为了解惑，这几天在狂读几本哲学书。正在读的一本书名是：How should we live--a practical Approach to Everyday Morality by Joh Kekes. 由芝加哥大学出版社出版。这书名似乎提示这是针对大众的书。但读了几页就知道不是。书的每一章都有一个典型的中年人面对的人生困惑。作者然后引用一些著名的哲学家 （主要是康德学派的学者）的论点试图帮助那些中年人解惑。之后，作者对这些同行的观点加以剖析，得出的结论是，这些哲学家的理论往往是左手持矛右手持盾，解决比不了现代平常人的很多惑。这本书没有提供解惑的方法，倒是清晰地表达了很多现代西方人难以名状的问题和烦扰，包括移植生活在西方社会里多年的我的一些困惑。
作者举出的各个现代中年人是西方后工业社会常常会遇到的问题。但这书并没有回答“how should we live" 的问题。只是把这些问题抛出来，并证明现有的哲学理论没法给这些人开药方。看到一半，却是越来越糊涂。他指出的这些典型中年人，如一位中年中学女教师困惑于理想和现实的差距，困惑于周围的人说的往往比做的好听，一位成功的中年律师不知道该继续他的律师职业还是选择从政。一位长在农场自学成才的中年工程师疲于工作，家庭，照料年迈父母以及业余打理日益衰敗的祖上经营了好几辈的农场。还有一位靠自己打拼成功的父亲挣扎在慈父和严父的角色中等等人生常见的问题。
书的文字要求读者非常认真，全神贯注的阅读。我感慨这些人的文字表达能力，把非常难以厘清的概念整齐的摆在读者的面前。下面摘抄一小段作者树立的用以攻击的靶子让你见识一下这些学者的文字功底。
”There is also the fact that we often do not understand ourselves very well. It is not easy for people to know what they really care about or what they truly love. Our motives and dispositions are notoriously uncertain and opaque, and we often get ourselves wrong." 事实上我们对自己也不太了解。想知道自己真正在乎的真正喜爱的是什么不是件容易的事。我们的动机和喜好飘忽不定，忽明忽暗，以至于常常搞错。
" So far as love is concerned, people tend to be so endlessly ambivalent and conflicted that it generally cannot be asserted entirely without caveat either that they do love something or that they don't. Frequently, the best that can be said is that part of them loves it and part of them does not."
"The inner lives of human beings are obscure, not only to others but to themselves as well. People are elusive. We tend to be rather poorly informed about our attitudes and desires, and about where our commitments truly lie. It is useful to keep in mind, then, that a person may care about something a great deal without realizing that he cares about it. It is also possible that someone really does not in the slightest care about certain things, even though he sincerely believes that he considers these things to be extremely important to him."
这些段落其实还算好懂的，称不上晦涩的。晦涩的是作者批这些段落的文字。
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