The Claim of Reason
The Claim of Reason
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理性的主张
DOI：
10.1111/j.1468-0149.1981.tb01020.x
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发表时间：
1981
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
D. Hamlyn
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
D. Hamlyn
我86还知道它自己吗？“有人想说：“他可能会问”。这是一本奇怪的、没有纪律的书，正如作者所说，写在非常不同的时间(准确地说是四个不同的时间)。开头的最早部分几乎早于卡维尔所写的所有其他作品。结束语，也是最新的一节，题为“承认与回避之间”，这是一部狂想曲，与宣称的“怀疑论和他人的问题”相关，变得越来越疯狂。怀疑主义是贯穿这本书的主线--甚至在《知识与道德概念》的第三部分--这是一个不是特别有趣的部分，主要涉及道德的客观性和自主性。开篇和最早的部分与维特根斯坦的“标准”概念有很大关系。事实上，除了有一章是对当时卡维尔的另一位“神”--奥斯汀--的离题，这一节几乎完全是关于维特根斯坦的。卡维尔在这里有一些有趣的东西要说，特别是在我看来，在探索正常、常规和自然之间关系的最后部分。如果把这种风格的困难--连续的长句和一般的内卷化--放在一边，这里有很多需要学习的地方。卡维尔认为，维特根斯坦思想的动力源于与怀疑主义作斗争的需要，这一点贯穿了第二部分。我完全不相信维特根斯坦是这样的。这里的部分问题是，尽管不断提到怀疑和放弃怀疑的字数，但卡维尔认为怀疑是既定的，本身不需要调查。如果这对一些读者来说似乎是一个悖论，那么我的意思可能是出于对最后一部分的某些考虑。在那里的一段时间里，卡维尔将对外部世界的怀疑与对其他思想的怀疑进行了对比(难道没有其他形式的怀疑吗？)关于我们是否能活出我们的怀疑主义这个问题。他的答案(或者似乎是他的答案)是，一个人不能对外部世界持怀疑态度，但就对他人的怀疑而言，情况是不同的。最后50页被放弃了，呼吁流浪者或局外人的概念。卡维尔在这里的讨论过于不透明。早些时候，他对维特根斯坦的话进行了有趣的讨论，维特根斯坦说，我对他的态度是一种对灵魂的态度，以及它与将另一个人视为人类的关系。贯穿始终的是关于个人关系的有趣评论，通过引用李尔王、奥赛罗等人来说明。但这在多大程度上与经典的他人心理问题有关？当卡维尔说我对这个问题持怀疑态度时，他心里想的是什么问题？关于我们对他人的理解，有一些有效的哲学问题，诉诸文学可能会揭示这些问题(我将是最后一个否认卡维尔在这一点上有明智言论的人)。但这些问题不是经典的他人思维问题；也不清楚它们是否可以在怀疑论的背景下得到适当的解释。卡维尔根本没有理清什么是或可能是怀疑论，什么问题是或可能是危急关头。因此，正如我所说，这本书的最后一节是一首狂想曲。
I 86 still know itself?”. One feels like saying “He might well ask”. It is a strange, undisciplined book, written, as the author makes clear, at very different times (four different times, to be exact). The earliest part at the beginning pre-dates nearly everything else that Cavell has written. The concluding and latest section entitled “Between acknowledgement and avoidance” is something of a rhapsody which in relation to the declared theme of “scepticism and the problem of others” gets wilder and wilder. Scepticism is the thread which runs through the book-even in the third section on “Knowledge and the concept of morality”-a not terribly interesting section concerned mainly with the objectivity and autonomy of morals.The opening and earliest section has much to do with the Wittgensteinian concept of a “criterion”. Indeed, apart from one chapter which is an excursus on Cavell’s other “god” at the time-Austin-the section is almost entirely concerned with Wittgenstein. Cavell has interesting things to say here, particularly, in my opinion, in the last part which explores the relation between the normal, the conventional and the natural. If the difficulties of the style-the continuing long sentences and a general involution-are put on one side there is much to learn here. Cavell takes it that the impetus of Wittgenstein’s thought stems from the need to grapple with scepticism, and this pervades the second part. I am not at all convinced that this is true of Wittgenstein. Part of the trouble here is that despite the constant references to scepticism and number of words given up to it, Cavell takes scepticism as a given, something that does not itself need investigation. If that seems a paradox to some readers, what I mean may emerge from certain considerations about the final part. For some time there, Cavell contrasts scepticism about the externaI world with scepticisni about other minds (and are there no other forms of scepticism?) with respect to the question whether we can live our scepticism. His answer (or what seems to be his answer) is that one cannot with respect to scepticism about the external world, but that the situation is different with respect to scepticism with regard to others. The last fifty pages are given up to that, with an appeal to the notion of the Outcast or the Outsider. Cavell’s discussion here is excessively opaque. Earlier he engages in an interesting discussion of Wittgenstein’s remark that my attitude to him is an attitude towards a soul and its relation to what it is to see another as human. And throughout there are interesting remarks about personal relations illustrated by references to Lear, Othello, and the like. But how much of that has to do with the classical other minds problem? When Cavell says that I live my scepticism in relation to that problem, what problem does he have in mind? There are valid philosophical problems about our understanding of others, problems on which a recourse to literature may shed light (and I would be the last to deny that Cavell has wise things to say on that score). But these problems are not the classical other minds problem; nor is it clear that they can be properly construed within the context of scepticism. Cavell simply has not sorted out what scepticism is or could be, what questions are or can be at stake. As a result the long, last section of the book is, as I have said, a rhapsody.