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中英对照文本 译校：FungChuh Modern science, medicine, political freedom, the market economy—all of them, we’re told, are the result of a sort of miracle that took place 250 years ago. That miracle is called the Enlightenment, a moment in history when philosophers suddenly overthrew religious dogma and tradition and replaced it with human reason. Harvard professor Steven Pinker puts it this way: “Progress is a gift of the ideals of the Enlightenment.” 现代科学，医学，政治自由，市场经济——我们被告知它们全部都是发生在 250 年前的某个奇迹的结果。这个奇迹被称为启蒙运动，在历史上的这一个时刻，哲学家们突然抛弃了宗教信条和传统，并以人类理性取代了它。哈佛教授史蒂芬·平克这样说：「进步是启蒙运动理念的礼物。」 There’s just one problem with this claim. It isn’t really true. 这个说法只有一个问题。它其实不是真的。 Consider the U.S. Constitution, which is frequently said to be a product of Enlightenment thought. But you only need to read about English common law—which Alexander Hamilton and James Madison certainly did—to see that this isn’t so. Already in the 15th-century, the English jurist John Fortescue elaborated the theory of “checks and balances,” due process, and the role of private property in securing individual freedom and economic prosperity. Similarly, the U.S. Bill of Rights has its sources in English common law of the 1600s. 想一下美国宪法，它经常被认为是启蒙运动思想的产物。但你只需要阅读一下英国普通法——亚历山大·汉密尔顿和詹姆斯·麦迪逊的确读过——就知道事实并非如此。早在十五世纪，英国法学家约翰·福蒂斯丘就阐述过「制约与平衡」理论、正当程序，以及私有产权在保障个人自由和经济繁荣的作用。同样地，美国权利法案的根源可追溯至 1600 年代的英国普通法。 Or consider modern science and medicine. Long before the Enlightenment, tradition-bound English kings sponsored path-breaking scientific institutions such as the Royal College of Physicians, founded in 1518, and the Royal Society of London, founded in 1660. 或是想想现代科学和医学。早在启蒙运动以前，拥护传统的英国国王就资助开创性的科研机构，例如成立于 1518 年的皇家内科医学院，还有成立于 1660 年的伦敦皇家学会。 The truth is that statesmen and philosophers, especially in England and the Netherlands, articulated the principles of free government centuries before America was founded. 事实是政治家和哲学家们，尤其是英国和荷兰的，在美国建国数世纪以前就清楚表述过自由政治的原则。 So why give the Enlightenment all the credit? Apparently because it doesn’t look good to admit that the best and most important parts of modernity were given to us by individuals who nearly all held conservative religious and political beliefs. 那么，为什么把一切都归功于启蒙运动呢？显然，是因为我们不好承认现代最好和最重要的部分是几乎都持有保守主义宗教及政治信仰的人带给我们的。 The claim that all good things come from the Enlightenment is most closely associated with the late-18th-century German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. For Kant, reason is universal, infallible, and independent of experience. 与所有好事物都来自启蒙运动这一说法关系最密切的是 18 世纪晚期的德国哲学家，伊曼努尔·康德。在康德看来，理性是普遍的，不可能出错的，并且是独立于经验的。 His extraordinarily dogmatic philosophy insisted that there can be only one correct answer to every question in science, morality and politics. And that to reach the one correct answer, mankind had to free itself from the chains of the past—that is, from history, tradition and experience. 他极其教条式的哲学坚称，对于所有科学、道德与政治问题，都只能有唯一一个正确答案。而为了得出那唯一的正确答案，人类必须摆脱过去的枷锁——即是，摆脱历史，传统和经验。 But this Enlightenment view is not only wrong, it’s dangerous. Human reason, when cut loose from the constraints imposed by history, tradition and experience, produces a lot of crazy notions. 但这种启蒙运动观点不仅是错误的，它也是危险的。人类理性，如果摆脱了历史，传统与经验的约束，会产生很多疯狂的观念。 The abstract Enlightenment philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau is a good example. It quickly pulled down the French state, leading to the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, and the Napoleonic Wars. Millions died as Napoleon’s armies sought to rebuild every government in Europe in light of the one correct political theory he believed was permitted by Enlightenment philosophy. 让-雅克·卢梭的抽象启蒙哲学就是个好例子。它很快推翻了法国政府，带来了法国大革命，雅各宾专政和拿破仑战争。数百万人因拿破仑军队试图重建欧洲所有政府而丧生。全是由于拿破仑所相信受启蒙哲学认可的唯一正确的政治理论。 Today’s cheerleaders for the Enlightenment tend to skip this part of the story. They also pass over the fact that the father of communism, Karl Marx, saw himself as promoting universal reason as well. His new “science” of economics ended up killing tens of millions of people in the 20th century. So did the supposedly scientific race theories of the Nazis. The greatest catastrophes of modernity were engineered by individuals who claimed to be exercising reason. 今天的启蒙运动拥护者会避开这部分故事。他们也会避而不谈一个事实，共产主义之父，卡尔·马克思，也自称自己是在促进普遍理性。他的新经济「科学」最终导致 20 世纪数以千万人的死亡。同样的还有纳粹所谓科学的种族理论。现代化的最大灾难是由自称在实践理性的人带来的。 In contrast, most of the progress we’ve made comes from conservative traditions openly skeptical of human reason. The Enlightenment’s critics, including John Selden, David Hume, Adam Smith, and Edmund Burke, emphasized the unreliability of “abstract reasoning” and urged us to stick close to custom, history, and experience in all things. 相反，我们取得的大多数进步来自于公开质疑人类理性的保守主义传统。启蒙运动的批评者们，其中包括约翰·塞尔登，大卫·休谟，亚当·斯密和埃德蒙·伯克，强调「抽象推理」的不可靠性，并极力主张我们在所有事情上紧遵习俗，历史和经验。 Which brings us to the heart of what’s wrong with today’s idolization of the Enlightenment. Its leading figures were not skeptics open to what history and experience might teach us. 由此带我们来到今天对启蒙运动的偶像化问题的核心。它的领军人物们不是怀疑论者，不会重视历史和经验的可能带给我们的教训。 Their aim was to create their own system of supposedly infallible truths independent of experience. And in that pursuit, they were as rigid as the most dogmatic medievals. 他们的目的是建立自己所谓独立于经验的，不可能出错的真理体系。在这一追求中，他们就和最迷信教条的中世纪人一样顽固。 Anglo-Scottish conservatives had a very different goal. They defended national and religious tradition, even as they cultivated what they called a “moderate skepticism”—a combination that became known as “common sense.” 盎格鲁苏格兰保守主义者有个非常不一样的目标。他们捍卫民族与宗教传统，同时他们培育了自己所称的「温和怀疑主义」——两者的结合在后来被称为「常识」。 I think a lot about common sense these days, as I see American and European elites clamoring for “Enlightenment Now.” They rush to embrace every fashionable new “ism”—socialism, feminism, environmentalism, and so on—declaring them to be universal certainties and the only “politically correct” way of thinking. They display contempt towards those who won’t embrace their dogmas, branding them “unenlightened,” “illiberal,” “deplorable,” and worse. 我这些天常常在思考常识，因为我看到美国和欧洲精英们叫喊着「当下的启蒙」。他们迫不及待地拥抱所有时髦的新「主义」——社会主义，女权主义，环保主义，等等等等——宣称自己是普遍确定的，是唯一「政治正确」的思考方式。他们对那些不接受他们教条的人嗤之以鼻，骂他们是「未开化的」，「狭隘的」，「可悲的」，甚至更糟的。 But these new dogmas deserve to be greeted with some of that old Anglo-Scottish skepticism. 但这些新的教条也值得以古老的盎格鲁苏格兰怀疑主义眼光看待。 Enlightenment overconfidence in reason has led us badly astray too many times. 启蒙运动对理性的过分自信太多次带我们走向歧途。 I’m Yoram Hazony, author of The Virtue of Nationalism, for Prager University. 我是尤伦·哈佐尼，The Virtue of Nationalism 的作者，为 PragerU 制作。 |
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