在《形而上學》[i]中,亞裏士多德將辯證師與詭辯術士一道拒之於哲學家的門外,他說:“辯證師與詭辯者都同樣地假扮成哲學家,對於詭辯者來說,他們所使用的是看似智慧的外表,而辯證法師則用他們的辯證法去擁抱一切,他們會講對一切都一樣的存在;辯證法擁抱這些話題是因為它們都是哲學所要探索的。-詭辯術與辯證法都轉向哲學所關心的東西,但辯證法在所需能力的本質上不同於哲學而詭辯術在人生的目標上有別於哲學。辯證法僅僅是在哲學已經知道的內容上表現出具有批判的能力,而詭辯術則想表現為哲學但其實不是。(dialecticians and sophists assume the same guise as the philosopher, for sophistic is Wisdom which exists only in semblance, and dialecticians embrace all things in their dialectic, and being is common to all things; but evidently their dialectic embraces these subjects because these are proper to philosophy.-For sophistic and dialectic turn on the same class of things as philosophy, but this differs from dialectic in the nature of the faculty required and from sophistic in respect of the purpose of the philosophic life. Dialectic is merely critical where philosophy claims to know, and sophistic is what appears to be philosophy but is not.)”
亞裏士多德來對辯證法的看法就是他在《論詭辯之辯駁[ii](On Sophistical Refutations)》一書中指出的,“辯證的爭辯就是從人們所接受的一般前提出發,得出相反的結論(dialectical arguments are those that reason from premisses generally accepted, to the contradictory of a given thesis)”。
而康德對於辯證法的態度[iii]是很奇怪的,他一方麵時不時地表現出對辯證法的不屑,聲稱自古辯證法就是“關於錯覺的邏輯的名字(a name for the logic of illusion—that and nothing else)”,“是一套為無知甚至有目的之詭計製造出真理之煙幕的刁鑽技巧,它滑稽地模仿邏輯通常具有的方法上的縝密,並運用它的技術性的手段來美化每一種空洞的吹噓。(a tricky set of techniques for giving an air of truth to ignorance and even to intentional tricks, which it does by aping the methodical thoroughness that logic always prescribes, and using its technical paraphernalia to prettify every empty pretension.)”
而康德又把誤將純邏輯(canon)用作完整的理性思維係統(organon)的狀況分為兩種:1) “運用一般邏輯時出現的誤用(When general logic is misused in this way as an organon, it is called ‘dialectic’.)”;2)“誤將超驗分析進行綜合性的運用,從而基於單純的理解來對對象做出一般性的判斷(a misuse to let it count as the organon of a general and unrestricted use •of the
understanding•,and to judge synthetically, to assert, and to decide about objects in general, on the basis of nothing but the pure understanding.)”。
所以,他認為“哲學的第一要務便是,通過堵住錯誤的源頭,來一勞永逸地除去辯證中的不良影響。(So the first and most important task of philosophy is to deprive dialectic of its bad influence, once and for all, by blocking off the source of the errors.)”
但另一方麵,他又似乎對辯證法這個名字愛的很深,以至於要將他對於純粹理性的檢視的論述命名為辯證法。
他一方麵覺得辯證法是不可能被避免的,因為“辯證對於理性來說是一種自然的存在(because dialectic is natural to reason)”,但另一方麵又強調“理性產生的想法本身絕不會是辯證的,隻有當理性被誤用時才會產生欺騙性的幻覺(The ideas of pure reason can’t ever be dialectical in themselves; any deceptive illusion involving them must be due solely to their misuse.)”,“純理性產生的想法隻有在誤解中才變得辯證(a precise account of what the ideas of pure reason are ultimately for—ideas that become dialectical only through careless misunderstandings.)”
基於對辯證法之不屑使他認為辯證法“是配不上哲學之高貴的,因而我們不需要‘辯證’或任何其它的詞匯來為這樣一種壞東西命名。(quite unworthy of the dignity of philosophy, ·and we don’t need ‘dialectic’ or any other word to name something so bad·. )”但他又舍不得辯證法這個名字。他說:“所以我寧可用‘辯證’這個名詞來表示對於前述的辯證錯覺的審視;這樣一種審視不屬於邏輯的一部分,這就是‘辯證’在我的這項工作中的意義。(So I prefer to use the noun ‘dialectic’ to stand for a critique of dialectical illusion; such a critique does count as part of logic, and that’s how ‘dialectic’ is to be understood in the present work. )”,也就是說他決定重新定義辯證法,在他的工作中賦予辯證法一詞與(他認為的)傳統上的辯證法不同的意思。他認為這樣做了之後他的超驗辯證法(transcendental dialectic)便可幫助 “揭示超驗判斷的虛幻,從而使我們不被它所欺騙(content itself with exposing the illusion of transcendent judgments, while also keeping us from being deceived by it.)”可見他所謂的“一勞永逸地除去辯證中的不良影響”並不是除去他所認為的傳統意義上的辯證本身中的不良因素,而是找到幫助克服該不良因素的影響的方法,並將該方法命名為辯證法。
[i] Aristotle. Metaphysics. Translated by W. D. Ross. Provided by The Internet Classics Archive. Available online at http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/metaphysics.html
[ii] Aristotle. On Sophistical Refutations. Translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge. Provided by The Internet Classics Archive. Available online at http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/sophist_refut.html
[iii] Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Jonathan Bennett.