Unit 8 Knowledge and Wisdom课文翻译综合教程三

Unit 8

Knowledge and Wisdom

(abridged) Bertrand Russell

1 Most people would agree that, although our age far surpasses all previous ages in knowledge, there has been no correlative increase in wisdom. But agreement ceases as soon as we attempt to define “wisdom” and consider means of promoting it. I want to ask first what wisdom is, and then what can be done to teach it.

2 There are, I think, several factors that contribute to wisdom. Of these I should put first a sense of proportion: the capacity to take account of all the important factors in a problem and to attach to each its due weight. This has become more difficult than it used to be owing to the extent and complexity of the specialized knowledge required of various kinds of technicians. Suppose, for example, that you are engaged in research in scientific medicine. The work is difficult and is likely to absorb the whole of your intellectual energy. You have not time to consider the effect which your discoveries or inventions may have outside the field of medicine. You succeed (let us say), as modern medicine has succeeded, in enormously lowering the infant death-rate, not only in Europe and America, but also in Asia and Africa. This has the entirely unintended result of making the food supply inadequate and lowering the standard of life in the most populous parts of the world. To take an even more spectacular example, which is in everybody's mind at the present time: You study the composition of the atom from a disinterested desire for knowledge, and incidentally place in the hands of powerful lunatics the means of destroying the human race3. In such ways the pursuit of knowledge may become harmful unless it is combined with wisdom; and wisdom in the sense of comprehensive vision is not necessarily present in specialists in the pursuit of knowledge.

3 Comprehensiveness alone, however, is not enough to constitute wisdom. There must be, also, a certain awareness of the ends of human life. This may be illustrated by the study of history. Many eminent historians have done more harm than good because they viewed facts through the distorting medium of their own passions. Hegel had a philosophy of history which did not suffer from any lack of comprehensiveness, since it started from the earliest times and continued into an indefinite future. But the chief lesson of history which he sought to inculcate was that from the year 400AD down to his own time Germany had been the most important nation and the standard-bearer of progress in the world. Perhaps one could stretch the comprehensiveness that constitutes

wisdom to include not only intellect but also feeling. It is by no means uncommon to find men whose knowledge is wide but whose feelings are narrow. Such men lack what I call wisdom.

4 It is not only in public ways, but in private life equally, that wisdom is needed. It is needed in the choice of ends to be pursued and in emancipation from personal prejudice. Even an end which it would be noble to pursue if it were attainable may be pursued unwisely if it is inherently impossible of achievement. Many men in past ages devoted their lives to a search for the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life. No doubt, if they could have found them, they would have conferred great benefits upon mankind, but as it was their lives were wasted. To descend to less heroic matters, consider the case of two men, Mr. A and Mr. B, who hate each other and, through mutual hatred, bring each other to destruction. Suppose you go to Mr. A and say, “Why do you hate Mr. B?” He will no doubt give you an appalling list of Mr. B's vices, partly true, partly false. And now suppose you go to Mr. B. He will give you an exactly similar list of Mr. A's vices with an equal admixture of truth and falsehood. Suppose you now come back to Mr. A and say, “You will be surprised to learn that Mr. B says the same things about you as you say about him”, and you go to Mr. B and make a similar speech. The first effect, no doubt, will be to increase their mutual hatred, since each will be so horrified by the other's injustice. But perhaps, if you have sufficient patience and sufficient persuasiveness, you may succeed in convincing each that the other has only the normal share of human wickedness, and that their enmity is harmful to both. If you can do this, you will have instilled some fragments of wisdom.

5 I think the essence of wisdom is emancipation, as far as possible, from the tyranny of the here and now. We cannot help the egoism of our senses. Sight and sound and touch are bound up with our own bodies and cannot be impersonal. Our emotions start similarly from ourselves. An infant feels hunger or discomfort, and is unaffected except by his own physical condition. Gradually with the years, his horizon widens, and, in proportion as his thoughts and feelings become less personal and less concerned with his own physical states, he achieves growing wisdom. This is of course a matter of degree. No one can view the world with complete impartiality; and if anyone could, he would hardly be able to remain alive. But it is possible to make a continual approach towards impartiality, on the one hand, by knowing things somewhat remote in time or space, and on the other hand, by giving to such things their due weight in our feelings. It is this approach towards impartiality that constitutes growth in wisdom.

论知识与智慧

我们的时代在知识方面远远超过过去所有时代，在智慧方面却没有得到相应的增加，这是大多数人都会同意的看法。但一旦我试图定义“智慧”并思考增进它的方法，人们就会有不同意见了。我想问的问题首先是何为智慧，其次是传授智慧的方法。

我想，构成智慧有几种要素，其中须置于首位的是比例感：将问题的所有重要因素都考虑进去并掂量每个因素应有的分量的能力。鉴于各类技术员所需的专门知识的范围和复杂程度，这种能力变得比过去更难具备。比如，假设你从事医科，这份工作本身很难做，可能会耗费你的全部智能。你没有时间去考虑你的发现或发明可能带来的医学领域以外的影响。你成功了（我们假设），正如现代医学所做到的：婴儿死亡率不仅在欧美而且在亚非也大大降低了。但完全非你所愿的结果产生了：在世界人口最为稠密的地区，食物供应匮乏，生活水平下降。再举一个甚至更为引人注目的例子，当前人们都在关注此事：你渴望探求知识，不带功利性地去研究原子结构，却意外地将摧毁人类的手段置于狂人手中。因此，知识如果不与智慧同在，对知识的追求就能变得有危害性；就全方位来看，追求知识的专家们并不一定具备智慧。

然而，仅有综合能力还不足以构成智慧，还必须加上对人生目的的某种意识。这一点可以在历史研究中得到说明。许多杰出的历史学家干的坏事多于好事，因为他们是通过自己的热情这种扭曲性媒介观察事实的。黑格尔的历史哲学始于亘古，止于无穷未来，也不是不缺乏综合观，但他努力想要说明的历史教义主要是从公元400年到自己的年代，德国一直都是最为重要的民族以及世界进步的标准榜样。或许构成智慧的综合概念可以延伸，它不仅涵盖智力而且还包括感情。知识面宽但感觉迟钝的人不是不常见。这样的人缺少我认为的智慧。

智慧不仅为公共生活所需，也同样为私人生活所需。选择追求目标，以及从个人偏见中解放出来，都需要智慧。如果一个目标本身不可能被达到，既便如果它可以被达到的话，追求它的行为一定是高贵的，对这个目标的追求也可能不是明智的，在过去，许多人毕其一生搜寻哲学家的点金石和长生不老药。毫无疑问，如果他们找到了这些东西，他们就为人类谋取了巨大福祉，但事实上，他们浪费了生命。退而说不那么伟大的事情，想想两个人，A先生B先生，他们相互憎恨并通过相互憎恨而相互摧毁。假设你到A先生那里说：“你为什么不喜欢B先生？”他一定会向你数落一大堆B先生的邪恶，部分真实、部分虚假。现在，假设你到B先生那里，他会向你数落一大堆A先生的邪恶，内容完全一样，真实和虚假的混合程度也完全一样。假设你现在回到A先生那里说：“你会很吃惊，要知道，B先生说你的话跟你说B先生的话是一样的，” 然后, 你到B先生那里发表同样言论。毫无疑问，直接的结果就是他们的相互仇恨程度增加，因为他们每人都为对方的偏颇感到震惊，但或许，如

果你有足够的耐心和足够的说服力，你会成功说服他们：对方只不过是有人类邪恶的通病，他们的敌意对双方都有损害。如果你能够这样做，你就向他人灌输了点滴的智慧。 我认为智慧的本质就是逃离此时此地的藩篱，越远越好。我们无法遏制感觉的自我性。视力、声音和触觉都捆绑在我们自己的身体上，不可能不被私人化。我们的感情同样始于我们自己。婴儿感觉饥饿和不舒服，他只受自己身体条件的影响。渐渐地，随着年龄的增长，他的视野增加，他的思想和感情变得不那么私人性、更少与自己的身体状况相关，他不断获取智慧。这当然有个程度问题。没有人对世界的看法能够完全客观；即便有这样的人，他也很难存活。但不断接近客观是有可能的，办法是：一方面，了解在时空上多少有些遥远的事物；另一方面，让这些事物在我们的感情中占据应有的分量。就是这种对客观的接近，构成智慧的增加。

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