THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLATO 1
Life and Works
生平与作品
Plato was born into a wealthy family in the last days of the Athenian Empire.
柏拉图出生于雅典帝国末期的一个富裕家庭。
When the Peloponnesian war ended in 405 he was in his early twenties, just old enough to have fought in it, as his brothers certainly did. His uncles, Critias and Charmides, were two of the Thirty Tyrants. Socrates’ execution in 399 under a restored democracy gave Plato a lifelong distrust of demagogues, and a distaste for a political career in Athens.
当伯罗奔尼撒战争在公元前405年结束时，他才二十出头，刚刚有资格参战，他的兄弟们也肯定是如此。他的叔叔克里提亚斯和查尔米德斯是三十人僭主集团中的两位。在恢复民主的情况下，苏格拉底在公元前399年被处决，这使得柏拉图终生对暴民煽动家们不信任，并对在雅典从政感到厌恶。
When he was forty Plato went to Sicily and formed a close association with Dion, the brother-in-law of the reigning monarch Dionysius I. On his return to Athens he founded a school, the Academy, in a private grove beside his own house. It was modelled on the Pythagorean communities in Italy, a group of like-minded thinkers interested in mathematics, metaphysics, morality and mysticism At the age of sixty Plato was invited back to Sicily as an adviser to Dion’s nephew, who had now succeeded to the throne as Dionysius II. His career as a royal adviser was not successful, either politically or philosophically, and in 360 he returned home. He died peacefully at a wedding-feast in Athens, himself unmarried, in his eighty-first year (347).
当他四十岁时，柏拉图去了西西里岛，并与统治者狄奥尼修斯一世的姐夫狄昂建立了密切的联系。回到雅典后，他在自己的房子旁边的一片私人树林里建立了一所学校，即学园(Academy)。它是以意大利的毕达哥拉斯社团为模型，是一群对数学、形而上学、道德和神秘主义感兴趣的志同道合的思想家。在六十岁时，柏拉图受邀再次回到西西里岛，作为狄昂的侄子、现在已经继承王位的狄奥尼修斯二世的顾问。他作为皇家顾问的职业生涯并不成功，无论是从政治上还是哲学上。公元前360年，他回到了家乡。他在雅典的一场婚宴上安详地去世，自己未婚，享年八十一岁（公元前347年）。
Apart from these few facts, which were embroidered by fiction writers in later antiquity, we know little about Plato’s life. However, unlike Socrates, Plato left behind many writings on philosophy, all of which survive today. But these works are in dialogue form, and Plato himself never appears in them as a speaker.
除了这些少数事实，它们被后来的古代小说家们加以渲染之外，我们对柏拉图的生活知之甚少。然而，不像苏格拉底，柏拉图留下了许多关于哲学的著作，这些著作都保存至今。但是这些作品都是以对话形式呈现的，柏拉图自己从未作为一个说话者出现在其中。
Hence, it is difficult to be sure which of the varied and often conflicting philosophical positions propounded by the characters in the dialogues are ones to which Plato was himself committed. When we seek to discover his own philosophical standpoint, we can achieve little certainty; but commentators have reached a tentative consensus about the general lines along which his thought developed.
因此，很难确定对话中的人物所提出的各种不同且往往相互矛盾的哲学立场中，哪些是柏拉图自己所坚持的。当我们试图发现柏拉图自己的哲学观点时，我们很难有什么把握；但是评论家们已经对他的思想发展的大致轨迹达成了一个初步的共识。
Plato’s dialogues fall into three classes. The first group, commonly thought to have been written earliest, are called ‘Socratic’ dialogues because in each of them Socrates appears in his historic role as the questioner and deflater of spurious claims to knowledge. The Euthyphro illustrates the pattern common to most of these dialogues: some person, usually the one named in the title, professes to be knowledgeable about a particular art or virtue or excellence, and Socrates’ cross questioning shows up the pretended knowledge as mere prejudice. In this manner the topic of courage is treated in the Laches, temperance in the Charmides, friendship in the Lysis, beauty in the Hippias Major and poetic recitation in the Ion, just as piety was in the Euthyphro. The Hippias Minor, another dialogue of this period, addresses the Socratic theme of intentional and unintentional wrongdoing.
柏拉图的对话分为三类。第一类，通常认为是最早写成的，被称为“苏格拉底式”的对话，因为在每一部对话中，苏格拉底都以他历史上的角色出现，即质疑和揭穿虚假的知识主张。《尤提弗罗篇》说明了这些对话中大多数所共有的模式：某个人，通常是标题中提到的那个人，声称对某种艺术或美德或优秀之事有所了解，而苏格拉底的盘问则揭示了这种假装的知识只不过是偏见。用这种方式，《Laches》讨论了勇气，《Charmides》讨论了节制，《Lysis》讨论了友谊，《大希庇阿斯篇》讨论了美，《Ion》讨论了诗歌朗诵，就像《尤提弗罗篇》讨论了虔诚一样。《小希庇阿斯篇》，另一部这一时期的对话，涉及了苏格拉底式的主题：有意和无意的错误行为。
n the central group of dialogues, dating from Plato’s maturity, Socrates is again the principal figure; but he is no longer simply an attorney prosecuting prejudices that masquerade as knowledge. He now appears as a teacher in his own right, expounding elaborate philosophical ideas. The dialogues are longer, and their content is more difficult to master. We have already met one dialogue of this group, the Phaedo. Others are the Gorgias, the Protagoras, the Meno, the Symposium, the Phaedrus, and, best known of all, the Republic. Common to most of these is a preoccupation with the famous Theory of Ideas, which we must shortly explain. 在这一组对话中，苏格拉底再次是主要人物；但他不再仅仅是一个检举伪装成知识的偏见的律师。他现在以自己的权威出现，阐述精妙的哲学思想。这些对话更长，内容也更难掌握。我们已经遇到了这一组对话中的一部，《斐多篇》。其他的有《戈尔吉亚篇》、《普罗塔戈拉篇》、《门诺篇》、《会饮篇》、《费德鲁斯篇》，以及最著名的《理想国》。这些对话中大多数都关注着著名的理型论，我们不久就要解释它。
In the final group of dialogues, the role of Socrates diminishes; sometimes he is only a minor figure, and sometimes he does not appear at all. A bridge between the middle and the later dialogues is given by the Theaetetus, which seeks a definition of knowledge: Socrates is still to be seen in his familiar role as the midwife of thought. In the Parmenides Socrates appears as a young man in awe of the aged Parmenides while dense and complicated arguments are presented against the Theory of Ideas. In the Philebus, whose topic is pleasure, Socrates once again has the chief part; in the Sophist, on Being and Unbeing, and in the Statesman, about the best form of government, he is present, but takes no effective part in the discussion. In the latest and longest of this group, The Laws, which sets out a detailed constitution for an imaginary state, Socrates does not appear at all.
在最后一组对话中，苏格拉底的角色重要性减弱了；有时他只是一个次要人物，有时他根本不出现。《泰阿泰德篇》是中期和后期对话之间的桥梁，它寻求知识的定义：苏格拉底仍然以他熟悉的角色出现，作为思想的助产士。在《巴门尼德篇》中，苏格拉底作为一个敬畏年迈的巴门尼德的年轻人出现，而针对理型论的密集而复杂的论证被提出。在《Philebus》中，主题是快乐，苏格拉底再次扮演了主要角色；在《智者篇》中，关于存在与非存在，在《政治家篇》中，关于最佳政府形式，他都在场，但没有参与有效的讨论。在这一组中最晚和最长的《法律篇》中，它制定了一个虚构国家的详细宪法，苏格拉底根本没有出现。
Scholars do not agree how to interpret the cool and critical view which these late dialogues take of the Theory of Ideas. Are the arguments against it meant to be convincing, and did Plato abandon the theory in mid-life? Or did he think the arguments were only sophistries, and simply leave it as an exercise for the reader to work out how they could be refuted? The uncertainty here is compounded by the existence of another dialogue, the Timaeus, which sets out Plato’s cosmology, and which, until the Renaissance, was the best known of all his dialogues. In the Timaeus the Theory of Ideas appears unchallenged in all its original glory; what is in question is whether the dialogue belongs to the middle or the later period of Plato’s life. Plato’s philosophical development is easier to understand if we place the Timaeus with dialogues like the Republic; but if we compare the dialogues on the basis of style, it seems to resemble more the group containing the Sophist. The question of its dating is unresolved, and will no doubt continue to be debated among scholars.
学者们对这些后期对话对理型论所持的冷静和批判的态度如何解释并不一致。反对它的论证是否意在令人信服，柏拉图是否在中年时放弃了这一理论？或者他认为这些论证只是诡辩，而只是把它留给读者作为一个练习，让他们自己想出如何反驳它们？这里的不确定性还因为另一部对话《提迈欧篇》的存在而加剧，它阐述了柏拉图的宇宙论，直到文艺复兴时期，它都是他所有对话中最著名的一部。在《提迈欧篇》中，理型论以其原始的辉煌毫无争议地出现；问题是这部对话是属于柏拉图生命中期还是后期。如果我们把《提迈欧篇》和像《理想国》这样的对话放在一起，柏拉图的哲学发展就更容易理解；但如果我们根据风格来比较这些对话，它似乎更像是包含《智者篇》的那一组。它的年代问题尚未解决，毫无疑问将继续在学者之间争论。
But let us look more closely at the Theory of Ideas which underpins the middle dialogues and provides the bone of contention concerning the later dialogues. We have already met it briefly, when Socrates spoke of absolute beauty and absolute goodness in the Phaedo. But I tried to expound the arguments of that dialogue so far as possible without elaborating on the nature of Ideas. It is now time to fill that gap.
但让我们更仔细地看看支撑中期对话并成为后期对话争论焦点的理型论。我们已经简单地接触过它，当苏格拉底在《斐多篇》中谈到绝对美和绝对善时。但我尽可能地阐述了那部对话的论证，而没有详细说明理型的本质。现在是时候填补这个空白了。
The Theory of Ideas
理型论
Plato’s theory arises as follows. Socrates, Simmias, and Cebes are all called ‘men’; they have it in common that they are all men. Now when we say ‘Simmias is a man’ does the word ‘man’ stand for something in the way that the word ‘Simmias’ stands for the individual man Simmias? If so, what? Is it the same thing as the word ‘man’ stands for in the sentence ‘Cebes is a man’? Plato’s answer is yes: in each case in which such an expression occurs it stands for the same thing, namely, that which makes Simmias, Cebes, and Socrates all men. This is given by Plato various designations, Greek phrases corresponding for instance to ‘the man himself ’, or ‘that very thing which is man’. Because, in calling Socrates a man, Plato meant not that he was male, but that he was human, the common thing meant by ‘man’ can be called – by analogy with Plato’s use in other cases – ‘humanity’. But its best known designation is ‘The Idea (or Form) of Man’.
柏拉图的理论是这样产生的。苏格拉底、西米亚斯和塞贝斯都被称为“人”；他们有一个共同点，就是他们都是人。现在当我们说“西米亚斯是一个人”时，单词“人”是否代表了某种东西，就像单词“西米亚斯”代表了个别的人西米亚斯一样？如果是这样，那是什么？它是否与句子“塞贝斯是一个人”中单词“人”所代表的东西相同？柏拉图的回答是肯定的：在每一种这样的表达出现的情况下，它都代表了同一件事，即使西米亚斯、塞贝斯和苏格拉底都成为人的那个东西。柏拉图给它起了各种名字，希腊语短语对应于例如“人本身”，或者“就是那个人的东西”。因为，在称苏格拉底为人时，柏拉图的意思不是他是男性，而是他是人类，所以用“人”表示的共同之物可以称为——类比于柏拉图在其他情况下的用法——“人性”。但它最著名的名称是“人的理型（或理式）”。
Generalizing, in any case where A,B,C, are all F, Plato is likely to say that they are related to a single Idea of F. Sometimes he states the principle universally, sometimes, in particular cases, he hesitates about applying it. In various places he lists Ideas of many different types, such as the Idea of Good, the Idea of Bad, the Idea of Circle, the Idea of Being, the Idea of Sameness. And as long as he held the theory at all Plato seems to have continued to believe in the Ideas of Good and Beauty and Being. But he seems to have been unsure whether there was an Idea of Mud.
一般化地说，在任何A、B、C都是F的情况下，柏拉图可能会说他们与一个单一的F的理型有关。有时他把这个原则普遍地陈述出来，有时在特定的情况下，他对是否应用它犹豫不决。在不同的地方，他列举了许多不同类型的理型，例如善的理型、恶的理型、圆的理型、存在的理型、相同的理型。只要他还坚持这个理论，柏拉图似乎一直相信善、美和存在的理型。但他似乎不确定是否有泥巴的理型。
If we search through the Platonic texts, we discover a number of theses about Ideas and their relations to ordinary things in the world.
(1) Wherever several things are F, this is because they participate or imitate a single Idea of F.
(2) No Idea is a participant or imitator of itself.
(3) (a) The Idea of F is F. (b) The Idea of F is nothing but F.
(4) Nothing but the Idea of F is really and truly altogether F.
(5) Ideas are not in space or time, they have no parts and do not change, they are not perceptible to the senses.
如果我们搜索柏拉图的文本，我们会发现关于理型及其与世界上普通事物的关系的一些论题。
（1）无论哪里有几件事物都是F，这是因为它们参与或模仿了一个单一的F的理型。
（2）没有一个理型是自己的参与者或模仿者。
（3）（a）F的理型就是F。（b）F的理型只不过是F。
（4）除了F的理型之外，没有什么东西真正地、完全地是F。
（5）理型不在空间或时间中，它们没有部分，也不会改变，它们不能被感官所感知。
Theses (1), (2) and (3) make up an inconsistent triad. The difficulty to which they lead was first expounded by Plato himself in the Parmenides. Let us suppose we have a number of individuals each of which is F. Then, by (1), there is an Idea of F. This, by (3), is itself F. But now the Idea of F and the original F things make up a new collection of F things. By (1) again, this must be because they participate in an Idea of F. But, by (2), this cannot be the Idea first postulated. So there must be another Idea of F; but this in its turn, by (3), will be F; and so on ad infinitum. So, against (1), there will be not a single Idea but infinitely many. （1）、（2）和（3）构成了一个不一致的三角关系。它们所导致的困难最早由柏拉图自己在《巴门尼德篇》中阐述。让我们假设我们有一些个体，每一个都是F。那么，根据（1），就有一个F的理型。这个，根据（3），本身就是F。但现在，F的理型和原来的F事物组成了一个新的F事物的集合。再次根据（1），这必须是因为它们参与了一个F的理型。但是，根据（2），这不能是最初假设的那个理型。所以必须有另一个F的理型；但这个，依次根据（3），也会是F；如此无穷无尽。所以，反对（1），不会有一个单一的理型，而是无限多个。
The problem can be illustrated by substituting ‘Man’ for ‘F’ in the above pattern of argument. If there are a number of men, then, by (1) there is an Idea of Man. But this, by (3) is itself man. The Idea of Man, plus the original men, therefore form a new collection of men. By (1), therefore, there must be an Idea of Man to correspond to this collection. But, by (2) this cannot be the Idea we have already met; so it must be a new Idea. But this, in its turn, will be another man; and so on ad infinitum; we cannot stop just with one or two Ideas of Man.
这个问题可以通过用“人”代替“F”来说明上面的论证模式。如果有一些人，那么，根据（1），就有一个人的理型。但这个，根据（3），这个理型本身就是人。人的理型加上原来的人，因此形成了一个新的人的集合。因此，根据（1），必须有一个人的理型来对应这个集合。但是，根据（2），这不能是我们已经遇到的那个理型；所以它必须是一个新的理型。但这个，依次，又会是另一个人；如此无穷无尽；我们不能只停留在一个或两个人的理型上。
Aristotle was to call this refutation of the Theory of Ideas ‘The Third Man argument’. The problem was never resolved by Plato; and, as already said, it is a matter of dispute between scholars whether he shrugged the objection off or abandoned all or part of his theory as a consequence.
亚里士多德把这种对理型论的反驳称为“第三人论证”。这个问题从未被柏拉图解决；而且，正如前面已经说过的，学者们之间存在争议，他是不是对这个反对意见不屑一顾，或者是因此放弃了他的理论的全部或部分。
The problem to which Plato’s theory is an inadequate solution is sometimes called ‘the problem of universals’. In modern discussions of this problem, four notions can be discerned which bear some resemblance to Plato’s Ideas.
柏拉图的理论所不能解决的问题有时被称为“共相问题”。在现代对这个问题的讨论中，可以辨别出四个概念，它们与柏拉图的理型有一些相似之处。
(A) Concrete Universals. In a sentence such as ‘water is fluid’ the word ‘water’ is treated by some philosophers as the name of a single scattered object, the aqueous part of the world, made up of puddles, rivers, lakes and so on. Such a concrete universal would have a certain similarity with Plato’s Ideas. It would explain Plato’s preference (not always shared by his commentators) for referring to his Ideas by a concrete mode of speech (e.g. ‘the beautiful’) rather than an abstract one (‘beauty’). It would give a clear sense to his theory that particulars participate in Ideas: this particular bottle of water is quite literally a part of allthe-water-in-the-world. Theses (2), (3a) and (4) are easily shown to be true. However, a concrete universal is very unlike a Platonic Idea in respect of (3b) and (5) – the water in the universe can be located and can change in quantity and distribution, it can be seen and touched, and has many other properties besides that of being water.
（A）具体普遍物。在像“水是流体”这样的句子中，单词“水”被一些哲学家视为一个单一的分散的对象的名字，即世界上的水分部，由水坑、河流、湖泊等组成。这样一个具体共相与柏拉图的理型有一定的相似性。它可以解释柏拉图偏爱用具体的说法（例如“美”）而不是抽象的说法（“美”）来指称他的理型（并不总是被他的评论家所共享）。它可以给他的理论一个清晰的意义，即个别事物参与理型：这个特定的水瓶实际上就是全世界水分部的一部分。命题（2）、（3a）和（4）很容易被证明是正确的。然而，一个具体普遍物在（3b）和（5）方面与柏拉图的理型非常不同——宇宙中的水可以被定位，并且可以在数量和分布上发生变化，它可以被看到和触摸，并且除了作为水之外还有许多其他属性。
(B) Paradigms. It has more than once been suggested that Platonic forms might be looked on as paradigms or standards: the relation between individuals and Ideas may be thought to be similar to that between particular metre-long objects and the Standard Metre in Paris by which the metre length was formerly defined. This brings out well the imitation and resemblance aspect of Plato’s theory: to be a metre long is, precisely, to resemble in length the Standard Metre; and if two things are each a metre long it is in virtue of this common resemblance to the paradigm. Like a concrete universal, a paradigm object fits those aspects of Plato’s ideas which make them seem substantial entities; like a concrete universal, it fails to have the properties by which Platonic Ideas transcend the sensible world. The Standard Metre is not in heaven, but in Paris, and is discerned not by intellectual vision but by the eyes in one’s head.
（B）范例。有人不止一次地建议，柏拉图的理型可能被看作是范例或标准：个体和理型之间的关系可能被认为类似于特定的一米长的物体和以前用来定义米长的巴黎标准米之间的关系。这很好地突出了柏拉图理论中的模仿和相似的方面：一米长，就是准确地说，与标准一米在长度上相似；如果两件东西都是一米长，那是因为它们对范例的共同相似。像一个具体普遍物一样，一个范例对象符合柏拉图理型的那些使它们看起来像实体的方面；像一个具体普遍物一样，它没有柏拉图理型超越感觉世界的那些属性。标准一米不在天堂，而是在巴黎，它不是通过智力视觉，而是通过人的眼睛来辨别的。
（C）Attributes and Properties. Logicians sometimes talk of attributes, such as humanity, or the property of being divisible by seven. These abstract entities share the more transcendental aspects of Plato’s ideas; humanity does not grow or die as human beings do, and nowhere in the world could one view or handle divisibility by seven. All men, we might say, are human by virtue of sharing a common humanity; this humanity, we might say, is the attribute for which the predicate ‘. . . is a man’ stands in the sentences ‘Peter is a man’ and ‘John is a man’. But if we think of Platonic ideas in this way as attributes, it is very hard to see how Plato could ever have thought that humanity itself, and only humanity itself, was really a human being. Is it not clear that humanity is an abstraction, and that only a concrete individual can be a human being?
（C）属性和性质。逻辑学家有时会谈到属性，比如人性，或者能被七整除的性质。这些抽象的实体与柏拉图理型的更超越的方面有共同之处；人性不会像人类一样生长或死亡，也没有任何地方可以看到或处理能被七整除的性质。所有的人，我们可能会说，都是因为共享一个共同的人性而成为人类；这个人性，我们可能会说，是谓词“……是一个人”在句子“彼得是一个人”和“约翰是一个人”中所代表的属性。但如果我们把柏拉图的理型以这种方式看作属性，那么很难看出柏拉图怎么会认为人性本身，而且只有人性本身，才是真正的人类。难道不清楚，人性是一种抽象，而只有一个具体的个体才能成为一个人类吗？
(D) Classes. Attributes serve as principles according to which objects can be collected into classes: objects which possess the attribute of humanity, for instance, can be grouped into the class of human beings. In some ways classes seem closer than attributes to Platonic Ideas: participation in an Idea can be understood without too much difficulty as membership of a class. Classes, like attributes, and unlike paradigms and concrete universals, resemble Ideas in their abstract properties.
（D）类。属性作为根据其可以将对象归纳到类中的原则：例如，具有人性属性的对象可以被分组到人类的类中。在某些方面，类似乎比属性更接近柏拉图的理型：参与一个理型可以不太困难地理解为一个类的成员。类，像属性一样，不像范例和具体普遍物，与理型在它们的抽象属性上相似。
However, there is an important difference between attributes and classes. Two classes with the same members (the same extension, as philosophers sometimes say) are identical with each other, whereas attribute A need not be identical with attribute B even though all and only those who possess A possess also B.
然而，属性和类之间有一个重要的区别。具有相同成员（哲学家有时说的相同外延）的两个类是彼此相同的，而即使所有拥有A的也拥有B的，属性A也不一定与属性B相同。
Being a human, for instance, is not the same attribute as being a featherless biped, though the class of featherless bipeds may well be the same class as the class of human beings.
例如，作为一个人，与无羽毛两足动物的属性不同，尽管无羽毛两足类很可能与人类的类是同一类。
Philosophers express this difference by saying that classes are extensional, while attributes are not. It is not clear whether Plato’s Ideas are extensional like classes, or non-extensional like attributes.
哲学家用类是外延的，而属性不是这样的说法来表达这种区别。柏拉图的理型是否像类一样是外延的，还是像属性一样是非外延的，这一点并不清楚。
The difficulty in identifying Ideas with classes arises over theses (2) and (3). The class of men is not a man and we cannot say in general that the class of Fs is F; some classes are members of themselves and some are not. There are problems in this area which only became fully obvious more than two millennia later.
把理念与类相等同的困难出现在命题（2）和（3）上。人类的类不是一个人，我们也不能一般地说F的类就是F；有些类是它们自己的成员，有些则不是。这个地方的问题一直存在，直到两千多年后才完全显现出来。
Concepts such as those of attribute and class are more or less sophisticated descendants of Plato’s notion; none of them, however, does justice to the many facets of his Ideas. If one wants to see how the theses (1) to (5) seemed plausible to Plato, it is better to take, not any modern logician’s technical concept, but some more unreflective notion.
像属性和类这样的概念或多或少是柏拉图概念的复杂的后裔；然而，它们都不能公正地体现他的理型的多方面。如果一个人想要看到命题（1）到（5）对柏拉图来说是如何看起来合理的，最好不要采用任何现代逻辑学家的技术概念，而是采用一些更不反思的概念。
Consider one of the points of the compass, North, South, West, and East. Take the notion of the East, for instance, not as one might try to explain it in virtue of an abstract notion, e.g. eastwardness, but as one might conceive it by naive reflection on the various locutions we in Britain use about the East.
考虑一下罗盘上的一个点，北、南、西、东。例如，不要把东方的概念看作是一个人可能试图用一个抽象的概念来解释的，比如向东性，而是把它看作是一个人通过对我们在英国使用的关于东方的各种说法的天真映象来构思的。
There are many places which are east of us, e.g. Belgrade, Warsaw, and Hong Kong. Anything which is thus east is in the East, is indeed a part of The East (participation); or, if you prefer, it is in more or less the same direction as The East (imitation).
有许多地方在我们的东边，例如贝尔格莱德、华沙和香港。任何这样在东边的东西都在东方，实际上是东方的一部分（参与）；或者，如果你愿意，它与东方在同一个或大致相同的方向（模仿）。
It is by virtue of being in The East, or by virtue of being in the same direction as that point of the compass, that whatever is east of us is east (Thesis 1).
凡是在我们东边的东西都是因为在东方，或者因为与那个罗盘上的点在同一个方向，才是东（命题1）。
Now The East cannot be identified with any of the places which are east of us: it is provincial to think that ‘The East’ means a place such as India, since from some other point of view, e.g. that of Beijing, India is part of The West (Thesis 2).
现在，东方不能与我们东边的任何地方相等同：认为“东方”意味着像印度这样的地方是偏狭的，因为从另一个角度来看，例如北京的角度，印度是西方的一部分（命题2）。
The East itself, of course, is east of us – to walk towards The East you must walk eastwards – and The East is nothing but east; we may say ‘The East is red’ but we really mean that the eastern sky is red (Thesis 3).
东方本身，当然，是在我们的东边——要走向东方，你必须向东走——而且东方只不过是东；我们可能会说“东方是红色的”，但我们真正的意思是东方的天空是红色的（命题3）。
Nothing but The East is unqualifiedly east: the sun is sometimes east and sometimes west, India is east of Iran but west of Vietnam, but in every time and every place The East is east (Thesis 4).
除了东方之外，没有什么东西是无条件地是东：太阳有时在东边，有时在西边，印度在伊朗的东边，但在越南的西边，但在每一个时间和每一个地方，东方都是东（命题4）。
Moreover, The East cannot be identified with any point in space, nor has it any history in time, nor can it be seen, handled, or parcelled out (Thesis 5).
而且，东方不能与空间中的任何一点相等同，也没有任何时间上的历史，也不能被看到、触摸或分割（命题5）。
I am not, of course, suggesting that points of the compass will supply an interpretation of Plato’s Ideas which will make all theses (1) to (5) come out true.
我当然不是在暗示罗盘上的点会提供一个对柏拉图理型的解释，使所有的命题（1）到（5）都成为真。
No interpretation could do this since the theses are not all compatible with each other. I am merely saying that this interpretation will make the theses look prima facie plausible in a way in which the interpretations previously considered will not.
没有一种解释能做到这一点，因为这些命题并不都彼此相容。我只是说，这种解释会使这些命题看起来初看上去是合理的，而以前提过的解释则不会。
Concrete universals, paradigms, attributes, and classes all raise problems of their own, as philosophers long after Plato discovered, and though we cannot go back to Plato’s solutions, we have yet to answer many of his problems in this area.
具体普遍物、范例、属性和类都引发了它们自己的问题，正如柏拉图之后很久的哲学家们发现的那样，虽然我们不能回到柏拉图的解决方案，但我们还有许多他在这个地方的问题尚待回答。
