龔鵬程對話海外學者第六十四期：在后現代情境中，被技術統治的人類社會，只有強化交談、重建溝通倫理，才能獲得文化新生的力量。這不是誰的理論，而是每個人都應實踐的活動。龔鵬程先生遊走世界，并曾主持過“世界漢學研究中心”。我們會陸續推出“龔鵬程對話海外學者”系列文章，請他對話一些學界有意義的靈魂。范圍不局限于漢學，會涉及多種學科。以期深山長谷之水，四面而出。

派特里克·巴特教授（Professor Patrick Baert）

劍橋大學塞爾文學院社會理論教授、博士生導師、研究中心主任

龔鵬程教授：您好。您曾分析過，薩特等“權威性公共知識分子”在談論廣泛的社會和政治問題時，并非以專業知識的角度出發，而是依靠他們的特權和精英訓練，以及出于道德層面的勇氣來探討。直到后來“專業性公共知識分子”出現，運用社會科學的方法論和專業知識進行政治干預，似乎正在引領這種發展走向實用主義。如今，專家受到某些媒體、政治家和部分公眾的廣泛質疑。您認為權威性公共知識分子會再次出現嗎？

派特里克·巴特教授：龔教授，您好。您說得沒錯，在《存在主義的時刻》中，我認為在 20 世紀的進程中，專業性公共知識分子逐漸取代了權威性公共知識分子。此外，我試圖表明，在過去幾十年見證了嵌入式公共知識分子的出現：后者對他們的觀眾采取了更加平等的立場。

然而，回想起來，我對最新交流方式上的技術變革，以及這些改變對于知識生活上的影響沒有足夠的關注。

簡而言之，數字技術日益重要的存在意義導致了新形式知識分子參與的出現：也意味著這些參與更加情緒化和短暫。我曾經指導的兩位博士生Ehab Shanti 和 Eliran Bar-El 正在對這一新現象進行非常有趣的研究。回到你的問題，我不認為社交媒體和相關技術會使權威公共知識分子的回歸成為可能。

那些知識分子，過去常常從制度關系和階級特權中獲得合法性，他們將自己定位為某種超然的存在——采用“無處可見的觀點”。看看 Ehab 和 Eliran 的作品，我得出的結論是，隨著新社交媒體和名人時代的到來，機構支持和階級歸屬變得不那么重要了：現在重要的是有多少人分享你的推文或 YouTube 視頻，而這取決于您如何設法與觀眾進行情感互動（無論是通過引發憤怒、悲傷還是大笑）。

You are right that, inThe Existentialist Moment, I argued that, in the course of the twentieth century, the professional public intellectual gradually replaced the authoritative public intellectual. In addition, I have tried to show that the last few decades has witnessed the emergence of the embedded public intellectual: the latter adopts a more egalitarian stance vis-à-vis their audience. However, on reflection, I paid insufficient attention to recent technological transformations in the way we communicate and how these impacted on intellectual life. In short, the increasing significance of digital technologies has led to the emergence of new forms of intellectual engagement: that is, they are more emotive and ephemeral. Ehab Shanti and Eliran Bar-El, two of my former doctoral students, are carrying out very interesting research on this new phenomenon. Coming back to your question, I would not say that social media and related technologies have made possible the return of authoritative pubic intellectuals. Those intellectuals used to derive their legitimacy from institutional affiliations and class privilege and they positioned themselves as being somehow detached – adopting a ‘view from nowhere’. Looking at Ehab and Eliran’s work, I conclude that, with the new social media and the age of celebrity, institutional support and class affiliations have become less important: what matters now is how many people share your tweets or YouTube videos, and that depends on how you manage to engage emotionally with your audiences (whether through invoking anger, sadness or laughter).

龔鵬程教授：人們可能會爭辯說，科學家不應該使用修辭，基于論點或證據的優點，修辭可能會阻礙思想的進步。您認為知識分子使用最廣泛的修辭方法是什么？修辭在哪些研究學科中發揮著更重要的作用？您認為應該做些什么來限制修辭的使用程度嗎？

派特里克·巴特教授：當然，正如您的問題所暗示的那樣，將修辭的使用視為與科學分析自動對立是錯誤的。幾年前，我和Marcus Morgan共同撰寫了一篇文章，我們指出知識分子干預的力量和壽命在很大程度上總是依賴于各種表演和修辭手段。

Jeffrey Alexander 和其他文化社會學家也提出了類似的立場。現在，我和Marcus的論點也適用于科學干預。

當然，科學家們經常將自己定位為反對修辭，含蓄地將自己定義為不受修辭的影響。這種自我定位隱含著這樣一種觀點:修辭是一種欺騙的形式——一個歷史上根深蒂固的概念，可以追溯到柏拉圖，而對我來說，它只是一個實現科學交流的必要工具。科學家們通過說服的語言相互游說，也說服更廣泛的公眾。

我不會說某些學科比其他學科更依賴修辭，他們只是使用不同的修辭手段。例如，經濟學家和數學家重視簡約和簡明；當然，這本身就是一種修辭手段，但有趣的是，它與修辭相反。并且，這并不是要破壞經濟學——使用這種修辭并沒有任何壞處。

我也不會縱容在某些社會研究中過度使用意識形態，以及在道德層面上隨之而來的嘩眾取寵，這確實也是一種修辭形式，但往往只會結束對話，而不是打開對話。

Surely, it would be a mistake to treat, as is implied in your question, the display of rhetoric as something that is automatically antithetical to scientific analysis. A few years ago, Marcus Morgan and I wrote an article in which we pointed out the extent to which the power and longevity of intellectual interventions always depend on various performative and rhetorical devices. A similar position has been developed by Jeffrey Alexander and other cultural sociologists. Now, what Marcus and I argued applies to scientific interventions as well. Of course, scientists oftenposition themselves in opposition to rhetoric, implicitly defining themselves as free from rhetoric. Implicit in this self-positioning is the idea that rhetoric is a form of deceit – a historically entrenched notion, going back all the way to Plato, you could argue – whereas for me it is simply a necessary tool through which scientific communication is brought about. Scientists convince each other, as well as the wider public, through the language of persuasion. I would not say that some disciplines are more reliant on rhetoric than others; they simply use different rhetorical devices. For instance, economists and mathematicians value parsimony and simplicity; of course, that is a type of rhetorical device in itself but interestingly one that is represented in opposition to rhetoric. This is not to undermine economics, by the way – there is nothing pernicious about the use of this type of rhetoric. Nor am I condoning the overuse of ideology in some social research, the moral grandstanding that comes with it, which indeed is a form of rhetoric too, but one that often closes the conversation, rather than opening it.

龔鵬程教授：中國古代也有知識分子。因此，自1940年代以來，在中國文化中，尤其是在港臺地區，“士”被翻譯為“知識分子”，作為一種被追求的理想人格。因此，知識分子研究在中國也非常流行。然而，近二十年來，由于政府與知識界的不和，“公共知識分子”已成為一個經常被批評或嘲笑的負面詞匯。您怎么看這個問題？

派特里克·巴特教授：對我來說很有趣的是，它與法語語境中的“知識分子”一詞有一些相似之處。這個詞最早出現在 19 世紀后期的德雷福斯事件背景下，當時反德雷福斯的人嘲笑德雷福斯的支持者是“知識分子”，意味著他們是外行，沒有專業知識(當中很少是法律事務專家)就廣泛的問題發表意見(例如，司法)。

因此，在這種情況下，這個詞最初具有負面含義，但很快德雷福斯支持者就接受了這個詞，并給予它一個積極的含義。

從那時起，法國的“知識分子”與進步的、共和的價值觀聯系在一起，而且在一定程度上獨立于國家和機構。在20 世紀的進程中，法國知識分子通常將自己定位為反對國家，甚至反對一般權威的人。

What is interesting about this, for me, is that it invokes some of the similarities with the term ‘intellectual’ within the French context.The term first emerged in the late 19th Century in the context of the Dreyfus affair where anti-Dreyfusards ridiculed the supporters of Dreyfus as ‘intellectuals’, meaning that they were dilettantes, speaking out on a wide range of issues (for instance, the judiciary) without expertise (few of them were experts in legal matters). So, in this context, the term initially had negative connotations, but very quickly the Dreyfusards embraced the term and gave it a positive twist. From then onwards, the ‘intellectual’ in France became associated with progressive, republican values, but also with a degree of independence from the state and institutions. In the course of the 20th Century, French intellectuals have often positioned themselves in opposition to the state and indeed to authority in general.

龔鵬程教授：您認為社會科學哲學與精密科學或生命科學哲學有何不同？社會科學哲學與精密科學或生命科學的哲學是否有著本質上的區別，還是在緩慢地向精確科學或生命科學發展？

派特里克·巴特教授：在我的《社會科學哲學；對于實用主義》一書中，我試圖論證并確定了建立不同類型的科學研究之間的共同點并不是特別有成效。我們越細探科學研究，我們就越會被該領域下的大量實踐所震撼。相反，一個更有效的問題是問我們想要實現什么。

關于這個問題，社會科學哲學家經常（含蓄地）假設社會探究的主要目標是解釋社會領域。這是一個可能的目標。還有許多其他目標可以引導我們的研究，包括我所說的自我理解（或者我粗略地稱為“自我參照的知識獲取”）特別重要。

事實上，突破性的研究使我們能夠重新考慮我們共同的、根深蒂固的預設。這適用于社會科學和自然科學。

例如，在社會科學中，馬克思鼓勵我們批判性地反思資本主義生產方式的本質和自由的虛幻本質；弗洛伊德質疑單一自我和自我控制的概念；阿多諾和霍克海默對啟蒙運動提出了新觀點，認為它有可能產生反效果。這里的關鍵，在于我們在集體自我理解上的重要轉變。

當然，充滿解釋性的模式和描述常常伴隨著這些新的視角，但它們與普通科學的區別在于，它們迫使我們重新考慮我們的核心假設。Marcus Morgan在他令人注目的著作《實用人文主義》中也提出了類似的觀點。

In my bookThe Philosophy of Social Science; Towards Pragmatism, I try to argue that it is not particularly fruitful to try to establish what different types of scientific research have in common with one another. The closer we look at scientific research, the more we are struck by the plethora of practices that come under that banner. Rather, a more helpful question would be to ask what it is that we want to achieve. In relation to this question, philosophers of social sciences often (implicitly) assume that the main objective of social inquiry is to explain the social realm. Now, that is one possible objective. There are various other objectives that can guide our research, including what I call self-understanding (or what I called clumsily ‘self-referential knowledge acquisition’) as particularly important. Indeed, ground-breaking research enables us to reconsider our shared, deep-seated presuppositions. This applies to both the social sciences and the natural sciences. In the social sciences, for instance, Marx encouraged us to reflect critically on the nature of the capitalist mode of production and the illusionary nature of freedom; Freud questioned notions of a unitary self and self-mastery; and Adorno and Horkheimer suggested a new outlook on the Enlightenment, arguing that it has the potential to produce its opposite. What is at stake here is an important shift in our collective self-understanding. Of course, explanatory models and descriptions often accompany these new perspectives, but what sets them apart from ordinary science is that they force us to reconsider our core assumptions. Marcus Morgan develops a similar argument in his interesting book Pragmatic Humanism.

龔鵬程，1956年生于臺北，臺灣師范大學博士，當代著名學者和思想家。著作已出版一百五十多本。

辦有大學、出版社、雜志社、書院等，并規劃城市建設、主題園區等多處。講學于世界各地。并在北京、上海、杭州、臺北、巴黎、日本、澳門等地舉辦過書法展。現為中國孔子博物館名譽館長、美國龔鵬程基金會主席。