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  • Crash Course Philosophy is brought to you by Squarespace.

    Crash Course 哲學是由 Squarespace 贊助播出。

  • Squarespace: share your passion with the world.

    Squarespace:分享你的熱情給全世界。

  • What gives your life meaning? God? Love? Money? Work?

    你的生命因什麼而有意義?上帝?愛情?金錢?工作?

  • Fanfiction? Football? Shopping? Sherlock?

    同人誌?足球?購物?還是福爾福斯?

  • You might have your own personal sense of purpose in your life,

    你對於自己生命的意義應該有自己的想法,

  • or maybe youre hoping this course will help you find one.

    或者你正期待這門課可以幫助你找到一個人生目的。

  • Or you might believe that you were created with a certain essence as a human being, with a purpose given to you by God.

    又或者,你相信你生來就被賦予某個作為人類的本質,也就是上帝已給你一個目的。

  • Whatever the case is, no one would fault you for wanting your life to have meaning.

    不論情況如何,沒有人可以責備你想要自己的人生有意義。

  • A sense of meaning is something that we all cravemaybe even need.

    每個人都在追求,或甚至需要人生有意義。

  • And as we move out of our unit on the philosophy of religion,

    隨著宗教哲學的單元結束,

  • we should spend some time talking about how we understand our lives as being meaningful.

    我們也應該花點時間談談我們如何認定自己的生命是有意義的。

  • Because when you think about it, a lot of us devote a ton of energy to the task of finding meaning in our lives.

    因為當你細想,許多人花費大量的精力去尋找人生的意義。

  • Maybe you find it through religion, or by fighting for social justice, or educating others, or seeking beauty in artistic expression.

    你可能透過宗教、藉由捍衛社會正義、教育他人,或憑藉藝術性的方式來尋找美,去挖掘人生的意義。

  • No matter how you do it, there’s a group of philosophers, the existentialists,

    無論你怎麼探索,那裡有一群哲學家,也就是存在主義者,

  • who say that any, or all, of these things can give your life meaning.

    他們認為任何,或所有這些東西,都可以給你的人生意義。

  • But at the same time, they say: None of them can.

    但同時,他們聲稱,沒有東西可以。

  • As you know by now, philosophy is about the dialectic:

    你現在大概知道了,哲學就是一個辯證的過程:

  • Someone puts forth an idea, and then someone else responds to it.

    某人提出一個概念,然後另一個人回應。

  • Sometimes, the response comes right away. In other cases, it takes thousands of years.

    有時候,回應很快就出現了;在其他情況下,這需要耗費幾千年的時間。

  • Way back in ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle took it as given that everything has an essence

    追溯到古希臘,柏拉圖和亞里斯多德理所當然地認為凡事都存在「本質」,

  • – a certain set of core properties that are necessary, or essentialfor a thing to be what it is.

    所謂本質,指的是「一套必要或重要的核心概念,使某物得以成為某物」。

  • If those properties were missing, then that thing would be a different thing.

    如果缺乏這些要素,這東西可能就變成其他東西了。

  • For instance, a knife could have a wooden handle or a metal handleit really doesn’t matter.

    舉例來說,一把刀可能有木製的刀柄或鐵製的刀柄,但這其實不重要。

  • But if it didn’t have a blade, it wouldn’t really be a knife anymore.

    但如果一把刀沒有刀鋒,它就不是一把刀了。

  • The blade is the essential property of the knife, because it gives the knife its defining function.

    因此,刀鋒是一把刀的重要元素,因為它賦予了刀子最重要的功能。

  • Now, Plato and Aristotle thought that everything has an essenceincluding us.

    柏拉圖和亞里斯多德認為凡事都存在本質,當然也包括人類。

  • And they believed that our essences exist in us before were even born.

    同時,他們也相信我們的本質早在出生前就存在了。

  • So by this thinking, part of what it means to be a good human is to adhere to your essence.

    所以按照他們的邏輯,要做一個好人的方法,就是遵從你的本質。

  • Now, you may or may not know what your essence is,

    你不一定知道你的本質是什麼,

  • and you might be great at living up to your essence, or you may be awful at it.

    你可能很擅長依循自己的本質而生活,或你可能做得很糟。

  • But the important thing is that your essence gives you a purpose.

    但重要的事情是,你的本質給了你一個目的。

  • Because you were born to be a certain thing.

    因為你是生來要成為某個東西的。

  • This belief, known as essentialism, was the standard view of the universe all the way up until the late 19th century,

    這樣的概念被稱為本質論,在 19 世紀末期以前,人們都是這樣看待世界的,

  • and it’s still accepted by many people today.

    而且現在許多人也如此相信著。

  • But in the late 1800s, some thinkers started to challenge the idea that we are imbued with any essence or purpose.

    但在 1800 年代晚期,「人類生來就擁有本質或目的」的看法受到一些思想家的挑戰。

  • German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, for example,

    以德國的哲學家弗里德里希.尼采為例,

  • embraced nihilism, the belief in the ultimate meaningless of life.

    他擁護的是虛無主義,也就是生命的終極是毫無意義的。

  • But by the mid-20th century, the path had been paved for French thinker Jean-Paul Sartre

    但在 20 世紀中期,尼采的思想為法國哲學家尚.保羅.沙特鋪路,

  • to return to the question of essence and ask:

    他回到有關本質的疑問,並且提出:

  • What if we exist first?

    有沒有可能人類的存在優先呢?

  • What if were born without any hard-wired purpose? And then it’s up to us to find our own essences?

    有沒有可能我們生來根本沒有什麼目的,而自身的本質要由我們自己去探索呢?

  • Well this became the framework for what we now know as existentialism.

    這就成為存在主義的基本框架。

  • And its mantra is the claim thatexistence precedes essence.”

    而它的口頭禪就是「存在先於本質」。

  • In other words, our existenceour birthhappens first.

    換句話說,我們的「存在」,也就是人類誕生,是優先的。

  • Then, it’s up to each of us to determine who we are.

    接著,我們才去決定我們生命的意義和價值。

  • We have to write our own essence, through the way we choose to live.

    我們必須藉由我們選擇的生活方式,來書寫我們的本質。

  • But we have no actual, predetermined purposethere’s no set path that were supposed to follow.

    但我們並沒有一個確切且命定的目的,並不存在一條固定的道路要我們去跟從。

  • It’s hard to express how radical this idea was at the time.

    你一定無法想像這個思想對那個時代而言有多激進。

  • Because, for thousands of years, you didn’t have to choose a path, or find your purpose.

    因為幾千多年來,你無須選擇一條道路或尋找人生的意義。

  • God did it for you.

    上帝都幫你做好了。

  • But it’s important to note that existentialism is not synonymous with atheism.

    這裡我們必須要說明,存在主義和無神論並不能畫上等號。

  • Plenty of existentialists are atheists, but some are theists, like Kierkegaard.

    的確有許多存在主義者是無神論者,但有些卻是有信仰的,例如齊克果。

  • What theistic existentialists deny is any sort of teleology

    有神論存在主義者反對的是所謂「目的論」,

  • that is, they refute the notion that God made the universe, or our world, or us, with any particular purpose in mind.

    也就是說,他們反駁上帝在創造宇宙、世界或人類時,是懷抱某個特定目的的。

  • So, God may existbut instilling you, or your life, or the cosmos, with meaning

    所以上帝可能存在,至於在你或你的生命中,乃至於在宇宙萬物間賦予意義,

  • that’s just not in his job description.

    這並不是他的職權範圍。

  • As a result, we are each born into a universe in which we, and our world, and our actions, lack any real, inherent importance.

    因此,這個我們存在的宇宙中,人類、世界以及我們的行為,都缺乏任何真實且先驗的重要性。

  • This is a fundamental component of existentialism.

    這是存在主義的基本理念。

  • And its adherents refer to it asthe absurd.”

    而存在主義者們也稱之為「荒謬」。

  • You and I think of absurdity as something that’s just silly, or preposterous.

    我們所認為的荒謬,指的可能只是愚蠢或是荒誕不經的東西。

  • But for existentialists, absurdity is a technical term.

    但對存在主義者來說,荒謬是個專有名詞。

  • It’s how they describe the search for answers in an answerless world.

    這個詞代表的,是在沒有答案的世界中尋找答案的行為。

  • We are creatures who need meaning, but were abandoned in a universe full of meaninglessness.

    人類是需要意義的生物,但我們卻被遺棄在一個缺乏意義的宇宙中。

  • So we cry into the wilderness, and get no response.

    所以我們在荒野裡大聲哭嚎,但卻毫無回應。

  • But we keep crying anyway.

    但總之我們仍繼續哭泣。

  • That, for an existentialist, is the definition of absurd.

    這,對存在主義者來說,就是荒謬一詞的定義。

  • Since there’s no teleology, the world wasn’t created for a reason, and it doesn’t exist for a reason.

    既然目的論不存在,這個世界的生成是毫無意義的,而它也不是為了一個理由而存在。

  • And if there’s no reason for any of this, then there’s also no absolutes to abide by:

    如果這一切都沒有理由,那就不存在可供遵循的價值或信條:

  • There’s no cosmic justice, no fairness, no order, no rules.

    不存在宇宙間的正義,不存在公平,不存在秩序,也不存在規則。

  • Now, existentialism has its roots in late-19th-century thinkers like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.

    存在主義萌芽於十九世紀晚期的哲學家,如齊克果和尼采。

  • But it really came into its own during and after World War II,

    但它真正開始發展要到二次大戰期間,

  • as the horrors of the Holocaust led many people to abandon any belief in an ordered world.

    隨著大屠殺所帶來的恐懼,人們不再相信這個世界是有秩序的。

  • And who could blame them?

    誰又能責怪他們呢?

  • When Nazis became possible, meaning became much harder to find.

    當納粹開始出現,意義就變得更難追尋了。

  • But Sartre faced meaninglessness head-on, and explored one of the most agonizing aspects of existentialism.

    但沙特卻直視這世界的毫無意義性,並且發展出了存在主義中最令人焦慮不安的面向。

  • Not the world’s lack of meaning. But its terrifying abundance of freedom.

    世界缺乏意義並不恐怖,真正的駭人之處在於它充滿了自由。

  • To most of us, freedom sounds pretty great. But Sartre thought that we are painfully, shockingly free.

    對大多數人而言,自由聽起來是件美好的事。但沙特認為我們擁有的是痛苦且令人不安的自由。

  • After all, if there are no guidelines for our actions,

    畢竟,如果我們的行動沒有準則可供追尋,

  • then each of us is forced to design our own moral code, to invent a morality to live by.

    每個人就被迫定義自己的道德準則,我們必須為自己的人生發明一個道德觀。

  • Sartre took this to mean that we arecondemned to be free,” a fate that he found to be quite awful.

    沙特用這樣的觀點來解釋人類是「被詛咒而自由」,這個命運對他來說是相當糟糕的。

  • You might think that there’s some authority you could look to for answers, Sartre said,

    沙特說,你可能認為你可以向某個權威尋找答案,

  • but all of the authorities you can think of are fake.

    但所有你認為的權威,其實都是假的。

  • You can do what your parents say, or your church, or your government,

    你可以遵從父母、教會,或是政府的命令,

  • but Sartre said those authorities are really just people like you,

    但沙特說,這些所謂的權威,充其量也是像你一樣的人而已,

  • people who don’t have any answers, people who had to figure out for themselves how to live.

    他們也沒有任何答案,他們也必須自己去尋找該如何生活。

  • So the best thing you can really do, he determined, is to live authentically.

    所以他認為,最好的辦法就是確實地活著。

  • Sartre used this to mean that you have to accept the full weight of your freedom in light of the absurd.

    沙特的意思是,你必須認知到這個荒謬的世界裡,你的自由蘊含了無限的責任。

  • You have to recognize that any meaning your life has, is given to it by you.

    你必須了解,你生命中所有的意義,都是由你自己給予的。

  • And if you decide to just phone it in, and follow a path that someone else has set

    而如果你打算求助,決定照著別人給定的道路走,

  • whether it’s your teachers, your government, or your religion

    不管那個別人是你的老師、你的政府,或是你的信仰,

  • then you have what he called bad faith, a refusal to accept the absurd.

    那你就擁有沙特所謂的「惡信」,也就是拒絕接受荒謬。

  • If you live by bad faith, youre burying your head in the sand

    如果你依循惡信而活,你就是把頭埋在沙子裡,

  • and pretending that something out there has meaningmeaning that you didn’t give it.

    並且假裝外頭的世界是有意義的-你並沒有主動給予的意義。

  • Which brings us to this week’s Flash Philosophy. Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.

    接下來要進入的就是本周的短片時間,來看看思想泡泡裡有什麼內容吧。

  • Sartre explained these ideas through an anecdote about one of his students, who faced a difficult decision.

    沙特用他一個面臨困難抉擇的學生的軼事來解釋這些觀念。

  • This young man was at a crossroads in his life.

    這個年輕人正站在人生的十字路口。

  • He could join the military during wartime, and go off to fight for a cause that he believed in.

    他可以在戰爭期間投身軍旅,並且為了他堅信的開戰原因而戰。

  • And he wanted to do this. He thought it was right.

    他想這麼做,他認為這是正確的決定。

  • But he also had an elderly mother who was all alone, except for him.

    但他也有一個年邁且孤單的母親,膝下只剩他一人。

  • If he went to war, he’d leave her behind. And that seemed wrong.

    如果他從軍,他就必須割捨下老母親。而這好像是不對的。

  • So he could stay with her, and let others fight for justice.

    所以他可以留下來陪她,讓其他人去為正義而戰。

  • Or he could go off to war, and leave his mother to herself, and likely never see her again.

    或者他可以去打仗,讓母親自己照顧自己,而且可能母子再也無法相見。

  • The young man felt a sense of duty to both his cause and to his mother, but he could only serve one.

    這個年輕人對開戰的原因,以及對他的母親,都有深深的責任感,但他只能選擇其中之一。

  • Moreover, if he went to war, he’d be just a very small part of a really big cause.

    此外,如果他決定到前線作戰,他只是一個大原因中的極小一部分。

  • His contribution probably wouldn’t be great,

    他的貢獻可能不大,

  • but he would be contributing to something that would affect millions of people.

    但他可能為了會影響幾千萬人的事情奉獻自己。

  • But if he stayed behind, he’d make an enormous difference in just one person’s life.

    但他如果待在後方,他可能會大大地影響一個人的一生。

  • Thanks Thought Bubble. So, what’s the answer?

    思想泡泡的時間結束啦。那,答案是什麼呢?

  • Sartre said that the whole point of this young man’s decision was that no one could give him an answer.

    沙特說,有關這個年輕人的抉擇最重要的是,沒有人可以給他一個答案。

  • In fact, there was no answer, until the man chose one for himself.

    事實上,在我們做出選擇之前,根本沒有答案可言。

  • No moral theory could help him decide,

    沒有一個倫理學理論能幫助他做決定,

  • because no one else’s advice could lead him to a decision that was truly authentic.

    因為他人的意見無法帶領他做出「真正的」抉擇。

  • So his choiceno matter what it waswas the only true choice, provided that he made it authentically,

    所以只要他是真正地自己做出抉擇,不論他決定投向何者,都是唯一正確的決定,

  • because it was determined by the values he chose to accept.

    因為這個決定是奠基於他所選擇接受的價值。

  • A lot of people think existentialism paints a pretty bleak picture of the world.

    很多人認為存在主義描繪出這世界很灰暗的一面。

  • In fact, the French philosopher and novelist Albert Camus went so far as to say that

    也的確,法國哲學家暨小說家艾伯特.卡謬甚至說出:

  • the literal meaning of life is whatever youre doing that prevents you from killing yourself.

    「『生命』字面上的意思就是,你為了避免自殺而所做的一切。」

  • But most existentialists would remind you that the world, and your life, can have meaning,

    但大多數的存在主義者會提醒你,這個世界和你的生命都是可以有意義的,

  • but only if you choose to assign it.

    只要你選擇賦予。

  • If the world is inherently devoid of purpose, you can choose to imbue it with whatever purpose you want.

    如果這個世界生來就是缺乏目的的,你可以選擇用你喜歡的方式給它目的。

  • So, no one can tell you if your life isn’t worth anything if you, say, don’t have children,

    所以,沒有人可以說,你的人生毫無價值,如果你沒有小孩,

  • or don’t follow a lucrative career path, or achieve whatever standards your parents hold you to.

    或是不走一條賺大錢的路,或是達到任何你父母期望你達成的要求。

  • And this works not just on an individual scale, but on a global one too.

    這些不單單在個人的層面適用,對整個世界亦然。

  • If the world is going to have any of the things most of us value

    如果這個世界有一個大多數人都珍視的東西,

  • like justice and orderwere going to have to put it there ourselves.

    像正義或秩序,我們必須親身實踐這些價值。

  • Because, otherwise, those things wouldn’t exist.

    因為不這樣的話,那些東西根本不會存在。

  • So, a worldview that looks bleak to some, may to others seem almost exhilarating.

    所以說,一個對某些來說很灰暗的世界,對另一些人而言可能是令人愉悅的。

  • Today I hope you enjoyed as much as I did learning about essentialism and its response: existentialism.

    今天我希望你和我一樣享受學習本質論和它的回應:存在主義。

  • We talked about Jean-Paul Sartre and his ideas about how to find meaning in a meaningless world.

    我們談到尚.保羅.沙特和他如何在一個無意義的世界中尋找意義的方式。

Crash Course Philosophy is brought to you by Squarespace.

Crash Course 哲學是由 Squarespace 贊助播出。

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