写作与思考2019apt46.net编辑精选
苏格拉底反对书写
Socrates Was Against Writing (2011)
导读
这篇文章讲的是柏拉图《斐德罗篇》里苏格拉底对文字的批评：文字会削弱记忆、让人误以为自己有了智慧，而且写下来的话没法像活人对话那样为自己辩护、回答问题。评论补充了几个有意思的层次：口头表达里的节奏、重音和情绪其实承载了大量信息；更讽刺的是，我们知道的这个“反写作”观点本身只能靠文字流传下来。对写作者来说，这篇值得读，因为它逼你思考：把话写下来，得到了什么，又悄悄丢掉了什么。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
意识到书写会丢掉语调、停顿和重音这一层信息，写作时就要靠句长、标点和节奏把它重新造出来，必要时宁可读出声来改。
- 02
把想法写成文字会让人误以为已经想清楚了；把写作当作继续思考的工具，而不是思考的终点。
- 03
留下开放和未完成的空间，别把一切都写成不可质疑的定论，让读者保留自己推演和提问的余地。
- 04
引用名人观点前先核查出处和语境：同一个苏格拉底在《斐德罗篇》里反对写作，在《斐多篇》里却说自己受梦的指示去写诗。
- 05
HN 评论精选
口头表达里的语速、重音和情绪本身携带大量意义，而文字把它们抹掉了。
他反对写作是在公元前370年。不过，看到阶梯教室里学生一脸空白地机械记笔记，我觉得这话有点道理。好的教授讲课时，很多信息是通过语速、重音等方式传达出来的。我第一次读莎士比亚剧本时觉得这世界疯了：怎么会把这么高的价值放在看似不知所云的文字上；后来听演员念出来，表演补上了情感上的言外之意，我才明白那些词该怎么理解。这层语言之外的东西，被忽视得令人吃惊。
BucketSort查看英文原文
He was against writing... in 370 BC. Although, having seen the blank faces of students in lecture halls mindlessly taking notes, I know there's some truth to it. When a good professor lectures, there's a lot of information expressed as pace, stress, and so on. It's like when I read Shakespeare's plays for the first time and thought the world was really crazy to put such high value on seemingly nonsensical words, but then I saw an actor speak them and the performance added the additional emotional overtones which decoded how the words were meant to be understood. That extra layer on top of words is surprisingly neglected.
“苏格拉底反对写作”本身也是文字记载的二手转述，观点归属存疑。
“苏格拉底反对写作”这个说法让我不爽的地方有两点：一，即便在故事里，苏格拉底也不是在“说”，他是在虚构一段发生在古埃及（他误以为书写起源于那里）的叙事；二，严格说这话根本不是苏格拉底写的，它出自柏拉图之手。柏拉图是苏格拉底的学生，也许他在转述苏格拉底真说过的话，也许不是——他可能只是把自己的观点安在名声更大的老师头上。
jhbadger查看英文原文
What annoys me about the whole "Socrates was against writing" is the follows: 1) Even within the narrative, Socrates isn't "speaking". He is creating a fictional narrative set in Ancient Egypt where he believed writing originated (wrongly, but that isn't the point). 2) On a second level, Socrates didn't even write this. This is part of Plato's work. Plato was a student of Socrates, and maybe is describing something Socrates really said. Or maybe not. He may be simply giving his own opinion and attributing it to Socrates, who had a higher reputation.
不把思想写死，反而让它保持开放、不被教条化，从而长期与新知相容。
比苏格拉底早一百年的毕达哥拉斯（柏拉图除苏格拉底之外最大的哲学影响来源）也反对写作。我们不知道他或他的追随者为什么反对，但有一种可能：毕达哥拉斯的数学与科学当时发展很快，同时还伴随着关于数字与宇宙之和谐的灵性教义。即使在今天，毕达哥拉斯式的观念仍然很有预测力（比如小整数比构成协和音与不协和音）。但即便在当时，这些观念也有边界——例如边长为1的三角形，斜边是根号2。他们可能认为还有更多东西要学，而把带灵性含义的观念固化成文字，会制造出非经验性的教条。毕达哥拉斯熟悉许多宗教传统，看到了书在制造不可动摇的教义上所起的作用。如果他写下自己的想法，他可能就在知识上出错或不全；正因为没写，他那些影响深远的观念至今仍与现代科学和数学完全相容。这非常了不起：人们依然可以从毕达哥拉斯式的宇宙和谐观念中获得灵性启发，而不违背经验现实。
dr_dshiv查看英文原文
Pythagoras, a hundred years earlier -- and Plato's biggest philosophical influence next to Socrates -- was also against writing. Now, we don't know why he or his followers were against writing, but here is a possibility: Pythagorean mathematics and science were developing rapidly, alongside spiritual doctrines about harmony in numbers and the cosmos. Even today, Pythagorean ideas are incredibly predictive (e.g., small integer ratios constituting consonance and dissonance). However, even then, there were limits to the ideas. For instance, a triangle with the side of 1 has a hypotenuse of the square root of 2. They may have thought there was more to learn and committing the ideas (which had spiritual meanings) to words may have created non-empirical doctrines. For instance, Pythagoras was familiar with many religious traditions and saw the role of books in creating unbreakable doctrines. If Pythagoras had committed his ideas to writing, he could have been wrong or incomplete about his knowledge. Since he didn't do this, all of his influential concepts remain completely commensurable with modern science and mathematics. That's huge. As a result, those who wish to can still take spiritual inspiration from Pythagorean ideas about cosmic harmony without violating empirical reality.
同一人物在另一篇对话里态度相反，引用观点必须看具体文本和语境。
楼主引用《斐德罗篇》里苏格拉底谈书写的害处。但在《斐多篇》（名字几乎一样，但完全是另一篇对话）里，我们听到的恰恰相反。《斐多篇》发生在苏格拉底临终之时，或许更能代表这位哲学家最后的看法。苏格拉底说：他写诗和一首颂歌，不是为了跟伊索及其诗句比高低——他知道那不容易——而是想弄清某些梦的含义、履行一项神圣的义务，以防梦所吩咐的正是这类技艺。他说：在过去的生活里，同一个梦常常以不同的面貌出现，但总说同一件事：“苏格拉底，搞艺术并实践它。”他以前以为这是在鼓励他做他本来就在做的事——哲学是一种极高的艺术，他做的就是它；但审判结束、节庆延缓了他的死期之后，他想，万一梦指的是通俗意义上的艺术，那他就不该不服从，而应当去做，因为先写完诗、履行神圣义务再走更稳妥。
xamuel查看英文原文
OP quotes Socrates in Phaedrus talking about the evils of writing. But in Phaedo (yes, a totally different dialog with almost the exact same name), we hear quite the opposite. Phaedo takes place on Socrates' deathbed so might be considered more representative of the philosopher's final opinions. "'Tell him the truth, then, Cebes,' he [Socrates] said: 'I made them [poems and a hymn], not because I wanted to compete with him [Aesop] or his verses! I knew that wouldn't be easy-but because I was trying to find out the meaning of certain dreams and fulfil a sacred duty, in case perhaps it was that kind of art they were ordering me to make. They were like this, you see: often in my past life the same dream had visited me, now in one guise, now in another, but always saying the same thing: "Socrates," it said, "make art and practise it." Now in earlier times I used to assume that the dream was urging and telling me to do exactly what I was doing: as people shout encouragement to runners, so the dream was telling me to do the very thing that I was doing, to make art, since philosophy is a very high art form, and that was what I was making. But now that the trial was over and the festival of the god was preventing my death, I thought that in case it was art in the popular sense that the dream was commanding me to make, I ought not to disobey it, but should make it; as it was safer not to go off before I'd fulfilled a sacred duty, by making verses and thus obeying the dream.'"
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