发表于2024-12-23
在中国现代化的进程中,西方哲学社会科学始终是最重要的思想资源。然而,一个令人遗憾的事实是,自19 世纪末20 世纪初“西学东渐”起,国人对于西学的了解,基本上是凭借零星的翻译和介绍,认真地去读原著的人少之又少。这些中译本,囿于译者的眼光和水平,往往与原著出入颇大。因此,国人谈论西学的情景,很像是瞎子摸象,虽然各执一词,却皆不得要领。
当然,100年间,还是出现了一批学贯中西的学者,但其中肯花工夫于译业的太少。许多年积累下来,我们在这个领域拥有的优质中译本依然十分有限。而且,再好的译本,毕竟与原著隔了一层。倘若我们的学术界始终主要依靠中译本去了解和研究西学,我们的西学水平就永远不能摆脱可怜的境况。
好在现在有了改变这种境况的条件。在当今全球化时代,随着国门进一步开放,中外交流日渐增多,人们普遍重视英语学习,国人中尤其年轻人中具备阅读英文原著能力的人越来越多了。在这种形势下,本丛书应运而生。编辑者的计划是,选择西方哲学、人文学科、社会科学领域的最基本的英文经典原著,分批陆续出版,为有志者提供价廉的版本和阅读的便利。我赞赏这样的善举,并且相信,这也是为学术界做的一件益事。
周国平
2010年2月24日
《世界名著典藏系列:社会契约论(英文全本)》是全英文版。如果要评定影响人类历史的一百部经典,卢梭的《世界名著典藏系列:社会契约论(英文全本)》必定榜上有名;如果只评定十部这样的经典,《世界名著典藏系列:社会契约论(英文全本)》同样不会名落孙山。处在革命时代的各国资产阶级把它当作福音书,天赋人权的思想至今仍然深刻地影响着这个世界。
But, as men cannot engender new forces, but only unite and direct existing ones, they have no other means of preserving themselves than the formation, by aggregation, of a sum of forces great enough to overcome the resistance. These they have to bring into play by means of a single motive power, and cause to act in concert.
This sum of forces can arise only where several persons come together: but, as the force and liberty of each man are the chief instruments of his self-preservation, how can he pledge them without harming his own interests, and neglecting the care he owes to himself? This difficulty, in its bearing on my present subject, may be stated in the following terms:
"The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and inwhich each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before." This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the solution.
The clauses of this contract are so determined by the nature of the act that the slightest modification would make them vain and ineffective; so that, although they have perhaps never been formally set forth, they are everywhere the same and everywhere tacitly admitted and recognised, until, on the violation of the social compact, each regains his original rights and resumes his natural liberty, while losing the conventional liberty in favour of which he renounced it.
These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one - the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others.
Moreover, the alienation being without reserve, the union is as perfect as it can be, and no associate has anything more to demand: for, if the individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no common superior to decide between them and the public, each, being on one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all; the state of nature would thus continue, and the association would necessarily become inoperative or tyrannical.
Finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has.
If then we discard from the social compact what is not of its essence, we shall find that it reduces itself to the following terms:
"Each of us puts his person, and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole."
At once, in place of the individual personality of each contracting party, this act of association creates a moral and collective body, composed of as many members as the assembly contains votes, and receiving from this act its unity, its common identity, its life and its will. This public person, so formed by the union of all other persons formerly took the name of city, and now takes that of Republic or body politic; it is called by its members State when passive. Sovereign when active, and Power when compared with others like itself. Those who are associated in it take collectively the name of people, and severally are called citizens, as sharing in the sovereign power, and subjects, as being under the laws of the State. But these terms are often confused and taken one for another: it is enough to know how to distinguish them when they are being used with precision.
1.7 THE SOVEREIGN
THIS formula shows us that the act of association comprises a mutual under-taking between the public and the individuals, and that each individual, in making a contract, as we may say, with himself, is bound in a double capacity; as a member of the Sovereign he is bound to the individuals, and as a member of the State to the Sovereign. But the maxim of civil right, that no one is bound by undertakings made to himself, does not apply in this case; for there is a great difference between incurring an obligation to yourself and incurring gone to a whole of which you form a part.
Attention must further be called to the fact that public deliberation, while competent to bind all the subjects to the Sovereign, because of the two different capacities in which each of them may be regarded, cannot, for the opposite reason, bind the Sovereign to itself; and that it is consequently against the nature of the body politic for the Sovereign to impose on itself a law which it cannot infringe. Being able to regard itself in only one capacity, it is in the position of an individual who makes a contract with himself; and this makes it clear that there neither is nor can be any kind of fundamental law binding on the body of the people - not even the social contract itself. This does not mean that the body politic cannot enter into undertakings with others, provided the contract is not infringed by them; for in relation to what is external to it, it becomes a simple being, an individual.
But the body politic or the Sovereign, drawing its being wholly from the sanctity of the contract, can never bind itself, even to an outsider, to do anything derogatory to the original act, for instance, to alienate any part of itself, or to submit to another Sovereign. Violation of the act by which it exists would be self-annihilation; and that which is itself nothing can create nothing.
As soon as this multitude is so united in one body, it is impossible to offend against one of the members without attacking the body, and still more to offend against the body without the members resenting it. Duty and interest therefore equally oblige the two contracting parties to give each other help; and the same men should seek to combine, in their double capacity, all the advantages dependent upon that capacity.
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世界名著典藏系列:社会契约论(英文全本) 下载 mobi pdf epub txt 电子书 格式 2024
世界名著典藏系列:社会契约论(英文全本) 下载 mobi epub pdf 电子书很不错的精神食粮,推荐
评分印刷清晰,字体合适,内容很好。
评分作为意大利文艺复兴时期的故事会,历史价值远大于文学价值,其中你可以看到封建制度的瓦解,对基督教的嘲讽和怀疑,对人幸福的追求等等可以看到@改革、地理大发现和启蒙时代的端倪。
评分读了一遍:完全没读进去,我本身大概就不太适合读理论性的文章吧!
评分店已经收藏了很久,不过是第一次下手。应该说还不错。 第二次来买了,货比我想像中要好!!老板人表扬下。。 包装看起来很好,包得很用心,相信货一定很好,谢谢了!
评分看过中文版的,再来看看英文版的
评分比较难读懂,需要花时间
评分一本名著,改变思想,89页,可以慢慢体会来读
评分活动很给力,买来珍藏用的,很划算。
世界名著典藏系列:社会契约论(英文全本) mobi epub pdf txt 电子书 格式下载 2024