Handbook of Bioethics
Handbook of Bioethics
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生物伦理学手册
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发表时间：
2004
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通讯作者：
G. Khushf
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作者：
G. Khushf
研究自然物体和现象。尽管我们迄今为止所熟悉的所有推理方法主要起源于对自然事物的观察和反思，但它们有一个共同点，即为了检验的目的，它们将对象从自然赋予它们的位置和环境中移走：它们将它们抽象化。这种抽象的过程要么是字面上从一个地方转移到另一个地方的过程，从大自然本身的伟大工作和仓库转移到小工作室、实验者的实验室；要么是从一个地方转移到另一个地方的过程。或者 – 如果这种去除是不可能的 – 该过程仅在沉思领域进行；注意到并描述了一两个特殊属性，同时暂时忽略附属数据的数量。 （第三种方法当时尚未开发出来，是创造“非自然”条件，从而产生“非自然”现象[保罗·费耶拉本德的评论]。）此外，除了方便之外，还有一个非常强大的诱因，促使科学工作者坚持抽象过程……这就是此类研究在艺术和工业中的实际用处……因此，人工生命的需求和创造已证明对自然的抽象和人工处理的最大激励。化学和电气实验室（一侧是数学家的计算室，另一侧是车间和工厂）在本世纪中变得如此著名......（引自 Feyerabend，第 153 页）。因此，梅尔茨将“抽象精神”描述为科学概念化所必需的。他这样描述抽象过程：“注意到并描述了一个或两个特殊属性，而暂时忽略了附属数据的数量。”一门科学所忽视的“附带数据”可能恰恰是另一门科学所致力于研究的“一两个特殊属性”。但一门科学仔细研究的东西仍然被另一门科学忽视。梅尔茨随后立即注意到一种相反方向的智力兴趣：然而，在人类心灵中存在着一种相反的兴趣，幸运的是，它在很大程度上抵消了科学中抽象精神的片面运作……这是对自然的真正热爱，这种意识是，如果我们在很大程度上切断或削弱了将我们与现实世界——与真实和自然的事物联系在一起的联系，我们就会失去所有的力量：它在一个强大的巨人的古老传说中得到了表达，他的所有力量都来自于他的力量。地球母亲，如果与她分离就会崩溃……在对自然物体的研究中，我们（因此）遇到了一类学生，他们被事物的本来面目所吸引……他们的科学是真正的描述性科学，与抽象科学相反（Feyerabend，第 153 页）。我们将在下文中追寻梅尔茨所表达的对“真正的描述性科学”的关注，它“幸运地”抵消了“科学中抽象精神的片面运作”。但首先我们想强调 479 个精神病学中的哲学问题暗示了梅尔茨的抽象观点对于科学概念化是必要的。这就是科学不可避免地多的含义。科学有很多，因为每一门科学只研究自然的“一两个特殊性质”而忽视其他性质。因此需要其他科学来检验其他特性。正如约翰·齐曼（John Ziman）所写，不存在简单的“科学”现实地图——或者即使有，也将过于复杂和笨重，任何人都无法掌握或使用。但从不同的科学观点来看，现实有许多不同的地图（Feyerabend，第 154 页）。但最终必须说，科学是多种多样的，因为每一种科学都是多方面整体的片面概念化。正如保罗·费耶阿本德 (Paul Feyerabend) 所说，“世界是一个复杂且多面的事物”（费耶阿本德，第 151-152 页）。在精神病学中，这种抽象精神如今受到医学化的指导。生物医学的基本概念和程序决定了精神病学中哪些内容会被主题化，哪些内容会被忽视。将人类精神问题视为“精神障碍”已经是一种抽象：片面关注这些问题的某些特征而忽视其他问题。此外，将这些问题视为精神障碍意味着我们实际处理这些问题的方式将通过鉴别诊断、治疗计划和改善评估进行——所有这些都以生物医学为模型。此外，当理论选择的特征被赋予形而上学的优先权时，抽象精神更进一步：这些特征单独被视为“真正真实”的特征。所有其他特征都被视为不真实甚至不真实——“纯粹主观”或附带现象而被忽视。物理主义（或唯物主义）是这种形而上学步骤的一个例子。在物理主义中，认为事物唯一真正真实的属性是它们的物理属性，而“物理属性”通常被认为是指现代自然科学、物理学、化学和生物学所描述的那些属性。因此，物体的黄色仅仅是“主观的”，因为物体唯一的“客观”属性是它的原子和分子属性。这种物理主义要求任何非物理属性以某种方式“还原”为物理属性或完全忽略。在今天的心灵哲学中，存在着强烈的物理主义倾向：许多哲学论证都是为了证明仅通过物理原因来解释所有形式的人类行为是可能的，而“物理”又意味着那些可以用自然科学术语解释的属性。如果每门科学都能够通过将其与现实的其他方面抽象地分开来确保自己的特殊主题，那么我们可能会问每门科学“抽象”的是什么。通过抽象过程构建科学的“现实”是什么？无论这个 480 OSBORNE P. WIGGINS 和 MICHAEL ALAN SCHWARTZ 的现实是什么，很明显，它必须在核心中包含各种科学和学科将抽象描述的所有现实。当然，在抽象和科学发展之前，这些不同的现实或多或少地隐藏在基本现实中，并且是不透明的。但这确实让我们可以说，这个基本现实必须是一个繁杂而复杂的现实：它必须包含一种“存在的丰富性”，以便许多不同的科学可以将其分离出来并进行研究。正如费耶阿本德在上面引用的引文中所说，“世界是一个复杂且多面的事物。”那么，所有科学从中抽象和界定其截然不同的主题的基本现实是什么？我们认为，基本现实就是胡塞尔所说的“生活世界”，即我们在日常感知和行动中直接遇到的世界。这里不可能解释西方科学的历史起源。我们只想指出，这种起源可以在色诺芬尼和其他前苏格拉底哲学家的思想中找到，他们在面对自己的宗教、道德和政治信仰——他们自己的社会文化世界观——的相对性时，承认了这种相对性，然后询问超越自己文化的“存在”，即非相对的、真实的存在。
study of natural objects and phenomena. Though all the methods of reasoning with which we have so far become acquainted originated primarily through observation and the reflection over things natural, they have this in common that they – for the purpose of examination – remove their objects out of the position and surroundings which nature has assigned them: that they abstract them. This process of abstraction is either literally a process of removal from one place to another, from the great workand storehouse of nature herself to the small workroom, the laboratory of the experimenter; or – where such removal is not possible – the process is carried out merely in the realm of contemplation; one or two special properties are noted and described, whilst the number of collateral data are for the moment disregarded. (A third method, not developed at the time, is the creation of “unnatural” conditions and, thereby, the production of “unnatural” phenomena [Paul Feyerabend’s comment].) There is, moreover, in addition to the aspect of convenience, one very powerful inducement for scientific workers to persevere in their process of abstraction... This is the practical usefulness of such researches in the arts and industries... The wants and creations of artificial life have thus proved the greatest incentives to the abstract and artificial treatment of natural objects and processes for which the chemical and electrical laboratories with the calculating room of the mathematician on the one side and the workshop and factory on the other, have in the course of the century become so renowned...(cited in Feyerabend, p. 153). Merz thus portrays “the spirit of abstraction” as necessary for scientific conceptualization. He characterizes the process of abstraction this way: “one or two special properties are noted and described, whilst the number of collateral data are for the moment disregarded.” The “collateral data” disregarded by one science may be precisely the “one or two special properties” to which another science is devoted. But still what one science examines carefully another science disregards. Merz then immediately notes an intellectual interest moving in the opposite direction: There is, however, in the human mind an opposite interest which fortunately counteracts to a considerable extent the one-sided working of the spirit of abstraction in science... This is the genuine love of nature, the consciousness that we lose all power if, to any great extent, we sever or weaken that connection which ties us to the world as it is – to things real and natural: it finds its expression in the ancient legend of the mighty giant who derived all his strength from his mother earth and collapsed if severed from her... In the study of natural objects we meet (therefore) with a class of students who are attracted by things as they are... Their sciences are the truly descriptive sciences, in opposition to the abstract ones (Feyerabend, p. 153). We shall pursue below this concern, expressed by Merz, for “truly descriptive sciences” which “fortunately” counteract “the one-sided working of the spirit of abstraction in science.” But first we would like to emphasize an 479 PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES IN PSYCHIATRY implication of Merz’s view of abstraction as necessary for scientific conceptualization. This is the implication that the sciences are unavoidably many. The sciences are many because each one studies only “one or two special properties” of nature and disregards others. Hence other sciences are needed to examine the other properties. As John Ziman writes, There is no simple “scientific” map of reality – or if there were, it would be much too complicated and unwieldy to be grasped or used by anyone. But there are many different maps of reality, from a variety of scientific viewpoints (Feyerabend, p. 154). But ultimately it must be said that the sciences are many because each is a onesided conceptualization of a many-sided whole. As Paul Feyerabend has said, “The world is a complex and many-sided thing” (Feyerabend, pp. 151-152). In psychiatry this spirit of abstraction is today under the guidance of the medicalization. The basic concepts and procedures of biomedicine determine what tends to be thematized and what disregarded in psychiatry. Viewing human mental problems as “mental disorders” is already an abstraction: it is a one-sided focus on certain features of these problems while setting aside others. Moreover, conceiving these problems as mental disorders entails that our way of practically dealing with them will proceed through differential diagnosis, treatment plans, and assessment of improvement – all modeled on biomedicine. Moreover, the spirit of abstraction takes a further step when the features selected by the theory are assigned metaphysical priority: these features are alone seen as the “really real” ones. All other features are disregarded as not as real or even as unreal – as “purely subjective” or epiphenomenal. Physicalism (or materialism) is one example of this sort of metaphysical step. In physicalism it is claimed that the only truly real properties of things are their physical properties, and “physical properties” is usually taken to mean those properties depicted by modern natural science, physics, chemistry, and biology. Hence the yellow color of the object is merely “subjective” because the only “objective” properties of the object are its atomical and molecular properties. Such a physicalism requires that any non-physical properties be somehow “reduced to” physical ones or disregarded altogether. In the philosophy of mind today there are strong tendencies toward physicalism: many philosophical arguments are mounted in order to prove that it is possible to explain all forms of human behavior by referring solely to physical causes, and again “physical” means those properties explicable in terms from the natural sciences. If each of the sciences has been able to secure its own special subject matter by abstractly separating it from other aspects of reality, then we might ask what it is that each science “abstracts from.” What is the “reality” out of which the sciences have been constructed through processes of abstraction? Whatever this 480 OSBORNE P. WIGGINS AND MICHAEL ALAN SCHWARTZ reality is it is clear that it must harbor in nucleo all the realities which the various sciences and disciplines will abstractively delineate. Of course, prior to the abstractions and the development of the sciences of them these various realities lie more or less latent and opaque in the fundamental reality. But this does allow us to say that this fundamental reality must be a multifarious and complicated one: it must contain a “plenitude of being” such that the many different sciences can separate out sectors of it and study them. As Feyerabend says in the quote cited above, “The world is a complex and many-sided thing.” What then is the fundamental reality out of which all the sciences abstract and delimit their greatly differing subject matters? We submit that the fundamental reality is what Husserl has called “the lifeworld,” the world as we directly encounter it in everyday perception and action. It is not possible here to explicate the historical origin of the Western sciences. We would like only to suggest that that origin can be found in the thought of Xenophanes and other PreSocratic philosophers who, when confronted with the relativity of their own religious, moral, and political beliefs – their own sociocultural world-view – conceded this relativity and then asked about the “being” beyond their own culture, i.e., non-relative, true being.