帝国、政治与哲学——柏拉图与修昔底德

Empire,Politics and Philosophy:Plato and Thucydides

在西方精神大传统中,始终存在两种小传统的对峙和张力:理想与现实、理论与历史、哲人与城邦、哲学与政治……哲学以探索本源性“真理”为职志,政治则以城邦公共事务为取向。在古希腊早期,两种传统尚能相互容摄,而随着伯里克利的去世和伯罗奔尼撒战争中雅典帝国的覆灭,以苏格拉底被雅典法庭判死刑为标志,哲人与城邦、哲学与政治从此渐行渐远,进而分道扬镳,终成势不两立之势。本文以柏拉图和修昔底德相关著述视野和理论关怀为轴心,缕述政治与哲学内在张力的历史基源,从而为汉语知识界认识西方进而反思自身的处境和使命提供某种可能的进路。柏拉图妙笔生花,曲尽其美,为哲学辩护,为哲人的生活方式辩护;修昔底德深沉委婉,以如椽之笔,为政治辩护,为帝国说项。作为西方精神大传统的两位思想巨擘,柏拉图与修昔底德,分别承载着哲学与政治两种不同的精神取向,两种取向构成的张力塑造了西方传统向现代变迁中的诸多最为紧迫的关键议题。如何面对学术志业与帝国事业的结构性张力,不仅关涉对西方大传统本身的重新认识,更牵涉身处“大政治时代”中国智识人自身的精神品格和政治识见。

Inside the great tradition of Western intellectual history,tensions always exist in terms of the quarrels between two minor traditions:ideal and reality,theory and history,philosopher and polis,philosophy and politics,etc.The vocation of philosophy is seeking the“truth”and the principle,while the common good is the end of political activities.Those two traditions,once integrated as a whole in the early times of ancient Greece,were divided and finally antagonized after the fall of Athenian Empire and the death of Socrates.Focusing on Plato and Thucydides,this article analyzes the source of the tension by searching the clues in history.Embodying two different intellectual directions of the Western intellectual tradition,Plato and Thucydides also offer the Chinese intellectuals a chance to rediscover the crucial issues raised by the Western tradition during its modern change.The tension between“Science as Vocation”and the Imperial Cause not only requires the re-understanding of the Western tradition,but also concerns intellectual integrity and political vision of the Chinese intellectuals in those“great eras of politics”