胡乱想想

古代中国哲学和古希腊哲学的重大区分就在，认识论和[说话的]逻辑(西哲所谓“逻格斯”logos，即希腊语“说话”的意思)一直都是西方哲学的重点，而在中国除了墨家和名家粗略地涉及到认识论和逻辑的问题外（如：公孙龙子之“坚白之辨”、“火不热”是认识论问题；“白马非马”是逻辑问题），就再也很难找到与之相关的论述了。

我想这其中与汉字是象形文字而希腊使用拼音文字是有很大的关系的。用英语举个例子，在说到公牛(bull)和奶牛(cow)的时候，从字形上看不出其中的任何联系与区别，因此不可避免的就要考虑一个（柏拉图所谓）“理念的”牛，使得bull和cow都分享这一“理念的”牛（也就是“共相”）的部分特征，也由此会涉及到词的阴性和阳性问题（阴性和阳性，不再作为一个“形容词”来描述“物”，而是用“词本身”来区分“物”）。汉字基本上就不会有这个问题，比如说到牛的时候，我们把这个字写出来，本身就已经为这个“物”下了定义（就是“牛”这个样子的），因此，便不会考虑到去找一个“理念的”牛来解决类似cow,bull如何统一的问题。（或者可以说，“牛”这个字本身，就已经是从经验中抽象出来的“理念”了，因此任何对这个“理念的牛”的描述，都不可能再成为一个“词本身”，而成了前缀或后缀或偏旁的形容词模式。比如，“犊”字和“牛”字发音完全不同，但看到字的时候就能知道两者是有联系的。）

所以说汉字是可以起到拼音文字所起不到的作用，就是在“能指”与“所指”之间起到桥梁的作用（可以不是很恰当的比作拉康所谓的“象征界”与“实在界”），而拼音文字就基本上只能在“能指”之间互相打转转了，虽然英文也有“词根”，但那些“词根”并不与真实的“所指”产生联系（其实也是有联系的，只不过这种联系基本上已经没用了。在《西方哲学史》的注里，有：希伯来字母的第三个字“gimel”指“骆驼”，而这个字的符号就是一幅约定俗成的骆驼图形。）。比如在英文里，你“指鹿为马（说deer的定义是四条腿，不长角，有鬃毛，尾巴像拂尘等等）”是没有任何问题的。但用中文的时候，人家一看“鹿”这个字，明明不像你所说得那样嘛，就会出问题。当然这个问题早有人注意到了，莱布尼茨和黑格尔都讨论过中文的“文、言不一致”的问题（俩人观点相反，莱布尼茨觉得中文这样很好很强大，黑格尔觉得不利于逻辑、很低级）；福柯的《词与物》中探讨词和物的对应关系，也说是受了中文的启发（当然丫不识中文，从博尔赫斯的小说里才知道这一点。）

在新文化运动之后，废除汉字或汉字罗马化的问题是很多知识分子都提出的，比如鲁迅、胡适、赵元任、钱玄同等等（当然还有毛泽东）。当时的理由是汉字太难了，脱离了人民大众，成了统治阶级的工具，据鲁迅说，当时全国有80%的人是不识字的（见《且介亭杂文》有几篇讲废除汉字的）。虽然废除汉字在现在看来是相当激进的主张，但当时差不多已经成为了推动新文化运动的知识分子的共识，鲁迅的理由在当时其实已经相当温和了，其他，像钱玄同的理由，就是为了让以后中国人读不了古书（因为他觉得古书都是妖言惑众）。

原来我对废除汉字的态度是不支持也不反对。但是现在觉得汉字之联系“能指”和“所指”的作用，对于防止思想控制还是有一定作用的。况且现在中国的15岁以上识字率已经超过90%（这一点共产党做得不错），鲁迅的理由也不成立了。所以现在我觉得应该是要反对废除汉字的。

关于语言对思想的控制作用，越来越多地被人们意识到了，特别是二战后的结合语言学的结构主义哲学家们。之前奥威尔的《一九八四》里特别讲了关于大洋国的“新话”，虽然是对苏联comintern的讽刺，但它也触及到的日常语言如何控制人们思想的问题。

说到近代中国最被扭曲的词，“封建”无疑是其中之一了。这个词是日本人翻译欧洲中世纪的社会制度feudalism的时候，采用了(主要是)西周制度的“封建”一词，进而又传入中国的。后来作为马克思主义的意识形态，被大肆使用，这里是郭沫若证明了中国也是同样经过了“奴隶制”、“封建制”的社会转变，从而把“封建”一词的原意彻底与真正的西周“封建制度”脱离开了（西周仍是“奴隶制”）。我怀疑正是这个“功绩”，才让郭沫若坐上了左联第二把交椅（所谓鲁郭茅巴老曹）。好像研究前三代历史的学者杜正胜（哈哈，没错，就是那个“罄竹难书”的杜正胜）一直试图否定郭沫若的这个马克思主义历史观。

顺便说到了马克思，马克思的历史主义和黑格尔是一脉相承的，只不过是把黑格尔唯心的绝对精神，换成了唯物的生产关系。反对这一方法论的就是所谓的“个人主义方法论”，其中有奥地利学派（哈耶克为代表）在经济学上，就反对德国经济学上的“历史主义”（然后被德国人蔑称为“奥地利学派”，他们这一派强调经济学是以单个理性经济人为研究基础，社会的经济学就是这些个人的集合）；还有就是波普尔，他专门写过一本《历史决定论的贫困》来反对马克思式的历史主义，这和他的“批判理性主义”也是一致的，基本上就是说，使用“归纳法”所得到的结果，在受到理性批判之前是不能作为新知识的。不过还是罗素对黑格尔的“历史哲学”的讽刺让人印象深刻：
“奇怪的是，一种被说成是宇宙性的历程竟然全部发生在我们这个星球上，而且大部分是在地中海附近。并且，假若“实在”是无时间性的，也没有任何理由说这历程后来的部分要比在前的部分体现较高的范畴——除非人当真要采取这样一种亵渎不敬的假定：宇宙渐渐在学习黑格尔的哲学。”（《西方哲学史》）

马克思的问题也是在这儿，他的研究所基于的历史差不多就只集中在地中海附近。“封建”一词在中国被当作同马克思的“封建”同样意思不超过100年，而真正的实行“封建制度”的西周，却反而成了“奴隶制”。打破“封建制”，实行“郡县制”的秦朝，反而成了“封建社会”的起始。更进一步，本来只作为表示行政制度的“封建”一词，成了“反动”、“落后”和“黑暗”的同义词。

如果在拼音文字中，直接将“封建”定义为“反动、落后”，那么就会出现“指鹿为马”一样的现象，人们是无从了解其中区别的。但是作为汉字来看，“封”是像一只手在种树的样子（金文：http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE5ZdicB0Zdic81.htm）古人通过种树来划分疆界。“建”中的聿，样子是笔，也引申指文书。只要从形象上判断，也差不多能猜到这只是一个地域区分的问题，和“反动、落后”是怎么也联系不上的。因此在这一点上，汉字在阻止类似试图将“封建”与“落后”画等号这一行为上，比起拼音文字是有极大优势的。

The Guardian's Q&A with Slavoj Zizek

• Interview by Rosanna Greenstreet
• The Guardian, 
• Saturday August 9 2008
• Article history

Slavoj Žižek. Photograph: Mykel Nicolaou/Rex

Slavoj Zizek, 59, was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, international director of the Birkbeck Institute for Humanities in London and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana's institute of sociology. He has written more than 30 books on subjects as diverse as Hitchcock, Lenin and 9/11, and also presented the TV series The Pervert's Guide To Cinema.

When were you happiest?

A few times when I looked forward to a happy moment or remembered it - never when it was happening.

What is your greatest fear?

To awaken after death - that's why I want to be burned immediately.

What is your earliest memory?

My mother naked. Disgusting.

Which living person do you most admire, and why?

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the twice-deposed president of Haiti. He is a model of what can be done for the people even in a desperate situation.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Indifference to the plights of others.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Their sleazy readiness to offer me help when I don't need or want it.

What was your most embarrassing moment?

Standing naked in front of a woman before making love.

Aside from a property, what's the most expensive thing you've bought?

The new German edition of the collected works of Hegel.

What is your most treasured possession?

See the previous answer.

What makes you depressed?

Seeing stupid people happy.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?

That it makes me appear the way I really am.

What is your most unappealing habit?

The ridiculously excessive tics of my hands while I talk.

What would be your fancy dress costume of choice?

A mask of myself on my face, so people would think I am not myself but someone pretending to be me.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Watching embarrassingly pathetic movies such as The Sound Of Music.

What do you owe your parents?

Nothing, I hope. I didn't spend a minute bemoaning their death.

To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?

To my sons, for not being a good enough father.

What does love feel like?

Like a great misfortune, a monstrous parasite, a permanent state of emergency that ruins all small pleasures.

What or who is the love of your life?

Philosophy. I secretly think reality exists so we can speculate about it.

What is your favourite smell?

Nature in decay, like rotten trees.

Have you ever said 'I love you' and not meant it?

All the time. When I really love someone, I can only show it by making aggressive and bad-taste remarks.

Which living person do you most despise, and why?

Medical doctors who assist torturers.

What is the worst job you've done?

Teaching. I hate students, they are (as all people) mostly stupid and boring.

What has been your biggest disappointment?

What Alain Badiou calls the 'obscure disaster' of the 20th century: the catastrophic failure of communism.

If you could edit your past, what would you change?

My birth. I agree with Sophocles: the greatest luck is not to have been born - but, as the joke goes on, very few people succeed in it.

If you could go back in time, where would you go?

To Germany in the early 19th century, to follow a university course by Hegel.

How do you relax?

Listening again and again to Wagner.

How often do you have sex?

It depends what one means by sex. If it's the usual masturbation with a living partner, I try not to have it at all.

What is the closest you've come to death?

When I had a mild heart attack. I started to hate my body: it refused to do its duty to serve me blindly.

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?

To avoid senility.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

The chapters where I develop what I think is a good interpretation of Hegel.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

That life is a stupid, meaningless thing that has nothing to teach you.

Tell us a secret.

Communism will win.