论教育作为灵魂转向的方向性——柏拉图《理想国》第七卷释义

Education as Directing the Turn of The Soul:An interpretation on Book Seven of Plato's Republic

本文通过对柏拉图《理想国》第七卷的释义,在对洞穴隐喻的结构和意义梳理基础上,发现教育作为一门灵魂转向技艺的同时,这一灵魂转向还具有不同维度的方向性。这一方向性关涉到不同灵魂状态和生活方式的变动。尤其在洞穴隐喻中,存在着囚徒从洞穴内朝洞外的日光出离,又从洞外世界返回下降到洞穴之中的过渡。本文认为这两次不同方向的灵魂转向存在着极其丰富的隐晦意蕴,其必须放置于《理想国》大的政治哲学背景才能被理解。本文提出哲人重新返回洞穴虽是一种被迫或被派遣的行为,但它却恰好促成了灵魂的成熟。柏拉图试图借此隐射出教育作为灵魂转向的最终目的并不是走出城邦世界,而是应该重新下降到现实城邦以获得实践智慧在灵魂中的生成。但这却是一次艰辛和危险的过渡,其又隐晦表露出哲人的个体幸福与城邦的政治生活之间存在着某种内在的紧张。而柏拉图在处理这一紧张关系时,最终选择了哲人应该返归城邦政治生活的立场。

Based on the structure and meaning of the cave metaphor and the interpretation on Book Seven of Plato's Republic, we found that education is an art of the turn of the soul and the turn of the soul has different dimensions in directions which involve different soul states and changeable lifestyles. Especially in the cave metaphor, there exists a prisoner getting away from the inside cave toward the sun in the outside world, and then returns to the cave from the outside world. We think that the two different directions about the turn of the soul contains abundant esoteric meanings which can be only understood by being placed in the political philosophy background of the Republic. This paper thinks that though it is a forced or dispatched behavior for the philosopher who returns to the cave, it just contributes to the maturity of the soul. Plato tried to take advantage of the cave metaphor to reflect that the ultimate goal of education as the turn of the soul is not to go away from the polis, but to descend to the real polis in order to obtain the creation of practical wisdom in the soul. But it is a difficult and dangerous transition, which obscurely reveals the inherent tension between the philosopher's individual happiness and polis political lives. How to deal with this inherent tension? Plato finally chose the position that the philosopher should return to the political life of polis.