“根本上说，时间是人如何在一个存在秩序中安家的问题“
时间问题是一个众所周知的难题。圣奥斯定有名言，“关于时间，不问则知，一问则不知。”[1] 该难点不仅来自时间自身的悖论性，因为在这一过程中，感知、事物、事件，随着一个抓住即消失的现在，从无有走进无有。这也因为任何其他问题，以及受造存在的任何其他维度，从天体运动与度量、身体生长与衰亡周期，到在世的‘日常性’（the “everydayness” of being-in-the world）与其他事物的共生，乃至经验本身之结构，似乎皆受制、相关于时间问题。为整个西方传统关于时间的思考蒙上了一层阴影的奥斯定与亚里士多德（包括胡塞尔与海德格尔），常被视为代表着这一问题进路的对立两极。前者代表了“心理学”解释，因着他把时间描述为某种 “灵魂度量”（distentio animi）[2]；后者代表了一种 “宇宙论 “解释，把时间定义为“关于前后运动的数。”[3]
全面解释奥斯定或亚里士多德的时间概念是一项艰巨任务，更不用说评判它们之差异或它们共同开启的关于时间的思考遗产。[4] 然而，对它们和其共同点作一些综合性的评述兴许是值得的，也构成了本文的真正焦点：[5] 在一个以技术为基础的秩序或生活方式中，在一种用技术语言构想的存在秩序中，其时间体验（the lived experience of time）已不具备任何关于存在（Being）的领会。
在亚里士多德看来，时间与变化与运动密不可分（尽管时间并不等同于后二者），所以时间属于自然世界（phusis）。[6] 因此，他就时间的主要论述集中在《物理学》，而非《形而上学》。[7] 在关于时间问题思考最为最深刻、持久的《忏悔录》中，结合上下文语境，奥斯定的关注点截然不同。在有关奥斯定的研究中，这些思考内容如何被《忏悔录》整部作品的宗旨所塑造[8]，事实上是一个富有争议的问题。尽管如此，冒着简单化这些巨大差异的风险，二人就从时间问题而来的问题性质（what sort of question）是一致同意的——对于区分我们所谓的古典时间与技术时间也十分重要。
奥斯定主义与亚里士多德主义一致认为，时间根本上是一个存在与非存在之关系的问题（the relation between being and non-being）：[9] 存在不单意味着一个赤裸的事实存有，也意味着 “一个永驻行动”（one act of abiding）的充实、不可分割与简一。非存在，尽管偶尔在场，它们并不拥有完美、不可分的、瞬息万在的存在性。[10] 对奥斯定而言，时间尤其构成了一个人类存在意义上的问题，也被一个事实验证，即“现代人难以接受奥斯定的时间讨论既客观、又是祈祷的一个插曲。”[11] 因此奥斯定把对时间之默想，放置于对永恒的全面默想中，让他所渴望的永恒与时间形成持续互动。他因此认为“时间在永恒中走向无有。”[12] 但对亚里士多德来说，问题同样迫切。亚里士多德关于时间悖论的困惑不亚于奥斯定。“它的一部分已经存在过，现在已不再存在，它的另一部有待产生，现在尚未存在。并且，无论是无限的时间之长流，还是随便挑取的其中任何一段，都是由这两部分合成的。”[13] 我们看到，存在与非存在（或完美与不完美存在）之关系在亚里士多德关于时间的最终定义中找到依据，即关于前后运动的数。这里提醒我们运动本身是一种不完美的现实（imperfect actuality），即“潜能的事物的实现即是运动（the actuality of a potency qua potency）。”[14] 他在《物理学》第八章中强调了为其它事物所倚靠的“第一运动”必须是至一与永恒之物，即一个非连续性、不可分割的运动，反过来又依赖于不动的完美现实。[15]
时间的悖论使两位思想家对 ‘现在’（praesens）或 ‘此刻’（to nun）的悖论性进行了充分思考。一方面，现在（praesens）似乎可以无限细分。“设想一个小得不能再分割的时间，仅仅这一点能称为现在，但也迅速地从将来飞向过去，没有瞬息伸展。”[16] 亚里士多德也认为，“至于时间，虽然它是可分的，但它的一些部分已不存在，另一些部分尚未存在，就是没有一个部分正存在着。“[17] 因此他类比说，‘现在’于时间，就像点于线。[18] 另一方面，如果当下可无限细分到无的程度，那么无论存有或是经验皆不可能。只有在当下的现实性（actuality）中，我们才可在过去、现在、未来的可知一体中，测量时间；也只有凭借自存存有（subsistent existence）的瞬息万在之特性，我本人、这块石头、罗马城才可在流动与变化中持存，构成从存在到非存在的连续过渡的标志。
悖论的要点处在奥斯定的观察中：‘现在没有空间性’，在亚里士多德那里也类似。[19] 消极地讲，这一观察表明奥斯定对现在之转瞬即逝、无法把握这一事实的沮丧，是我们易变不驻，终于死亡之存在的一个指标。亚里士多德也有类似的说法。“因此那些有灭亡和产生的事物，或一般说，那些一个时候存在另一个时候不存在的事物，必然是在时间里的。”[20] 这里也有积极的一面。否定现在的空间性，实际上是否定现在的‘延展’与空间一样是可细分的度量，抑或是肯定现在分有一种标志着不变、永恒存在之特征的不可分割的简单性与现实性。肯定这两种含义也意味着：时间既是一连串的事例，也是由超越了这些事例的简单统一性所持有或分有的。把流逝的时间性现在解释为分有永在的现实性，与奥斯定在《论自由决断》(De Libero Arbitrio) 中对永恒真理的论证有着家族相似性。在这里，‘一 ’不仅是数列中第一个整数，也是构成所有数之基础、重述在每一数字中的简单统一性。[21]
这里又有亚里士多德引人注意的相似之处。尽管亚氏把时间比作线，把 ‘此刻’比作点，但他否定此刻 ‘是时间之部分’，就像点不能说是线之部分。[22] 他把此刻看成是一个边界、一个过去与未来的连接（sunecheia）。[23] 这里有两个重要的地方。首先，不同笛卡尔几何学的线是为了清晰、明确地把两边的事物分开，亚里士多德的边界扮演着对潜能与现实进行更原始的区分的功能。[24] 很多地方体现了这一点。当他讨论位置时，意为“包含物体与被包含的物体碰触的边界”，或者 “所包含之物的最内层不动的边界。”[25] 但最明显或至少最有趣的是，亚里士多德在《论灵魂》中把身体描述为触觉之媒介，像是作为被浸没的两个物体媒介的水，即使在微小的距离上，它们的彼此接触也通过与水自身的相互接触而发生。重点在于，边界——在亚里士多德所谓的 “两者相似的一体现实性”[26] 中——统一又区分于与它们联合的事物。当我们把这些思考带入时间的讨论中， ‘此刻’ 构成了一个边界，正因为它不像空间那样延伸，也不像线段构成线的部分那样构成时间之 ‘部分’。它既是时间中运动的事物实现它们特有的有限现实性的‘点’——这就是为什么 “此刻“包含同一与差异[27]——又是这些连续运动的主体，获得其存有与可知统一性所凭据的‘点’。因此，亚里士多德，作为所谓的 ‘宇宙时间’的始作俑者，提了一个惊人建议：没有灵魂就不可能有时间，因为时间是运动的度量，唯有灵魂才有度量的能力。[28] 问题要点不是亚里士多德时间观的主观性比奥斯定的主观性更强，后者痛苦地意识到历史存在的变动不居。问题要点是，对于奥斯定来说，当时间存在的存有统一性在历史的可知统一性（此刻、过去、未来的时间）中获得了最高意义上的实现时，这种实现只存在于灵魂中。“我的心灵啊，我是在你里面度量时间。”[29] 诚然，此番概念对我们来说很陌生。那是因为我们居住在一个被绝根的‘技术’宇宙中。没有任何东西，更不用说心灵，可在此安家。但当我们回想这两位思想家都生活在一个可感可知、等次分明、适合人类沉思的受造宇宙中，这就不言而喻了。“如果你仔细、认真地观察它们，人类心灵已知的每一种生物与每一种运动都在向我们言说、发出指导。它们各种各样的动作与性情，像许多声音在向我们呼唤，告诉我们要认识它们的造物主。”[30] 对于亚里士多德来说，这一概念的形而上学基础加固在此原则上：任何效力因（efficient cause）的现实性都不是处在原因内，而在与原因同时发生的结果内中实现，以至于世界的可感、可知潜能只有在我们的感知与认识中，方可实现。[31] Jonathan Lear捕捉到了这一要点： “如果在亚里士多德的世界里，形式以潜能的方式存在，某种程度上构成了自身实现的最高等级的力量，那么我们应该把化身在实物中的可感知形式，看作是指向形式意识的力量（then one ought to conceive of perceptible forms embodied in physical objects as forces directed toward the awareness of forms）。只有在知觉者的知觉中，可知觉之形式才能获得最高程度的现实性。”[32]
从这个尚且肤浅的综合中，我们能得出什么结论呢？首先，对于奥斯定与亚里士多德代表的古典基督教传统而言，时间问题归根结底是一个受制于流变的存有者如何分有存在的问题。尽管对亚里士多德而言，这一问题属于物理学的范畴，因为它涉及的是可变存在者的运动。正因为时间根本上是我们所安居于其中的存在秩序的问题，且因存在根本上为可知的，它同时是存在与经验的问题，是关于时间的现实性与我们如何感知它的问题——以至于这种现实性取得的至高程度，无法依靠自身（译者注：独立于认知者）的方式成全。其次，‘现在’或‘当下’（时间的界限由此被确定）是朝向现实的涌现，是对永恒存在的瞬息万在之简单性的分有（the all-at-once simplicity of eternal being）。若没有这永恒存在，时间性存在者的持存将不再被理解。Ursula Coope否认亚里士多德通过引入‘存在的非时间概念’用来解决时间的悖论。但这似乎忽略了两位思想家的要点：时间性存在本身，具有超时间之特点。事实上，记忆、意图、期待的 ‘度量’ 体现了一种统一性，这种统一性超越了主体在任何给定的事例中的‘点的同一性’。只有在这种超越性的基础上，时间的连续多重性，以及属于某单一主体的过去、现在、未来的统一性才是可知的。[33] D.C. Schindler如此解释这里的重要含义，
诚然，任何物质都不可能只在时间中存在；时间的纯然多样性与任何形式的自存者（subsistent being）都是不相容的。更何况，一个自存者并不只是在时间中产生。一旦我们认识到这一点，我们就能说，如果存在着一个自在之物，那么它的可能性条件不仅在它现实性之前的那一时刻所赋予。相反，它的可能性与现实性同时被赋予，而它的现实性显然是超越时间的。这意味着我们不能只‘横向’地看待物质生成，而必须‘纵向’地看待它们从上而下地在时间中的展开。[34]
这是奥斯定在《忏悔录》有关时间的思考中，一开始就论及的创造含义。创造发生在时间外，因为时间本身是一个造物。“任何时候，你都没有创造过任何东西，因为时间本身为你所造。”[35]
这里的含义是巨大的。豪不夸张地说，受造的现实性是任何世界理论——甚至是那些否认创造现实性的理论——都未阐明的可能性条件，且受造的形而上学对于宇宙论的可知性都不可或缺。[36] 但就该讨论的目的而言，这里着重两点。首先，时间与永恒的关系构成了每一个自在之物的本体同一性的基础（the ontological identity of each subsistent thing）。正如 ‘从无中创造（creatio ex nihilo）’不是时间之内的事件，而是时间展开的超时间起源与可能性条件。同样，存在之行动（the act of being），即 ‘持续创造’（creatio continua）的被动一面，也超越了时间、于时间之外，因为它分有行动的统一性与简单性。这多少是柏拉图、亚里士多德、基督教之间的共识，即一个分有存在的事物在某种程度上被赋予了对天主的统一性与简单性的分有。然而，这种对时间的超越又完全在时间之内。因此，生命之物的常驻现实性不是与历史发展并列而行的。相反，它（超时间性）为一事物能成为自身发展的主体提供了条件，也为其赋予了历史性条件。第二点，时间与永恒的关系也是历史经验的可知性的基础。只要这种关系是根植于本体层面的，它就不可能被完全抹除，且暗含在每一次否认它的企图之中。然而，这种不可能的事实并不会阻止我们的尝试。扼杀超越的每一种尝试，作为存在之技术化的同义词，只能抹除万物本体同一性和我们与永恒的关系，进而毁灭历史存在的自洽。
让我们先把现代性的本质表述为‘存在的技术化’（technologization of being）。这一表述并不排除对这一本质的其他真实描述（如存在的遗忘、善的废黜、现实的二分等）。这种表述意味着什么，它是如何产生的？
历史地看，现代性是一个多面体，具有形而上学、社会、政治、乃止商业等面向。但在理性秩序中，现代性是作为自然哲学与形而上学的革命而开始的——政治现代性在逻辑上是以自然哲学与形而上学的革命为前提的——实质上是反叛亚里士多德主义形式的自然哲学与形而上学传统。[37] 弗朗西斯·培根不仅开启了实现传统科学（traditional scientia）之目的的一种新颖、改良的方法论，且开启了关于知识目的与真理本质的激进新构想。他宣称：“逻辑学与物理学的概念中没有任何合理的东西：实体、质、作用、受作用以及存在本身，皆不是好的概念；更不用说重、轻、密、稀、湿、干、生成、毁灭、吸引、排斥、元素、治疗、形式等等了；所有这些皆为虚构、定义不清的。”[38] 培根只是众多拒绝亚里士多德存在与形式概念的重要人物之一，也伴随着多方面后果。形式（form）的废除解放了物质——用亚里士多德的话说，物质是一种潜能，本身是完全实在与实存的。确凿的是，这催生了各种版本的 ‘小体论’（corpuscularianism），引发了关于物质是质量还是广延的争论，关于物体是可分还是不可分的争论，关于在虚空中运动可能性的分歧。尽管如此，我们仍可在这些不同表述下发现一个既适用于能量物理学，也适用于力物理学的本质。这种新的积极的物质概念，在所有陈述中，本质上都是空间量或纯粹抽象的外在性，确保的是物质的可度量性。它是通过在思想中消灭一切曾以形式为特征的事物——质量、内在性、固有可知性——从而在思想中消灭由行动事物组成的现实世界（the actual world of things-in-act）。[39] 正如勒内·盖农（René Guénon）所说，剩下只是“构成其本质的每一个存有‘残余’。”[40] 此外，对存在与形式的否定有效终结了作为科学的形而上学，把新的机械物理学提升到第一哲学的地位，实现了笛卡尔在《谈谈方法》中提出的 “一种新的实用哲学，可取代学校教授的思辨哲学”的雄心壮志。[41]
肃清形式与实存（form and esse），让实体与秩序（entity and order）之含义经历了一个根本性转变。由形式与本质所赋予事物的内在固有、统一性、内在性（immanence, unity, and interiority）也被肃清了。正是这些特点允许亚里士多德将自然存在与人工制品区分开来。[42] 因而，技艺不再像传统那样是自然的模仿。相反自然变成了技艺，技术之物，其统一性与凝聚力由从外部强加而来，脱离了天主的设计之手，以后来的历史之手与自然选择。正如Hans Joans指出的，该结果是“整体（wholeness）成了相对于其组成部分的一个自主原因，也成了自身生成的根基，经历了与目的因一样的宿命。在牛顿物理学中，形式的自洽整体……被分解了基本要素，力的平行四边形，变成了一个适用的图形符号。未来的当下呈现，曾被看作为是生成的潜能（potentiality of becoming），变成了在一个给定结构下、可识别的关于力运作的计算性。”[43] 实存含义的这种转变，暴露了秩序含义的相应转变。从传统上讲，实存（Esse）不仅为每一事物特有，也以一种悖论的方式为一切事物普遍共有，以至于每一存在的行动成了不可交流的 ‘这一个’（this），同时束缚于宇宙的单一现实性，而这种统一性根本上为存在的统一性。[44] 因此，对于多马斯与传统而言，世界是一个整体，因为“事物以互为有序的方式受造（ordo ad invicem）”，“事物命定走向彼此（quaedam ad alia ordinantur）。”[45] 随着形式与本质被压制，科学离开了现实世界，离开了一个行动事物（things-in-act）的世界，并把现实世界建基于在一个反事实的世界上。这一世界让受制于惯性的个体，独处在本体层面的孤立中。[46] 随后，宇宙的统一性“来自于它作为某种集合的事实”（derived from the fact that it is one aggregate），好似由造物主的力量维系在一起。[47] 最后，现实的部分相对于整体的本体优先性，体现在分析相对于综合的认识优先性上。至少在两种意义上，思想本身成为了技术性的，即制造与认识的融合。第一种是更为明显的培根意义，凝缩在‘知识就是力量’的著名箴言中。如果自然事物实际上是人工制品，那么对这些事物的认识本质上是工程学，包括我们制造、解除制造、重造它们的能力，如“在一个给定的物体上生成或叠加一个或多个新的性质。”[48] 这里，成功或技术的可能性成了衡量标准。第二种是更原始的霍布斯—洛克意义。在那里，心灵与世界的非连续性实际上了保证了培根的实验主义。[49] 当世界的一体性被简化成是某种集合，人类在时间中的推论理性思考，不再回归努斯或理智，而后者意味着我们对处在自我交流中之整体的瞬息万在的理解（对神圣自我知识的屹立在当下的一种暗示）。[50] 相反，现代性思想的基石变为简单的（清晰、明确的）观念，由外于我们的难以理解的首要特质，神秘地引发。因此，理性原则上成了一个复合或添加简单观念到复杂（综合）观念的过程。在这里，任何命题中的 ‘是 ’作为连接两个外在相关术语的协词，简单地起作用（a copula joining two extrinsically related terms）。[51] 因此，在最原始的意义上，认识行为变成了一种制造行为。
这些都影响了我们对时间的理解。首先，对形式与存在的扬弃带来了一个对现实的二分法。最著名的是笛卡尔广延物（res extensa）与思想物（res cogitans）的二元论。更微妙的是现代唯物主义的每一个形式皆简单地预设了物质的二元性理解，后试图在此基础上解释该二元论的两极；还有现代科学，在其理论化过程的每一刻，都不断把自己排除这种还原分析之外（exempts itself from its own reductive analyses）。[52] 因此，时间问题不再是一个存在问题，因此也不再是一个经验问题，而是处在这种二元论思路的分叉窘境中：时间要么是一个物理问题，即关于对自然（phusis）的新的机械式理解；要么是一个认识论的问题，无论是被理解为来自洛克或休谟的印象的连续形式，还是康德的感性直观的先验形式。其次，形式与存在的废除，废除的是恰恰是存在行为的‘纵向’维度之自我超越的现实性。它对应的是传统概念中作为不被分的现实性的“此刻”（traditional conceptions of “the now” as undivided actuality），尽管康德在知觉超验统一性中保留了这一点。因此, 时间不再被理解为对存在现实性的分有，而是被理解为作为一种对空间图象的广延度量的分有。因此，正如‘一’不再代表超越‘数’的统一性；也不再代表重现统一性的全部数的基础。在现代数学中, ‘一’仅成了正整数系列中的第一个，因而‘现在’也不再标记着永恒不分割的现实性，而仅为在线性序列中，一连串分离实例中的某一个。天主的永恒性也被这样设想。例如，在牛顿那里，空间与时间是天主存在的‘度量’。‘天主存在的量是永恒的’，因为他在任何一刻都存在；他是‘无限的’，因为他的存在无止境地向各方向延伸。[53] 洛克也有类似的观念，即永恒不过是任何持续度量的无休止增加。[54] 当然，这些‘糟糕的无限性’与传统理解中的天主无限性相去甚远，后者的无限性是一种超越数目统一性与现实性的圆满，自身是完全简单的。这种无限是奥斯定所谓的 ‘无处不在的整体’，也因为祂无处可见。[55] 因此，它在每一个有限点上都完全实在，其含义为，它与任何有限点都没有‘实在关系’，不可被它们所分割。它是一种完全不同的秩序，也超越了一切秩序，作为它们有限的、分有的现实性的源泉。正如里尔的阿兰竭力指出的，它就像一个 “中心无处不在、圆周无处可见的可知球形。”[56]
由于肃清了时间中的存在超越性，17、18 世纪的机械论本体论或技术本体论，因自身之内在逻辑，催生了19 世纪各式各样的历史主义。[57] 一旦自然与人工混为一谈，事物被抽空了自我超越的特性，每个事物的本体同一性（它之所是）与作为一种产生它的前因集合、各部分的协调互动——它产生与运作方式——变得完全一致了。因此，对一切自然现象作出科学解释，等同于对事物的形成过程作出公式化、规律性之描述，进而在未来能对它进行预测、追溯、生产或操纵。[58] 因此，早在17世纪，在马克思之前，就陆续出现了一种 ‘新的天意科学’或‘历史吊诡’式的论证；它试图为一种取代历史工作的建构历史学和一种造极于建构当下的线性因果序列，提供某种超越性的机制。英国的政治经济学，与马克思一样，都属于这一传统，尽管马克思的直接启发来自黑格尔。[59] 某种普遍观点认为，科学革命摒弃了除了效力因之外的亚氏四因说——这只是哲学上的都市传说，并非真实。[60] 相反，科学革命根据自然与艺术的结合，以及从形式物理学到力物理学的范式转变，保留且改造了四因说。由于这些‘历史吊诡’的论点通常为由诸多追求带来的‘天意’结果提供了机制，它们可以被看作是把一种形式与目的性的因果律，连同一种超越性，移植到了同一水平面上。
技术不仅仅是一种理念，而是一种物质现实，甚至是一种制度，因为相对于自由民主或法治，我们更深刻地被技术秩序无休止的动态需求所支配。[61] 我们不必赞同已故的意大利哲学家奥古斯托·德尔·诺斯（Augusto Del Noce）的说法，后者认为1945年之后的历史是一种单一哲学的产物，也就是作为马克思主义内在矛盾的讽刺性产物。实际上，是这些盛行于世的以技术为本质的本体论假设，让一种新形式的技术社会成为可能，深刻地塑造了我们对时间的感知与历史生活经验。[62] 我希望能在该文最后一部分，对此进行反思。
我们说过，现代性本质是存在的技术化，其中存在本身黯然失色，自然与人工混为一谈，沉思与行动混为一谈。换言之，如果自然物本质上是人工制品、机器或过程，那么关于自然的知识本质上是工程学。如果知识是工程学，那么知识的真理性便是技术上的可能性。[63] 由于可能性的终极限度只能通过超越可能性的现有限度来确定，一个彻头彻尾的技术社会，一个对存在、自然、理性本身进行技术性理解的社会，将把革命确立一个永久原则，赋予它制度形式的稳定性。德尔·诺斯把马克思主义的 ‘总体性革命’概念视为该动力之顶点。也许确实如此，尽管从前面所述的一切可明显看出，这一点早隐含在关于现代性的基本假设中。然而，德尔·诺斯看待这种革命动力的角度至少有助于澄清，即马克思辩证唯物主义的目的论与实验论，不能承受 ‘总体性革命’概念中特有的“否定精神。”[64] 换句话说，如果我们向马克思主义外推，早期现代性的进步或天意历史观的‘横向超越’，已经被由自身本体论根本判断而来的永久革命所否定了。这是为什么就马克思主义而言，一个开始倡导全球无产阶级革命与工人乌托邦的哲学实际上成了西方资产阶级哲学，以及 “早先以马克思的名义宣扬革命的年轻知识分子如何以尼采的名义重新融入新资本主义社会，从他们的旧立场完美顺利地过渡到新立场。”[65] 在横向超越让出的空地上，只剩下了无休止的技术革命过程自身：对每一个既定极限的连续破坏与手段的无休止增长。
技术或革命时代对生活经验的形态有什么影响呢？首先最微妙的事情最值得注意。我们应回顾一下，技术理性是如何深刻地改变了我们关于思考为何的原始事实。亨利·维奇（Henry Veatch）问道：“《数学原理》的逻辑，尽管它做了如此多阐述，却就事物本质为何，不提供任何方式的说明与思考，难道不令人感到奇怪吗？”[66] 当我们静下心来，想一想，我们生活在一个由某种形式的理性所支配的社会中，而这种理性对‘事物何为’的思考，既不感兴趣，也没有能力。然而，如果一个人不能思考事物是什么，那么他就不窥视那超越瞬息万变的存在。既然一个人还在思考，以至于不得不窥视存在，就不能为所看到的提供合理解释。其次，由于技术社会中的历史是一个持续消灭既定秩序的过程，技术社会的动能起到的是将每一代人与其他每一代人割裂与原子化的作用。在汉斯·约纳斯看来，这正是衡量与检验一个人是否生活在革命时代的标准。
如果一个人在生命完满时，于生命的最后一刻，能把经验智慧传授给后人；如果他年轻时学到的东西，等他成熟时得没有抛弃，晚年仍然发挥作用，值得教给年轻人——那么他的时代就不是一个革命的时代，当然不算那些前功尽弃的革命。他的孩子们进入的世界仍然属于他，这并不是因为世界没有变化，而是因为它的变化是渐进的、有限的，足以让他把这些变化纳入到他的最初积累中，使之保持同步。然而，如果一个人到了晚年，不得不求助于他的子女或孙辈，了解当下世界的样子；如果他积累的知识与理解不再有用，且在生命的最后一刻，发现自己过时了，不再明智了，那么这些压倒他变化的速度与范围，我们称之为“革命性的。”[67]
因此，在一个技术社会中，要把统一过去、现在、未来的传统，独属于人类智慧文化的继承，进行代代相传，是不可能的。在乔纳斯眼里，这种把存在简化为一种技术秩序内的过程，可在按照这些条件转变的人类行动特征中观察到。在一个允许超越性继续传承的社会中，“道德行动在很大程度上是‘典型的’与符合合先例的。与此相反，世界技术变革带来累积性的自我繁衍，不断地打破促成自身行为的前提条件，并在前所未闻的境况中前行，让经验教训对此无能为力。”[68]
我们已经看到，超越性的消失让时间在空间形象中被重新认知。但技术征服了空间——想一想现代交通、手机、互联网——也因而消灭了时间与我们栖居于时间中的能力。讽刺的是，超越者的消失导致了一种直接的即刻主义（an immediate presentism），几乎没有对过往的留恋、当下的关注、未来的打算。在这种情况下，我们几乎不可能祈祷，去思考，或去爱。因此，这种灵魂度量（distentio animi）所产生的另一种距离，也不是奥斯定陌生的。
“你的慈爱比生命更好”。我的生命不过是挥霍。“你的右手收纳我”，置我于恩主、人子、介乎至一的你和芸芸众生之间的中间者——各个方面和各种方式的中间者——耶稣基督之中，使“他把握我，我也把握他”，使我摆脱旧时一切，束身皈向至一的你，使我忘却过去种种，不为将来而将逝的一切所束缚，只着眼于目前种种，不驰骛于外物，而“专心致志，追随上天召我的恩命”，那时我将“听到称颂之声”，瞻仰你无未来无过去的快乐。 [69]
也许，这是教宗方济各坚持时间大于空间的原因。[70] 除非我们能窥见足够的超越性地平线，以某种方式将时间恢复到应有位置，被如一的永恒拥抱、渗透，结果才会如此。
作者：Michael Hanby is associate professor of religion and philosophy of science at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America.
首发于 Communio:InternationalCatholic Reivew, Fall 2016
[1] Augustine, Confessions, trans. F. J. Sheed (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), XI.14.
[3] Aristotle, Physics IV.11, 219b.2. The postmodern philosopher Eric Alliez draws this contrast in order to indict Augustine for the subjective conquest of time, arguing that the dissociation between the eternal ideal and temporality allows for a “break between the time of things and the converted time of the soul,” which in turn enables the “primacy of the will over the order of nature,” a precondition for capitalist cherematistics, which “empties the city of its presence to itself by freeing the (monetary) sign of any relation to its natural referent.” I strongly disagree with Alliez. (My rebuttal can be found in my Augustine and Modernity [London: Routledge, 2003], 18–26). But if he were correct, it would mean that there is an Augustinian origin to the technological conception of time I will be critiquing here, inasmuch as capitalist and technological order are coextensive. See Eric Alliez, Capital Times, trans. Georges Van Den Abeele (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 82, 109–10, 78, 135.
[4] The literature here is vast. For a classic interpretation of the Augustinian position, with extensive bibliography, see James McEvoy, “St. Augustine’s Account of Time and Wittgenstein’s Criticisms,” The Review of Metaphysics 37, no. 3 (March 1984): 547–77. For a lucid new study of Aristotle’s understanding, see Ursula Coope, Time for Aristotle: Physics IV.10–14 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005). See also Roland J. Teske, The Paradoxes of Time in Saint Augustine (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1996).
[5] Robert Jordan suggests that “the two theories are complementary,” not contradictory: “Augustine does not define time as Aristotle does, because his cosmological interest is indirect. Aristotle brushes the Augustinian problem in passing but does not dwell on it for reasons comparable to those that lead Augustine to treat the physics of time as a subordinate issue, namely, that it is subordinate to his main interest” (“Time and Contingency in St. Augustine,” The Review of Metaphysics 8, no. 3 [March 1955]: 406).
[6] “It is evident then, that time is neither movement nor independent of movement” (Aristotle, Physics IV.11, 219a1).
[7] For a clear explanation of Aristotle’s rationale on this point, see Coope, Time for Aristotle, 1–13.
[8] James McEvoy indicates the many difficulties involved here: “In the first place, the immediate context of the discussion of time is the meditation on eternity, which opens and closes Book XI and insinuates itself into many strands of the argument. Then again, Book XI takes its place within the series of Books XI–XIII, which are a commentary on the literal and spiritual senses of Genesis I: ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth,’ and it forms a sequel to the celebrated discussion of the memory (Bk. X). These books follow, and, perhaps, crown Augustine’s autobiography (Bks. I–IX), which deals with the part of his life from childhood up to the death of his mother, Monica. The relationship between the two parts (were they planned as a unity? did Augustine add the last four books after putting the autobiography into circulation? do the two parts cohere in a single argument?) is one of the most debated questions in Augustinian scholarship. . . . Furthermore, the philosophical discussion of time must have special significance in an autobiography, for the unfolding of a life in acts of freedom, in varying experiences of frag- mentation, in rebellion against mortality, and in partial integration through meaning and purpose, point to time as a crucial but ambivalent feature of all human experience. These reflections on time can thus be understood as an important key to the entire book. Again, Augustine’s view of time becomes a vital element in his theory of the human subject, for it situates his opposition of exterior and interior, or body and soul, and interlaces itself with themes such as memory, intelligence, intention, action, and will. In a more general way, Book XI may be approached as a fine illustration of Augustine’s philosophical method, in that its search for understanding within faith moves from the sensible in the direction of the intelligible; for the motion through inwardness toward transcendence, from the fissiparous life of the senses towards the integrity of reason, and from the multiple toward the one, is typical of Augustine’s thinking. His discussion of time represents a synthesis of many of the ancient philosophical treatises on time, which was one of the most frequented areas of philosophical analysis, from Plato, down to the Stoics and the Neo-platonists. Finally . . . Confessions XI was to provide Augustine with some basic elements of the ideas on history which he worked out over a period of fourteen years subsequent to the writing of the Confessions and set down in De Civitate Dei. Any of these approaches to our subject could be usefully made, and there are doubtless still others, which could prove as fruitful as any I have mentioned” (“St. Augustine’s Account of Time and Wittgenstein’s Criticisms,” 549–50). For an earlier interpretation of my own, including my argument that the genre of the Confessions is not “autobiography,” see my Augustine and Modernity, 26.
[9] There is no conflict between this interpretation and the fact that Aristotle takes up the question of time within the study of phusis, since this is a principle of movement and change and time is very closely associated with movement. But movement, we note below, is a paradoxical kind of actuality.
[10] Augustine, Confessions XI.13. See also X.11: “Who shall lay hold upon their mind and hold it still, that it may stand a little while, and a little while glimpse the splendor of eternity which stands for ever: and compare it with time whose moments never stand, and see that it is not comparable. Then indeed it would see that a long time is long only from the multiude of movements that pass away in succession, because they cannot co-exist: that in eternity nothing passes but all is present, whereas time cannot be seen all at once. It would see that all past is thrust out by the future, and all the future follows upon the past, and past and future alike are wholly created and upheld in their passage by that which is always present?” Teske maintains that Augustine is the first Christian thinker “to articulate the concept of eternity as timeless, as being all at once without past or future,” an idea he traces to Plotinus’s Ennead III.7. See Teske, Paradoxes of Time in Saint Augustine, 16–23, 56–59. This is true enough, but is seems a rather prejudicial and un-Augustinian way of putting the matter, as if time were the measure of eternity, which is to be characterized principally by what it lacks. It would be truer to Augustine’s understanding to describe time as “eternityless.”
[11] Jordan, “Time and Contingency in St. Augustine,” 403. “The problem of time is to give creatures an anchorage in reality and a place in history, to give to the whole sensible world meaning and significant being rather than an absurd existence that gives rise only to nausea. So, in a sense, Augustine uses this very threat of non-existence to mediate between the creature and the very fullness of being, making the most of the limit to reach the Unlimited, turning the greatest and most pervasive of all threats, non-existence or bare formless existence, into a way of salvation” (410).
[12] Augustine, Confessions XI.14.
[13] Aristotle, Physics IV.10, 217b33–218b3
[14] Aristotle, Physics III.1, 201a.10.
[15] Aristotle, Physics VIII.6, 259b.15ff; Metaphysics XII.6, 1071b.20.
[16] Augustine, Confessions XI.15.
[17] Aristotle, Physics IV.10, 218a5.
[19] Augustine, Confessions XI.27.
[20] Aristotle, Physics IV.12, 221b.25.
[21] Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio II.8.
[22] Aristotle, Physics IV.11, 220a.18.
[24] “I call a perception ‘clear’ when it is present and accessible to the attentive mind—just as we say we see something clearly when it is present to the eye’s gaze and stimulates it with a sufficient degree of strength and accessibility. I call a perception ‘distinct’ if, as well as being clear, it is so sharply separated from all other perceptions that it contains within itself only what is clear” (René Descartes, Principles of Philosophy I, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985], I:207–08). See also, Descartes, Discourse on the Method II, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, I:121: “Next I observed that in order to know these proportions I would need sometimes to consider them separately, and sometimes merely to keep them in mind or understand many together. And I thought that in order the better to consider them separately I should suppose them to hold between lines, because I did not find anything simpler, nor anything that I could represent more distinctly to my imagination and senses.”
[25] Aristotle, Physics IV.4, 212a5, 20. For further elaboration see my No God, No Science? Theology, Cosmology, Biology (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 69.
[26] Aristotle, Physics III.3, 202a.18.
[27] Aristotle, Physics IV.11, 219b.30. In order to make sense of this, it must be remembered that time is the number of motion, and that while motion is a certain kind of actuality, it is the actuality of a potency qua potency, that is, the actuality of change as changing.
[28] Aristotle, Physics IV.14, 223a.25.
[29] Augustine, Confessions XI.27.
[30] Augustine, De Libero III.23.
[31] To my mind, Ursula Coope’s rather “analytic” attempt at explaining Aristotle’s argument for time’s dependence on the soul would have been aided by closer attention to these principles. See Coope, Time for Aristotle, 159–72.
[32] Jonathan Lear, Aristotle: The Desire to Understand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 109, emphasis original. Lear continues: “The sensible form of a tree is a real force in the tree toward being perceived as a tree. The perceiving of the tree must occur in the sense faculty of a perceiver, but the perceiving itself is nevertheless the highest realization of sensible form.”
[33] See Coope, Time for Aristotle, 19–21.
[34] D. C. Schindler, The Catholicity of Reason (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 161.
[35] Augustine, Confessions XI.14. Schindler expands this idea with respect not to Augustine, but to Aquinas, whose careful distinctions allow it to be expounded more clearly: “Moreover, insofar as creation is a divine act, it does not itself take place in time, as a movement or a change, which always implies a succession of moments” (The Catholicity of Reason, 158).
[36] This is one of the central theses of my No God, No Science?, and D. C. Schindler makes a similar case in The Catholicity of Reason, 137–62.
[37] I have addressed the matter of this paragraph and the next at greater length elsewhere, most notably in my No God, No Science?, 107–49, but also in “Aggiornamento and the Sciences: What Does It Mean?” Communio: International Catholic Review 39, no. 1–2 (Spring–Summer 2012): 294–313; “Re-Conceiving the Organism: Why American Catholic Bioethics Needs a Better Theory of Human Life,” Communio: International Catholic Review 41, no. 3 (Fall 2014): 615–53; “When Art Replaces Nature,” Humanum Review: Issues in Family, Culture and Science 2 (2014), http://humanumreview.com/articles/ when-art-replaces-nature.
[38] Francis Bacon, The New Organon, ed. Lisa Jardine and Michael Silverthorne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), I.15, 35.
[39] See my No God, No Science?, 113–20, for a discussion of the diverse ap- plications of the “principle of annihilation.”
[40] René Guénon, The Reign of Quantity (London: Luzac, 1953), 13.
[41] Descartes, Discourse on the Method VI, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, I:142.
[42] “For I do not recognize any difference between artefacts and natural bodies except that the operations of artefacts are for the most part performed by mechanisms which are large enough to be easily perceivable by the senses— as indeed must be the case if they are to be capable of being manufactured by human beings” (Descartes, Principles of Philosophy IV, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, I:288).
[43] Hans Jonas, The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2001), 201.
[44] See Adrian J. Walker, “Personal Singularity and the Communio Personarum: A Creative Development of Thomas Aquinas’ Doctrine of Esse Commune,” Communio: International Catholic Review 31, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 457–75.
[45] Amos Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle-Ages to the Seventeenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 142.
[46] Henceforth “scientific explanation” will largely consist in discovery of the laws governing the construction of the “real world” from the counter- factual world abstracted from it through analysis.
[47] Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination, 143. For John Locke, for instance, “universe” is simply a collective idea of substances compounded by addition (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding [London: Penguin, 1997], II.23).
[48] Bacon, The New Organon, II.1.
[49] See, e.g., Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, III.3.
[50] “[J]ust as we attribute the rational method to natural philosophy be- cause it adheres most closely to the method of reason, so we attribute the intellectual method to divine science because it adheres most closely to the method of intellect. Now reason differs from intellect as multitude does from unity. Thus Boethius says that reasoning is related to understanding as time to eternity and as a circle to its center. For it is distinctive of reason to disperse itself in the consideration of many things, and then to gather one simple truth from them. Thus Dionysius says: ‘Souls have the power of reasoning in that they approach the truth of things from various angles, and in this respect they are inferior to the angels.’ Conversely intellect first contemplates a truth one and undivided and in that truth comprehends a whole multitude, as God, by knowing his essence, knows all things. Thus Dionysius says: ‘Angelic minds have the power of intellect in that they understand divine truths in a unified way.’ It is clear, then, that rational thinking ends in intellectual thinking, fol- lowing the process of analysis, in which reason gathers one simple truth from many things. And again, intellectual thinking is the beginning of rational thinking, following the process of synthesis, in which the intellect compre- hends a multiplicity in unity” (Thomas Aquinas, “In Boethius De Trinitate,” VI.1, ad 4, in Thomas Aquinas: The Division and Methods of the Sciences, trans. Armand Maurer [Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1986], 70–71).
[51] See, for example, Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, III.8.1: “All our affirmations then are only in concrete, which is the affirming, not one abstract idea to be another, but one abstract idea to be joint to another . . . e.g., ‘a man is white’ signifies, that the thing that has the essence of a man has also in it the essence of whiteness, which is nothing but a power to produce the idea of whiteness in one, whose eyes can discover ordinary objects.” For more on the significance of this point, see Henry Veatch, Two Logics: The Conflict Between Classical and Neo-Analytic Philosophy (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969), 42–125; Schindler, The Catholicity of Reason, 148–53.
[52] See Jonas, The Phenomenon of Life, 108–34.
[53] “Space,” Newton writes, “is a disposition of being qua being. No being exists or can exist which is not related to space in some way. God is every- where, created minds are somewhere, and body is in the space that it occupies; and whatever is neither everywhere nor anywhere does not exist. And hence it follows that space is an effect arising from the first existence of being, because when any being is postulated, space is postulated. And the same may be said of duration: for certainly both are dispositions of being or attributes according to which we denominate quantitatively the presence and duration of any individual thing. So the quantity of the existence of God was eternal, in relation to duration; and infinite in relation to the space in which he is present” (“De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum,” in Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962], 136), emphasis mine.
[54] Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II.17.5, 201.
[55] Augustine, De Civitate Dei XI.5; Confessions I.3.
[56] Alan of Lille, “Theological Rules,” n. 7 [PL 210, 627], cited in Bonaventure, Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, V.8.
[57] It is surely worth something that John Dewey saw his own progressive historicism as the natural outworking of the Baconian spirit. See Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (New York: Henry Hold and Company, 1920), 28–52.
[58] The seventeenth-century movement from form to formalism is reflect- ed in the prominence then enjoyed by the “laws of nature,” as exemplified by Newton’s laws of motion and later by Darwinian natural selection, which aspired (and failed) to the level of law-like uniformity required of British science in the nineteenth century.
[59] “Thus, I shall argue, the further articulation of the space of the secular political economy coincides with a different and somewhat contrariwise theological insertion. No longer is God the ultimate arbitrary power behind hu- man arbitrary power; instead he is a God regularly and immediately present to human society, holding it together, just like the Newtonian God among the planetary bodies in Newtonian space. This does not, however, amount to the reintroduction of the traditional providence of Catholic orthodoxy. Such a providence was ultimately unknown and could only be dimly apprehended. This providence can be exactly known about, and it is invoked at the level of finite causality. . . . [I]n truth there was no point at which a theological or meta- physical thesis got translated into a scientific and empirical one, no Bachelardian ‘epistemological break.’ The only change was a relatively trivial one, from ascribing design to a transcendent God, to ascribing it to an immanent ‘nature.’ The ‘scientific discovery’ of the division of labour as a means of reconciling individual and public interest had already been made by the natural theologians and [Adam] Smith only elaborated the idea with more technical precision” (John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason [Oxford: Blackwell, 1990], 29, 39). For more on the new science of history, which begins principally with Vico, see Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination, 279–89.
[60] Indeed it is the extrinsic teleology that results from this transformation that the Darwinian tradition means when it rejects teleology, mistaking this modern reduction of teleology for the whole of it. See my No God, No Science?, 150–249.
[61] See my “A More Perfect Absolutism,” First Things (October 2016), 25–31.
[62] Augusto Del Noce, The Crisis of Modernity, ed. and trans. Carlo Lancelotti (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2014), 75. Hans Jonas, con- tending that technological society has altered the nature of human action, indicates just how powerfully it shapes historical experience: “The containment of nearness and contemporaneity is gone, swept away by the spatial spread and time span of the cause-effect trains which technological practice sets afoot, even when undertaken for proximate ends. Their irreversibility conjoined to their aggregate magnitude injects another novel factor into the moral equation. Add to this their cumulative character: their effects keep adding themselves to one another, with the result that the situation for later subjects and their choices of action will be progressively different from that of the initial agent and ever more the fated product of what was done before” (The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984], 7).
[63] For a brief, beautiful, and incisive summary of the modern “history of truth,” see Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 57–66.
[64] Del Noce, The Crisis of Modernity, see, for example, 34, 122.
[66] Veatch continues, “And if we not only cannot claim to know what things are, but if our very logic debars us from even stating or formulating propositions as to what this, that or the other thing is, then the very idea of what a thing is, or the very conviction that each thing is what it is, that things are what they are, or indeed that anything is anything becomes simply impossible, or at least logically improper” (Two Logics, 26).
[67] Hans Jonas, Philosophical Essays: From Ancient Creed to Technological Man (New York: Atropos Press, 2010), 47.
[68] Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility, 7.
[69] Augustine, Confessions XI.29.
[70] Francis, Lumen fidei, 57; Evangelii gaudium, 222.
