkers Leuccipus and Democritus was reached by a process of abstract reasoning.

这里，芝诺的悖论提供了一个有用的起点。

Here, a useful starting point is provided by Zeno's paradoxes.

正如我们上周所看到的，芝诺指出，如果假设距离或物体可以无限分割，就会产生问题。

As we saw last week, Zeno pointed out problems that result from assuming that distances or bodies can be divided up infinitely.

拿个大家熟悉的物体，比如网球场或者长颈鹿，然后开始切。

You take a nice familiar object like a tennis court or a giraffe, and you start cutting.

先切成两半，再把一半切成两半，接着把得到的四分之一再切一半，以此类推。

Divide it in half, divide the half in half, divide the resulting quarter in half, and so on.

芝诺利用了这样一个假设：这个过程似乎没有尽头。

Zeno exploited the assumption that there seems to be no end to this process.

这样一来，距离或物体在某种意义上就变成了无限，而一旦涉及无限，悖论也就随之而来。

The distance, or the body, turns out to be in some sense infinite, and once infinity is on the scene, paradoxes are not far away.

原子论者通过假设不断分割最终会触及不可再分的实体，从而解决了芝诺的难题。

The atomists stop Zeno in his tracks by assuming that if one keeps dividing and dividing, one will eventually hit bedrock.

长颈鹿、网球场以及所有其他事物都是由原子，也就是不可分割的基本单元构成的。

The giraffe, the tennis court, and all other things are made of atoms, uncuttables.

一旦你找到了原子，这就好比电影导演把影片送去院线放映。

Once you've reached the atoms, you're like a film director sending a movie to be shown in theaters.

你已经完成了最终的剪辑。

You've made the final cut.

这只是原子论者宇宙观的一半。

This is only one half of the atomist picture of the cosmos.

而另一半，其实并不存在。

The other half, however, doesn't exist.

那就是原子在其中穿梭的虚无，换句话说，就是真空或虚空。

It's the nothingness in which the atoms move around, in other words, vacuum or void.

在这里，原子论者是在回应米利都的麦利苏斯的观点，他是巴门尼德的另一位追随者，我们上周讨论过他。

Here, the atomists were reacting to an argument of Melissus, another follower of Parmenides, who we talked about last week.

顺便提醒一下，他论证说运动是不可能的，因为物体要移动，就得进入一个空的地方，但空的地方就是虚无，而虚无这种东西是不存在的。

Just to remind you, he argued that motion is impossible, because for something to move, it must move into an empty place, but empty place is nothing, and there's no such thing as nothing.

原子论者把思路反过来想。

The atomist reversed the train of thought.

既然我们明明看到运动是可能的，那就一定存在某种虚无，让物体能够移动进去。

Since we can plainly see that motion is possible, there must be such a thing as nothingness into which things are moving.

这种虚无就是虚空。

This nothingness is the void.

不过，咱们得小心点。

Now, we need to be careful here.

我们很容易想象原子论者认为空间是三维的，并且他们所说的空间要么被填满——那就是原子，要么是空的——那就是虚空。

It's tempting for us to imagine that the atomists have a conception of three-dimensional space, and that they are saying that this space can be either full, in which case we have an atom, or empty, in which case we have void.

但我们的证据显示，他们并没有使用任何独立于存在与非存在之外的第三种概念，比如空间。

But our evidence doesn't show them working with any third notion like space, which is independent of both being and non being.

相反，他们是在直接回应爱利亚学派：除了存在之外，他们还主张有非存在。

Instead, they are making a direct reply to Eliatic philosophy: In addition to being, they say, we will have nonbeing.

存在由原子构成，非存在由虚空构成，原子在虚空中运动，大概是用存在取代非存在，而这正是巴门尼德及其追随者认为绝不可能发生的事。

Being consists of atoms, nonbeing consists of void, and the atoms move into the void, presumably replacing nonbeing with being as they do so, exactly what never happens, according to Parmenides and friends.

这种与爱利亚学派直接的哲学联系在我们的史料中得到了充分证实，比如亚里士多德的著作里就有记载。

This direct philosophical link to Eliatic thought is well attested in our sources, for instance in Aristotle.

因此，我们有充分的理由相信原子论者与爱利亚学派之间存在历史渊源。

So we have good reason to expect a historical connection between the atomists and the Eliatics.

和往常一样，古代传统总想让每位著名哲学家都成为另一位古代哲学家的学生，于是理所当然地把留基伯说成是巴门尼德或芝诺的弟子。

As usual, the ancient tradition wants every famous philosopher to be the student of some other ancient philosopher, and duly makes Leuccipus an associate of Parmenides or Zeno.

我们不必全盘接受这一点，但毫无疑问，留基伯对巴门尼德开创的爱利亚传统非常熟悉。

We don't need to believe this, but it's no doubt true that Leuccipus was well acquainted with the Eliatic tradition begun by Parmenides.

不过，他主要回应的可能是芝诺，尤其是梅里苏斯，而不是直接针对巴门尼德本人。

However, he was probably responding mostly to Zeno and especially Melissus, rather than directly to Parmenides.

后来的德谟克利特显然是直接继承了留基伯的原子论。

The later Democritus then seems to have taken his atomism directly from Leuccipus.

他们两人生活在公元前五世纪，但到了德谟克利特这里，再把他们称为前苏格拉底哲学家就容易产生误导了。

Both of them lived in the fifth century BC, but with Democritus, we're really getting to the point where it's misleading to talk about these early philosophers as pre Socratics.

德谟克利特实际上和苏格拉底是几乎同时代的人。

Democritus was in fact an almost exact contemporary of Socrates.

有资料说他只比苏格拉底大一岁，这可就太接近了，根本算不上什么‘前苏格拉底’。

One source claims that he was one year older than Socrates, which is cutting it pretty close if you want to qualify as a pre Socratic.

可惜的是，我们对留基伯和德谟克利特的生平了解得很少。

We don't know much about the biography of either Leuccipus or Democritus, unfortunately.

就连留基伯的出身地，也存在争议。

There's even uncertainty about where Leuccipus was from.

我觉得有点可疑，说他的家乡不是米利都就是埃利亚——而这恰恰是两个最著名的前苏格拉底哲学重镇？

I find it rather suspicious that his home city is reported to be either Miletus or Eleaia, in other words, one of the two cities most famous for presocratic philosophy?

听上去更像是后人的一种合理推测。

Sounds to me like an educated guess.

至于德谟克利特，情况就好多了，至少我们能确定他的家乡是色雷斯的阿布德拉，位于爱琴海北岸。

Things are a bit better with Democritus, since we can at least name a home city for him, namely Abdera in Thrace, on the Northern coast of the Aegean Sea.

说到他们的哲学思想，很难分清哪些是留基伯的，哪些是德谟克利特的。

As far as their philosophy goes, it's not easy to say where Leuccipus stops and Democritus starts.

在古代文献里，很多原子论的观点都被笼统地归到他们两人名下。

In the ancient sources, many of the atomist doctrines are just ascribed indiscriminately to both of them.

不过德谟克利特的兴趣范围似乎更广，我们还保留着他关于伦理学的残篇，不只是原子论。

Democritus' interest seems to have been wider, though, and for him, we have fragments on ethics as well as atomism.

另外一点特别值得注意的是德谟克利特——我稍后会再提到——他从原子理论中得出了非常彻底的怀疑论结论。

Another thing that seems to be special about Democritus, and which I'll come back to, is that he draws strikingly skeptical conclusions from his atomic theory.

这时候很容易联想到普罗泰戈拉，那位相对主义或怀疑主义的智者，他也来自阿布德拉，和德谟克利特是同乡。

Here, it's tempting to make a connection to Protagoras, the relativist or skeptical sophist, who, like Democritus, hailed from the city of Abdera.

我们会在接下来的几集中再讲到他和他的那些智者同行。

We'll be getting to him and his fellow sophists in a few more episodes.

不过现在，咱们先回到原子本身。

But for now, let's get back to those atoms.

如果我让你想象一个原子，我猜你脑海里会出现一个光滑的圆球，像个小钢珠。

If I ask you to imagine an atom, I suspect you'll think of a smooth round sphere like a ball bearing.

这些微小的钢珠会四处碰撞、相互弹开，然后聚在一起形成更大的物体。

These microscopic ball bearings would bang around colliding off each other and gathering together to make larger bodies.

如果你脑子里是这么想的，那其实也差不离。

If that's the image in your head, it isn't far wrong.

对原子论者来说，大物体确实是由原子组成的，原子也确实会碰撞、会聚集。

For the atomists, larger bodies are indeed made of atoms, and atoms do both collide and get collected together.

但事实上，原子并不真的长成微小钢珠的样子——或者说，只有部分原子是这样。

But it turns out that they don't really look like microscopic ball bearings, or rather, only some of them do.

实际上，原子有各种各样的形状。

There are in fact atoms of every possible shape.

有的带钩子，有的弯曲方向各不相同，这样它们就能互相缠绕，遇到合适形状的原子时能严丝合缝地嵌在一起。

Some have hooks, some are curved one way and some another, so that they can get tangled together and fit snugly into one another if they encounter another atom of the right sort.

不同种类的大型可见物体，是由各种形状和大小的原子组成的。

Different types of larger visible bodies are made from atoms of various shapes and sizes.

比如，亚里士多德告诉我们，在原子论者看来，灵魂是由特别光滑、圆润的原子构成的，这些原子可以在身体里流动。

For instance, Aristotle tells us that for the atomists, the soul consists of particularly smooth, round atoms which can flow around through the body.

这就是你刚才想象的那种像滚珠轴承一样的原子，它们可以聚集形成灵魂，但不一定构成承载灵魂的身体其他部分。

These are those ball bearing like atoms you were just visualizing, and they can collect to form a soul, but not necessarily the rest of the body that houses this soul.

原子的数量是无限的。

There are an infinite number of atoms.

这一点对原子论者来说至关重要，也再次表明他们是在回应埃利亚学派，尤其是麦里梭的观点。

This is crucially important for the atomists, and shows again how they are responding to the Eliadex, and especially Melissus.

对麦里梭而言，存在是单一且无限的；而对原子论者来说，存在是众多且无限的。

For Melissus, being was one and infinite for the atomists, being is many and infinite.

正如我之前提到的，区别在于原子论者将虚空或非存在纳入了他们的世界观。

The difference, as I mentioned already, is that the atomists have integrated void or non being into their world picture.

虚空把存在分成了许多事物，而这些事物是无限的。

Void separates out being into many things, and these things are infinite.

但为什么原子必须是无限的呢？

But why do the atoms have to be infinite?

难道不能恰好有一千万个原子在无限的虚空中弹来弹去吗？

Couldn't there be, say, exactly 10,000,000 atoms bouncing around in an infinite emptiness?

针对这个问题，古代原子论者可以引用一条规则，这条规则有时被称为充足理由律。

In answer to this, the ancient atomist could invoke a rule which is sometimes called the principle of sufficient reason.

它指出，宇宙中的每一个特征都必须有一个合理的理由或解释。

It states that there has to be some good reason or explanation for each feature of the universe.

就目前的例子而言，原子必须是无限的，因为没有理由说它们为什么只能是某个特定的有限数量。

In the present case, atoms must be infinite because there is no reason why there would be any particular finite number of them.

当然，可能正好有一千万个原子，但为什么不能是一千万零一个呢？

Sure, there could be exactly 10,000,000 atoms, but then why not 10,000,001 atoms?

原子论者也可以用类似的论证来说明，原子必须拥有所有能想象到的形状。

The atomist could give the same kind of argument to show why the atoms must have every conceivable shape.

为什么它们只能是球形，或者只有比如说10种形状呢？

Why would they be only spherical, or only come in, say, 10 varieties?

相反，它们应该具备原子可能拥有的所有形状，因为没有理由说某种可能的形状会缺失，尤其是考虑到原子数量是无限的。

Rather, they will have every shape that atoms could have, because there is no reason why any possible shape should be lacking, especially given that there are an infinite number of atoms.

既然原子大小不一，按照同样的推理，应该存在各种大小的原子，包括刚好大到肉眼可见的，还有比那大得多的。

Since the atoms are of different sizes, it seems that by the same reasoning there should be atoms of every size, including ones just big enough to see, and still others much bigger than that.

这里的史料有些不确定，有的说所有原子都肉眼看不见，有的则暗示原子学家认为存在肉眼可见的原子，只是不在我们所在的宇宙部分。

There is some uncertainty in the sources here, with some saying that all atoms are invisible to the naked eye, and others suggesting that the atomists thought that there were atoms big enough to be visible, just not in our part of the universe.

不过我倾向于认为，留基伯和德谟克利特只是默认原子必须小到我们看不见。

But I tend to think that Leuccipus and Democritus just assumed that atoms must be smaller than we can see.

事实上，如果他们愿意，完全可以对此做出合理的解释。

In fact, they could give a good account of this if they wanted to.

他们用原子片或原子膜从可见物体的外层脱落，穿过空气进入我们的眼睛，并与构成我们灵魂的原子相互作用来解释视觉。

They explained vision in terms of sheets or films of atoms being shed from the outer layer of visible bodies, which pass through the air and enter our eyes so as to interact with the atoms that make up our soul.

显然，单个原子不可能脱落出属于它的一部分原子片，所以如果真有这么大的原子，我们 anyway 也根本看不见。

Obviously, a single atom can't throw off a sheet of atoms that are part of it, so if there were such a huge atom, there's no way we could see it anyway.

当然，它还是可能撞上我们。

Of course, it could still collide with us.

我挺喜欢这个想法：有朝一日，一个像大象那么大的隐形原子会从外太空朝我们飞过来。

I quite like the idea that someday an invisible atom the size of an elephant could come hurtling towards us from outer space.

万一真遇到这种情况，千万别想着把原子切成两半。

In the unlikely event of such an emergency, do not try to deal with the atom by cutting it in half.

幸运的是，留基伯和德谟克利特的宇宙观清楚表明，这么巨大的原子就算存在，也不会出现在我们这儿。

Fortunately, the cosmology presented by Leuccipus and Democritus makes it clear that enormous atoms are not going to be found around here, if they exist at all.

他们对我们的宇宙如何从原子中形成，有一套很不错的解释。

They have a nice explanation of how our cosmos formed out of the atoms.

原子一直都在，也一直在彼此碰撞。

There have always been atoms, and they have always been colliding with one another.

原子不只是互相弹开，还会缠绕在一起，一方面是因为形状，就像我说的，另一方面也因为原子倾向于和大小形状相似的其他原子聚在一起。

The atoms don't just bounce off one another, they also get entangled, partially because of their shapes, like I said, but also because the atoms have a tendency to gather together with other atoms of similar size and shape.

这或许能解释，为什么灵魂能保持为一个整体，而不是让所有光滑的原子都乱飞进虚无里。

This might explain why the soul is able to hold together as a single conglomeration, rather than having all its smooth atoms just go ricocheting off into the void.

从整个宇宙层面来看，发生的事情是，大量的原子开始以某种漩涡的方式旋转。

At the level of the whole cosmos, what happens is that huge groups of atoms start to swirl around in a kind of vortex.

较重且较大的原子倾向于聚集在中间，而较轻的原子则倾向于向外移动。

The heavier and bigger atoms tend to bunch towards the middle, and the lighter atoms tend to move to the outside.

前者构成了尘世世界中土质和湿润的物体，而后者则变成了炽热的天体。

The former make up the earthy and moist bodies of the earthly world, while the latter turn into the fiery heavens.

还有更多。

And there's more.

事实上，要多得多。

In fact, infinitely more.

事实证明，宇宙不止一个。

It turns out that there isn't only one cosmos.

毕竟，你环顾四周。

After all, look around.

可见的宇宙看起来里面有无限多的原子吗？

Does the visible cosmos look like it has an infinite number of atoms in it?

不是。

No.

构成地球以及其表面所有植物、动物、山脉等的原子数量已经极其庞大，而天界的原子数量也同样庞大，但即便如此，庞大加庞大仍然是有限的。

There must be a vast number of atoms making up the Earth and all the plants, animals, mountains, and so on on its surface, and yet another vast number making up the heavens, but vast plus vast still equals a finite number.

再说了，根据刚才那个原则，根本没有理由认为宇宙只能有一个。

Besides which, to invoke that principle again, there's no good reason why there should be only one cosmos.

相反，原子论者说，他们认为存在着无限多个世界。

Instead, the atomists said they said there are an infinite number of worlds.

这些世界包含了所有可能的原子组合方式。

Those worlds exhibit every possible combination of atoms.

理解这一点的一种方式是：世界可能存在的每一种形态，实际上都在某处真实存在着。

One way of understanding this is that every way that the world could be actually exists out there somewhere.

会有一些世界截然不同，比如完全由切达奶酪构成、连一片饼干都看不到的世界，也会有一些世界只有一点细微差别，比如长颈鹿长了翅膀，但其他一切都和我们的一样。

There would be worlds that are very different, maybe worlds made entirely out of cheddar cheese without a cracker in sight, and still other worlds with only small differences, like worlds where giraffes have wings, but everything else is the same.

这个理论真的非常颠覆认知，而原子论者似乎并没有像我们希望的那样，充分探索它的全部含义。

This theory is truly mind bending, and the atomists don't seem to have explored its implications as fully as we might have hoped.

但也许我们该稍微收敛一下想象力，因为那些其他世界里，可能也存在宇宙漩涡。

But perhaps we should rein in our imagination just a bit, because there may be a cosmic vortex in all those other worlds too.

这样一来，就会出现很多和我们这个世界很相似的世界——至少在中心有一颗类似地球的天体，周围被炽热的苍穹环绕。

This would result in many worlds which are a lot like ours, at least in the sense that there is an Earth like body in the middle, with fiery heavens surrounding it.

我们现在离巴门尼德已经很远了，尽管这个理论最初只是稍微修改了伊利亚学派的体系，允许‘无’的存在，并允许多个存在，而不是单一不变的实体。

We seem to have gotten quite far from Parmenides now, even though the theory started out by simply modifying the iliac system to allow for non being and to allow multiple beings instead of a single, unchanging one.

但请注意，每一个原子本身，其实都和伊利亚学派那个单一的存在很相似。

But notice that each atom in itself is similar to the iliac single being.

好吧，它们会运动，但它们不可分割、永不改变、永恒存在。

Okay, they move, but they are indivisible, unchanging, and eternal.

还有件事关于德谟克利特，或者说原子论者，可能会让我们想起巴门尼德。

And there's something else about the atomists, or at least Democritus, that may remind us of Parmenides.

你或许记得，巴门尼德在他的诗里区分了‘真理之路’和‘意见之路’。

You might remember that in his poem, Parmenides distinguished between the way of truth and the way of opinion.

他那种关于唯一存在的激进形而上学，就是‘真理之路’。

His radical metaphysics of one being is the way of truth.

那是隐藏的真相，我们之所以无法理解，是因为被世界的表象困住了。

It is the hidden reality that we fail to grasp because we are caught up with the appearances of the world.

德谟克利特的做法也差不多，这乍一看还挺让人意外的。

Democritus does something similar, which is at first rather surprising.

你可能会以为，他是想用常识来对抗埃利亚学派。

You might think that he's out to defend common sense against the Eliatics.

长颈鹿和网球场确实存在，他还能用原子理论解释清楚，对吧？

Giraffes and tennis courts do exist, and he can explain why with his atomic theory, right?

但德谟克利特反而采取了更怀疑的立场，因为他意识到，原子和虚空这种底层现实，根本无法被我们的感官直接感知。

But instead, Democritus took a more skeptical line, because he was impressed by the fact that the underlying reality of atoms and void is not evident to our senses.

因此，他质疑感官的可靠性，认为现象世界里的东西——比如长颈鹿和网球场——其实并不真实，真正实在的，是我们看不见的原子世界。

Thus, he criticized the senses, saying in effect that things in the phenomenal world, the giraffes and tennis courts, are unreal, because what is really real is the atomic universe we can't see.

他用一句名言概括了这一点：甜、苦、热、冷、颜色，都是约定俗成的，唯有原子和虚空才是真实的。

He put this in a famous aphorism: By convention sweet, by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color, but really atoms and void.

在另一段不太为人所知的残篇里，他提到，或许受了色诺芬尼和赫拉克利特的影响，说我们其实一无所知，只能依靠信念度日。

In a less famous fragment, he says, perhaps echoing Xenophanes and Heraclitus, that no one knows anything, and instead we make do with belief.

所以他的观点是，事物在我们看来可能是甜的等等，但这只是表象。

His position then is that things may appear to us to be sweet and so on, but that is only in appearance.

原子间的相互作用解释了为什么事物对我们来说显得是甜的，但甜味本身并不真实，真实的只有原子间的相互作用。

The atomic interactions explain why things seem sweet to us, but the sweetness isn't real it's the atomic interactions that are real.

在这里，德谟克利特触及了哲学中一个永恒的问题。

Here, Democritus has hit upon a perennial issue in philosophy.

科学理论经常告诉我们，世界与我们最初看到的非常不同。

Scientific theories often tell us that the world is very different than it seems at first.

情况一直如此，就像我们之前看到的，前苏格拉底哲学家那些富有创意且令人惊讶的理论。

This has always been the case, as we've seen with the inventive and surprising theories of the Pre Socratics.

现代物理学中看不见的量子粒子世界一点也不奇怪，甚至可能比前苏格拉底哲学家提出的理论更奇怪。

The invisible world of quantum particles in modern physics is no less bizarre, probably even more bizarre, than the theories the Pre Socratics came up with.

在这两种情况下，人们可能会问：科学理论是用另一种通过更专业方法把握的世界取代了现象世界，还是在保留现象世界的同时，也用科学理论对它进行了解释。

And in both cases, one might ask whether the scientific theories replace the phenomenal world with another world, grasped through more specialized methods, or whether the phenomenal world is retained while also getting explained by the scientific theory.

换句话说，我们是否应该说长颈鹿并不真实存在，因为真正存在的只是构成长颈鹿的那些原子？

In other words, should we say that giraffes are not real because really all that exists are the atoms that make up the giraffes?

还是说，长颈鹿之所以真实，恰恰是因为它们是由原子构成的？

Or should we say that giraffes are real precisely because they are made up of atoms?

德谟克利特选择了第一种观点。

Democritus takes the first option.

他认为，科学不是通过解释来巩固我们熟悉的那个日常现实，而是把那个现实给排除了。

He thinks that science banishes our familiar everyday reality, rather than securing our familiar reality by explaining it.

如果我们回顾一下古代原子论和现代物理学所采用的不同方法，就能明白为什么他会这么想了。

We can see why if we go back to the different approaches used in ancient atomism and in modern physics.

现代物理学虽然为我们呈现了一个令人难以置信的原子和亚原子粒子的世界，但在某种程度上，它仍然是我们日常经验的延伸。

Modern physics, despite the mind boggling world of atomic and subatomic particles it offers us, is still in a way an extension of our everyday experience.

物理、化学等学科的工具比我们的眼睛和耳朵强大得多，但这只是意味着它们增强了我们对世界的感知。

The tools of physics, chemistry, and so on are much more powerful than our eyes and ears, but that just means that they enhance our experience of the world.

显微镜和望远镜就是很好的例子。

The microscope and telescope are good examples.

当你使用它们时，你仍然是在看，只不过看到的是肉眼无法直接看到的那些更小或更远的东西。

When you use them, you are still seeing, but you are seeing things much smaller or more distant than the naked eye could see unaided.

即使是量子宇宙中最离奇的特征，原则上也是可观测的，尽管是间接观测。

And even the most outlandish features of the quantum universe are in principle observable, albeit indirectly so.

古代原子论完全不是这样。

Ancient atomism is not like this at all.

原子论者延续了巴门尼德及其追随者的传统，运用纯粹理性去推导世界必然是什么样子。

The atomist continued in the tradition of Parmenides and his followers by applying pure reason to the task of deducing what the world must be like.

当德谟克利特将理性的结论与感官的结论进行对比时，这一点就非常清楚了。

Democritus makes this very clear when he contrasts the deliverances of the mind to the deliverances of the senses.

理性告诉我们原子理论，从而动摇了感官所呈现的内容，尽管感性现实本应建立在原子层面的事件之上。

Mind tells us about the atomic theory, and thus undermines what the senses tell us, even though sensible reality is supposed to be grounded in events at the atomic level.

在希腊哲学的其他地方，我们也能找到这种对理性的推崇。

We can find this deference to the mind elsewhere in Greek philosophy too.

你可能还记得，色诺芬尼说过他的神是用思想来思考的。

You might remember that Xenophanes said that his god thinks.

后来，亚里士多德会说，理性是我们身上的神圣元素，而上帝本身不过是一个独立的理性。

Later on, Aristotle will say that mind is the divine element in us, and that God himself is nothing but a separate mind.

但在希腊哲学家中，没有人比另一位试图从巴门尼德论证的结果中挽救我们周围现实的思想家更推崇理性了。

But no Greek philosopher pays greater tribute to mind than another thinker who tried to preserve the reality around us from the results of Parmenides' arguments.

这个人就是阿那克萨哥拉。

This was Anaxagoras.

在阿那克萨哥拉的哲学中，理性占据了核心地位，它不仅是发现真理的工具，更是驾驭整个宇宙的根本原则。

In the philosophy of Anaxagoras, mind takes central stage, not only as an instrument for discovering truth, but as the fundamental principle which steers the universe itself.

与此同时，他对那个宇宙中实体的描述，同样激进且富有哲学趣味，不亚于原子论。

Meanwhile, his account of the bodies in that universe is no less radical and philosophically interesting than the atomic theory.

所以，下周请继续收听《哲学史无空白：阿那克萨哥拉》。

So, join me next week for Anaxagoras on the history of philosophy without any gaps.