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A lot of unhappiness comes about in this world, because we can't let other people know what we mean clearly enough.
世界上很多不幸福是由于我们不能足够准确地向他人表达我们的意思。
One of the philosophers who can help us with our communication problems is Ludwig Wittgenstein.
有个哲学家可以帮我们解决沟通问题，他叫路德维希·维特根斯坦。
He was a recluse.
他是位隐士。
He had a stutter, paused for ages in the middle of his sentences and had a habit of storming out if he didn't like what people were saying.
他有口吃，句子中间会停顿很久，如果他不喜欢别人说的话还经常发飙。
It was weirdly the ideal background for someone intent on studying how easily communication between people goes wrong.
而这偏偏为他打算研究人与人的沟通有多么容易出问题提供了理想的背景。
Ludwig Wittgenstein was born Vienna in 1889.
路德维希·维特根斯坦1889年出生于维也纳。
The youngest child of a wealthy, highly cultured but domineering steel magnate.
他出生在富有、极有教养，但盛气凌人的钢铁巨头之家，是家中最小的孩子。
Three of Ludwig's four brothers took their own lives, and Ludwig himself was frequently troubled by suicidal thoughts.
他有四个哥哥，其中三个人相继自杀，路德维希也经常被自杀的念头困扰。
When he was young, he was interested in engineering.
他年轻时对工程学感兴趣。
After studying at Cambridge, his father died and he inherited a lot of money.
他从剑桥大学毕业后，父亲过世了，他继承了大笔遗产。
He gave it all away, mainly to his already very rich relatives and went to live in spartan solitude in Norway.
他把所有钱都送人了，大部分给了那些已经很富有的亲戚们，然后到挪威去过简朴的独居生活。
Then he started writing a book published in 1921 called Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
接着他开始写书，1921年出版了《逻辑哲学论》。
It was a short, beautiful and baffling work.
这是一本篇幅短小、文字优美、但很深奥的作品。
The big question that Wittgenstein asks in it is How do human beings manage to communicate ideas to one another?
维特根斯坦在书中提出的重大问题是：人类怎样把观念传递给别人？
And his answer, which felt revolutionary, is that language works by triggering within us pictures of how things are in the world.
他的答案听起来极具革命性，他说语言是这样工作的，它在我们的头脑中触发了事物在现象世界的图像。
Wittgenstein thought of this while reading a newspaper article about a Paris court case in which, in order to explain with greater efficacy, the details of an accident that had taken place a road junction, the court had arranged for the accident to be reproduced visually using model cars and pedestrians.
维特根斯坦的这个灵感来自他在报纸上读到的一篇文章，文章提到在巴黎的一次庭审中，为了更有效地解释交叉路口发生的事故，法庭安排用汽车和行人模型重现那次事故。
It was a Eureka moment.
这对维特根斯坦来说是一个顿悟时刻。
In Wittgenstein's view words enables us to make pictures of facts.
维特根斯坦认为，词语让我们构建出事实的图像。
To say The palm tree is by the shore, paints a rapid sketch that like the model lets another person see the situation in their mind and understand.
比如我们说海滩上的棕榈树，就像画了一幅速写，好像模特一样让其他人在头脑中看到那个场景从而能够理解。
We're constantly swapping pictures between us.
我们不断地相互交换这些图像。
But the Paris court needed to resort to an actual model for a very important reason.
然而巴黎的法庭需要采用一个真实的模型，这其中有非常重要的原因。
Because on the whole, we're very bad at managing to make good pictures in the minds of others.
因为总体而言，我们非常不善于在其他人的头脑中构建图像。
Communication typically goes wrong because other people have, as we put it, the wrong picture of what we're meaning.
如果沟通有问题，如我们上文所说，通常是因为其他人把我们要说的东西理解为错误的图像。
It can take an age for two people to realize divergences over quite basic things.
两个人要想意识到他们对非常基本问题的分歧可能耗时良久。
Problems of communication typically start because we don't have a clear and accurate enough picture of what we mean in our own heads.
我们对于头脑中要表达的内容没有清晰准确的图像，
We say quite meaningless or modeled or unelaborated things which therefore can go nowhere in the minds of others.
我们说的尽是些无意义的、仿效别人的、没有完整表达的东西，如此一来它们在别人的头脑里更是一团浆糊。
There's another danger
还有一种可能存在的风险：
That we read more meaning into the words of others than they ever intended or than is warranted.
我们从别人的话里理解出弦外之音，而说话的人却并无此意。
You tell your partner you had a conversation with an interesting person at the hotel reception.
你告诉伴侣你在酒店前台和一个有趣的人聊天。
The picture in your mind is an innocent one.
你头脑中的图像很正常，
But your partner swiftly forms a very different impression.
但你伴侣头脑中立刻闪现出非常不同的画面。
The Tractatus is a plea by a very taciturn, silent and precise Austrian philosopher to speak more carefully and less impulsively.
这位非常沉默、寡言、精确的奥地利哲学家，通过《逻辑哲学论》请求人们说话更谨慎、不要太冲动。
As he famously put it "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, daruber muss man schweigen."
他有句名言：“对于不可说的东西，我们必须保持沉默。”
When he published it, Wittgenstein thought somewhat grandly that the Tractatus was the last work of philosophy that would ever need to be written.
当这本书出版时，维特根斯坦不无骄傲地认为《逻辑哲学论》是哲学领域最后一本需要写出的书。
So he looked around for how to fill the rest of his life.
自此他就打量下半辈子怎么过。
He turned to architecture and spent a couple of years designing a house for his sister in Vienna.
他转去研究建筑学，花了好几年时间帮维也纳的姐姐设计房子。
He spent ages getting the door handles and radiotors right.
他花了好久才把门把手和暖气弄对头。
Very late on in the project, he got increasingly bothered about the ceiling in one of the rooms and came to the conclusion that is was too low.
工程最后，他被一个房间的天花板弄得越来越烦躁，他下结论说是房顶太低。
At immense inconvenience to everyone, he insisted on having it raised by three centimeters.
他坚持要把天花板抬高三厘米，即使这让所有人都非常麻烦。
It made all the difference, he thought.
这三厘米很关键啊，他想。
Then, in 1929 Wittgenstein suddenly returned to Cambridge and to philosophy because he realized he had some new things to say about language and communication.
1929年，维特根斯坦忽然回到剑桥大学，重新研究哲学。因为他对语言和沟通有新的发现。
And so he began to write a second book published posthumously, and that we know as Philosophical Investigations.
因此他开始写作第二本书，这本书在他去世后出版，书名叫《哲学研究》。
Instead of thinking that language is only just about pictures, he developed the idea that language is like a kind of tool that we use to play different games, which doesn't literally mean games, more patterns of intentions.
在“语言只是事关图像”这个观点之上， 他进一步发展该理念，他认为语言就像工具，我们用它来玩不同的游戏，不是单纯字面上的游戏，更像是意图的不同类型。
So if a parent says to a frightened child "Don't worry - everything's gonna to be fine", they can't know it really will be fine.
所以如果父母对受到惊吓的孩子说：“别怕，一切都会好的。”父母其实并不确信是不是真的会好。
They aren't playing the Rational Prediction From Available Facts Game.
他们并不是在玩“从已知事实做理性预测”的游戏。
They're playing another game
他们在玩另外一种游戏：
The Words as an Instrument of Comfort and Security Game
“运用词语作为工具去安慰人，给人安全感”的游戏。
Wittgenstein's point is that all kinds of misunderstandings arise when we don't see which kind of game someone is involved in.
维特根斯坦这里要说是所有误解的发生是由于我们不理解别人在玩什么样的游戏。
If one's partner says "You never help me. You're so unreliable."
如果某人的伴侣说：“你从来不帮我。你太不可靠了。”
The natural inclination might be to hear this as a part of a Stating the Facts Game; like saying The battle of Waterloo was in 1815.
很自然地我们可能会把这作为“陈述事实”游戏的一部分；就像说：滑铁卢战役发生于1815年。
So one might respond by citing facts about how actually you got the car insurance yesterday, and you bought some vegetables at lunch time, too.
那么这个人也许会拿事实来回应，说他昨天办了车险，中午还买了菜等等。
But actually, this person is involved in a different language game.
但实际上，对方是在玩不同的游戏。
They're using words not to capture facts.
话中并不是在陈述事实。
They're playing The Help and Reassurance Game.
他们在玩“帮助和宽慰”的游戏。
So in the language game, they're involved in, "You never help" means "I want you to be more nurturing."
所以在他们这个语言游戏中，“你从来不帮忙”实际上的意思是“我要你更呵护我。”
Working out the game in question, is, Wittgenstein realized, key to good communication.
维特根斯坦发现，理解正在讨论的是哪种游戏，是良好沟通的关键。
In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein also wanted to draw attention to how much of our self-understanding depends on the words of others, on languages that have developed publicly and communally over many centuries long before we're born.
在《哲学研究》中，维特根斯坦还探讨了我们对自身的理解有多少依靠别人的语言，它们在我们出生前很多世纪以来就一直被人们集体使用着。
For example, on Sunday afternoon I might fall prey to a worried, confused mood as I think about the week ahead and everything I've got to do.
比如在周日下午我可能开始发愁郁闷，因为我想到了即将到来的下个礼拜和所有我得做的事情。
My ability to know this very private side of myself and to help others know me will be hugely enhanced if I have to hand a word that's been around a while Angst.
这时候如果我能用一个有点历史的词，能极大程度地帮助自己了解隐秘的自并让别人了解我。
A word which was helpfully formulated by the philosopher Kierkegaard in 19th century, Copenhagen.
这个词是“忧虑”。多亏了19世纪哥本哈根哲学家克尔凯郭尔当年创造了它。
Words like angst or also nostalgia, melancholy or ambivalent and many others help us to name elusive areas of our own experience.
这个词是“忧虑”。多亏了19世纪哥本哈根哲学家克尔凯郭尔当年创造了它。
Language is a public tool for the understanding of private life.
语言是一个大众工具，可以用来理解私人生活。
The richness of the language we're exposed to is therefore really important to our self-knowledge.
因此我们接触的丰富语言对于我们了解自己至关重要。
Reading many books gives us tools with which to help to know who we are.
读过的书是帮我们了解我们是谁的工具。
Though a lot of Wittgenstein's philosophy is deeply complicated, it's underpinned by a desire always to be helpful.
尽管维特根斯坦的哲学 大部分很深奥，但支撑他哲学的基础对我们一直都会有帮助。
The task of philosophy, said Wittgenstein, is to show the fly the way out of the fly bottle.
维特根斯坦写到，哲学的任务，是给苍蝇指出飞出捕蝇瓶的出路。
The particular fly bottle, he was interested in, was language.
他尤其感兴趣的那个捕蝇瓶是语言。
And before his death from cancer in 1951, he managed to let out for us a lot of word flies usefully for us all.
1951年他死于癌症，他终于成功地让我们的许多语言苍蝇飞出了捕蝇瓶，这对大家都很有益。
