什么是问题?——基于外国文学批评实践的反思

What Is a Question?--The Perspective of Foreign-Literature Criticism

伴随当下外国文学批评事业的不断发展,出现了大量看似带有“问题意识”的研究成果,而究其实质却发现它们并未提出真正的“问题”,取而代之的是各种批评理论操控下的预设性“伪问题”。由此,批评实践中逐渐失去了批评者真实情感的介入,进而也失去了文学批评活动中的人文关怀。鉴于上述现状,拟提出“什么是问题?”这一回归学术起点的本初反思,分别从“隐身性”“合理性”“层级性”三个方面厘清学术“问题”的核心属性,在此过程中一方面借鉴科学哲学研究中的“问题逻辑”,另一方面诉诸外国文学批评中的典型案例,得出如下结论:其一,“问题”隐身于文本表层现象的逻辑悖论之中;其二,“问题”通过因循文本自身的逻辑限制条件获得其合理性;其三,“问题”借助“自上而下”与“自下而上”这两类基本层级模式获得其在批评进程中的系统布局。

With the ever-increasing development of contemporary foreign literature criticism,there have emerged a plethora of academic products ostensibly boasting a sense of“question-awareness,”which,however,boils down to a variety of“pseudo-questions”camouflaged by myriad literary critical theories.It is under these circumstances that critical practices are gradually running short of critics’affective engagement,hence resulting in a conspicuous absence of humanistic concerns.In light of the above-mentioned status quo,this article traces back in a reflexive manner to the starting point by asking“What is a Question?”and expatiates on the essential triad of an academic question:stealthiness,feasibility,and hierarchy.By recourse to the erotetic logic of philosophy of science on the one hand and typical cases of foreign literature studies on the other,this article concludes:(1)a question conceals itself as a logic paradox on the phenomenal surface of the text;(2)a question secures its own feasibility by living up to the logic constraints imposed the text itself;(3)a question,by means of either“top-down model”or“bottom-up model,”substantiates a systemic layout of hierarchy in the critical process.