廊下派政治哲学的三个维度

哲学史研究通常轻视甚至忽视廊下派的政治哲学。其实，廊下派哲学不仅有政治性，而且包含三个鲜明的政治维度：普适性、保留性以及顺从性。廊下派认为世上所有智者乃至常人都是或应当生活在同一个城邦之中，彼此互爱并受共同律法的支配。作为社会动物的人不只是理想城邦的公民，他还有义务“有所保留地”参与实际的政治生活。不过，廊下派尤其是罗马廊下派宣称现实的国家政制在很大程度上是命运的结果，因而人应该对它首先表示顺从。其中，普适性最决定性地构成了廊下派对传统城邦政治以及古典政治哲学的超越。廊下派通过暗中接续智术师的政治信念，为近现代的启蒙思潮铺平了道路。

The Three Dimensions in Stoic Political Philosophy

After World War II, scholars came to accept and value stoic philosophy. However, compared with their other knowledge areas, the political philosophy of the stoics has been ignored in a sense, the fundamental reason for which is that the contemporary researchers have been to some extent influenced by Hegel’s view on philosophical history. In other words, with the decline of the city-state politics of ancient Greece, the stoics advocated that every person should withdraw into himself if he wants to seek tranquility and happiness. Therefore, it is necessary for us to draw a new picture of stoic philosophy to better reveal its political characteristics. In Zeno’s Politeia, all the wise in the world are citizens of a megalopolis, where the friendship and the common law were the dominant factors. Thereafter, universality constitutes the basic political dimension of stoic philosophy. Chrysippus claimed that the social impluse makes gods and sages construct together a city of love, which is the cosmos itself, and both are administered by common law. From Cicero’s time onward, it is regulated in cosmos-city that all men live or ought to live under the same canons of natural law, and they must treat each other equally, so that some philanthropy is possible and even fine. Stoic cosmopolitanism not only went well beyond the polis with which any classical political philosophy is concerned, but also profoundly affected the universalism in the Age of Enlightenment. However, the stoics did not develop a positive and revolutionary political tendency because of friendship or philanthropy and law in their cosmopolitanism. Instead, their philosophy has two other political features: reservation and compliance. In Stoa, sages are not only citizens of that ideal city, but also have obligation to participate in the imperfect political life. Nevertheless, unlike the classical political philosophy, stoicism considers practical politics itself as some indifference, so political participation is conditional. According to Seneca, political participation may become really inappropriate if the state suffers from serious corruption or if the sages lack necessary political influence or physical fitness. The reserved nature of stoic politics can also be found in its opposition to passionate participation in politics. Again in Seneca’s view, anger is the most dangerous passion, since it alone may bring catastrophes to the whole country. Anger can’t be controlled in the Aristotelian way; it must be eradicated thoroughly. Furthermore, reservation implies that what philosophers really care about is their moral progress rather than the outcome of things, the latter being decided by fate. Finally, compliance is primarily demonstrated in the stoic attitude to the second-good regime. Compliance is in theory the inevitable result of the stoic view of fate; in practice, it is related to the interactive relationship between the Stoic School and Roman power back in as early as the 2nd century BC. First, the Hellenistic Stoa had refused to acknowledge the second-good regime, and preferred to openly and sharply criticize the practical polity by resorting to the best-city pattern. But at the level of the whole universe, all the evils were considered to be in accord with the divine will, and hence there is no contradiction between critiquing existing societies and accepting the destiny. After entering Rome, however, the stoic philosophers had to gradually accept their state as the greatest ruler in the real world, and even claimed that its polity was the so-called second-good model.