英文中的哲學(xué)（philosophy）一詞源自希臘文philosophia，意即愛智慧。哲學(xué)，也應(yīng)該正是研究“愛”與“智慧”的學(xué)說！我們常常思考死亡、探究真愛、詢問自己到底是誰……哲學(xué)層面上的回答似乎能幫我們理清一些思緒……

Philosophers answer your questions about love， nothingness and everything else…

Logic

Is there a logical reason why most people prefer their own opinions to someone else’s?

Louise Antony: Here’s a conceptual reason: if I “preferred” your opinion to my own， in the sense of thinking it is more likely to be true than the one I currently hold， then I presumably would change my opinion to match yours， and your opinion would become mine.

I was loading up to go on a trip the other day and asked my dad why he was taking a lot of extra stuff and he said: “Just in case the unexpected happens.”

So out of that comes my question: if you expect the unexpected， then doesn’t that make the unexpected expected and the expected unexpected?

Peter Lipton: Even if you expect the unexpected， you may still be surprised. I took my Swiss Army knife along， because I expected the unexpected， but I was still surprised when I had to use it to free a 1)hedgehog that got itself locked in the 2)glove compartment of my car. People who believe that life is full of surprises are often right.

Happiness

Is it possible to measure sorrow or happiness? If so， can one person’s grief or joy be greater than another’s?

Mark Crimmins: This is one of those questions where your first impulse is to say “Of course!” and “Impossible!” at the same time(which is of course impossible). Of course! We have little trouble 3)discerning that the suicidal depressive is less cheery than the tiny 4)tot with her eyes all 5)aglow. We’re very confident even about much subtler discriminations: for instance， that runner who has finally achieved his personal best is more 6)elated than this chef who is satisfied that her new dish will maintain the restaurant’s reputation. But， impossible! We can never get the chef’s satisfaction into the same mind as the runner’s excitement. And don’t we have to be able to do that to compare them? Couldn’t it be that the chef’s joy is far greater， and yet she reacts to that level of joy in a far more subdued way than the runner would(perhaps her baseline mood would make the runner skip and sing)?

Love

Is it possible for one to be in love with the feeling of being in love， instead of with the person you believe you’re in love with?

Alexander George: We do speak of “l(fā)oving the feeling of being clean”， but surely the sense of “l(fā)oving” here must be different from the sense in which one loves one’s 7)spouse. The first seems more or less synonymous with “finding very

pleasurable”， while the latter， well， I don’t know how else to express what we mean in such cases， but I do know that we mean something different form “finding very pleasurable”. So， it’s of course quite possible that John is in love with Hilary and also finds being in that state very pleasurable.

But that’s not your question. You’re imagining a situation in which John thinks he’s in love with Hilary， but really isn’t. And you’re further wondering whether John might experience great pleasure from this 8)faux love. If he does， then of course he’s not in love with being in love， since he’s not in love. As you put it， he’s “in love with the feeling of being in love”.

Putting it this way does assume that love feels a particular way. This seems like a dubious assumption to me(recall that one can think one’s in love when one isn’t)， but if we do assume it then your question amounts to this: could it be that John is not in love with Hilary， that John is having those experiences that regularly attend his being in love， that(perhaps as a consequence) John believes that he is in love with Hilary， and finally that John is taking great pleasure in having those experiences? I don’t see why not.

Mind

What’s it like to be another person?

Mark Crimmins: That’s a really good question. I guess the answer is: it feels normal. Because it feels normal to them， and so if you are that person， then feeling like they do feels normal to you.

But what we really want to know is: how would it feel for me to feel what they are feeling? If I could “see” what a red apple looked like to them， would it look red to me? Or would it look green? If I could feel their sleepiness， would it feel like mine? Fortunately， philosophers have thought long and hard about this question. Unfortunately， we haven’t figured it out yet.

哲學(xué)家們現(xiàn)在為你一一解答關(guān)于愛、虛無以及其他等問題……

關(guān)于邏輯

問：為什么大多數(shù)人寧愿偏信于自己的觀點(diǎn)，而不聽別人的觀點(diǎn)呢？有什么邏輯依據(jù)嗎？

路易斯·安東尼：這是個(gè)概念上的解釋——如果我更“偏愛”你的而非我自己的觀點(diǎn)，也就是說，我覺得你的觀點(diǎn)比我現(xiàn)有的想法可能更準(zhǔn)確，然后我大概會扭轉(zhuǎn)我的想法來契合你的觀點(diǎn)，那你的觀點(diǎn)就會成為我的了。

問：有天我在收拾行李準(zhǔn)備出游，我問父親為什么他要帶那么多額外的東西，他說：“只是以防萬一?！?/p>

于是，我的疑問來了：如果你能料到意料之外的事，那意料之外豈不成了意料之中，而意料之中豈不反成意料之外？

彼特·利普頓：即使你料到意外會發(fā)生，（意外出現(xiàn)的時(shí)候）你仍然會感到驚訝。雖然我隨身帶著瑞士軍刀，就是以備不時(shí)之需，但那次在我車上得用它來解救困在儀表板抽屜里的那只刺猬時(shí)，我還是覺得很詫異。相信生命是充滿意外的人往往是對的。

關(guān)于幸福

問：我們可以衡量悲傷或幸福嗎？如果答案是肯定的，能不能說一個(gè)人的悲痛或快樂要比別人的要大呢？

馬克·克里明：像這樣的問題，你的第一反應(yīng)是同時(shí)回答“當(dāng)然！”和“不可能！”（當(dāng)然不可能）。當(dāng)然！我們輕而易舉就能看出，那些抑郁尋死的人跟雙眼晶亮的孩童相比當(dāng)然是沒那么快樂無憂。連更微妙的區(qū)別，我們也是有十足把握能看出來的：比如說，賽跑運(yùn)動員最終取得了個(gè)人最佳成績，廚師以新菜保住餐館名聲，賽跑運(yùn)動員的喜悅興奮肯定要比廚師的滿足感更大。慢著，不可能！我們永遠(yuǎn)不可能將廚師的滿足感和賽跑運(yùn)動員的興奮感加諸同一個(gè)人身上以求比較。要將兩者一比高低，不是非得這么做嗎？說不定廚師的快樂遠(yuǎn)大于賽跑運(yùn)動員，只是面對此種程度的快樂她表現(xiàn)低調(diào)，不像賽跑運(yùn)動員那么顯露（也許以她的情緒基線來看，這位運(yùn)動員得又跳又唱地來慶祝自己刷新記錄了）。

關(guān)于愛

問：一個(gè)人愛上的只是戀愛的感覺，而不是你以為你所愛上的那個(gè)人，這可能嗎？

亞歷山大·喬治：我們會說“愛上干凈的感覺”這樣的話，但很肯定的是，這里所說的“愛”有別于夫妻之間的愛。前者似乎多多少少等于“覺得某事很令自己愉悅”，而后者，嗯，我不知道還能怎么解釋它在這些情形之下的含義，但我的確知道我們是另有所指的，而非“覺得某事很令自己愉悅”。因此，如果甲愛上了乙，同時(shí)也覺得這愛戀的狀態(tài)很讓人愜意，這當(dāng)然是非?？赡艿摹?/p>

但是，你的疑問不在此。你是假設(shè)有這么一種情況：甲覺得自己愛上了乙，但現(xiàn)實(shí)卻并非如此。你還進(jìn)一步推想——甲從這場假情假愛中是否也體驗(yàn)到無窮快樂？如果他確實(shí)如此，那么，他愛上的就不是戀愛本身，因?yàn)樗揪蜎]有戀愛。就像你說的，他“只是愛上了戀愛的感覺”。

你的說法其實(shí)是建立在“愛讓人有一種特定的感覺”這樣一個(gè)前提之下。這在我看來是站不住腳的（想想看，一個(gè)人可能沒有戀愛，但覺得自己是在戀愛），但如果我們假設(shè)這是成立的，那你的問題就延伸為：甲沒有愛上乙，甲只是體驗(yàn)著那些在他愛上別人時(shí)經(jīng)常會發(fā)生的事，那么（也許，這就是結(jié)果），甲就相信了他是愛上了乙，最終甲在那些經(jīng)歷中感到了無限的快樂。這可能嗎？我不覺得這有什么不可能的。

關(guān)于思想

問：成為別人會是怎樣一種感覺呢？

馬克·克里明：那確實(shí)是個(gè)很好的問題。我認(rèn)為答案是：這跟平常沒什么兩樣。因?yàn)橐粋€(gè)人做自己是很正常的事，所以如果你成為他/她，你會覺得他們對于你來說，確實(shí)再正常不過的。

但我們真正想知道的是：對別人的感覺感同身受，那會是怎樣？如果我能夠“看到”一個(gè)紅蘋果在他人眼中的樣子，這個(gè)蘋果對我來說是不是紅色的呢？還是在我眼里，它是綠的？如果我能感受到別人的倦意，會不會跟我自己的那種倦意是一樣的呢？可幸的是，哲學(xué)家們已經(jīng)就這個(gè)問題思考了很久很深刻。而不幸的是，我們還找不到答案。