异质性的得而复失——柏拉图《巴曼尼德斯篇》读解

在《巴曼尼德斯篇》中,柏拉图发现,像苏格拉底这样一个具体事物可以同时既类似又不类似,既是一又是多,既是静的又是动的。也就是说,具体事物可以同时分有多个相,包括相反之相。一个具体事物同时拥有多个普遍性质,并且其中许多性质间彼此无关甚至相反,这就是典型的异质性现象。异质性意味着没有任何一个单一的范型或一套同质的范型系统足以提供对于一个具体事物的完备规定,而要完备规定具体事物,范型或范型系统就一定是复数,它们之间不可能最终化约为一。但柏拉图选择了另一条解决之道:放弃相之为同类事物范型的绝对性,转而通过相与相之间的指谓关系将诸相联结成"相的集体",借以说明何以一个具体事物可以分有多个相。这样一来,相与相之间的异质性就被这套同质性的思维程序给消解掉了。

An Encounter with Heterogeneity: An Understanding of Plato's Parmenides

In Parmenides, Plato finds that an individual like Socrates can be both like and unlike, both one and many, and both at rest and in motion, i.e., that all things can partake of many forms, including the contraries. It is a typical heterogeneous phenomenon that one individual possesses many universal qualities, among which some are irrelevant and even contrary to one another. Heterogeneity implies that no single paradigm or single homogeneous system of forms can suffice for the complete determinations of one individual, whereas it needs plural paradigms or plural systems of forms which cannot be reduced to singular to determine an individual completely. Plato, however, chooses another way to resolve the problem: to abandon the absoluteness of form as a pattern of the congeners while to combine forms into "a collection of forms" by virtue of the predication of forms, so as to explain how an individual can partake of many forms. Due to this homogeneous thinking procedure, the heterogeneity among forms is put aside wrongly.