后人类的警示:《羚羊与秧鸡》中的语言哲学
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摘要
加拿大当代作家玛格丽特·阿特伍德在其小说《羚羊与秧鸡》中对后人类未来作出了描绘,通过聚焦人与非人的边界地带,探讨了语言对人性的决定性作用,为从语言哲学视角检视人性与文明本质提供了独特的文本基础。这部作品透过科幻故事的表象呈现出三个重要的深层语言哲学议题:小说首先凸显了语言和言语的双重属性,借用主人公的语言无能刻画出人与非人的语言临界状况;其次,通过详细描写新生人类的语言游戏暗指能指的不间断延异和对不在场的召唤和操控;第三,能指符号进一步指向符号象征体系和话语网络的建构,并最终指向艺术、人文等元素。这三个层次的思考对探索人性本质作出了深层、立体的尝试。《羚羊与秧鸡》所涉及的人类学、哲学和语言学思想为审视语言在人类主体构建中的作用以及对后人类状况进行理论管窥提供了不可或缺的思考素材。
The paper elucidates the posthuman thought in Margaret Atwood's novel Oryx and Crake, and presents reflections on the essence of language and its interconnection to humanity. Focusing on the human/inhuman boundary, the novel provides insights into the nature of humanity and civilization. There emerge three major philosophical concerns in this speculative fiction. Calling attention to the dual properties of langue and parole as well as the status of "infancy" located between the human and the inhuman, the novel depicts Crakers' language games and alludes to the ceaseless chain of signifiers along with its perpetual différance and its manipulation of absence. In addition, it also investigates the interrelation between discursive network and its quintessential construction of humanity. Oryx and Crake thus serves as a site for hermeneutical reflection on the role of language in the formation of the human subject and humanity on the whole. A reading of the philosophy of language embodied in the novel, in connection with contemporary theories in anthropology, philosophy and linguistics, offers a few theoretical glimpses of the posthuman condition.
The paper elucidates the posthuman thought in Margaret Atwood's novel Oryx and Crake, and presents reflections on the essence of language and its interconnection to humanity. Focusing on the human/inhuman boundary, the novel provides insights into the nature of humanity and civilization. There emerge three major philosophical concerns in this speculative fiction. Calling attention to the dual properties of langue and parole as well as the status of "infancy" located between the human and the inhuman, the novel depicts Crakers' language games and alludes to the ceaseless chain of signifiers along with its perpetual différance and its manipulation of absence. In addition, it also investigates the interrelation between discursive network and its quintessential construction of humanity. Oryx and Crake thus serves as a site for hermeneutical reflection on the role of language in the formation of the human subject and humanity on the whole. A reading of the philosophy of language embodied in the novel, in connection with contemporary theories in anthropology, philosophy and linguistics, offers a few theoretical glimpses of the posthuman condition.
引文
Agamben,Giorgio.Infancy and History:On the Destruction of Experience.Trans.L.Heron.London:Verso,2007.
——.The Open:Man and Animal.Stanford:Stanford UP,2004.
Aristotle.Politica.Ed.W.Ross.Oxford:Clarendon Press,1957.
Atwood,Margaret.Oryx and Crake.Toronto:Mc Clelland&Stewart,2003.
——.The Year of the Flood.New York:Random House,2010.
Badminton,Neil.“Posthumanism.”The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory.Ed.Michael Ryan.London:Wiley-Blackwell,2011.1212-15.
Burke,Kenneth.Language as Symbolic Action:Essays on Life,Literature,and Method.Berkeley:U of California P,1966.
Dennett,D.C.Consciousness Explained.New York:Penguin Books,1991.
Derrida,Jacques.Margins of Philosophy.Trans.Alan Bass.Chicago:U of Chicago P,1982.
——.Of Grammatology.Trans.Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.Baltimore:The Johns Hopkins UP,1997.
Foucault,Michel.The Order of Things.Trans.Alan Sheridan.New York:Pantheon,1971.
Gadamer,Hans-Georg.Truth and Method.Trans.Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G.Marshall.New York:Crossroad,1989.
Haraway,Donna.Simians,Cyborgs,and Women.New York:Routledge,1991.
Ku,Cung-Hao.“Of Monster and Man:Transgenics and Transgression in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake.”Concentric:Literary and Cultural Studies 32.1(2006):107-33.
Lodge,David.Nice Work.London:Penguin Books,1989.
Pordzik,Ralph.“The Posthuman Future of Man:Anthropocentrism and the Other of Technology in AngloAmerican Science Fiction.”Utopian Studies 23.1(2012):142-61.
Saussure,Ferdinand de.Course in General Linguistics.Ed.C.Bally,A.Sechehaye and A.Riedlinger.Trans.Roy Harris.La Salle:Open Court,1986.
Soler,Colette.“The Subject and the Other.”Parts I and II.Reading Seminar XI:Lacan’s Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis.Ed.Richard Feldstein,Maire Jaanus and Bruce Fink.Albany:SUNY Press,1995.39-54.
Wallace,Jeff.D.H.Lawrence,Science and the Posthuman.New York:Palgrave,2005.
(1)本文相关引文均出自Margaret Atwood,Oryx and Crake(Toronto:Mc Clelland&Stewart,2003),以下标出页码,不再一一说明。
(2)Langue一般表示语言体系,而parole表示个体语言行为,国内语言学界一般将langue译为“语言”,parole译为“言语”,本文遵照此惯例。
(3)在亚里士多德的人性/动物性思想中,人类能够清晰地表达人类的话语,而动物则只能发出表示快感与痛苦的混乱声音,这种声音属于aisthesis(即感觉、直觉)。
(4)在阿甘本的哲学中,“婴孩”并非指人类发展过程中一种时间明确的年龄渐段,也不是心理学建构过程中的心理和生理阶段。“婴孩”更多地是一个哲学范畴,它强调的是一种类似于对“声音”(voice)/言语和语言(language)之间状态的婴孩般的体验。根据阿甘本的思想,人类并不是天然就“拥有”语言的,而是和语言分离的,处于语言的外部,并从外部获得语言;相反,动物也不是没有语言的物种,它们恰恰已经处于语言的内部。这表明,阿甘本认为人类与动物并不存在完全割裂的关系,而是处于相互联系、相互包容的状态。由于人类并不是一开始就具备语言,因此在语言系统和言语/声音之间存在一种裂缝和间隙,这种间隙为“婴孩”的存在提供了可能。由此可见,阿甘本并不认为人性是独特的,人性中包含有动物性。
——.The Open:Man and Animal.Stanford:Stanford UP,2004.
Aristotle.Politica.Ed.W.Ross.Oxford:Clarendon Press,1957.
Atwood,Margaret.Oryx and Crake.Toronto:Mc Clelland&Stewart,2003.
——.The Year of the Flood.New York:Random House,2010.
Badminton,Neil.“Posthumanism.”The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory.Ed.Michael Ryan.London:Wiley-Blackwell,2011.1212-15.
Burke,Kenneth.Language as Symbolic Action:Essays on Life,Literature,and Method.Berkeley:U of California P,1966.
Dennett,D.C.Consciousness Explained.New York:Penguin Books,1991.
Derrida,Jacques.Margins of Philosophy.Trans.Alan Bass.Chicago:U of Chicago P,1982.
——.Of Grammatology.Trans.Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.Baltimore:The Johns Hopkins UP,1997.
Foucault,Michel.The Order of Things.Trans.Alan Sheridan.New York:Pantheon,1971.
Gadamer,Hans-Georg.Truth and Method.Trans.Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G.Marshall.New York:Crossroad,1989.
Haraway,Donna.Simians,Cyborgs,and Women.New York:Routledge,1991.
Ku,Cung-Hao.“Of Monster and Man:Transgenics and Transgression in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake.”Concentric:Literary and Cultural Studies 32.1(2006):107-33.
Lodge,David.Nice Work.London:Penguin Books,1989.
Pordzik,Ralph.“The Posthuman Future of Man:Anthropocentrism and the Other of Technology in AngloAmerican Science Fiction.”Utopian Studies 23.1(2012):142-61.
Saussure,Ferdinand de.Course in General Linguistics.Ed.C.Bally,A.Sechehaye and A.Riedlinger.Trans.Roy Harris.La Salle:Open Court,1986.
Soler,Colette.“The Subject and the Other.”Parts I and II.Reading Seminar XI:Lacan’s Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis.Ed.Richard Feldstein,Maire Jaanus and Bruce Fink.Albany:SUNY Press,1995.39-54.
Wallace,Jeff.D.H.Lawrence,Science and the Posthuman.New York:Palgrave,2005.
(1)本文相关引文均出自Margaret Atwood,Oryx and Crake(Toronto:Mc Clelland&Stewart,2003),以下标出页码,不再一一说明。
(2)Langue一般表示语言体系,而parole表示个体语言行为,国内语言学界一般将langue译为“语言”,parole译为“言语”,本文遵照此惯例。
(3)在亚里士多德的人性/动物性思想中,人类能够清晰地表达人类的话语,而动物则只能发出表示快感与痛苦的混乱声音,这种声音属于aisthesis(即感觉、直觉)。
(4)在阿甘本的哲学中,“婴孩”并非指人类发展过程中一种时间明确的年龄渐段,也不是心理学建构过程中的心理和生理阶段。“婴孩”更多地是一个哲学范畴,它强调的是一种类似于对“声音”(voice)/言语和语言(language)之间状态的婴孩般的体验。根据阿甘本的思想,人类并不是天然就“拥有”语言的,而是和语言分离的,处于语言的外部,并从外部获得语言;相反,动物也不是没有语言的物种,它们恰恰已经处于语言的内部。这表明,阿甘本认为人类与动物并不存在完全割裂的关系,而是处于相互联系、相互包容的状态。由于人类并不是一开始就具备语言,因此在语言系统和言语/声音之间存在一种裂缝和间隙,这种间隙为“婴孩”的存在提供了可能。由此可见,阿甘本并不认为人性是独特的,人性中包含有动物性。