Chapter 4.3 – Philosophy of Freedom

Chapter IV/3

The World as Percept

第四章/3

作为感知的世界

I am aware of the mental picture in my self in the same sense as I am aware of colour, sound, etc., in other objects.

我感知到表象存于我的自我之中，其方式正如我感知颜色、声音等存于其他事物之中一样。

It has been said that we perceive not objects but only our mental pictures. I know, so it is said, nothing of the table in itself, which is the object of my observation, but only of the change which occurs within me while I am perceiving the table.

有人说：我们感知的不是事物本身，而只是我们的表象。据此，我对那张桌子——我观察的对象——本身一无所知，我所能知道的，只是在我感知那张桌子时，我自身所发生的变化。

"The first fundamental proposition which the philosopher must bring to clear consciousness is the recognition that our knowledge, to begin with, is limited to our mental pictures. (...) Hence, at the very beginning of all philosophising we must explicitly set down all knowledge which goes beyond mental pictures as being open to doubt." These are the opening sentences of Volkelt's book on Immanuel Kant's Theory of Knowledge.

"哲学家必须清醒意识到的第一条基本命题，在于这样一种认识：我们的知识首先不超出我们的表象范围。（……）因此，在哲学思考的起点，一切超越表象的知识都必须被明确标示为可疑的"——福尔克特的《伊曼努尔·康德的认识论》一书即以此开篇。

What is here put forward as an immediate and self-evident truth is in reality the result of a thought operation which runs as follows: The naive man believes that things, just as we perceive them, exist also outside our consciousness. Physics, physiology, and psychology, however, seem to teach us that for our percepts our organization is necessary, and that therefore we cannot know anything about external objects except what our organization transmits to us.

然而，这里被呈现为直接而不言自明之真理的东西，实则是一种思维运作的结果，其过程如下：朴素之人相信，事物正如他所感知的那样，也存在于他的意识之外。然而，物理学、生理学和心理学似乎在告诉我们：我们的感知有赖于我们的有机组织，因此我们能够知道的，仅仅是我们的有机组织从事物那里传递给我们的东西。

Our percepts are thus modifications of our organisation, not things-in-themselves. This train of thought has been characterised by Eduard von Hartmann as the one which must in fact lead to the conviction that we can have direct knowledge only of our mental pictures.

因此，我们的感知不过是我们有机组织的变式，而非物自体。爱德华·冯·哈特曼确实将这里所勾勒的思路，描述为必然引向如下信念的那种思路：我们只能对自己的表象拥有直接知识。

Because, outside our organism, we find vibrations of physical bodies and of the air which are perceived by us as sound, it is concluded that what we call sound is nothing more than a subjective reaction of our organism to these motions in the external world.

由于我们在有机体之外发现了物体与空气的振动——它们以声音的形式向我们呈现——于是便得出结论：我们所谓的声音，不过是我们有机体对外部世界那些运动的主观反应。

Therefore it is concluded that the external process undergoes a series of transformations before it reaches consciousness. What goes on in the brain is connected by so many intermediate links with the external process, that any similarity to the latter is out of the question. What the brain ultimately transmits to the soul is neither external processes, nor processes in the sense organs, but only such as occur in the brain.

由此得出结论：外部过程在到达意识之前，已历经一系列转变。大脑中发生的事情，经由如此众多的中间环节与外部过程相连，以至于已无从设想两者之间还有任何相似性。大脑最终传递给心灵的，既非外部过程，也非感官中的过程，而只是大脑内部的过程。

But even these are not perceived directly by the soul. What we finally have in consciousness are not brain processes at all, but sensations. My sensation of red has absolutely no similarity to the process which occurs in the brain when I sense red. The redness, again, only appears as an effect in the soul, and the brain process is merely its cause.

然而，即便是这些（脑中过程），心灵也不能直接感知。我们在意识中最终所拥有的，根本不是大脑的过程，而是感觉。我对红色的感觉与我感知红色时大脑中发生的过程毫无相似之处。后者只是作为效果重新出现于心灵之中，而这效果不过是由脑中过程所引发的。

This is why Hartmann says, "What the subject perceives, therefore, are always only modifications of his own psychical states and nothing else." (...) The external object has been entirely lost on the way to the brain and through the brain to the soul.

因此，哈特曼（《认识论的基本问题》第37页）说道："主体所感知的，因此始终只不过是自身心理状态的变式，别无其他。"（……）外部对象在通往大脑、再由大脑通往心灵的途中，已经彻底迷失。

But from this it follows logically that my sense organs and the processes in them are also merely subjective. I have no right to speak of a real eye but only of my mental picture of the eye. Exactly the same is true of the nerve paths, and the brain process, and no less of the process in the soul itself, through which things are supposed to be built up out of the chaos of manifold sensations.

但由此出发，按照逻辑思维我们会得出，我的感官器官以及它们内部的各种过程也只是主观的。我没有任何权利去谈论一只真正的眼睛，而只能谈论我对于眼睛的心象。完全同理，这对于神经路径与大脑过程来说也是正确的，而心自身之中的过程也不例外，尽管人们假定，正是经由心之过程，客体才得以从林林总总的感受之混乱中被构建出来的。

If, assuming the truth of the first circle of argumentation, I run through the steps of my act of cognition once more, the latter reveals itself as a tissue of mental pictures which, as such, cannot act on one another.

如果，假设第一轮推论是正确的，让我将自己的认知行为的各个步骤再过一遍吧，后者自身就呈现为一系列心象，而这些心象就其本身而言，是不可能相互作用的。

For as soon as I see clearly that my sense organs and their activity, my nerve and soul processes, can also be known to me only through perception, the train of thought which I have outlined reveals itself in its full absurdity.

因为一旦我看清了，原来我的感官器官及其行为，我的神经过程以及心之过程，这些也只有通过感知过程才能被我所认知，那么，我曾概述过的那一思路就会自我揭示出它全然是无稽之谈。

It is quite true that I can have no percept without the corresponding sense organ. But just as little can I be aware of a sense organ without perception. From the percept of a table I can pass to the eye which sees it, or the nerves in the skin which touch it, but what takes place in these I can, in turn, learn only from perception. And then I soon notice that there is no trace of similarity between the process which takes place in the eye and the color which I perceive.

如果没有了相应的感官器官，我就不可能拥有任何知觉，这非常正确。但同样，如果没有了知觉，我也无法意识到任何感官器官。我能够从我对一张桌子的知觉转向那注视着桌子的眼，或触摸着桌子的皮肤中的神经，但这些器官中发生了什么，反过来，我只能从感知过程中去认识。于是我很快就注意到，在眼睛中所发生的过程与我所感知到的色彩之间，没有任何相似的迹象。

I cannot eliminate my colour percept by pointing to the process which takes place in the eye during this perception. No more can I rediscover the colour in the nerve or brain processes. I only add new percepts, localised within the organism, to the first percept, which the naive man localises outside his organism. I merely pass from one percept to another.

我不能通过揭示感知颜色时眼睛中发生的过程来消解我对颜色的感知。同样，我在神经和脑的过程中也找不回那颜色；我不过是在有机体内部将新的感知与最初那个感知相连接——而朴素之人却将那最初的感知置于有机体之外。我只不过是从一个感知过渡到另一个感知而已。

The path of external observation ceases with the process in my brain, more particularly with the process which I should observe if I could deal with the brain using the instruments and methods of physics and chemistry. The path of inner observation begins with the sensation, and continues up to the building of things out of the material of sensation.

外部观察之路止于我大脑中的过程——即那个倘若我能以物理、化学等手段和方法处理大脑时所能感知到的过程。内部观察之路则始于感觉，延伸至由感觉材料构建事物的整个过程。

The way of thinking here described, known as critical idealism, in contrast to the standpoint of naive consciousness known as naive realism, makes the mistake of characterizing the one percept as mental picture while taking the other in the very same sense as does the naive realism which it apparently refutes.

这种被称为"批判唯心论"的思维方式——它以此自居，以区别于它所谓"朴素实在论"的朴素意识立场——犯了这样一个错误：它将一种感知定性为表象，却以它声称已然驳倒的朴素实在论的方式来接受另一种感知。

It (critical Idealism) wants to prove that percepts have the character of mental pictures by naively accepting the percepts connected with one's own organism as objectively valid facts; and over and above this, it fails to see that it confuses two spheres of observation, between which it can find no connection.

这种思路意图证明感知的表象性质，却天真地将有机体自身上的感知当作客观有效的事实接受；而且更有甚者，它还忽视了自己混淆了两个观察领域——而这两个领域之间，它根本无法找到任何沟通的桥梁。

So-called critical idealism cannot be proved without borrowing from naive realism. Naive realism can be refuted only if, in another sphere, its own assumptions are accepted without proof as being valid.

所谓的批判唯心主义，如果没有借用天真现实主义的东西，就无法得到证明。而天真现实主义，只有当其自身的假定在没有加以证明的情况下就在另一领域被接受为正确有效的，这时，才会遭到驳斥。

Critical idealism is totally unfitted to form an opinion about the relationship between percept and mental picture. It cannot begin to make the distinction, mentioned above, between what happens to the percept in the process of perception and what must be inherent in it prior to perception. We must, therefore, tackle this problem in another way.

不可能通过批判唯心主义来洞悉知觉与心象之间的关系。它根本无法辨别出本章第 31 页所谈及的两者的不同之处，即在感知过程中对知觉来说都发生了什么，以及在被感知到之前什么是知觉中必然已先天固有的。因此，我们一定要采取另外的方式来解决这一问题。