第3章 THE ORIGIN OF NATURAL RIGHT 自然正当的起源
<A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy>
一览 译
Cicero, the Roman philosopher and orator (106-43 B.C.), said that Socrates was the first to call philosophy down from heaven, place it in cities and homes, and compel it to inquire about life and morals as well as good things and bad. Here is a precise beginning, together with a definition, of political philosophy. Political philosophy begins with Socrates (470-399 B.C.), who for some reason wrote nothing himself but allowed his life and speeches to be recorded in dialogue written by his students Plato (c. 427-347 B.C.) and Xenophon (c. 430-c.350 B.C). Philosophy began before political philosophy; before Socrates there were pre-Socratic philosopher, as they are now known. They studied nature (in Greek, physis) and left political and moral matters to professional debaters known as Sophists, who taught rhetoric. One of the Sophists, Gorgias, is portrayed in Plato’s dialogue of that name. The rhetoricians taught students to argue both sides of any question, regardless of justice. They assumed, like the pre-Socratic philosophers, that justice is a matter of law or custom (nomos), that it has no definition of its own but only reflects the dominating will of a master or ruler.
【12】西塞罗（公元前106-43年），古罗马哲学家和演说家，说过，苏格拉底第一个将哲学从天上召唤下来，使立足于城邦和家庭，还迫使它审视生命、道德以及善恶之事。这是政治哲学的确切开端，也是其定义。政治哲学始于苏格拉底（公元前470-399年），因某些原因他自己没有写作任何东西，但允许他的学生柏拉图（公元前427-347年）和色诺芬（公元前430-350年）在对话中记录他的一生和言说。如现今所知的，哲学早在政治哲学之先已出现，在苏格拉底之先亦有前苏格拉底哲人。他们研究自然（希腊语physis），而留下政治和道德问题给职业的辩论家，即那些教授修辞术的智术师。高尔吉亚，智术师中的一个，被描绘进了以其名字命名的柏拉图的对话。这些雄辩家教导学生站在任何问题的双方中争论，无需顾虑正义。他们像前苏格拉底哲人一样假定，正义是法律或习俗（希腊语nomos）之事，它没有自身的定义，但只反映主人或统治者的支配意志。
Socrates did not accept this assumption. He suggested that questions of justice, like those of physics, might admit of answers that are not relative to time or place but are always and everywhere the same. Justice would then not be a matter of convention or nomos, but rather of nature or physis; there would be a natural justice or natural right. 【Socrates did not lay it down as truth that there was such a thing】. His way was to ask innocent questions such as “What is justice?” The form of the question, What is X? assume that X has a constant and unchanging essence. Yet justice does seem to vary over time and space, as the relativists of ancient times, as well as those of today, say.
【13】苏格拉底拒绝此假设。他认为，正义问题亦如物理问题，可以容有不相对于时间和地点，且何时何地都一样的答案。因而正义将不是惯例或习俗的事情，而是本性或自然的事情，将存有一种自然正义或自然正确。【苏格拉底没有放弃有此一事之真理】。他的方式是问询像“正义是什么？”这样无知的问题。问题的形式，X是什么？设定那X有一个持续且不变的本质。然而，正义似乎随时间和空间而变化，如古代和当今的那些相对主义者所说。
Perhaps the most obvious evidence of natural justice is our belief in it, or rather our belief in injustice. This we show whenever we believe we have been treated unjustly, as for example when a student gets a grade that is too low. (Complaints about too-high grades are rare.) When that happens, you do not just shake your head and mutter “that is the way of the world.” You get angry, and you do so because you implicitly believe that there really is a justice that does not depend on someone’s arbitrary say-so. Anger is a sign of injustice, which in turn is a sign of justice. Anger always comes with a reason; an angry person may not stop to express it, but if he had the time and the ability, he could say why he’s angry. That is why, in Plato’s Republic, Socrates present us with an alliance between the angry types, the guardians who are compared to dogs, and the philosophers, who do not get angry but calmly ponder the reason of things. Both are involved with justice, the guardians to defend justice and the philosophers to find out what it is. Anger is the animus behind unjust partisanship, as when you wrongly feel you deserve something; but it is also the animus behind just partisanship, when you are rightly incensed. As much as Socrates deplores the anger of a tragic hero like Achilles, he does not attempt to squelch anger itself. He does not try to deny fuel to partisanship. Why? Because, it is suggested, the object of anger—justice—is real, not contrived, and good even when it seems to go against your advantage.
【14】或许自然正义最明显的证据是我们的信念中有它，或者相当于我们的信念中有不正义。这点我们显示为，无论何时我们相信我们已被不正义地对待，比如当一个学生得了一个太低的分数时。（抱怨分数太高是很少的。）当那事发生时，你不仅仅摇着头且嘀咕着“世界就是如此”。你还变得愤怒，而你会如此乃因你隐然相信确实存有一种不依赖于某人之任意主张的正义。愤怒是不正义的标志，转而它则是正义的标志。愤怒总伴随着理智的出现；一个愤怒的人或许不会抑制愤怒来表达理智，但如果他有时间和能力，他能够说出他何以愤怒。那就是为什么在柏拉图的《理想国》里，苏格拉底要向我们呈现愤怒类型间地联合：护卫者被比喻为狗，哲学家不变得愤怒而是冷静的沉思事情的原因。两者皆关涉正义，护卫者保护正义，哲学家则认识到正义是什么。愤怒是在不正义的党派意见之后的敌意，就像当你不正当地以为你应得某物时那样；但它也是在正义的党派意见之后的敌意，当你被正当地被激怒时那样。如同苏格拉底痛惜像Achilles的悲剧英雄的愤怒那样，他没有试图压制愤怒本身。他没有设法拒绝党派意见的刺激因素。为何？因为，这暗示，愤怒的对象——正义——是真实的，而不是人为的，且是善的，即使当它似乎反对你的利益之时。
The existence, or even the possibility, of natural justice justifies our human, all-too-human partisanship. Even the most indefensibly narrow partisan believes in justice. Though a partisan has only a partial view, he does have that much; he is not totally wrong, and in a sense he means well. Even the Communists and Nazis meant well; they meant to improve humanity. So much for meaning well, you might say! But evil has a finger on the good; though it cannot grasp the good, evil cannot help admitting that the good is superior because that is what even evil wants. Machiavelli, who recommended that we do evil, nevertheless thought this would bring us good. However much we want to resist Machiavelli, let alone the Communists and the Nazis, we also have an argument with them. You cannot have an argument unless you share a concern for some common good, such as justice, about which you are arguing. The possibility of natural justice makes politics interesting; without that, politics is only about winners and losers.
【15】自然正义的存在，甚或可能性证明我们人性的、太人性的党派偏见是正当的。即使有最无法辩护的偏见之党派人士也相信正义。虽然一个党徒只有一种部分的观点，但他确实对那观点有很深的理解；他不是完全错误的，且在某种意义上意味着恰当的。即使共产主义者和纳粹党人也意味着恰当的；他们想要改善人性。你可能会说，这么多意味着恰当啊！但是邪恶与善好有关系；虽然邪恶不能控制善好，但它也不会助于承认善好是优良的，因为那恰好是邪恶希望的。马基雅维利劝说我们作恶，不过认为这将带给我们善。无论如何我们要抵制马基雅维利，何况共产党者和纳粹党人，我们也须与他们争论。你们没法争论，除非共享对某些你们正争论的共同之善——比如正义——的关注。自然正义的可能性使得政治有趣味；没有它，政治只是有关胜败者而已。
In the Apology of Socrates Plato shows Socrates on trial for his life, accused by his city of not believing in its gods and of corrupting its youth. Socrates gives a speech defending himself and his way of life—a defense of philosophy to non-philosophers who feel threatened by his questioning of political, religious, and family authority. Socrates is intransigent; he refuses to change his way of life, and he provokes his judges in several ways, one of them being an insolent claim that, after he is convicted, his “punishment” should be to be housed and fed in city hall at public expense for the rest of his life. Yet even as he declines to submit, he does condescend nonetheless to give an explanation of the philosophical way of life in terms that his fellow Athenians might understand. He presents himself as having been commanded by the Delphic oracle, or the god Apollo, to find out whether he is in truth the wisest of men, as the oracle is reported to have said. Instead of directly questioning the authority of the god, Socrates uses the god’s authority to question the authority of the gods. By this maneuver he seems to deny that he has any subversive intent and claims to be questioning the basis of Athenian society, indeed of all societies— but doing so in the spirit of that very basis. It’s as if when the law tells you to obey, it is actually, through the implied reasons for its commands, allowing you to talk back rather than simply obey. No society, not even one as free as ours, can proceed on the assumption that every custom and law is open to question, yet Socrates makes us see that every social practice is indeed questionable. Political philosophy has an elevated character, rising above society by questioning everything, but it also emerges from society when examining its implicit assumptions. In the Republic, which records a private conversation rather than a public speech like the Apology, Socrates unveils his picture of the best regime, in which philosophers take a break from their somewhat ridiculous and apparently innocuous questioning and become kings. Yet the best regime is nothing but what is demanded by justice as ordinarily understood, at least when we suppose as we often do that someone who knows best ought to be in charge.
【16】在《苏格拉底的申辩》中，柏拉图展示出苏格拉底因其生活而受审，他被指控不信城邦的神和败坏城邦的青年。苏格拉底发表演讲为他自己及其生活方式辩护——一场对非哲学家因其质疑政治、宗教和家庭权威而感到威胁的哲学辩护。苏格拉底不妥协，他拒绝改变其生活方式，且在几个方面惹怒了审判官们，（以致）审判官中一位蛮横地声称，苏格拉底定罪之后，他的“处罚”应是被收置且向市政厅提供公共开支以了其余生。然而，纵使苏格拉底拒绝屈从，但是他也屈尊俯就，明确地给出了哲学的生活方式之解释，此种解释他的同胞雅典人或许能理解。苏格拉底表示自己曾受德尔菲的神谕或阿波罗神的命令，去探询他是否如神谕所说的那样是实际上最智慧的人。苏格拉底利用（阿波罗）神的权威去质询神灵的权威，以此代替直接质询（阿波罗）】神的权威。通过这种策略，他好像否认他有任何颠覆性的意图，并且声称要质疑雅典社会、甚至所有社会的的基础——但这样做是本着该基础的精神的。这就好像当法律要求你服从时，实际上是通过其命令的含蓄理由允许你反驳而不是简单地服从。任何社会，甚至像我们一样自由的社会，都不可能在每项习俗和法律被允许质疑的假定上继续运行，但苏格拉底让我们明白，其实任何社会惯例都是可疑的。政治哲学有一种崇高的品格，即质疑一切以提升社会，但它也源自于社会，当其检视自身之隐含的假定时。在《王制》中记录的是一场私人谈话，而不是《苏格拉底的申辩》中的公共演讲，（在那儿）苏格拉底揭开了最佳政制的图景，哲学家从他们稍微有点可笑以及显然无伤大雅的质询获得喘息且成为国王。然而最佳政制不过是通常理解的正义所要求的事物，至少当我们假定，如我们经常做的那样，最了解（情况）的人应当作主。
The master analyst of partisan politics is Thucydides (c. 460-c. 400 b.c.), whom Jean-Jacques Rousseau called the “true model of an historian.” Rousseau explained that Thucydides reported facts of history without judging them, leaving that task to the reader. But the facts Thucydides reports are pregnant with judgments begging to be born. In his History of the Peloponnesian War, to be sure, he refrains from offering a picture of the best regime. He shows the best regime to be fatefully divided between Athens and Sparta, the two main opponents in the war, in such manner that the virtues of each city are accompanied by vices and are incompatible with the virtues of the other. Such is Thucydides’ noble realism, admiring of greatness in politics and resigned to its limitations.
【17】党派政治的重要分析家是修昔底德（公元前460-400年），他被让•雅克卢梭称为“真正的历史学家模范”。卢梭解释说，修昔底德记述历史事实而不加以评判，将这一任务留给了读者。但修昔底德记述的事实孕育着产生判断的请求。在其《伯罗奔尼撒战争史》中，可以肯定，修昔底德克制不要提供最佳政制的图景。他表明最佳政制命定地分配在战争中的两个主要对手雅典和斯巴达之间，以此方式，每一城邦的德性都伴有缺陷且与另一个城邦的德性不相容。此即为修昔底德之高贵现实主义，赞赏政治之伟大且顺从其局限。
Yet the deeds of the war that Thucydides relates are illuminated by occasional comment directly from the master— and by speeches of participants invented by the master and reported as if he had been there to take them down. The famous debate between the Athenians and Melians resembles a Platonic dialogue except for the fact that the Melians, having lost the argument, are killed at the end. No Socrates is present to question both sides to uncover the philosophy hidden in their minds, but Thucydides with his marvelous artistry leaves his questions in the speeches and in the speeches’ relationship to the deeds, and thus prompts us, without ever urging us, to political philosophy. Partisanship, he seems to say, is based on the notion that we can choose how to live; 【he wants us to reflect also on what one must concede to necessity, despite one’s wishes】.
【18】然而，直接来自修昔底德的偶尔评论和参与者的演说辞——他编造的以及似乎他曾在场记录报告的，都阐明了他记述的战争事迹。若不是米洛斯人最终被杀戮掉的事实，（致使）失去了辩论（的对手），雅典人和米洛斯人间那场著名的辩论类似于一场柏拉图式的对话。没有苏格拉底在场质询双方以揭示隐藏在他们心里的哲学，但修昔底德以其非凡的技艺在演说词以及演说词与事迹的关系间留下了问题，由此促使我们——而没有迫使我们——走向政治哲学。他似乎说，党派性基于我们可以选择如何生活的观念；【他要我们也反思人必须承认的必然性（是什么），而不管自己的愿望（怎么样）】。
一览 译
Cicero, the Roman philosopher and orator (106-43 B.C.), said that Socrates was the first to call philosophy down from heaven, place it in cities and homes, and compel it to inquire about life and morals as well as good things and bad. Here is a precise beginning, together with a definition, of political philosophy. Political philosophy begins with Socrates (470-399 B.C.), who for some reason wrote nothing himself but allowed his life and speeches to be recorded in dialogue written by his students Plato (c. 427-347 B.C.) and Xenophon (c. 430-c.350 B.C). Philosophy began before political philosophy; before Socrates there were pre-Socratic philosopher, as they are now known. They studied nature (in Greek, physis) and left political and moral matters to professional debaters known as Sophists, who taught rhetoric. One of the Sophists, Gorgias, is portrayed in Plato’s dialogue of that name. The rhetoricians taught students to argue both sides of any question, regardless of justice. They assumed, like the pre-Socratic philosophers, that justice is a matter of law or custom (nomos), that it has no definition of its own but only reflects the dominating will of a master or ruler.
【12】西塞罗（公元前106-43年），古罗马哲学家和演说家，说过，苏格拉底第一个将哲学从天上召唤下来，使立足于城邦和家庭，还迫使它审视生命、道德以及善恶之事。这是政治哲学的确切开端，也是其定义。政治哲学始于苏格拉底（公元前470-399年），因某些原因他自己没有写作任何东西，但允许他的学生柏拉图（公元前427-347年）和色诺芬（公元前430-350年）在对话中记录他的一生和言说。如现今所知的，哲学早在政治哲学之先已出现，在苏格拉底之先亦有前苏格拉底哲人。他们研究自然（希腊语physis），而留下政治和道德问题给职业的辩论家，即那些教授修辞术的智术师。高尔吉亚，智术师中的一个，被描绘进了以其名字命名的柏拉图的对话。这些雄辩家教导学生站在任何问题的双方中争论，无需顾虑正义。他们像前苏格拉底哲人一样假定，正义是法律或习俗（希腊语nomos）之事，它没有自身的定义，但只反映主人或统治者的支配意志。
Socrates did not accept this assumption. He suggested that questions of justice, like those of physics, might admit of answers that are not relative to time or place but are always and everywhere the same. Justice would then not be a matter of convention or nomos, but rather of nature or physis; there would be a natural justice or natural right. 【Socrates did not lay it down as truth that there was such a thing】. His way was to ask innocent questions such as “What is justice?” The form of the question, What is X? assume that X has a constant and unchanging essence. Yet justice does seem to vary over time and space, as the relativists of ancient times, as well as those of today, say.
【13】苏格拉底拒绝此假设。他认为，正义问题亦如物理问题，可以容有不相对于时间和地点，且何时何地都一样的答案。因而正义将不是惯例或习俗的事情，而是本性或自然的事情，将存有一种自然正义或自然正确。【苏格拉底没有放弃有此一事之真理】。他的方式是问询像“正义是什么？”这样无知的问题。问题的形式，X是什么？设定那X有一个持续且不变的本质。然而，正义似乎随时间和空间而变化，如古代和当今的那些相对主义者所说。
Perhaps the most obvious evidence of natural justice is our belief in it, or rather our belief in injustice. This we show whenever we believe we have been treated unjustly, as for example when a student gets a grade that is too low. (Complaints about too-high grades are rare.) When that happens, you do not just shake your head and mutter “that is the way of the world.” You get angry, and you do so because you implicitly believe that there really is a justice that does not depend on someone’s arbitrary say-so. Anger is a sign of injustice, which in turn is a sign of justice. Anger always comes with a reason; an angry person may not stop to express it, but if he had the time and the ability, he could say why he’s angry. That is why, in Plato’s Republic, Socrates present us with an alliance between the angry types, the guardians who are compared to dogs, and the philosophers, who do not get angry but calmly ponder the reason of things. Both are involved with justice, the guardians to defend justice and the philosophers to find out what it is. Anger is the animus behind unjust partisanship, as when you wrongly feel you deserve something; but it is also the animus behind just partisanship, when you are rightly incensed. As much as Socrates deplores the anger of a tragic hero like Achilles, he does not attempt to squelch anger itself. He does not try to deny fuel to partisanship. Why? Because, it is suggested, the object of anger—justice—is real, not contrived, and good even when it seems to go against your advantage.
【14】或许自然正义最明显的证据是我们的信念中有它，或者相当于我们的信念中有不正义。这点我们显示为，无论何时我们相信我们已被不正义地对待，比如当一个学生得了一个太低的分数时。（抱怨分数太高是很少的。）当那事发生时，你不仅仅摇着头且嘀咕着“世界就是如此”。你还变得愤怒，而你会如此乃因你隐然相信确实存有一种不依赖于某人之任意主张的正义。愤怒是不正义的标志，转而它则是正义的标志。愤怒总伴随着理智的出现；一个愤怒的人或许不会抑制愤怒来表达理智，但如果他有时间和能力，他能够说出他何以愤怒。那就是为什么在柏拉图的《理想国》里，苏格拉底要向我们呈现愤怒类型间地联合：护卫者被比喻为狗，哲学家不变得愤怒而是冷静的沉思事情的原因。两者皆关涉正义，护卫者保护正义，哲学家则认识到正义是什么。愤怒是在不正义的党派意见之后的敌意，就像当你不正当地以为你应得某物时那样；但它也是在正义的党派意见之后的敌意，当你被正当地被激怒时那样。如同苏格拉底痛惜像Achilles的悲剧英雄的愤怒那样，他没有试图压制愤怒本身。他没有设法拒绝党派意见的刺激因素。为何？因为，这暗示，愤怒的对象——正义——是真实的，而不是人为的，且是善的，即使当它似乎反对你的利益之时。
The existence, or even the possibility, of natural justice justifies our human, all-too-human partisanship. Even the most indefensibly narrow partisan believes in justice. Though a partisan has only a partial view, he does have that much; he is not totally wrong, and in a sense he means well. Even the Communists and Nazis meant well; they meant to improve humanity. So much for meaning well, you might say! But evil has a finger on the good; though it cannot grasp the good, evil cannot help admitting that the good is superior because that is what even evil wants. Machiavelli, who recommended that we do evil, nevertheless thought this would bring us good. However much we want to resist Machiavelli, let alone the Communists and the Nazis, we also have an argument with them. You cannot have an argument unless you share a concern for some common good, such as justice, about which you are arguing. The possibility of natural justice makes politics interesting; without that, politics is only about winners and losers.
【15】自然正义的存在，甚或可能性证明我们人性的、太人性的党派偏见是正当的。即使有最无法辩护的偏见之党派人士也相信正义。虽然一个党徒只有一种部分的观点，但他确实对那观点有很深的理解；他不是完全错误的，且在某种意义上意味着恰当的。即使共产主义者和纳粹党人也意味着恰当的；他们想要改善人性。你可能会说，这么多意味着恰当啊！但是邪恶与善好有关系；虽然邪恶不能控制善好，但它也不会助于承认善好是优良的，因为那恰好是邪恶希望的。马基雅维利劝说我们作恶，不过认为这将带给我们善。无论如何我们要抵制马基雅维利，何况共产党者和纳粹党人，我们也须与他们争论。你们没法争论，除非共享对某些你们正争论的共同之善——比如正义——的关注。自然正义的可能性使得政治有趣味；没有它，政治只是有关胜败者而已。
In the Apology of Socrates Plato shows Socrates on trial for his life, accused by his city of not believing in its gods and of corrupting its youth. Socrates gives a speech defending himself and his way of life—a defense of philosophy to non-philosophers who feel threatened by his questioning of political, religious, and family authority. Socrates is intransigent; he refuses to change his way of life, and he provokes his judges in several ways, one of them being an insolent claim that, after he is convicted, his “punishment” should be to be housed and fed in city hall at public expense for the rest of his life. Yet even as he declines to submit, he does condescend nonetheless to give an explanation of the philosophical way of life in terms that his fellow Athenians might understand. He presents himself as having been commanded by the Delphic oracle, or the god Apollo, to find out whether he is in truth the wisest of men, as the oracle is reported to have said. Instead of directly questioning the authority of the god, Socrates uses the god’s authority to question the authority of the gods. By this maneuver he seems to deny that he has any subversive intent and claims to be questioning the basis of Athenian society, indeed of all societies— but doing so in the spirit of that very basis. It’s as if when the law tells you to obey, it is actually, through the implied reasons for its commands, allowing you to talk back rather than simply obey. No society, not even one as free as ours, can proceed on the assumption that every custom and law is open to question, yet Socrates makes us see that every social practice is indeed questionable. Political philosophy has an elevated character, rising above society by questioning everything, but it also emerges from society when examining its implicit assumptions. In the Republic, which records a private conversation rather than a public speech like the Apology, Socrates unveils his picture of the best regime, in which philosophers take a break from their somewhat ridiculous and apparently innocuous questioning and become kings. Yet the best regime is nothing but what is demanded by justice as ordinarily understood, at least when we suppose as we often do that someone who knows best ought to be in charge.
【16】在《苏格拉底的申辩》中，柏拉图展示出苏格拉底因其生活而受审，他被指控不信城邦的神和败坏城邦的青年。苏格拉底发表演讲为他自己及其生活方式辩护——一场对非哲学家因其质疑政治、宗教和家庭权威而感到威胁的哲学辩护。苏格拉底不妥协，他拒绝改变其生活方式，且在几个方面惹怒了审判官们，（以致）审判官中一位蛮横地声称，苏格拉底定罪之后，他的“处罚”应是被收置且向市政厅提供公共开支以了其余生。然而，纵使苏格拉底拒绝屈从，但是他也屈尊俯就，明确地给出了哲学的生活方式之解释，此种解释他的同胞雅典人或许能理解。苏格拉底表示自己曾受德尔菲的神谕或阿波罗神的命令，去探询他是否如神谕所说的那样是实际上最智慧的人。苏格拉底利用（阿波罗）神的权威去质询神灵的权威，以此代替直接质询（阿波罗）】神的权威。通过这种策略，他好像否认他有任何颠覆性的意图，并且声称要质疑雅典社会、甚至所有社会的的基础——但这样做是本着该基础的精神的。这就好像当法律要求你服从时，实际上是通过其命令的含蓄理由允许你反驳而不是简单地服从。任何社会，甚至像我们一样自由的社会，都不可能在每项习俗和法律被允许质疑的假定上继续运行，但苏格拉底让我们明白，其实任何社会惯例都是可疑的。政治哲学有一种崇高的品格，即质疑一切以提升社会，但它也源自于社会，当其检视自身之隐含的假定时。在《王制》中记录的是一场私人谈话，而不是《苏格拉底的申辩》中的公共演讲，（在那儿）苏格拉底揭开了最佳政制的图景，哲学家从他们稍微有点可笑以及显然无伤大雅的质询获得喘息且成为国王。然而最佳政制不过是通常理解的正义所要求的事物，至少当我们假定，如我们经常做的那样，最了解（情况）的人应当作主。
The master analyst of partisan politics is Thucydides (c. 460-c. 400 b.c.), whom Jean-Jacques Rousseau called the “true model of an historian.” Rousseau explained that Thucydides reported facts of history without judging them, leaving that task to the reader. But the facts Thucydides reports are pregnant with judgments begging to be born. In his History of the Peloponnesian War, to be sure, he refrains from offering a picture of the best regime. He shows the best regime to be fatefully divided between Athens and Sparta, the two main opponents in the war, in such manner that the virtues of each city are accompanied by vices and are incompatible with the virtues of the other. Such is Thucydides’ noble realism, admiring of greatness in politics and resigned to its limitations.
【17】党派政治的重要分析家是修昔底德（公元前460-400年），他被让•雅克卢梭称为“真正的历史学家模范”。卢梭解释说，修昔底德记述历史事实而不加以评判，将这一任务留给了读者。但修昔底德记述的事实孕育着产生判断的请求。在其《伯罗奔尼撒战争史》中，可以肯定，修昔底德克制不要提供最佳政制的图景。他表明最佳政制命定地分配在战争中的两个主要对手雅典和斯巴达之间，以此方式，每一城邦的德性都伴有缺陷且与另一个城邦的德性不相容。此即为修昔底德之高贵现实主义，赞赏政治之伟大且顺从其局限。
Yet the deeds of the war that Thucydides relates are illuminated by occasional comment directly from the master— and by speeches of participants invented by the master and reported as if he had been there to take them down. The famous debate between the Athenians and Melians resembles a Platonic dialogue except for the fact that the Melians, having lost the argument, are killed at the end. No Socrates is present to question both sides to uncover the philosophy hidden in their minds, but Thucydides with his marvelous artistry leaves his questions in the speeches and in the speeches’ relationship to the deeds, and thus prompts us, without ever urging us, to political philosophy. Partisanship, he seems to say, is based on the notion that we can choose how to live; 【he wants us to reflect also on what one must concede to necessity, despite one’s wishes】.
【18】然而，直接来自修昔底德的偶尔评论和参与者的演说辞——他编造的以及似乎他曾在场记录报告的，都阐明了他记述的战争事迹。若不是米洛斯人最终被杀戮掉的事实，（致使）失去了辩论（的对手），雅典人和米洛斯人间那场著名的辩论类似于一场柏拉图式的对话。没有苏格拉底在场质询双方以揭示隐藏在他们心里的哲学，但修昔底德以其非凡的技艺在演说词以及演说词与事迹的关系间留下了问题，由此促使我们——而没有迫使我们——走向政治哲学。他似乎说，党派性基于我们可以选择如何生活的观念；【他要我们也反思人必须承认的必然性（是什么），而不管自己的愿望（怎么样）】。
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- 作者: Harvey C. Mansfield
- 出版: Intercollegiate Studies Institute
- 定价: USD 8.00
- 装帧: Paperback
- 页数: 58
- 时间: 2001-7-1