亞理斯多德論「善」及「存有」之同名異義

Aristotle on the Homonymy of 'Goodness' and 'Being'

亞理斯多德對柏拉圖哲學最常提出的控訴，便是它過於簡化。在他看來，柏拉圖也分享了蘇格拉底關於字詞與定義的假定。蘇格拉底認為，當問及「何謂F？」（正義、勇敢等）的問題時，總是可以找到某個關於「F」的單一定義。然而，亞理斯多德卻宣稱，某些哲學上關鍵的字詞與概念，例如「存有」、「善」、「正義」、「友情」等等，乃是同名異義或者以各種方式來述說的。因此，在他眼中，柏拉圖正犯了過度簡化的問題：柏拉圖錯誤地忽略了同名異義，並誤以為相同的字詞總是以相同方式而述說的。因而我們必須放棄柏拉圖對於「存有」、「善」以及「正義」的說明。然而Ch. Shields卻認為，亞理斯多德哲學中的兩個關鍵概念──「存有」以及「善」──是無法被證明為同名異義的；雖然亞理斯多德經常提出對於「存有」以及「善」之同名異義的警示，對於兩者同名異義的論證卻是失敗的。Shields宣稱，根本沒有一套可用以辯護亞理斯多德有關「存有」之同名異義的學說，因為這個學說根本是錯誤的；他也認為，「善」之同名異義同樣也無法被建立，因為它是從可疑的「存有」之同名異義學說推導而來。本文將展示，Shields對於亞理斯多德有關「存有」與「善」同名異義論證之批判並不成功。本文將藉這種方式重構亞理斯多德嘗試建立「存有」與「善」之同名異義的基本架構。

The criticism of Plato most often leveled by Aristotle against Plato is that his philosophy is oversimplified. On his view, Plato shares the Socratic assumption about words and definitions. When asked ”What is F?” (justice, courage, etc.), Socrates thinks that a single definition can always be found. However, Aristotle claims that some of the crucial words and concepts in his philosophy, such as ”being,” ”goodness,” ”justice,” and ”friendship,” are homonymous or multivocal (said in many ways). In his eyes, therefore, Plato oversimplifies the issue: Plato mistakenly ignores homonymy and simply supposes that the same word is always said in the same way. Put briefly, the Platonic accounts of ”being,” ”goodness,” and ”justice” should be rejected because homonymy and multivocity are ignored.However, Ch. Shields holds that two of the crucial concepts of the Aristotelian philosophy-”being” and ”goodness”-cannot be shown to be homonymous; although Aristotle often issues special warnings against the homonymy of ”being” and ”goodness,” all of his arguments fail. Shields claims that there is no defensible Aristotelian doctrine about the homonymy of ”being” because this doctrine is false; he also thinks that the homonymy of ”goodness” cannot be established because it is inferred from the problematical doctrine of the homonymy of ”being”. In this article, I shall show that Shields' critiques of Aristotle's arguments for the homonymy of ”being” and ”goodness” do not succeed. In this way, I shall reconstruct the basic framework of Aristotle’s attempt to establish the homonymy of ”being” and ”goodness”.