愛(ài)得真摯　愛(ài)得瘋狂　愛(ài)得深刻

　　Take a chance on me

　　交個(gè)朋友吧，或許我就是你的真命天子哦！

　　PLATO described love as a serious mental disease. Aristotle saw it as a single soul inhabiting two bodies. Tina Turner dismissed the feeling as a second-hand emotion. The nature of love—how and when and why and with whom humans fall for each other—has preoccupied thinkers through the ages. Now a philosopher and a scientist have a go in two new and markedly different books.

　　柏拉圖將愛(ài)情描述為一種嚴(yán)重的精神疾病；亞里士多德認(rèn)為愛(ài)情是一個(gè)靈魂孕育在兩個(gè)軀體里；蒂娜 特納則對(duì)愛(ài)情不屑一顧，視之為二手的情感。古往今來(lái)，所有思想家都在思索愛(ài)情的本質(zhì)：人們?nèi)绾蜗鄲?ài)？何時(shí)墜入愛(ài)河？為何相愛(ài)？與誰(shuí)相愛(ài)？如今，一名哲學(xué)家和一名科學(xué)家各自發(fā)表了一本顯著不同的新書(shū)，試圖回答這一難題。

　　In his latest work, "In Praise of Love", Alain Badiou, a French philosopher, identifies three prevailing philosophical views of love. It can be an ecstatic encounter; an unsentimental contract; or an illusion, best treated with scepticism. He rejects all three. For Mr Badiou, love is the decision to live life through two perspectives, that of both the lover and the beloved. As such, it is more than the sum of its parts. Love "is a construction," he writes, "a life that is being made, no longer from the perspective of One but from the perspective of Two."

　　法國(guó)哲學(xué)家阿蘭. 巴迪烏(Alain Badiou)最近出版了新書(shū)《歌頌愛(ài)情》，他在書(shū)中提到了哲學(xué)界三個(gè)主流的愛(ài)情觀。愛(ài)情可能萌生于一次心動(dòng)的邂逅，也可能是一個(gè)不動(dòng)情緒的契約或一種似是而非的美好幻覺(jué)。巴迪烏對(duì)這三種觀點(diǎn)都不以為然。在他看來(lái)，愛(ài)情就意味著相愛(ài)的兩人要選擇從兩種角度來(lái)生活：即愛(ài)與被愛(ài)的角度。所以，愛(ài)情并不只是兩個(gè)人生活片段的簡(jiǎn)單拼湊。巴迪烏寫(xiě)道：“愛(ài)情是‘一種建構(gòu)'，戀愛(ài)雙方不再單從各自的角度生活，而是從雙方的角度，創(chuàng)造出一種全新的生活方式。”

　　Mr Badiou sees risk as central to love. A loving relationship demands multiple and shared perspectives, which always give rise to incongruences and tensions. He reserves special scorn for dabblers in internet dating, who evidently believe that the search for "a photo, details of his or her tastes, date of birth, horoscope sign, etc" will ultimately net "a risk-free option". This is to neglect the very essence of love, according to Mr Badiou, which involves the presence of risk, the possibility of failure and the need for vulnerability.

　　巴迪烏認(rèn)為愛(ài)情必然存在風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。戀愛(ài)關(guān)系的維持需要戀愛(ài)雙方從多個(gè)角度看待問(wèn)題，互相理解，這也常常導(dǎo)致沖突和爭(zhēng)執(zhí)。巴迪烏尤為鄙視通過(guò)網(wǎng)絡(luò)尋找戀愛(ài)對(duì)象的人，這些人視愛(ài)情如兒戲。顯然，他們認(rèn)為：只要搜索到“照片、喜好、年齡、星座等信息”與自己要求相符合的他或她，就能談一場(chǎng)毫無(wú)風(fēng)險(xiǎn)的戀愛(ài)。巴迪烏認(rèn)為，這種行為忽略了愛(ài)情的本質(zhì)：愛(ài)情本就存在風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，可能失敗，需要雙方適時(shí)地展示自己脆弱的一面。

　　The book's chatty style (it is based on a conversation with Nicolas Truong, a French journalist) lends a deceptive simplicity to the ideas within. Get to work unpicking these concepts and it soon becomes plain that, like many French philosophers, Mr Badiou sacrifices clarity for linguistic zip and sparkle. Nonetheless, he leaves the reader with an incisive overview of philosophical thinking on love, from Plato to Kierkegaard to Lacan.

　　這本書(shū)語(yǔ)言親切（主要內(nèi)容基于與法國(guó)記者Nicolas Truong的談話），樸實(shí)簡(jiǎn)單的文字下蘊(yùn)含著深刻的思想。如若將這些概念分開(kāi)來(lái)看，很快就可以發(fā)現(xiàn)：與很多法國(guó)哲學(xué)家一樣，巴迪烏并未選擇一語(yǔ)道破，而是玩弄起辭藻，妙語(yǔ)連珠，意味深長(zhǎng)。盡管如此，他在書(shū)中對(duì)自古以來(lái)關(guān)于愛(ài)情的各種哲學(xué)思考做了犀利的總結(jié)，從柏拉圖到齊克果再到拉康，一應(yīng)俱全，讀者可借機(jī)一窺究竟。

　　Robin Dunbar's book, "The Science of Love and Betrayal", is—perhaps surprisingly—easier to get to grips with. Dr Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary anthropology with a study in this week's science section (see article), is best known for "Dunbar's number", the limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. He laments that scientists have largely ignored the concept of love. In this book he bridges the gap between the biological explanations for humans' romantic behaviour and the psychological, historical, social and evolutionary contexts that help to shape it.

　　相比之下，羅賓.鄧巴（Robin Dunbar）的書(shū)《愛(ài)與背叛的科學(xué)》更容易理解，這一點(diǎn)或許出人意料。鄧巴是一名進(jìn)化人類學(xué)教授，他在本期雜志的科技部分也發(fā)表了一篇研究。鄧巴以其提出的“鄧巴人數(shù)（Dunbar's number）”最為出名。鄧巴人數(shù)指能與某個(gè)人維持穩(wěn)定人際關(guān)系的人數(shù)上限。他感到遺憾的是，科學(xué)家們大都忽略了愛(ài)情的含義。鄧巴在書(shū)中不僅探討了人類做出浪漫行為的生物學(xué)原因，還將這些原因與起到推波助瀾作用的心理、歷史、社會(huì)和進(jìn)化環(huán)境等因素更為緊密地聯(lián)系起來(lái)。

　　In particular, he is interested in why humans have developed such an affinity for "pairbonding", despite the fact that strictly monogamous mating and rearing systems are not terribly advantageous in evolutionary terms. Monogamy is not unique to humans. What is unique, however, is the intensity with which the species falls in love. Nearly every human culture in history exhibits this complex sense of longing, Dr Dunbar observes.

　　盡管?chē)?yán)格的一夫一妻婚育制度并非十分有利于人類的進(jìn)化，但人們還是喜歡有固定的配偶，鄧巴對(duì)這一現(xiàn)象的原因尤其感興趣。一夫一妻制并非只存在于人類社會(huì)，其它物種之間也有，但人與人相愛(ài)的深度卻是其它物種不可比擬的。據(jù)鄧巴觀察，從古至今，幾乎每個(gè)時(shí)期的人類文明都顯示出了這種渴望愛(ài)情的復(fù)雜情感。

　　To understand this predisposition for monogamy, he takes readers through the myriad feelings of love, from the heady, breathless exhilaration of falling, to the stubborn persistence of familial affection, to the bitterness of betrayal. Throughout the book Dr Dunbar excels at taking obvious and familiar information—men prefer curvy women; women prefer men who dance well; older women rarely reveal their ages in lonely-hearts columns—and explaining the complex and often unexpected evolutionary science that lies behind it all.

　　為了弄清楚人類社會(huì)一夫一妻傳統(tǒng)的起源，鄧巴向讀者闡述了戀愛(ài)過(guò)程所包含的各種錯(cuò)綜復(fù)雜的情感：剛墜入愛(ài)河時(shí)的戀人陶醉其中，激動(dòng)得無(wú)法呼吸；組成家庭后雙方視彼此為親人，不離不棄；遭到愛(ài)人背叛后，前塵往事如塵埃、內(nèi)心唯有苦澀酸楚。鄧巴擅于在整本書(shū)中運(yùn)用顯而易見(jiàn)的常識(shí)——男人喜歡曲線美的女人；女人喜歡舞技高超的男人；年齡稍大的女性很少會(huì)在有情人專欄透露自己的年齡——并解釋這些現(xiàn)象背后所隱藏的復(fù)雜的進(jìn)化科學(xué)，往往出人意料。

　　Love is a journey, a game, a many-splendoured thing. Though some give it a bad name (if Jon Bon Jovi is to be believed), the rest of us find the subject endlessly fascinating. The struggle to understand such a mystifying phenomenon invariably requires the help of philosophers and scientists, and others besides. Good news for Mr Badiou and Dr Dunbar.

　　愛(ài)情是一次旅行，一場(chǎng)游戲，一件充滿奇妙的事。盡管有人詆毀愛(ài)情（如Jon Bon Jovi的歌曲所唱），其它人則認(rèn)為它永遠(yuǎn)充滿魅力。愛(ài)情如此神秘，要弄懂它，哲學(xué)家和科學(xué)家的幫助必不可少。同時(shí)還需要其它人的幫助，巴迪烏和鄧巴的努力可算是沒(méi)有白費(fèi)。

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