摘要
除了最注重内省的领域之外,几乎所有的文化领域都运用真实和知识的拙朴概念,探究外部世界的知识。既使是纯粹内省的领域(如果这类领域存在的话),对从事思想活动个人的思维和情感状况,也做同样的研究。根据真实和知识的拙朴概念,真实由各类准确描述其任何指称对象的命题所涵盖;知识指各类信念,其内容实际是准确反映外部世界的真实命题。所有领域方法趋同,原因在于任何其他研究方法毫无意义。如果外部世界不可认知,或者可以认知,但不运用系统探究方法去认知,我们都不过是象形意义上的(甚或是字面意义上的)“缸中之脑”1。若此,我们不如就此罢手,退到后院饮酒自娱。诚然,任何有理智的人都不会这样认为,既使是那些就怀疑主义和就无法获知外部世界直接知识等问题发布了许多愚蠢至极的哲学废话的人们,以及对“葛梯尔例证”2的深刻内涵苦思冥想的人们,也不会这样认为。经常不为人察觉的一个具有至为讽刺意味的现象,是最极端的主观主义者、最顽固的怀疑主义者、最坚信无法认知世界的人们,一直在试图说服我们其他人他(她)的观点是正确的,在现实生活中是真实的,而其观点又说人们不可能知晓真实世界是否存在,也不可能对真实世界做任何了解。
Virtually all intellectual disciplines,excepting only the most introspective,pursue knowledge of an external world,employing naive concepts of both truth and knowledge,and even the purely introspective disciplines(if there are any)do the same regarding the internal states of mind and emotion of the person engaging in the intellectual effort.Truth in the naive sense is captured by propositions that accurately describe whatever their referents are,and knowledge is having beliefs whose contents are in fact true propositions in that they accurately correspond to an external reality.All disciplines do so because any other form of inquiry is pointless.If there is no accessible external world,and even if there is,if one cannot explore it systematically,we are all figuratively(and maybe literally)brains in a vat,and so we may as well go have a beer and be done with it.No sane person believes any of this of course,even those who promulgate some of the more inane philosophical ramblings about skepticism,the inaccessibility of direct knowledge of the external world,and puzzle over the deep meaning of Gettier examples.In a remarkable irony that often goes unnoticed,the most radical subjectivist,the most diehard skeptic,the person most convinced that knowledge of the world is unobtainable is constantly trying to convince the rest of us that his or her arguments are correct—are actually true in the real world—that one cannot know the real world exists nor know anything about it.
作者
满运龙(译)
Ronald J.Allen;Thomas Man(Wigmore Professor of Law,Northwestern University;China University of Political Science and Law;不详)
出处
《证据科学》
2021年第3期360-370,共11页
Evidence Science
