普鲁塔克《希腊罗马名人传》的“求真”与“致用”

Seeking Truth and Pragmatism:Plutarch's Lives

普鲁塔克写作《希腊罗马名人传》旨在探究和效仿历史人物的德性。他广泛搜求史料并加以辨析,冀图通过历史的真实情况反映人物的真实德性,表现出史实追求与德性追求互相一致进行“求真”的一面;当史实与普鲁塔克的德性认识相冲突的时候,他就坚持德性、放弃史实,甚至系统地改编史料来适应德性,表现出史实追求与德性追求互相冲突而“失真”的一面。《希腊罗马名人传》中既有“求真”也有“失真”,共同服务于追求德性的“致用”目标,这是普鲁塔克传记写作方法的重要特点。

Plutarch's purpose of writing Lives is to probe historical personages1 virtues which are paraded as models.He collected and analyzed historical material carefully,and hoped to reveal personages'virtues by researching historical events,so the purpose of uncovering facts meets the need of probing virtues in his work sometimes,which reveals the characteristics of"seeking truth".If the historical material and his cognition of virtues are in conflict with each other,Plutarch would stop founding out truth,even distorted history,so there's a conflict between the purpose of uncovering facts and of pursuing of virtues sometimes,which means there are falsehoods in his work."Seeking truth"and distortion coexist in Plutarch's Lives,and both service for the pragmatic purpose of revealing virtues,this is a key characteristic of Plutarch's writing method.