柏拉图《法律篇》:酗酒有助品格

2018-08-07

《法律篇》里，柏拉图讲酗酒问题，态度跟以往十分不同。柏拉图向来倡导品格教育、推崇理性胜于情感，是广受众人推崇的哲学家，但这次他居然跌破众人眼镜，说，酗酒有助品格教育、恐惧的情感也有他的道理!?

由于《法律篇》是柏拉图的晚期著作，所以这不禁让人十分好奇，晚年的哲学家是否完善他的体系，告诉我们更多不为人知的智慧。

酗酒有什么好处？

首先，柏拉图的品格教育理念仍然是推崇理性的。不过相对于中年的他，困厄于旺盛的情感难于服从理性，老年的他更注意到，情理交缠的反面：衰疲的欲望，使得人缺乏情感、崇敬、爱慕这些正面情绪。故老年后，他开始强调情绪的正面作用。来看看下面引文。

过去在《理想国》里，有一老人曾经提到，年老的好处就是摆脱那些凶猛的欲望。

For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. (Republic 1.329c)

《蒂迈欧篇》中也说到(43a6-44d2)，儿童灵魂中的无秩序的生机，并不适什么值得珍惜的特点。

但在《法律篇》中，柏拉图说起了年轻的好处，老年不只身体变得僵硬，连心灵都像被螃蟹的厚壳包住一样，变得僵化脾气暴躁。老人需要再度变得柔软有可塑性，学会唱歌、具备热情。

in particular, he[men over thirty] should summon Dionysus to what is at once the play-time and the prayer-time of the old, which the god gave to mankind to help cure the crabbiness of age. This[drinking party] is the gift he gave us to make us young again: we forget our peevishness, and our hard cast of mind becomes softer and grows more malleable, just like iron thrust in a fire. Surely any man who is brought into that frame of mind would be ready to sing his songs (that is 'charms', as we've called them often enough) with more enthusiasm and less embarrassment (Laws 2.666cd)

上面引文中，名词crabbiness，是从形容词crabby变化而来。而crabby就是从螃蟹crab这个名词衍伸而来的词，指暴躁易怒。

酗酒的条件

注意到，酗酒有好处，是有附带条件的。 《法律篇》中说，第一，必须有高人在现场引导。

ATHENIAN: And he should also, presumably, be a man who knows how to handle a social gathering, because his duty is not only to preserve the existing friendliness among its members, but to see that it is strengthened (Laws 1.640d)

第二，参与者年过30岁。两个条件都是为了避免酗酒真的就变成纵欲，而不是一种激发自己、砥砺品格的手段。

children under the age of eighteen are to keep off wine entirely. We shall teach them that they must treat the violent tendencies of youth with due caution, and not pour fire on the fire already in their souls and bodies until they come to undertake the real work of life. Our second law will permit the young man under thirty to take wine in moderation, but he must stop short of drunkenness and bibulous excesses. When he reaches his thirties, he should regale himself at the common meals, and invoke the gods; (Laws 2.666bc)

对柏拉图来说，青年人已经满身是劲，再让青年人喝酒无异是"pour fire on the fire"，火上加油，不仅无助于品德，可能还会刺激他们的情感更不受里性的制约。但反过来说，中老年人需要regale自己。

regale有两重意思：

entertain or amuse (someone) with talk.lavishly supply (someone) with food or drink.

简单来说，中老年人需要聊天吃饭，而且宴席上要吃好菜喝好酒，如此帮助振奋自己，让自己情绪张弛。

通过酗酒，中老年人可以加强情绪，帮助他们重回年少。但，这样为什么能帮助品格呢？

酗酒的具体作用

酒精有助培养品格的具体作法，是通过酒精刺激情绪，使老年人再一次体会年轻时那与情欲抗争的情况。来看看下面引文。

美德是情感与理性以适当的方式融合和展现。

Virtue is this general concord of reason and emotion. (Laws 2.653b)

问题是老人太过冷淡，情感不足。老人少了与情欲抗争的练习，变得在美德的操练上，疏于实践，有害美德德展现。

Education, then, is a matter of correctly disciplined feelings of pleasure and pain. But in the course of a man’s life the effect wears off, and in many respects it is lost altogether.(Laws 2.653c)

于是柏拉图提出用酒当药引，引出老人的情绪，从而使老人达到更完美的美德展现：既有理智，又有情感。

the gift[wine] was intended to be a medicine and to produce reverence in the soul, and health and strength in the body (2.672d)

药引的思想，可能来源于古希腊药学，通过药物激发人体自我疗愈的过敏反应，从而治疗病人。

当饮酒者在酒精的作用下，变得" cheerful and confident and unduly shameless"，也就欢乐乃至失控时，前面说过的引导人就要出面，"make this fellow willing to mend his ways"，使他们改正自己的状况，再度学习'modesty'和'shame'，谦逊和羞耻心的功课。

ATHENIAN: And didn’t we say that when this happens the souls of the drinkers get hot and, like iron in a fire, grow younger and softer, so that anyone who has the ability and skill to mold and educate them, finds them as easy to handle as when they were young? The man to do the molding is the same one as before—the good lawgiver. When our drinker grows cheerful and confident and unduly shameless and unwilling to speak and keep quiet, to drink and sing, at the proper times, the lawgiver’s job will be to lay down drinking laws which will be able to make this fellow willing to mend his ways; and to do battle with this disgraceful over-confidence as soon as it appears, they will be able to send into the arena, with the blessing of justice, this divine and splendid fear we have called ‘modesty’ and ‘shame’. (Laws 2.671b-d)

年轻人就要多读读哲学

对我个人而言，深入理解酗酒与品格的问题，很有帮助。他让我想起：

子曰：「君子有三戒： 少之时，血气未定， 戒之在色；及其壮也， 血气方刚，戒之在斗； 及其老也，血气既衰， 戒之在得。」

老年人冷静理性，精于计算得失，不会莽撞行事，因此激发感情，对其可能是一剂平衡情感与理性的良方。但对于青壮年来说，本身性子已经是既色且斗了，所需要的是远离诱惑，克制自己的情欲，使自己尽可能节制、服从理想。如此说来，就培养品格的角度来说，爱情电影原来不是拍给年轻人看的，而是给老年人看的。年轻人就要多读读哲学(笑)。

===参考文献

Elizabeth Belfiore, Wine and Catharsis of the Emotions in Plato's Laws, The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 2 (1986), pp. 421-437

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