物質(zhì)是無(wú)法永存的-權(quán)力會(huì)易手，建筑會(huì)崩塌，人會(huì)死亡。但是思想、理論、世界觀和民間故事則會(huì)代代相傳。所有這些因素通過(guò)影響人類(lèi)思想、整合大眾才智和意愿來(lái)塑造世界。
從柏拉圖、孔子，到在聯(lián)合國(guó)教科文組織 (UNESCO) 成立大會(huì)上提出“和平與戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)都源自人之思想”的奧登（W.H. Auden），思想的重要性被廣泛認(rèn)知且一路傳承。尤瓦爾·赫拉利（Yuval Noah Harari）在其暢銷(xiāo)書(shū)《人類(lèi)簡(jiǎn)史》中更是直言，人類(lèi)與其他物種最大的區(qū)別就在于，人類(lèi)是唯一能夠依據(jù)人權(quán)、金錢(qián)、神靈等抽象概念進(jìn)行大規(guī)模合作的生物。
歷史長(zhǎng)河中，新的概念框架都源于想象，并在人類(lèi)條件允許的時(shí)候影響現(xiàn)實(shí)世界。民主、道家、儒家、大革命、啟示錄、馬列主義毛澤東思想、新政、存在主義、華盛頓共識(shí)、結(jié)構(gòu)主義及生態(tài)學(xué)等等的例子不勝枚舉。
不幸的是，當(dāng)今的高等教育，往往是孤立于社會(huì)現(xiàn)狀之外的象牙塔。而其內(nèi)部由于缺少溝通進(jìn)一步導(dǎo)致了各個(gè)學(xué)科之間的孤立。保羅·薩繆爾森（Paul Samuelson）曾經(jīng)感嘆，經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)往往被簡(jiǎn)化為用數(shù)學(xué)公式來(lái)預(yù)測(cè)股市的走向，哲學(xué)在很多大學(xué)中被削減成邏輯學(xué)。其后果是，應(yīng)對(duì)合成生物學(xué)或者人工智能對(duì)人類(lèi)文明所帶來(lái)的挑戰(zhàn)這一重大問(wèn)題交由新聞媒體和小說(shuō)家來(lái)回答。與大數(shù)據(jù)分析綁在一起的生物科學(xué)，加速了社會(huì)變革的步伐，逾越了千年以來(lái)所謂人類(lèi)生活法則的界限——然而哲學(xué)界對(duì)這些人類(lèi)倉(cāng)促選擇的未來(lái)發(fā)展方向所做的反思卻少之又少。
在自然科學(xué)之外，尤其是人文科學(xué)方面，這一斷鏈導(dǎo)致了各文化之間缺乏互動(dòng)和溝通。世界最古老的的大學(xué) — 印度的納蘭達(dá)大學(xué)（Nalanda University）— 得以重建的核心原因，就是希望本著重塑跨文明之間對(duì)話的精神，促進(jìn)亞洲偉大哲學(xué)體系和宗教流派之間的交流。
世界最知名的旅行者及文字記者皮柯·伊耶（Pico Iyer），重申了這個(gè)擔(dān)憂：“過(guò)去40年來(lái)，世界充斥著各種危機(jī)，讓我不禁對(duì)世界越來(lái)越小的結(jié)論產(chǎn)生懷疑。恰恰相反，由于距離拉近和相熟的錯(cuò)覺(jué)，我們之間的鴻溝事實(shí)上在越變?cè)酱蟆Ｔ谛畔r(shí)代，我們很多人對(duì)于其他文化和觀念的了解程度小于以往任何時(shí)刻。
百萬(wàn)美元的哲學(xué)獎(jiǎng)
基于這樣的使命召喚，博古睿研究院于2015年下設(shè)了哲學(xué)與文化中心。該中心旨在打破藩籬，整合薈萃西方和亞洲現(xiàn)有的研究和教學(xué)中心來(lái)研究不同文明的思想。其合作伙伴包括哈佛大學(xué)、斯坦福大學(xué)、紐約大學(xué)，牛津大學(xué)，劍橋大學(xué)，清華大學(xué)，北京大學(xué)等等。
此外，為了使重要的哲思能夠沖破大眾化信息，脆弱不堪的精英以及墨守成規(guī)的學(xué)術(shù)界的束縛，他們需要一個(gè)助產(chǎn)士，而博古睿哲學(xué)獎(jiǎng)，就有意擔(dān)任這個(gè)角色。
諾貝爾獎(jiǎng)（Nobel Prize）涵蓋了自然科學(xué)、文學(xué)以及和平等等領(lǐng)域。普利茲克獎(jiǎng)（Pritzker Prize）涵蓋了建筑等領(lǐng)域。然而，沒(méi)有任何一個(gè)重大獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)是專(zhuān)注于對(duì)我們生命有著重大影響的思想所帶來(lái)的貢獻(xiàn)。
基于此，博古睿哲學(xué)獎(jiǎng)（Berggruen Philosophy Prize）應(yīng)運(yùn)而生。該獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)將于2016年年底首次頒出，旨在獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)一位在世的，其思想理念對(duì)當(dāng)今社會(huì)和未來(lái)生活都產(chǎn)生了深遠(yuǎn)影響的思想家。該獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)著重呼吁社會(huì)意識(shí)到偉大思想的重要性，激發(fā)人類(lèi)從廣度和深度上推動(dòng)人文理念和社會(huì)科學(xué)創(chuàng)新。
博古睿哲學(xué)獎(jiǎng)尋求的是古代“智慧之愛(ài)”所贊美的哲學(xué)，即不僅僅是對(duì)某種技能的掌握，而是對(duì)更深層的理念的不懈追求。技術(shù)、社會(huì)、和文化的變革之快常常導(dǎo)致人類(lèi)很難用長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)的眼光來(lái)看待和應(yīng)對(duì)問(wèn)題。因此，我們需要千古永流傳的真理來(lái)指引我們的生活，無(wú)論這些真理是來(lái)自宗教界、世俗倫理、或是科學(xué)界。
當(dāng)今時(shí)代，新科技和經(jīng)濟(jì)全球化對(duì)人類(lèi)生活產(chǎn)生了前所未有的影響。因此，我們更迫切地需要回答一些根本問(wèn)題，例如在科技的挑戰(zhàn)下，如何重新定義人類(lèi)以及在全球化媒體和金融的影響下，如何重新審視社區(qū)和國(guó)家的界限。不平等的加劇促使我們重新審視我們對(duì)弱勢(shì)群體的責(zé)任與義務(wù)。氣候變化的挑戰(zhàn)使我們更好地意識(shí)到共享地球的重要性。
面對(duì)以上諸多問(wèn)題，人類(lèi)需要的不僅僅是技術(shù)進(jìn)步和具體政策的制定，而是要進(jìn)行深度批判性的思考以采取正確的行動(dòng)。博古睿哲學(xué)獎(jiǎng)致力于引導(dǎo)社會(huì)關(guān)注偉大思想，并且向偉大的思想家們致敬。
當(dāng)然，需要承認(rèn)的是，現(xiàn)今沒(méi)有任何一個(gè)獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)能夠擁有全球視野，并且沖破國(guó)界和東西方文明的藩籬。這一觀點(diǎn)僅僅存在于由互聯(lián)網(wǎng)即時(shí)聯(lián)通的商業(yè)世界，以及當(dāng)人類(lèi)面臨生存危機(jī)時(shí)，為確保種族延續(xù)所做的共同努力。
人類(lèi)正在走進(jìn)一個(gè)新紀(jì)元，一個(gè)由中東沖突而產(chǎn)生的數(shù)以萬(wàn)計(jì)的難民涌入歐洲心臟的時(shí)代；一個(gè)中國(guó)日益崛起的時(shí)代，股票市值初具雛形卻反復(fù)波動(dòng)或者經(jīng)濟(jì)和環(huán)境經(jīng)受著節(jié)能減炭帶來(lái)的沖擊。當(dāng)今世界，高效能機(jī)器人已經(jīng)可以很好地取代傳統(tǒng)勞動(dòng)力。這對(duì)我們來(lái)說(shuō)，是一個(gè)極為關(guān)鍵的時(shí)刻。我們要以更有延展性、更具想象力的方式在來(lái)思考人類(lèi)面臨的問(wèn)題，而不僅僅是局限于當(dāng)今缺乏活力的學(xué)習(xí)機(jī)制之下。
（Jennifer Bourne & Giselle Li翻譯，翻頁(yè)閱讀英文原文）
What is least material most endures. Power changes hands, buildings crumble and people die. But ideas, paradigms, worldviews and narratives live on. They shape the world by cultivating the soul, organizing the intellect and animating the will.
This has been understood from Plato and Confucius up through W.H. Auden who eloquently noted at the founding of UNESCO in the wake of WWII that peace, like war, “is born in the minds of men.” In his recent best-selling book, “Sapiens,” Yuval Noah Harari argues that what distinguishes humankind from all other species is its ability for large-scale cooperation based on mental abstractions such as human rights, money or gods.
Throughout history new conceptual frameworks have arisen in the imagination and taken hold in the physical world when circumstances of the human condition warrant. Democracy. Daoism. Confucianism, The Reformation. The Enlightenment. Marxism-Leninism-Mao-tse Tung Thought. The New Deal. Existentialism. The Washington Consensus. Structuralism. Ecology.
Unfortunately, today, universities have too often become islands of wisdom separated from the mainland of society. They are then further divided within among the silos of disciplines that rarely communicate with each other. As the late Paul Samuelson lamented, economics has too often been reduced to mathematical formulas that calculate stock market movements. Philosophy has been whittled down in so many departments to formal logic, leaving media pundits and novelists to address the grand civilizational issues that arise from the new challenges of synthetic biology or artificial intelligence. Obversely, the biosciences, combined with Big Data analysis, are speeding up biological evolution to the pace of social change, transgressing the boundaries of what it has meant for millennia to be human – all with precious little philosophical reflection on the path humanity is heedlessly taking.
Outside the hard sciences, and especially in the humanities, this disconnection extends beyond to a lack of interaction and communication across cultures. The essential reason the first university in the world, at Nalanda in India has been refounded is to help resurrect this spirit of cross civilizational learning in a center where the great Asian philosophies and religions first crossed each other.
One of the world’s most inveterate travelers and literary journalists, Pico Iyer, echoes this concern. “Forty years of criss-crossing the world,” he says, “ has led me to suspect that the world isn’t growing smaller; if anything, the differences, the distances between us are growing greater than they’ve ever been, in part because of the illusion of closeness or familiarity . In the Age of Information, many of us know less about other perspectives and other cultures than ever before.”
A One Million Dollar Prize for Philosophy
With this kind of summons in mind, the Berggruen Institute is creating a Philosophy and Culture Center that is uniquely dedicated to breaking through barriers to understanding and cross ideas across civilizational realms. The new Center will collaborate with existing teaching and research institutions, both in the West and in Asia, among them Harvard, Stanford, Tsinghua and Cambridge universities.
In addition, for ideas that matter to rise above the cacophony in our age of democratized information, fractured elites and hidebound scholarly disciplines, they need a midwife. The Berggruen Philosophy Prize hopes to be such a midwife.
Nobel Prizes cover everything from the hard sciences to literature and peace. There is the Pritzker Prize for architecture and so on. But there is no prize that focuses on the contributions of thought per se, on the grand, foundational ideas that impact all our lives.
And certainly, there is no such prize that is global in scope, crossing boundaries and civilizational spheres between East and West -- a perspective itself only now possible in a world tied together by commerce, linked in real time by the Internet and the planetary reach of the media, and when the species as a whole faces the common challenge of preserving that narrow band of livable climate that has so far enabled our species, among others, to flourish.
Humankind is heading into a world where conflicts in the faraway Middle East precipitate the mass migration of hundreds of thousands of refugees to the heart of Europe; where the pace of China’s growth, the volatility of its fledgling stock market or the rate of its carbon emissions impact all economies and their environment. A world where highly-productive robots may well supplant gainful employment. It is high time to focus our minds on our fate in a more expansive and imaginative way than the hallowed confins our institutions of learning at present generally allow.
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