Why the Humanities Are Not Science: Thinking Comparatively from Aristotle

人文學科何以不是科學？－從比較的角度自亞里士多德的觀念談起

10.6351/BICLP.200709.0001

余國藩(Anthony C. Yu)

人文學科 ； 知識 ； 學科／科學 ； 因 ； 擬現 ； 產物 ； Humanities ； knowledge ； sciences ； cause ； mimesis ； products

中國文哲研究集刊

31期（2007 / 09 / 01）

1 - 27

英文

本文探討西方文化一個重要問題：「人文學科」何以異於其他種類的知識？從古至今，「人文學科」曾經有不同的定義，我們看來雖耳熟能詳，但總覺論證欠周，難以服人。本文立論有異，不僅重探亞里士多德的學科三分法，並以此爲據，進一步檢視人文學科的定義。此外，本文也上溯中國史上迥然有別的知識分類法則，再爲本研究提供必要的背景，以資比較。本文繼而簡述亞里士多德對「知識」所下之定義，故第三部分探討亞氏所稱「理論性學科」（形上學、數學與物理學）的假設與主張，認爲他之所以覺得有其必然，乃因目標在尋求對錯分明的知識使然。至於「實踐性學科」（道德與政治學）的目的則非知識之獲得，而是貴其身體力行的一面。本文第四部分主要由亞氏的《詩學》下手，討論他的「創造性學科」之見，另及他的「擬現」觀。亞氏認爲後者乃人工或技藝所成之概念。由亞氏的論點可知「人文學科」所擬研究者乃人爲之產物及其背後的意義。根據亞里士多德，要獲知是類意義，我們往往得求諸事物的製作過程，認識作者力求完美的理性經過。本文結論取中國文獻與語言稍加比較，再證亞氏的分類法何以令人折服的原因，並指出人文學科與我們今日所謂自然或物理科學實難二分。

This essay examines a venerable question in Western culture: how to distinguish the ”humanities” from other forms of knowledge. The Aristotelian threefold division of the sciences in Part I of the essay, in contrast to some familiar but unsatisfactory options for defining the humanities from modernity to antiquity, is re-considered as a basis for a different approach to the subject. Part II, however, relates the divergent system of knowledge taxonomy in historical Chinese culture to provide the necessary comparative context. From a brief review of what Aristotle proposes as criteria for true knowledge as distinct from opinion or belief, Part III proceeds to present his formulation of the theoretical sciences (metaphysics, mathematics, and physics) mandating necessary hypotheses and propositions that aim to end in absolute certitude of knowledge. The practical sciences (ethics and politics), by contrast, have as their end not knowledge but right action. In Part IV, Aristotle's understanding of the productive sciences (articulated principally in the Poetics) and his concept of mimesis as an artificial or artful product lead to our thesis that the humanities represent the study of the meaning of human products. Such meaning, according to Aristotle, is inseparably tied to deciphering the rational process of how a thing is made and made well. The essay’s closing section further argues, however, that even in this compelling schematization of Aristotle, contextualized comparatively by brief reflection on Chinese materials and language, the separation of the humanities from what we regard today as natural or physical sciences cannot be complete or absolute.

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