The man who asked questions
About 2,400 years ago in Athens a man was put to death for asking too many questions. There were philosophers before him, but it was with Socrates that the subject really took off. If philosophy has a patron saint, it is Socrates.
大约2400年前的雅典，有一个人因为问了太多的问题而被处死。在他之前也有哲学家，但这门学科真正开始流行的是苏格拉底。如果哲学有一个守护神，那就是苏格拉底。
Snub-nosed, podgy, shabby and a bit strange, Socrates did not fit in. Although physically ugly and often unwashed, he had great charisma and a brilliant mind. Everyone in Athens agreed that there had never been anyone quite like him and probably wouldn't be again. He was unique. But he was also extremely annoying. He saw himself as one of those horseflies that have a nasty bite — a gadfly. They're irritating, but don't do serious harm. Not everyone in Athens agreed, though. Some loved him; others thought him a dangerous influence.
翘鼻子，矮胖，衣衫褴褛，还有点古怪，苏格拉底与此格格不入。虽然他外表丑陋，而且常常不洗衣服，但他拥有非凡的魅力和聪明的头脑。雅典的每个人都同意，从来没有像他这样的人，而且很可能不会再有了。他是独一无二的。但他也非常烦人。他把自己看作一种咬得很厉害的马蝇——牛虻。它们很烦人，但不会造成严重伤害。然而，并不是雅典的每个人都同意。有些爱他;其他人认为他有危险的影响。
As a young man he had been a brave soldier fighting in the Peloponnesian War against the Spartans and their allies. In middle age he shuffled around the marketplace, stopping people from time to time and asking them awkward questions. That was more or less all he did. But the questions he asked were razor-sharp. They seemed straightforward; but they weren't.
年轻时，他曾是伯罗奔尼撒战争中勇敢的战士，与斯巴达人及其盟友作战。中年时，他在市场上走来走去，不时拦住人们，问他们一些尴尬的问题。这差不多就是他所做的一切。但他问的问题非常尖锐。他们似乎简单;但他们没有。
An example of this was his conversation with Euthydemus. Socrates asked him whether being deceitful counted as being immoral. Of course it does, Euthydemus replied. He thought that was obvious. But what, Socrates asked, if your friend is feeling very low and might kill himself, and you steal his knife? Isn't that a deceitful act? Of course it is. But isn't it moral rather than immoral to do that? It's a good thing, not a bad one — despite being a deceitful act. Yes, said Euthydemus, who by now is tied in knots. Socrates by using a clever counter-example has shown that Euthydemus' general comment that being deceitful is immoral doesn't apply in every situation. Euthydemus hadn't realized this before.
其中一个例子就是他和尤西底母的谈话。苏格拉底问他，欺骗是否算作不道德。当然是这样，尤里底母回答说。他认为这是显而易见的。但是，苏格拉底问，如果你的朋友情绪低落，想自杀，而你偷了他的刀呢?那不是欺骗行为吗?当然了。但这样做不是道德而非不道德吗?这是好事，不是坏事——尽管这是一种欺骗行为。“是的，”尤底墨斯说，“他现在已经心乱如麻了。”苏格拉底通过一个聪明的反例，证明了Euthydemus关于欺骗就是不道德的一般性评论，并不适用于所有情况。Euthydemus以前没有意识到这一点。
Over and over again Socrates demonstrated that the people he met in the marketplace didn't really know what they thought they knew. A military commander would begin a conversation totally confident that he knew what "courage" meant, but after 20 minutes in Socrates' company would leave completely confused. The experience must have been disconcerting. Socrates loved to reveal the limits of what people genuinely understood, and to question the assumptions on which they built their lives. A conversation that ended in everyone realizing how little they knew was for him a success. Far better that than to carry on believing that you understood something when you didn't.
苏格拉底一次又一次地证明，他在市场上遇到的人并不真正知道他们自以为知道的事情。一个军事指挥官在开始谈话时，会完全自信地认为他知道“勇气”是什么意思，但在苏格拉底的陪伴下呆上20分钟后，他就会完全困惑地离开。这种经历一定让人不安。苏格拉底喜欢揭示人们真正理解的极限，并质疑他们赖以建立自己生活的假设。一场以每个人都意识到自己知道的太少而结束的谈话对他来说是成功的。这比你不懂的时候继续相信你懂要好得多。
At that time in Athens the sons of rich men would be sent to study with Sophists. The Sophists were clever teachers who would coach their students in the art of speech-making. They charged very high fees for this. Socrates in contrast didn't charge for his services. In fact he claimed he didn't know anything, so how could he teach at all? This didn't stop students coming to him and listening in on his conversations. It didn't make him popular with the Sophists either.
当时在雅典，富人的儿子们被派到诡辩家那里学习。诡辩家是聪明的老师，他们会指导学生们演讲的艺术。他们为此收取很高的费用。苏格拉底则相反，他的服务并不收费。事实上，他声称自己什么都不知道，那他怎么能教书呢?这并没有阻止学生们来听他的谈话。这也没有让他在诡辩家中受欢迎。
One day his friend Chaerophon went to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. The oracle was a wise old woman, a sibyl, who would answer questions that visitors asked. Her answers were usually in the form of a riddle. "Is anyone wiser than Socrates?" Chaerophon asked. "No," came the answer. "No one is wiser than Socrates."
一天，他的朋友查罗丰到特尔斐去见阿波罗的神谕。神谕是一位睿智的老妇人，她会回答来访者提出的问题。她的回答通常是谜语的形式。“还有人比苏格拉底更聪明吗?”Chaerophon问道。“不，”回答是。“没人比苏格拉底更聪明了。”
When Chaerophon told Socrates about this he didn't believe it at first. It really puzzled him. "How can I be the wisest man in Athens when I know so little?" he wondered. He devoted years to questioning people to see if anyone was wiser than he was. Finally he realized what the oracle had meant and that she had been right. Lots of people were good at the various things they did — carpenters were good at carpentry, and soldiers knew about fighting. But none of them were truly wise. They didn't really know what they were talking about.
When Chaerophon told Socrates about this he didn't believe it at first. It really puzzled him. "How can I be the wisest man in Athens when I know so little?" he wondered. He devoted years to questioning people to see if anyone was wiser than he was. Finally he realized what the oracle had meant and that she had been right. Lots of people were good at the various things they did — carpenters were good at carpentry, and soldiers knew about fighting. But none of them were truly wise. They didn't really know what they were talking about.
当查罗丰告诉苏格拉底这件事时，他一开始并不相信。这真把他搞糊涂了。“我知道得这么少，怎么能成为雅典最聪明的人呢?”他多年来一直在询问人们，看是否有人比他更聪明。他终于明白了神谕的意思，明白了她是对的。许多人擅长他们所做的各种各样的事情——木匠擅长做木匠，士兵懂得打仗。但他们都不是真正的智者。他们不知道自己在说什么。
当查罗丰告诉苏格拉底这件事时，他一开始并不相信。这真把他搞糊涂了。“我知道得这么少，怎么能成为雅典最聪明的人呢?”他多年来一直在询问人们，看是否有人比他更聪明。他终于明白了神谕的意思，明白了她是对的。许多人擅长他们所做的各种各样的事情——木匠擅长做木匠，士兵懂得打仗。但他们都不是真正的智者。他们不知道自己在说什么。
The word "philosopher" comes from the Greek words meaning "love of wisdom." The Western tradition in philosophy spread from ancient Greece across large parts of the world, at time cross-fertilized by ideas from the East. The kind of wisdom that it values is based on argument, reasoning and asking questions, not on believing things simply because someone important has told you they are true. Wisdom for Socrates was not knowing lots of facts, or knowing how to do something. It meant understanding the true nature of our existence, including the limits of what we can know. Philosophers today are doing more or less what Socrates was doing: asking tough questions, looking at reasons and evidence, struggling to answer some of the most important questions we can ask ourselves about the nature of reality and how we should live.
“哲学家”这个词来自希腊语，意思是“爱智慧”。西方哲学传统从古希腊传播到世界的大部分地区，有时还受到来自东方的思想的影响。它所看重的那种智慧是建立在争论、推理和提出问题的基础上的，而不是仅仅因为某个重要人物告诉你它们是真实的而去相信它们。对苏格拉底来说，智慧是不知道很多事实，或者不知道如何去做某件事。它意味着理解人类存在的真正本质，包括我们所能知道的极限。今天的哲学家们或多或少正在做着苏格拉底所做的事:提出尖锐的问题，寻找理由和证据，努力回答一些我们可以问自己的关于现实本质和我们应该如何生活的最重要的问题。
What made Socrates so wise was that he kept asking questions and he was always willing to debate his ideas. Life, he declared, is only worth living if you think about what you are doing. An unexamined existence is all right for cattle, but not for human beings.
苏格拉底之所以如此明智，是因为他不断地提出问题，而且总是愿意与自己的观点进行辩论。他宣称，只有思考自己在做什么，生命才有意义。一种未经检验的存在对牛来说是可以的，但对人来说就不行。
Athens as a whole didn't value Socrates. Many Athenians felt that Socrates was dangerous and was deliberately undermining the government. In 399 BC, when Socrates was 70 years old, he was sentenced to death. He was put to death by being forced to drink poison made from hemlock. Socrates said goodbye to his wife and three sons, and then gathered his students around him. If he had the choice to carry on living quietly, not asking any more difficult questions, he would not take it. He'd rather die than that. He had an inner voice that told him to keep questioning everything, and he could not betray it. Then he drank the cup of poison.
雅典人整体上并不重视苏格拉底。许多雅典人认为苏格拉底很危险，故意破坏政府。公元前399年，苏格拉底70岁的时候，他被判处死刑。他被迫喝下由铁杉制成的毒药而被处死。苏格拉底告别了他的妻子和三个儿子
