The Tradition of the West
Robert M. Hutchins
西方的传统
罗伯特·M. 哈金斯
http://www.molloy.edu/academic/philosophy/sophia/sophia_texts.htm Molloy College Department of Philosophy
The tradition of the West is embodied in the Great Conversation that began in the dawn of history and that continues to the present day. Whatever the merits of other civilizations in other respects, no civilization is like that of the West in this respect. No other civilization can claim that its defining characteristic is a dialogue of this sort. No dialogue in any other civilization can compare with that of the West in the number of great works of the mind that have contributed to this dialogue. The goal toward which Western society moves is the Civilization of the Dialogue. The spirit of Western civilization is the spirit of inquiry. Its dominant element is the Logos. Nothing is to remain undiscussed. Everybody is to speak his mind. No proposition is to be left unexamined. The exchange of ideas is held to be the path to the realization of the potentialities of the race.
西方传统体现在伟大的对话中，这个对话从历史破晓开始一直延续到当代。无论其他文明在其他方面有什么贡献，都没有哪一种文明像西方文明在这个方面的贡献那样辉煌。没有哪个文明能够宣称其一如继往的特色就是这种对话。任何其他文明中没有哪一种对话能够和西方的这种对话相提并论，这种对话记载在致力于此的伟大心灵所产生众多西方文明经典中。西方社会所趋赴的目标就是这种对话的文明。西方文明的精神就是探索的精神。她的首要因素是逻各斯。任何东西都会予以讨论。人人都要说出自己的想法。任何命题都会予以审视。观念的交流不断延伸着实现种族潜能的康庄大道。
At a time when the West is most often represented by its friends as the source of that technology for which the whole world yearns and by its enemies as the fountainhead of selfishness and greed, it is worth remarking that, though both elements can be found in the Great Conversation, the Western ideal is not one or the other strand in the Conversation, but the Conversation itself. It would be an exaggeration to say that Western civilization means these books. The exaggeration would lie in the omission of the plastic arts and music, which have quite as important a part in Western civilization as the great productions included in this set. But to the extent to which books can present the idea of a civilization, the idea of Western civilization is here presented.
西方也曾经常被它的朋友描述为全世界渴望的技术之源，被它的敌人描绘成唯利是图、贪婪无比的渊薮。然而值得注意的是，虽然这两种成分在伟大对话中都可以找到，西方的理想却不是对话过程中连续性的一方或者另一方，而是对话本身。说西方文明就是指这些典籍，那显然是一种夸张不实之辞，因为它忽略了大量的造型艺术和音乐，而它们跟收入本套经典文库的伟大作品一样，在西方文明中占有同样重要的地位。不过，假如说书籍可以表达一种文明理念，那么西方文明理念就是在这些书中表达的。
These books are the means of understanding our society and ourselves. They contain the great ideas that dominate us without our knowing it. There is no comparable repository of our tradition.
这些典籍是理解我们的社会和我们自己的钥匙。其中蕴含了我们日用而不知的伟大思想。那是我们无与伦比的传统智慧宝库。
To put an end to the spirit of inquiry that has characterized the West it is not necessary to burn the books. All we have to do is to leave them unread for a few generations. On the other hand, the revival of interest in these books from time to time throughout history has provided the West with new drive and creativeness. Great books have salvaged, preserved, and transmitted the tradition on many occasions similar to our own.
要终结这种显示西方特色的探索精神，无需将这些著作付之一炬。为此我们要做的一切，只需几代人不读它们即可。另一方面，在我们历史上，有时候也会重新唤醒对这些典籍的兴趣，从而给西方提供一种新的推动力和创造力。很多时候都是伟大著作（大书）抢救、保留、传递了传统，我们这个时代也是如此。
The books contain not merely the tradition, but also the great exponents of the tradition. Their writings are models of the fine and liberal arts. They hold before us what Whitehead called "the habitual vision of greatness." These books have endured because men in every era have been lifted beyond themselves by the inspiration of their example. Sir Richard Livingstone said: "We are tied down, all our days and for the greater part of our days, to the commonplace. That is where contact with great thinkers, great literature helps. In their company we are still in the ordinary world, but it is the ordinary world transfigured and seen through the eyes of wisdom and genius. And some of their vision becomes our own."
这些典籍不只是蕴含传统，还是传统的伟大代表。巨人的作品是经典之学和“君子之道”的典范。它们将怀特海说的“对伟大事物的自然洞察力”展现在我们面前。这些典籍经久不衰，是因为世世代代的人们都是仰仗他们的范本的鼓舞而得以自我提升。理查德·利文斯敦爵士说过：“我们整日整天都沉迷在琐事中，而且越来越不能自拔。这正是我们牵手伟大思想家、伟大文学著作以寻求帮助的地方。虽然和伟人巨著相伴的日子里我们仍然住在这个平凡的世界中，然而这个平凡世界是变好了，通过智慧和天才的目光得到审视了。而且，他们这种洞察力也有一些变成我们自己的了。”
Until very recently these books have been central in education in the West. They were the principal instrument of liberal education, the education that men acquired as an end in itself, for no other purpose than that it would help them to be men, to lead human lives, and better lives than they would otherwise be able to lead.
直到最近，这些典籍都一直是西方教育的核心。它们是“大人之学”的开门神器，这种教育让人们学会把人当作目的本身，因为比起这个目的来，没有其他任何目标更能帮助他们成为人，过一种人性的生活，而且是比他们可能采用的其他活法更好的生活。
The aim of liberal education is human excellence, both private and public (for man is a political animal). Its object is the excellence of man as man and man as citizen. It regards man as an end, not as a means; and it regards the ends of life, and not the means to it. For this reason it is the education of free men. Other types of education or training treat men as means to some other end, or are at best concerned with the means of life, with earning a living, and not with its ends.
大人之学的志趣是卓越的人，无论在个人还是公共意义上都是如此（因为人是政治动物）。它的宗旨是作为人的人和作为公民的人都要卓越。它把人看作目的，而不是手段；它注重生活的目的，而不是工具。基于这样的理想，它乃是自由人的教育。其他类型的教育或训练是把人当作达到某种其他目的的工具，顶多也就是一种谋生的工具，只管赚钱吃饭，不问为什么要这样。
The substance of liberal education appears to consist in the recognition of basic problems, in knowledge of distinctions and interrelations in subject matter, and in the comprehension of ideas.
大人之学的精髓就在于重视基本问题，认识主题的各种差别和相互关系以及理解各种理念。
Liberal education seeks to clarify the basic problems and to understand the way in which one problem bears upon another. It strives for a grasp of the methods by which solutions can be reached and the formulation of standards for testing solutions proposed. The liberally educated man understands, for example, the relation between the problem of the immortality of the soul and the problem of the best form of government; he understands that the one problem cannot be solved by the same method as the other, and that the test that he will have to bring to bear upon solutions proposed differs from one problem to the other.
大人之学试图澄清基本问题，理解一个问题怎样和另一个问题发生关系。它力求靠方法引出答案，用标准的公式检测引出的答案。比方，有大人学养的人懂得灵魂不朽问题与政府最佳体制问题之间的关系；他懂得一个问题不可能用对付另一个问题的同样方法去解决，也懂得对一种解答的检验应与对另一种解答的检验有区别。
The liberally educated man understands, by understanding the distinctions and interrelations of the basic fields of subject matter, the differences and connections between poetry and history, science and philosophy, theoretical and practical science; he understands that the same methods cannot be applied in all these fields; he knows the methods appropriate to each.
有大人学养的人由于懂得主题的基本论域之间的种种差别和相互关系，也就懂得诗歌和历史、科学和哲学、理论科学和实践科学之间的差别和联系；他明白，同样的方法不能够用到所有这些论域中去；他知道，方法要适应具体情况。
The liberally educated man comprehends the ideas that are relevant to the basic problems and that operate in the basic fields of subject matter. He knows what is meant by soul, state, God, beauty, and by the other terms that are basic to the discussion of fundamental issues. He has some notion of the insights that these ideas, singly or in combination, pro-ride concerning human experience.
有大人学养的人清楚，各种理念是与各种基本问题有关，并且适用于主题的各种基本论域的。他知道，在根本问题的讨论中，灵魂、国家、上帝、美，以及其他基本词汇意味着什么。他凭借杰出的概念洞察力，知道这些理念总是单独地或者共同地与人的特殊经验有关。
The liberally educated man has a mind that can operate well in all fields. He may be a specialist in one field. But he can understand anything important that is said in any held and can see and use the light that it sheds upon his own. The liberally educated man is at home in the world of ideas and in the world of practical affairs, too, because he understands the relation of the two. He may not be at home in the world of practical affairs in the sense of liking the life he finds about him; but he will be at home in that world in the sense that he understands it. He may even derive from his liberal education some conception of the difference between a bad world and a good one and some notion of the ways in which one might be turned into the other.
有大人学养的人有一种智慧，能够很好地运用到一切领域。他可以是某个领域的专家，不过，他能够理解用任何方式表达的任何重要的东西，能够发现并且利用这种慧光来照亮他自己。有大人学养的人在概念世界中就是在自己家里，在实务世界也是如此，因为他明白两者的关系。就他在自己周围找到自己喜爱的生活而言，他在实务世界也可以不是在家中；不过，就他理解这种生活而言，他在实务世界就是在家里。他甚至可以凭自己的大人之学推导出有关好世界坏世界间种种差别的某些概念，推衍出可以把某个概念变换成另一个概念的某些理性方法。
The method of liberal education is the liberal arts, and the result of liberal education is discipline in those arts. The liberal artist learns to read, write, speak, listen, understand, and think. He learns to reckon, measure, and manipulate matter, quantity, and motion in order to predict, produce, and exchange. As we live in the tradition, whether we know it or not, so we are all liberal artists, whether we know it or not. We all practice the liberal arts, well or badly, all the time every day. As we should understand the tradition as well as we can in order to understand ourselves, so we should be as good liberal artists as we can in order to become as fully human as we can.
大人之学的方法就是“君子之道”，大人之学的效验就是靠
The liberal arts are not merely indispensable; they are unavoidable. Nobody can decide for himself whether he is going to be a human being. The only question open to him is whether he will be an ignorant, undeveloped one or one who has sought to reach the highest point he is capable of attaining. The question, in short, is whether he will be a poor liberal artist or a good one.
君子之道不仅绝对必须，还不可避免。没有人能够决定自己是否要成为一个人。他唯一未决的问题是：他是要做一个无知的、未开化的人，还是做一个尽自己本份力争登上人生顶峰的人。简言之，这个问题乃是：他是愿意做一个差劲的大学人，还是做一个优秀的大学人。
The tradition of the West in education is the tradition of the liberal arts. Until very recently nobody took seriously the suggestion that there could be any other ideal. The educational ideas of John Locke, for example, which were directed to the preparation of the pupil to fit conveniently into the social and economic environment in which he found himself, made no impression on Locke's contemporaries. And so it will be found that other voices raised in criticism of liberal education fell upon deaf ears until about a half-century ago.
西方教育的传统乃是君子之道的传承。直到今天还没有谁真的认为会有什么其他的理想。比如，约翰·洛克的教育理念，就是用来指导学生做好准备，以便陶铸自己去轻松适应他所生活的那个社会和经济环境，但洛克的同代人对这个理念没什么印象。因此人们发现，直到大约半个世纪前，对批评大人之学的其他鼓噪，人们也总是充耳不闻。
This Western devotion to the liberal arts and liberal education must have been largely responsible for the emergence of democracy as an ideal. The democratic ideal is equal opportunity for full human development, and, since the liberal arts are the basic means of such development, devotion to democracy naturally results from devotion to them. On the other hand, if acquisition of the liberal arts is an intrinsic part of human dignity, then the democratic ideal demands that we should strive to see to it that all have the opportunity to attain to the fullest measure of the liberal arts that is possible to each.
西
The present crisis in the world has been precipitated by the vision of the range of practical and productive art offered by the West. All over the world men are on the move, expressing their determination to share in the technology in which the West has excelled. This movement is one of the most spectacular in history, and everybody is agreed upon one thing about it: we do not know how to deal with it. It would be tragic if in our preoccupation with the crisis we failed to hold up as a thing of value for the world, even as that which might show us a way in which to deal with the crisis, our vision of the best that the West has to offer. That vision is the range of the liberal arts and liberal education. Our determination about the distribution of the fullest measure of these arts and this education will measure our loyalty to the best in our own past and our total service to the future of the world .
当今之世的危机，是西方提供的实用技术和生产技术的短视造成的。满世界的人们都在行动，声称他们决心分享西方人做得特别优秀的技术。这一行动乃是历史上最壮观的一幕，而且每个人都承认与此有关的一件事情：我们不知道如何对付它。假如我们在专心处理危机时不能把握事态的社会价值，甚至不能把握那可以指引我们处理危机的方法，展示我们西方应该提供的最高洞见，那将是一种悲剧。这种洞见就是全部君子之道和大人之学。我们对“获取此道此学的全部手段如何分配”的问题所做的决策，当可衡量我们对自己的传统精华的忠诚，和我们对未来世界的全部贡献。
The great books were written by the greatest liberal artists. They exhibit the range of the liberal arts. The authors were also the greatest teachers. They taught one another. They taught all previous generations, up to a few years ago. The question is whether they can teach us. To this question we now turn.
大书是最伟大的大学人写的。他们开示了一套君子之道。大书的作者也是最伟大的导师。他们相互导学。他们教导过此前世世代代的人们，直到不久前还是如此。问题在于，他们是否可以教导我们。对于这个问题，我们马上就来讨论。
Source: Robert M. Hutchins, "The Tradition of the West." The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education.
资料来源：罗伯特M.哈金斯，《西方的传统》，载《伟大的对话：大人之学的精髓》。芝加哥：大英百科全书，1952。
翻译：刘克苏
截止：
审阅：尹飞舟
译名选用：将Liberal Arts译为“君子之道”，请见
黄万盛：《作为Liberal Arts的大学理念》，http://www.cass.net.cn/chinese/s14_zxs/chuban/zxyc/ycgqml/04/0402/013.htm
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