非人类病毒:人类世的生命同伴与历史主体

Nonhuman Virus:Life Companion,the Anthropocene,and Historical Subject

随着新冠肺炎疫情在全球范围内愈演愈烈,知识界开始从疫病、灾难、生命政治、国家治理、国家合作等层面展开对疫情的反思。本文旨在对病毒的哲学、文化意涵,和病毒所启示的人与病毒、人与自然的关系的生态伦理做出初步思考。首先,在病毒与人的身体和伦理关系上,病毒与人处在一种敌人和同伴的辩证关系之中。病毒内在地构成人类,也潜在地威胁着人类。病毒的侵入迫使我们不得不寻求与之共生的可能。其次,近年来愈加频繁爆发的全球疫病具有显著的人类世特征,也即,这种跨物种传播的动物源性病毒是全球生态环境持续遭到人类活动破坏的症候和后果。新冠病毒所引发的全球大流行应该唤起我们对于全球变暖所可能引发的一系列未知疫病的警醒。最后,病毒在哲学、社会和感知层面上形塑了一种新的时间感、历史性和速度感,成为了人类世一个新的历史主体。病毒创造的独特的“病毒时间”和“病毒速度”与人类对时间、历史和速度的感知的交叠和纠缠,从根本上改变了病毒作为一个来自自然的他者的角色。在这个意义上,病毒已经成为人类生活、社会和历史的不可分割的一部分。病毒开启的时间和速度也必将促使我们反思自然和其他非人类物质和力量对我们的整体性反噬。与此同时,新冠疫情也提示我们反思我们对可能到来的超级灾难的准备。

This article aims to tease out the philosophical and cultural implications of viruses in general,and thereby rethinking the human-virus and human-nature relations as well as the ecological ethic thereof.Firstly,I argue that viruses and humanity are in a dialectic relationship of enemy-companion.Viruses are both a vital part of and a fatal threat to human bodies that force humans to seek ways of co-existing with them.Secondly,the increasingly frequent viral pandemics is very characteristic of the Anthropocene.Thirdly,the viruses of the Anthropocene generate a new structure of temporality,historicity,and speed,and thereby becoming a historical subject in the age of the Anthropocene.Moreover,the historicity,temporality,and speed initiated by viruses prompt us to contemplate how nature and other nonhuman matter and forces might have been taking revenge on us in the epoch of the Anthropocene.