「無知的理解」：蘇格拉底與盧梭的兩種德行觀

「無知的理解」(the understanding of ignorance)可以視作一種對於蘇格拉底思想的表達方式。盧梭即曾經在他的〈論科學與藝術〉中，直接以這種表達方式，作為蘇格拉底有關「德行」論述的代表思想。本文主要的論證，在於說明，盧梭引用蘇格拉底在《辯護篇》(Apology)中的章節，並非全然為發展自己觀點所作，而確實符合蘇格拉底有關「德行」的看法。然而，在如是說的同時，我們並不因此而認為蘇格拉底與盧梭抱持著相同的「德行觀」。我們企圖指出，雖然這兩位哲學家的德行觀皆與「無知」相關，但是在針對「德行為何？」這個問題上，兩人各自有不同的看法。所以，我們擬在「無知的理解」的這個主要標題之下，區分這兩位哲學家有關「德行」的論述。在行文過程中，我們先看盧梭的引文，並且提出一些文獻，說明針對這一部份所引發的對立觀點。然後，我們將針對蘇格拉底的「德行觀」做論述。我們將先針對「蘇格拉底的思想」與「以蘇格拉底為代表所表達的柏拉圖思想」之間作區隔後，解析「統一的德行即知識」與「無知的理解」這兩個概念。然後，我們將依照類似的架構，闡述盧梭的「德行觀」。最後，我們將從盧梭的角度，說明在其〈論科學與藝術〉中，引用蘇格拉底的觀點，成功地將「無知即德行」引伸成為「自然賦予人德行」觀點外，也表達了他本人與蘇格拉底在「德行觀」上的精神契合。

關鍵字

蘇格拉底；盧梭；無知；德行

並列摘要

”Ignorance” is generally considered a simplified form of expressing Socrates' philosophy. Rousseau, once cited this expression in his Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, has explicitly portrayed it as the core idea of Socrates' view of virtue. The main argument of this paper will proceed to prove that passages of Apology cited by Rousseau are not made intentionally to further develop his own ideas. Instead, they do manifest an essential part of Socrates' view of virtue. Having proved so, we nonetheless aware also that Socrates and Rousseau remain to be different concerning their views of virtue. They both hold ”ignorance” being crucial in ethical significance; yet differ in its reference. Hence, we endeavor to distinguish their views on the basis of the label ”understanding ignorance to be virtuous”. In the order of this article, we will proceed to see first of all Rousseau's citation of Socrates' words. Then, we move to a documentary analysis concerning the divergent opinions about this citation. After that, we illustrate Socrates' view of virtue by distinguishing Socrates' own thought from that of Plato in the persona of Socrates. With this distinction, we then approach to an examination of ”the unity of virtue is knowledge” and ”the understanding of ignorance”. With a similar structure of analysis, we finally come to the exposition of Rousseau's view of virtue. We will vindicate that in Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, Rousseau successfully extended Socrates' ideas from ”admitting ignorance” to that ”nature makes all people virtuous”. With this success, this article, while making explicit the divergence of their views of virtue, demonstrates a ”spiritual correspondence” between Socrates and Rousseau.