公众号: REACH2O 发布时间: 2025-08-12 13:05:25 原文链接: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/2VNim46la3MZ059cxtG_FA
借用老徐对“新书速递 | 康托洛维茨《弗里德里希二世》”的一句朋友圈实话，“说实话这种书没有必要翻译……”，以及随后的补充解释，“这本书是格奥尔格策划组织、塑造德意志民族身份的传记系列之一。康老师当时很年轻，属于格奥尔格圈子，受托写了这本书。后来因为没有资料引用受专业史家质疑，康老师拿出一本纯注释的补卷，成了一个传奇。但是康老师晚年的时候，有出版商表示此书绝版已久，希望再版，被康老师拒绝。他也不愿提及这本书。”
述而不作的好处在于，可以称圣而不留遗憾。比如孔圣，留些的只言片语都是弟子们整理过的，确保质量上乘，没有纰漏。一旦留了文字，就得想法嘻唰唰嘻唰唰，吃了我的给我吐出来，闪闪红星里的记载成了此处的对白……
我现在也想收回自己的本科论文、硕士论文和博士论文。最好从未发表过，也不见于任何图书馆藏。按下不表。有些译者有很高的水平，但选书的眼光不太行，徒留了翻译家的虚名。有些译者则翻译很快，比如张卜天在2018年春节期间就完成了‘The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science’一共420页的翻译书稿（语见张卜天译，《圣经、新教与自然科学的兴起》之译后记，商务印书馆，2019年2月），那是非常的快速了。还有一些译者或者实力均衡，既不太快，也不太好，但选书的眼光独特，常常译介一些极为重要的书籍给中文读者，引得人心里痒痒的，恨不得找来原版一睹为快……
“跨文翻译”2025-2026的跨年自选项目，打算做一个新的尝试。我希望组织一次《A Secular Age》的读书会，主要是读英文原版，但附带会产生一个关于中文译本的“评注文本”。理由我就不说了，但凡开卷有益的人都知道我在说什么。
《A Secular Age》可以说是21世纪初最重要的哲学著作之一。其中对现代性和世俗性的多角度分析，可以帮助许多人理清从16世纪到21世纪西方社会的世俗化变迁。对于基督徒而言（无论您属于新而正之教会、正而公之教会、公而新之教会），理解此书所讨论的经验与理论，可以帮助我们认识到身边那些“天真”的信徒其实只是在自我麻醉下的不愿“反思”而已，于是可以大为释然。
泰勒讨论的时候开宗明义，认定自己只涉及“北大西洋”，但阅读此书，将会大大地帮助我们理解遥远的东方，理解我们的城市化与世俗化对宗教信仰与实践的影响……正如侯德健在评论一次围棋对局时歌中唱到，“巨龙巨龙你差两眼，永永远远地差两眼”。
具体而言，这个读书会有两种参与方式。一种是读原文（允许参考三联的译本），并写详细读书报告。一种是读原文，并练习翻译。我会提供一个简单的初译，由读者精读原文，提供修订意见。此书除了索引和尾注，一共37.16万字，如果有3-4位志愿者，足以在明年圣诞之前做完计划的工作。简单说明一下情况。1）没有预算和费用。此书的翻译难度很大，37.16万字，若认真预算，需要4万美元的翻译和编辑费用。但既然我们不打算出版，也就不打算筹款了。完全看天吃饭。2）要参与精读和修订、打磨简单初译者，需通过下面的试译。请不要参考任何现有的中译或AI，独立翻译下面这段文字（约500多个单词，见后）。如果您觉得有把握应付这样难度的英语，可以提交您的试译给我。最终的决定权在我，即使是志愿者，也并不保证录用。3）这是一个长程项目。这一类项目，就像做传道人每周日讲道一样，最重要的是commitment。至于委身的态度，那是只有天晓得了。如果不能投入一定的精力和时间，最好不要尝试。4）精读和修订完全是志愿者工作。不承诺经济报酬。5）读书会每一个月在线讨论一次（或者每完成一章的修订评注以后），大约3小时时间。一共20章，所以大概需要20个月来完成。时间待定。现在可以报名。读书会报名费20元一次，一共399元。限30人，先到先得。志愿者免费，但需要至少承担一章的精度和修订工作，名额不限，但需要提交试译稿，录取与否由我决定。报名请发送邮件到[email protected]）此书的阅读有难度，并且可能动摇某些人视为基本的信念。欢迎挑战。不欢迎抬杠。7）即使刘项原来不读书，也可以支持这个项目。试译文本：
Every person, and every society, lives with or by some conception(s) of what human flourishing is: what constitutes a fulfilled life? what makes life really worth living? What would we most admire people for? We can’t help asking these and related questions in our lives. And our struggles to answer them define the view or views that we try to live by, or between which we haver. At another level, these views are codified, sometimes in philosophical theories, sometimes in moral codes, sometimes in religious practices and devotion. These and the various ill-formulated practices which people around us engage in constitute the resources that our society offers each one of us as we try to lead our lives.
Another way of getting at something like the issue raised above in terms of within/without is to ask: does the highest, the best life involve our seeking, or acknowledging, or serving a good which is beyond, in the sense of independent of human flourishing? In which case, the highest, most real, authentic or adequate human flourishing could include our aiming (also) in our range of final goals at something other than human flourishing. I say “final goals”, because even the most self-sufficing humanism has to be concerned with the condition of some nonhuman things instrumentally, e.g., the condition of the natural environment. The issue is whether they matter also finally.
It’s clear that in the Judaeo-Christian religious tradition the answer to this question is affirmative. Loving, worshipping God is the ultimate end. Of course, in this tradition God is seen as willing human flourishing, but devotion to God is not seen as contingent on this. The injunction “Thy will be done” isn’t equivalent to “Let humans flourish”, even though we know that God wills human flourishing.
This is a very familiar case for us. But there are other ways in which we can be taken beyond ordinary human flourishing. Buddhism is an example. In one way, we could construe the message of the Buddha as telling us how to achieve true happiness, that is, how to avoid suffering, and attain bliss.18 But it is clear that the understanding of the conditions of bliss is so “revisionist” that it amounts to a departure from what we normally understand as human flourishing. The departure here can be put in terms of a radical change of identity. Normal understandings of flourishing assume a continuing self, its beneficiary, or in the case of its failure the sufferer. The Buddhist doctrine of anatta aims to bring us beyond this illusion. The way to Nirvana involves renouncing, or at least going beyond, all forms of recognizable human flourishing.
In both Buddhism and Christianity, there is something similar in spite of the great difference in doctrine. This is that the believer or devout person is called on to make a profound inner break with the goals of flourishing in their own case; they are called on, that is, to detach themselves from their own flourishing, to the point of the extinction of self in one case, or to that of renunciation of human fulfillment to serve God in the other. The respective patterns are clearly visible in the exemplary figures. The Buddha achieves Enlightenment; Christ consents to a degrading death to follow his father’s will.