Nigel Warburton
About 2,400 years ago in Athens a man was put to death for asking too many questions. There were philosophers before him, but it was with Socrates that the subject really took off. If philosophy has a patron saint, it is Socrates.
大約2400年前的雅典，有壹個人因為問了太多的問題而被處死。在他之前也有哲學家，但這門學科真正開始流行的是蘇格拉底。如果哲學有壹個守護神，那就是蘇格拉底。
Snub-nosed, podgy, shabby and a bit strange, Socrates did not fit in. Although physically ugly and often unwashed, he had great charisma and a brilliant mind. Everyone in Athens agreed that there had never been anyone quite like him and probably wouldn't be again. He was unique. But he was also extremely annoying. He saw himself as one of those horseflies that have a nasty bite — a gadfly. They're irritating, but don't do serious harm. Not everyone in Athens agreed, though. Some loved him; others thought him a dangerous influence.
翹鼻子，矮胖，衣衫襤褸，還有點古怪，蘇格拉底與此格格不入。雖然他外表醜陋，而且常常不洗衣服，但他擁有非凡的魅力和聰明的頭腦。雅典的每個人都同意，從來沒有像他這樣的人，而且很可能不會再有了。他是獨壹無二的。但他也非常煩人。他把自己看作壹種咬得很厲害的馬蠅——牛虻。它們很煩人，但不會造成嚴重傷害。然而，並不是雅典的每個人都同意。有些愛他;其他人認為他有危險的影響。
As a young man he had been a brave soldier fighting in the Peloponnesian War against the Spartans and their allies. In middle age he shuffled around the marketplace, stopping people from time to time and asking them awkward questions. That was more or less all he did. But the questions he asked were razor-sharp. They seemed straightforward; but they weren't.
年輕時，他曾是伯羅奔尼撒戰爭中勇敢的戰士，與斯巴達人及其盟友作戰。中年時，他在市場上走來走去，不時攔住人們，問他們壹些尷尬的問題。這差不多就是他所做的壹切。但他問的問題非常尖銳。他們似乎簡單;但他們沒有。
An example of this was his conversation with Euthydemus. Socrates asked him whether being deceitful counted as being immoral. Of course it does, Euthydemus replied. He thought that was obvious. But what, Socrates asked, if your friend is feeling very low and might kill himself, and you steal his knife? Isn't that a deceitful act? Of course it is. But isn't it moral rather than immoral to do that? It's a good thing, not a bad one — despite being a deceitful act. Yes, said Euthydemus, who by now is tied in knots. Socrates by using a clever counter-example has shown that Euthydemus' general comment that being deceitful is immoral doesn't apply in every situation. Euthydemus hadn't realized this before.
其中壹個例子就是他和尤西底母的談話。蘇格拉底問他，欺騙是否算作不道德。當然是這樣，尤裏底母回答說。他認為這是顯而易見的。但是，蘇格拉底問，如果妳的朋友情緒低落，想自殺，而妳偷了他的刀呢?那不是欺騙行為嗎?當然了。但這樣做不是道德而非不道德嗎?這是好事，不是壞事——盡管這是壹種欺騙行為。“是的，”尤底墨斯說，“他現在已經心亂如麻了。”蘇格拉底通過壹個聰明的反例，證明了Euthydemus關於欺騙就是不道德的壹般性評論，並不適用於所有情況。Euthydemus以前沒有意識到這壹點。
Over and over again Socrates demonstrated that the people he met in the marketplace didn't really know what they thought they knew. A military commander would begin a conversation totally confident that he knew what "courage" meant, but after 20 minutes in Socrates' company would leave completely confused. The experience must have been disconcerting. Socrates loved to reveal the limits of what people genuinely understood, and to question the assumptions on which they built their lives. A conversation that ended in everyone realizing how little they knew was for him a success. Far better that than to carry on believing that you understood something when you didn't.
蘇格拉底壹次又壹次地證明，他在市場上遇到的人並不真正知道他們自以為知道的事情。壹個軍事指揮官在開始談話時，會完全自信地認為他知道“勇氣”是什麽意思，但在蘇格拉底的陪伴下呆上20分鐘後，他就會完全困惑地離開。這種經歷壹定讓人不安。蘇格拉底喜歡揭示人們真正理解的極限，並質疑他們賴以建立自己生活的假設。壹場以每個人都意識到自己知道的太少而結束的談話對他來說是成功的。這比妳不懂的時候繼續相信妳懂要好得多。
At that time in Athens the sons of rich men would be sent to study with Sophists. The Sophists were clever teachers who would coach their students in the art of speech-making. They charged very high fees for this. Socrates in contrast didn't charge for his services. In fact he claimed he didn't know anything, so how could he teach at all? This didn't stop students coming to him and listening in on his conversations. It didn't make him popular with the Sophists either.
當時在雅典，富人的兒子們被派到詭辯家那裏學習。詭辯家是聰明的老師，他們會指導學生們演講的藝術。他們為此收取很高的費用。蘇格拉底則相反，他的服務並不收費。事實上，他聲稱自己什麽都不知道，那他怎麽能教書呢?這並沒有阻止學生們來聽他的談話。這也沒有讓他在詭辯家中受歡迎。
One day his friend Chaerophon went to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. The oracle was a wise old woman, a sibyl, who would answer questions that visitors asked. Her answers were usually in the form of a riddle. "Is anyone wiser than Socrates?" Chaerophon asked. "No," came the answer. "No one is wiser than Socrates."
壹天，他的朋友查羅豐到特爾斐去見阿波羅的神諭。神諭是壹位睿智的老婦人，她會回答來訪者提出的問題。她的回答通常是謎語的形式。“還有人比蘇格拉底更聰明嗎?”Chaerophon問道。“不，”回答是。“沒人比蘇格拉底更聰明了。”
When Chaerophon told Socrates about this he didn't believe it at first. It really puzzled him. "How can I be the wisest man in Athens when I know so little?" he wondered. He devoted years to questioning people to see if anyone was wiser than he was. Finally he realized what the oracle had meant and that she had been right. Lots of people were good at the various things they did — carpenters were good at carpentry, and soldiers knew about fighting. But none of them were truly wise. They didn't really know what they were talking about.
When Chaerophon told Socrates about this he didn't believe it at first. It really puzzled him. "How can I be the wisest man in Athens when I know so little?" he wondered. He devoted years to questioning people to see if anyone was wiser than he was. Finally he realized what the oracle had meant and that she had been right. Lots of people were good at the various things they did — carpenters were good at carpentry, and soldiers knew about fighting. But none of them were truly wise. They didn't really know what they were talking about.
當查羅豐告訴蘇格拉底這件事時，他壹開始並不相信。這真把他搞糊塗了。“我知道得這麽少，怎麽能成為雅典最聰明的人呢?”他多年來壹直在詢問人們，看是否有人比他更聰明。他終於明白了神諭的意思，明白了她是對的。許多人擅長他們所做的各種各樣的事情——木匠擅長做木匠，士兵懂得打仗。但他們都不是真正的智者。他們不知道自己在說什麽。
當查羅豐告訴蘇格拉底這件事時，他壹開始並不相信。這真把他搞糊塗了。“我知道得這麽少，怎麽能成為雅典最聰明的人呢?”他多年來壹直在詢問人們，看是否有人比他更聰明。他終於明白了神諭的意思，明白了她是對的。許多人擅長他們所做的各種各樣的事情——木匠擅長做木匠，士兵懂得打仗。但他們都不是真正的智者。他們不知道自己在說什麽。
The word "philosopher" comes from the Greek words meaning "love of wisdom." The Western tradition in philosophy spread from ancient Greece across large parts of the world, at time cross-fertilized by ideas from the East. The kind of wisdom that it values is based on argument, reasoning and asking questions, not on believing things simply because someone important has told you they are true. Wisdom for Socrates was not knowing lots of facts, or knowing how to do something. It meant understanding the true nature of our existence, including the limits of what we can know. Philosophers today are doing more or less what Socrates was doing: asking tough questions, looking at reasons and evidence, struggling to answer some of the most important questions we can ask ourselves about the nature of reality and how we should live.
“哲學家”這個詞來自希臘語，意思是“愛智慧”。西方哲學傳統從古希臘傳播到世界的大部分地區，有時還受到來自東方的思想的影響。它所看重的那種智慧是建立在爭論、推理和提出問題的基礎上的，而不是僅僅因為某個重要人物告訴妳它們是真實的而去相信它們。對蘇格拉底來說，智慧是不知道很多事實，或者不知道如何去做某件事。它意味著理解人類存在的真正本質，包括我們所能知道的極限。今天的哲學家們或多或少正在做著蘇格拉底所做的事:提出尖銳的問題，尋找理由和證據，努力回答壹些我們可以問自己的關於現實本質和我們應該如何生活的最重要的問題。
What made Socrates so wise was that he kept asking questions and he was always willing to debate his ideas. Life, he declared, is only worth living if you think about what you are doing. An unexamined existence is all right for cattle, but not for human beings.
蘇格拉底之所以如此明智，是因為他不斷地提出問題，而且總是願意與自己的觀點進行辯論。他宣稱，只有思考自己在做什麽，生命才有意義。壹種未經檢驗的存在對牛來說是可以的，但對人來說就不行。
Athens as a whole didn't value Socrates. Many Athenians felt that Socrates was dangerous and was deliberately undermining the government. In 399 BC, when Socrates was 70 years old, he was sentenced to death. He was put to death by being forced to drink poison made from hemlock. Socrates said goodbye to his wife and three sons, and then gathered his students around him. If he had the choice to carry on living quietly, not asking any more difficult questions, he would not take it. He'd rather die than that. He had an inner voice that told him to keep questioning everything, and he could not betray it. Then he drank the cup of poison.
雅典人整體上並不重視蘇格拉底。許多雅典人認為蘇格拉底很危險，故意破壞政府。公元前399年，蘇格拉底70歲的時候，他被判處死刑。他被迫喝下由鐵杉制成的毒藥而被處死。蘇格拉底告別了他的妻子和三個兒子