西方的两个世界的世界观 The Western Two-World Worldview

我们注意到西方二元两个世界学说辨别了永恒的实在世界与变化的现象世界。

第一世界以‘实在’、‘知识’、‘真理’这类词语来界定，是正面、必然与自给的，而第二世界则以‘现象’、‘意见’及‘虚假’来描述，是负面、偶然与倚靠主要世界来解释。

第一世界被构成为创造泉源，把混乱变成自然与伦理秩序的创造与决定原理。西方人就是从这些决定原理中倾向于把世界解释为直线的与因果的，并在结论后面寻找前提、结果后面寻找原因、活动后面寻找作用者。

就是那个巴门尼德拒绝了世界呈现变化与多元化的普通见识，而坚持辨别现象与现实。现象世界就是所见之物体，或者是我们一厢情愿所欲目睹之物体。但是，官感是不能被信任的，因为它们是会犯错的，而它们一直在欺骗。真实只能通过纯粹逻辑、罗各斯，就是说以理性思维来接连。

所以，巴门尼德的这个想法后面含有另一个相同的重要的意见与真理的辨别。现象就只能产生意见，而实在才是真理的基础。

柏拉图承受了巴门尼德的存在不变的基本想法，发展了他自己的两个有差别的可知之真理世界与可视之意见世界。

西方传统以古典希腊的两个世界观作为‘客观’的学说基础；那就是置身事外而能观看事物的整体观的可能性。这个观点是说，独立于我们思维之外，存在着实在的客体与真相；而描述这一实在只能靠一种方法。

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We have noted that the western dualistic two-world theory distinguish between a permanently real world and a changing world of appearance.

The primary world which is defined in terms of ‘reality’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth’, is positive, necessary, and self-sufficient, while the second world is described as ‘appearance’, ‘opinion’, and ‘falsity’ is negative, contingent, and dependent for its explanation upon the first.

The primary world is construed as the originative source, a creative and determinative principle that brings both natural and moral order out of chaos. It is from this notion of determinative principle that westerners tend to take an explanation of the world to be linear and causal, entailing the identification of a premise behind a conclusion, a cause behind an effect, some agency behind an activity.

It was Parmenides who rejected the commonsense notions that world exhibits change and multiplicity and insisted on a distinction between appearance and reality. The world of appearance is how things seem or how one tends to perceive things. However, the senses are not to be trusted since they are fallible and they constantly deceive. What is real is only accessible through pure logic, the Logos, that is, rational thought.

Therefore, what lies behind this is Parmenides’ equally important distinction between opinion and truth. Appearance cannot produce more than opinion, whereas reality is the basis of truth.

Plato took Parmenides’ basic idea of the unchangeability of being and developed from this his distinction between the intelligible world of truth and the visible world of opinion.

The two-world view of classical Greece has given western tradition a theoretical basis for objectivity; that is the possibility of standing outside and taking a wholly external view of things. The view is that there is a reality of objects and facts that exists independent of the mind and there is only one correct description of this reality.