现代本体论:指向活的生活之根

20世纪西方哲学对本体论的拒斥给予我们的启示应是重新估价本体论 ,而不应是否弃本体论。生活以其应然性使人区别于动物 ,哲学本体论则在于为生活的“应该”寻求前提性根据———寻求生活之根。在追寻“应该”之“前提性根据”的意义上 ,本体论是必要的。“本体”在传统哲学中意味着亘古不变的永恒、现象背后的本质、脱凡离俗的神圣 ,这样的本体作为主观设定的生活之根是“死”的。对于现代哲学而言 ,永恒、本真、神圣都在生活世界中 ,生活世界作为永恒 ,不是永固 ,作为本真 ,不是“本质” ,作为神圣 ,不是超俗 ,它是“活”的。生活世界由此成为现代哲学承诺的活的本体     

Public Life as Tragedy

Some of the most perceptive observers of public life have emphasised its tragic dimensions, not so much out of sympathy for politicians, but because the lens of tragedy offers a unique insight into the realities of the world of politics. Here I attempt to synthesise this tragic perspective by employing the comments of those best positioned to identify the salient features of public life, its primary dramatis personae. Politics occasionally provides us with the kind of spectacular catastrophe that journalists like to construe as tragedy. But our purpose is to evoke a different, more personal, less visible kind of tragedy: the small but malignant tragedies of self‐betrayal, of inflation of the ego and deflation of conscience, of helpless witness to injustice and misfortune, of status unaccompanied by power or efficacy, of the shrinking of aspiration to the scale of the practicable, of disillusion and, on occasion, of despair.     

孙悟空的人生梦

孙悟空虽是一个石猴,却有远大的人生抱负,他求学问道,功夫了得,所受教育却存在重大缺陷,自我认知和社会认知出现巨大偏差,虽历尽磨难,人生梦想从未改变,得以终成正果。     

Sometimes I Hear Life Going: On the Remoteness from Life in Modernity

Modernity seems to bring a type of relationship with life whereby life appears to be distant. Individuals may mitigate this distance by attaining a meaningful life, but this requires time, decisions and a purpose. In the late modern context, these dimensions – time, decisions and vital purposes – appear to be shaped in a way that further increases this remoteness. This paper analyses how the narratives associated with these three dimensions foster a way of understanding them that restricts the relationship which individuals build with their own lives. The late-modern remoteness from life may stem from experiencing a lifetime without significant time, decisions without real choice and particular forms of self-fulfilment that misappropriate the relationship with life.     

Detectives Stories and City Life

Detective stories take place mainly in two settings, constantly changing, many faceted big cities filled with strangers, and stable, fairly homogeneous, innocent small towns whose members know one another. The differences in each clarify the qualities of the other. In solving the mystery of the small town, the detective provides moral instruction and restores the town’s innocence. In solving the mystery in the big city the detective reveals the city as part of the mystery and provides the reader with temporary orientation to the city. Mysteries have grown with the growth of the cities and now appear in every country of the world. Harold J. Bershady is an emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. His most recent book, edited with Renée Fox and Victor Lidz, is After Parson: A Theory of Action for the 21st Century, published by Russell Sage Press, 2005.