10-9 遥远的同时代人：伊曼纽尔·康德

Distant Contemporary :Immanuel Kant

A small man , a big mind: Immanuel Kant revolutionized philosophy, questioned established authorities and placed reason and freedom at the centre of his thinking .Kant died 200 years ago -- his ideas still point to the future .

As long as he lived, Immanuel Kant sought no honours. Even in his later years, when he was already acknowledged as one of Europe’s most outstanding thinkers, he found tributes of all kinds unpleasant. Although he possessed 1 a marked self-esteem, he found all “craving1 for honour” repugnant2. The great Kant was a modest man who humorously remarked that “great people only shine from afar” and that even a prince or a king loses a lot in front of his servant, “because no man is great.”

In time, Kant is far removed from us. He was born in Kaliningrad in 1724 and spent most of his life there, until he died on February 12, 1804. The 200th anniversary of his death provided an occasion to remember him: worldwide, from Berlin to Beijing and from Moscow to Auckland, commemorative3 events and congresses took place in his name.

Kant was an up-to-date thinker. He was really only interested in the problems of his time, which he thought through perceptively 2 and tried to solve in an original way. Kant was a man of his time who examined and applied 3 his philosophical 4 thought with a view to its relevance 54. He thus initiated 6 the discourse 7 of modernism, which was no longer grounded in a belief in tradition, but had to constantly reorient5 itself as a permanent and precarious 86 present.

In this respect, Kant is still relevant to us. For we are still coming to grips with those problematic situations in which the freedom-loving wise man from K- nigsberg developed his critical philosophy.

When his father, a master craftsman 9, died in penury 107 in 1746 (his mother had died in 1737, when he was 13 years old), Kant worked as a private tutor in the eastern Prussian provinces for several years. He used that time to expand his knowledge of the natural sciences. Back in Kaliningrad, as a scientific publicist, he showed his readers how enlightened scientific knowledge functions. To do this, he carried on from that “laudable8 curiosity awakened 12 by anything that is unusual and which inclines to query 13 its causes.” In 1755 he published his pioneering work Theory of the Heavens in which, with reference to Newton’ s mathematical natural science, he attempted to explain both the systematic 14 structure and the natural history of the whole cosmos 159. “The starry 1610 heavens above me” --that was Kant’s greatest love.

A researcher of man

The 30-year-old Kant had every reason to be proud of his knowledge of the natural sciences. Several years later, however, he recognized the trap into which he seemed to have fallen: his passionate 17 love of scientific research had alienated11 him from man. As a 40-year-old he completed a major turnabout: the researcher of nature became a researcher of man. He began to be more interested in people than in things, and from then on attempted to grasp the complicated features of the human species. In all his examinations of the human-all-too-human, the two focal points that were then to move to the centre of his critical philosophy were already evident. In 1781, he published his Critique of Pure Reason, which purported12 to be a revolution in thought. Western culture had received a new philosophical basis. All traditional authorities were criticized, especially church leaders who tried to legitimate 20 their position with religious pseudo-knowledge, and state leaders who monitored their subjects as if they were their property.

In his Critique of Practical Reason of 1788 Kant elucidated13 the moral dimension of human action and volition 22. Here too, his objective was to strengthen the autonomy14 of human activity from a moral viewpoint, which can neither be steered15 by or grounded in religious dogma16 and fundamental religious certainty, or legal regulations and state force. As a free human being, each person must learn to recognize and cultivate his morality in himself. “The moral law within me” was cherished in all its force and majesty 2417 against all outside influence. The only valid 25 guideline for moral self-assurance should be the famous and notorious “categorical imperative 26”: one should examine the subjective 27 guidelines for one’s actions as to whether they can serve as principles for a general law. For only that which can be morally generalized enables different individuals to live together harmoniously 28. That is the imperative for the “unsocial sociality” of modern man, who no longer has to, nor wants to, pray to a god or obey a leader.

The ageing Kant enthusiastically welcomed the American struggle for independence and the French Revolution. “Civil law constitutions” had been developed which he lauded18 as necessary prerequisites19 for a peaceful community of free men and states. There should finally be an end to the lawless “natural state” in which the wild and despotic freedom of the stronger repeatedly led to new hostilities 30. By contrast, a legal state of affairs was to be established in which the freedom of one person can exist together with the freedom of the other. Only then is that “eternal peace” conceivable for which the more than 70-year-old Kant wrote the philosophical agenda in 1795. He drafted the outlines for a constitutional law, an international law and global civil rights. He regarded the idea of a peaceful, if not necessarily friendly, community of peoples as a legal principle that was in agreement with the free and public use of reason by responsible citizens.

His philosophical draft Perpetual Peace was no idealistic pipe dream. As a realist, Kant regarded eternal peace as the ultimate goal of all international law merely as an impracticable idea. But he was optimistic enough to regard the political principles of a federal alliance of sovereign20 states and enlightened people as feasible. In this respect too, the philosopher from Kaliningrad is our contemporary. His philosophy not only apparently 31 shines as great from afar, it shines like the “pure gold of thought” which today seems to be more valuable than in Kant’ s own lifetime.

注释：

1. crave 32 [kreiv] vi. 渴望

2. repugnant [ri5pQ^nEnt] a. 令人厌恶的，使人极度反感的

3. commemorative [kE5memErEtiv] a. 表示纪念的，用作纪念的

4. relevance [5relevEns] n. 意义，实用性

5.reorient [5ri:5C:rient] vt. 重定……的方向（或方位）

6. precarious [pri5kZEriEs] a. 不牢靠的，不稳的

7. penury [5penjuri] n. 拮据，贫穷

8. laudable [5lC:dEbl] a. 值得赞美的，值得称赞的

9. cosmos [5kCzmCs] n.（被视作和谐体系的）宇宙

10. starry [5stB:ri] a. 布满星星的，星光照耀的

11. alienate 18 [5eiljEneit] vt. 使疏远，使不友好

12. purport 19 [5pE:pEt] vt. 声称，自称

13. elucidate [i5lju:sideit] vt. 阐明，解释

14. autonomy [C:5tCnEmi] n. 人身自由，自主权

15. steer 23 [stiE] vt. 指导，引导

16. dogma [5dC^mE] n. 教义，教理，信条

17. majesty [5mAdVisti] n. 崇高，高贵

18. laud 11 [lC:d] vt. 赞美，称赞

19. prerequisite 29 [5pri:5rekwizit] n. 先决条件，前提

20. sovereign [5sCvrin] a. 具有独立主权的

遥远的同时代人：伊曼纽尔·康德

小个子，大才智：伊曼纽尔·康德掀起哲学革命，质疑公认的权威，将理想性和自由放在他思想的中心。康德于２００年前逝世――他的思想仍指向未来。

伊曼纽尔·康德一生不追求荣誉。即使到了晚年已被公认为欧洲最杰出的思想家之一，他还是讨厌任何赞扬。虽然他十分自尊，但厌恶一切“沽名钓誉”。伟大的康德是一个谦逊的人，他幽默地说，“伟人只有在远处才闪闪发光”，即使是王子或国王也会在自己的仆从面前大失颜面，“因为没有一个人是伟大的”。

在时间上，康德与我们相隔甚远。他1724年生于柯尼斯堡（今天的加里宁格勒），在那里度过了一生的绝大部分时光，直到于1804年2月12日逝世。逝世200周年纪念日正是缅怀他的大好时机：从柏林到北京，从莫斯科到奥克兰，世界各地都为他举办了纪念活动和会议。

康德是个思考最新问题的思想家。他只对他那个时代的问题感兴趣，他敏锐地观察，深入地思考，试图用独创的方式去解决它们。康德是一个紧跟时代的人，他从实用的角度来观察和运用他的哲学思想。他提出关于现代主义的论述，认为现代主义不再植根于传统信念，而是作为一种永恒的和不稳定的现在必须不断重新定位。

在这个方面，康德对我们仍然十分重要，因为我们仍然要对付令人困惑的处境，而这位来自柯尼斯堡的热爱自由的贤人正是在这种处境中发展他的批判哲学的。

康德的父亲是一位手工艺师傅，于1746年在贫困中去世（他母亲于1737年去世，当时他仅13岁）。在父亲去世后，康德在东普鲁士各省担任了若干年的家庭教师。他利用这段时间增加自然科学知识。回到柯尼斯堡，他以科学推广员的身份向读者们讲解文明的科学知识是如何发挥作用的。为此，他联系到“值得赞美的好奇心，那种好奇心被所有不同寻常的事物唤醒，并习惯于对其原因提出疑问。”1755年，他发表了开创性的著作《天体论》，在这部著作里他参照牛顿以数学方法阐释的自然科学理论，试图同时解释整个宇宙的系统构造和自然发展史。“我头顶上的星空”是康德最热爱的。

人的研究者

30岁时，康德已经完全可以为他的自然科学知识而自豪了。但是几年之后，他意识到自己似乎已经落入一个陷阱：他对科学研究的热爱使他疏远了人。在40岁的时候，他完成了一个巨大转变，从一个自然研究者变成了人的研究者。他对人的兴趣开始超过了对物的兴趣，开始试着理解人类这个物种的复杂特性。在他对于人性－过度人性化的所有研究中，以后成为他批判哲学中心的两大重点已经很明显了。1781年，他的自称为思维方式的一次革命的《纯粹理性批判》问世，西方文化获得了新的哲学基础。所有传统权威都遭到了批判，尤其是试图通过宗教的虚假知识获得合法地位的教会领袖，以及将其臣民当作个人财产加以监控的国家统治者。

在1788年问世的《实践理性批判》中，康德阐明了人类行为和意志的道德规范。在这里，他的目的仍是从道德观念方面增强人类活动的自主性，这些活动既不受宗教教义和基本的宗教定理或法律规定以及国家强制力量指导，也不以它们为基础。作为一个自由人，每个人都必须学会识别并培养他自身的道德观。“我自身的道德法则”以自己所有的力量和庄严战胜了一切外来影响。作为道德自信的惟一有效准则只能是那个著名和众所周知的“直言命令”：人应当检视自己行为的主观准则是否可以作为一个普遍法则的原则。因为只有可以在道德上普遍化，才能使不同的个人和谐地共同生存。这就是对不再必须或不再愿意祈求上帝或服从领袖的现代人的“不合群的群居性”的命令。

晚年的康德热情欢迎美国独立运动和法国大革命。“民法宪法”出现了，他称赞它为构成自由的人们和国家和平共同体的必要前提。无法的“自然状态”最终应结束，在这种自然状态中，强者野蛮暴虐的自由不断引起新的敌对。要创立与此相反的法治状态，使一个人的自由可以和另一个人的自由共同存在。只有这样，才可能实现70多岁高龄的康德在1795年写的哲学纲要中的那种“永久和平”。他起草了一部宪法、一部国际法以及一部世界民权法的提纲。建立一个即便不必和睦但是和平的各国人民的共同体的想法在他看来是一个法律的原则，这个原则与有责任能力的公民自由和公开地使用理性是相吻合的。

他的哲学草稿《论永久和平》并非理想主义者的空想。作为现实主义者，康德认为，永久和平作为整个国际法的最终目的只能是一个无法实行的想法，但他还是乐观地认为，主权国家以及文明民众建立联邦同盟的政治原则是可行的。在这一方面，这位柯尼斯堡的哲学家也堪称我们的同时代人。他的哲学不仅仅在远处闪烁伟大的光辉。它的光芒如同“思想的纯金”，在今天比康德生活的时代显得更有价值。