英語(yǔ)四級(jí)翻譯：那些復(fù)雜到讓你困惑的簡(jiǎn)單小事(4)

英語(yǔ)四級(jí)翻譯：那些復(fù)雜到讓你困惑的簡(jiǎn)單小事(4)

4.Left And Right Have Been Confusing Philosophers For Years

"左"與"右"的問(wèn)題已困擾哲學(xué)家們多年

How would you explain the concept of left and right to someone who had no idea what those words meant? Would you explain it in terms of your relative position to a well-known stationary landmark? Or maybe you'd think outside the box and refer to the rotation of the Earth or something comparably massive and unchanging. But what if you were talking to an alien whose planet rotated differently to our own, or one who didn't have eyes? It's a question that has been intriguing philosophers for years because, without an agreed upon point of reference, it's incredibly difficult to define what left and right actually are.

你會(huì)怎樣向一個(gè)完全不明白單詞"左"和"右"意思的人來(lái)解釋"左"與"右"的概念呢?你會(huì)根據(jù)一個(gè)眾所周知的固定地標(biāo)來(lái)確定你的相對(duì)位置進(jìn)而來(lái)解釋嗎?又或者你也許會(huì)跳出固有思維模式，利用地球的自轉(zhuǎn)或某些體積較大，相對(duì)不容易變化的事物來(lái)解釋?但如果你談話的對(duì)象是個(gè)外星人，而他的星球的自轉(zhuǎn)方式和地球很不同，又或者他根本沒(méi)有眼睛，你又怎么辦呢?很多年以來(lái)，這個(gè)問(wèn)題一直使哲學(xué)家們感到困惑，因?yàn)槿绻麤](méi)有一個(gè)商定的參照點(diǎn)，要定義什么是左，什么是右實(shí)際上是極其困難的。

For example, consider the work of German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who once said, "Let it be imagined that the first created thing were a human hand, then it must necessarily be either a right hand or a left hand."

比如，想想德國(guó)科學(xué)家伊曼努爾?康德的著作，他曾經(jīng)說(shuō)，"假設(shè)上帝最先創(chuàng)造出來(lái)的是一只人手，那么這只手必定可能是右手，也可能是左手。"

However, with only one hand, it's impossible to explain which hand it is without another one present. Think about it for a second-right and left hands are clearly very different from one another, but if you were to describe them, the deions would be literally identical because they're the same. Only they aren't because, as Kant himself put it, a left hand can't fit into a right-handed glove, so there is a difference between them. However, said difference is practically impossible to put into words without the other hand being present.

可是，如果只有一只手，而沒(méi)有另一只手的話，想要解釋你所擁有的那只手是哪只手是不可能的。花一秒想一想-左手與右手顯然是非常不同的。但如果你想用語(yǔ)言描繪它們，那么你的描繪將完全相同的，因?yàn)樗鼈兛瓷先ナ且粯拥?。不過(guò)它們又是不同的，正如康德自己說(shuō)的那樣，左手是戴不上右手的手套的，因此它們之間是有不同之處的。然而，如果沒(méi)有另一只手在，上述的不同是幾乎不能用語(yǔ)言描繪的。

If you think we're over-complicating this, we should point out that there is literally a 400-page book on the philosophy of right and left, aptly called The Philosophy Of Right And Left. That's more pages than it took to work out 1 1=2.

如果你認(rèn)為我們夸大了這一問(wèn)題的復(fù)雜性，那我們應(yīng)當(dāng)指出，關(guān)于左和右的哲學(xué)還真有一本400多頁(yè)的書(shū)，名字也很貼切，就叫《左與右的哲學(xué)》(The Philosophy Of Right And Left)這可比驗(yàn)證1 1=2所占的頁(yè)數(shù)還要多。

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