哲學對話文類初探(2/3)

Abstract

哲學對話文類源遠流長，從柏拉圖到古 典末期的聖奧古斯丁，歷經多重演化。文藝 復興之後，蔚為文類大國；十六世紀的意大 利和十八世紀的英國，皆為哲學文類顯學。 十八世紀之後逐漸沈潛。 哲學對話為非文學的文類或虛位戲 劇，然其展現語言（文）應用的某些基本現 象。晚近研究方法汲取（1）語用學與（2） 修辭學之營養，對言談參與者之主體性，權 力關係，及對真理之掌握，皆有所發現。 中國先秦諸子論辯亦多援主客問難方 式，在莊子與公孫龍子作品中尤為明顯。唯 此問答方式與西方同時之哲學對話, 形式 主義的探討, 論者尚著墨不多。 本計畫探討西方與中國哲學對話所呈 現的理則與修辭問題。處理的作品分為三 種： 一、早期的柏拉圖對話，此類對話共計 十餘篇，泰半遵循蘇格拉底慣用之反駁 辯論法。蘇氏問難步驟略為：（1）請對 話者對某課題表達意見Ａ；（2）誘導對 話者表達意見B；（3）證明Ｂ乃否定 Ａ，使對話者曳甲棄兵而稱臣。 二、古典後期對話，包括西塞祿之《駁 學院派》、《自然神論》，與普魯塔克之 《駁斯多葛派》，聖奧古斯丁之《師 說》。檢視反駁辯論法如何繼續在這些 作品中被使用，作為修辭論辯的工具。 三、戰國時期，名家和相關作品，如莊 子與公孫龍子修辭策略，與蘇格拉底反 駁辯論法有無若合符節之處。

Philosophical dialogue as genre has a time-honoured history. In classical and late antiquity, from the early Socratic dialogues of Plato, through writings of Plutarch, Cicero, Tacitus, to Saint Augustine’s De Magistro and Contra Academicos, the genre had already undergone several mutations. It remained a dominant discourse from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment and was popular among such diverse writers as Castiglione, Galileo, More, Hobbes, Hume, Berkeley, Locke, Diderot, and Voltaire. Although philosophical dialogue is generally regarded as a “non-literary” genre or, as one writer puts it, “virtual theatre,” it nonetheless is capable of displaying some fundamental features of language in social use. The genre has received special attention from hermeneuticians like Gadamer and language philosophers in the wake of Wittgenstein. Linguistics aside, three main approaches can be identified, respectively from the perspectives of pragmatics, logic, and rhetoric; and much light has been shed on such important issues as discursive subjectivity, power relation, and truth-claim. A similar genre, called “host and guest queries and answers” (zhuke wennan), can be found in Chinese philosophical discourse. Both the Great Debate over name and substance in the Warring States Period and the later Buddhist Gongan are often 2 represented in dramatic and dialogic form. Zhuangzi and Gongsun Longzi are two prominent examples. This project will enquire into the logical and rhetorical implications of philosophical dialogue. It will examine three clusters of writing: (1) Plato’s elenchic dialogues before Meno, with special reference to Gorgias and its relation to the origin of rhetoric; (2) late classical dialogues, including Cicero’s Academica , De Natura Deorum, Plutarch’s Stoicorum repugnantiis, and Saint Augustine’s De Magistro, in order to see if the Socratic elenchus is still in operation, albeit disguised; (3) the dialogues in Zhuangzi and Gongsun Longzi, for semiotic and rhetorical parallels.