raise a question = “提出一个问题”；has its difficulties 表示有其特有难处。
提出这些问题本身就有困难。
这是过渡句：核心问题已经提出 → 现在说明为何难谈。
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显然，提出这样的问题有其困难。
50At first glance, they seem to belong to what used to be called “philosophy” or “metaphysics,” two terms and two fields of inquiry that, as we all know, have fallen into disrepute.
52Carnap’s statement that metaphysics should be regarded as poetry certainly goes counter to the claims usually made by metaphysicians; but these, like Carnap’s own evaluation, may be based on an underestimation of poetry.
典故Carnap and metaphysics — 鲁道夫·卡尔纳普是逻辑实证主义代表人物，主张许多形而上学命题没有认知意义；把它们比作诗，意在否定其知识主张。
53Heidegger, whom Carnap singled out for attack, retorted by stating that philosophy and poetry were indeed closely related; they were not identical but sprang from the same source—which is thinking.
卡住了？海德格尔接受亲缘性，却拒绝贬低诗
作者在说什么
卡尔纳普特别攻击海德格尔；海德格尔的回应不是否认哲学与诗相近，而是说两者虽不相同，却共同源于思考。
攻击对象
whom Carnap
single out = “从众多对象中特别挑出”。
卡尔纳普特别以海德格尔为靶子。
回应方式
that …
retort = “反驳／回嘴”；by stating 说明反驳方式。
海德格尔用一个相反判断回击。
核心回答
not identical but
spring from = “发源于／产生于”。这个共同源头就是思考。
哲学与诗不同，却同源。
听出精确关系：closely related ≠ identical；共同源头是 thinking。
典故Aristotle on poetry and philosophy — 亚里士多德在《诗学》等著作中把诗视为比单纯历史叙述更接近普遍性的活动，因此诗与哲学并非简单对立。
55Wittgenstein’s famous aphorism “What we cannot speak of we must be silent about,” which argues on the other side, would, if taken seriously, apply not only to what lies beyond sense experience but even more to objects of sensation.
引用Hegel, “the This of sense” — 出自《精神现象学》“感性确定性”。黑格尔指出，语言无法说出纯粹个别的“这个”，因为说出的词总具有普遍性。
58Was it not precisely the discovery of a discrepancy between words, the medium in which we think, and the world of appearances, the medium in which we live, that led to philosophy and metaphysics in the first place?
59Except that in the beginning, it was thinking, in the form either of logos or of noēsis, that was held to reach truth or true Being, while by the end the emphasis had shifted to what is given to perception and to the implements by which we can extend and sharpen our bodily senses.
62For just as the crisis in theology reached its climax when theologians, as distinguished from the old crowd of non-believers, began to talk about the “God is dead” proposition, so the crisis in philosophy and metaphysics came into the open when the philosophers themselves began to declare the end of philosophy and metaphysics.
64(The attraction of Husserl’s phenomenology sprang from the anti-historical and anti-metaphysical implications of the slogan “Zu den Sachen selbst”; and Heidegger, who “seemingly remained on the metaphysical track,” actually also aimed at “overcoming metaphysics,” as he has repeatedly proclaimed since 1930.⁹)
典故Zu den Sachen selbst / overcoming metaphysics — 胡塞尔的口号意为“回到事情本身”；海德格尔则把自己的计划描述为克服西方形而上学传统，而非再建立一个传统体系。
65It was not Nietzsche but Hegel who first declared that the “sentiment underlying religion in the modern age [is] the sentiment: God is dead.”¹⁰
卡住了？“上帝已死”作为现代宗教感受，先由黑格尔提出
作者在说什么
阿伦特纠正常见归属：最早把“上帝已死”说成现代宗教底层情感的不是尼采，而是黑格尔。
纠正归属
not A but B 排除 A、确认 B。
否定通常想到的尼采，强调黑格尔。
宣告内容
the in the modern age
underlie = “构成……的基础／潜伏在……之下”。
现代宗教底层的情感是上帝已死。
把重音放在名字：not Nietzsche / Hegel first。
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最早宣称“现代宗教背后的情感［是］这种情感：上帝已死”的，不是尼采，而是黑格尔。
引用Hegel, “God is dead” — 阿伦特强调，“上帝已死”在尼采之前已出现在黑格尔对现代宗教意识的描述中。
66Sixty years ago, the Encyclopaedia Britannica felt quite safe in treating “metaphysics” as philosophy “under its most discredited name,”¹¹ and if we wish to trace this disrepute further back, we encounter Kant most prominently among the detractors, not the Kant of the Critique of Pure Reason, whom Moses Mendelssohn called the “all-destroyer,” the alles Zermalmer, but Kant in his pre-critical writings, where he quite freely admits that “it was [his] fate to fall in love with metaphysics” but also speaks of its “bottomless abyss,” its “slippery ground,” its utopian “land of milk and honey” (Schlaraffenland) where the “Dreamers of reason” dwell as though in an “airship,” so that “there exists no folly which could not be brought to agree with a groundless wisdom.”¹²
典故Kant’s images of metaphysics — 康德一生既被形而上学吸引，又不断批判其无根据的推测。Schlaraffenland 是德语传说中的安逸丰饶幻想乡。
67All that needs to be said today on this subject has been admirably said by Richard McKeon: In the long and complicated history of thought, this “awesome science” has never produced “general conviction concerning [its] function . . . nor indeed much consensus of opinion concerning its subject matter.”¹³
68In view of this history of detraction, it is rather surprising that the very word “metaphysics” has been able to survive at all.
卡住了？坏名声如此持久，名称竟还能存活
作者在说什么
鉴于形而上学长期遭到内部和外部贬斥，真正令人惊讶的反而是“形而上学”这个词竟一直没有消失。
考虑背景
this history
in view of = “考虑到／鉴于”。
鉴于前述整个历史。
惊讶对象
the very word …
at all 加强惊讶：竟然还能有任何形式的存续。
连这个名称本身都还能存活。
不是惊讶它衰落，而是：被贬这么久，词还活着。
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鉴于这段贬斥的历史，“形而上学”这个词本身竟然还能存活，颇为令人惊讶。
69One almost suspects that Kant was right when as a very old man, after having dealt a deathblow to the “awesome science,” he prophesied that men will surely return to metaphysics “as one returns to one’s mistress after a quarrel” (wie zu einer entzweiten Geliebten).¹⁴
人几乎会怀疑康德是对的：他年事已高时，在给这门“令人敬畏的科学”以致命打击之后，预言人们必定会回到形而上学，“就像一个人在争吵后回到自己的情人身边”（wie zu einer entzweiten Geliebten）。
引用Kant’s mistress simile — 康德把人类对形而上学的持续吸引比作与情人争吵后仍会回头；批判不能消除理性提出终极问题的冲动。
70I do not think this very likely or even desirable.
卡住了？她拒绝康德式的“重返形而上学”
作者在说什么
阿伦特随即收回上一句的半认真猜测：她不认为人真会回到旧形而上学，也不认为这种回归值得期待。
双重否定
not very likely
not A or even B 同时否定可能性和价值；even 把否定推进到“值得希望”。
既不大可能，甚至也不可取。
这句直接否定上一句：return is neither likely nor desirable。
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我认为这既不大可能，甚至也并不可取。
71Yet before we begin to speculate about the possible advantages of our present situation, it may be wise to reflect upon what we really mean when we observe that theology, philosophy, metaphysics have reached an end—certainly not that God has died, something about which we can know as little as about God’s existence (so little, in fact, that even the word “existence” is misplaced), but that the way God had been thought of for thousands of years is no longer convincing; if anything is dead, it can only be the traditional thought of God.
72And something similar is true of the end of philosophy and metaphysics: not that the old questions which are coeval with the appearance of men on earth have become “meaningless,” but that the way they were framed and answered has lost plausibility.
73What has come to an end is the basic distinction between the sensory and the suprasensory, together with the notion, at least as old as Parmenides, that whatever is not given to the senses—God or Being or the First Principles and Causes (archai) or the Ideas—is more real, more truthful, more meaningful than what appears, that it is not just beyond sense perception but above the world of the senses.
典故Parmenides and the two-world hierarchy — 巴门尼德区分真理之路与意见之路，成为西方传统中“真实存在高于感官显现”这一等级的重要开端。
74What is “dead” is not only the localization of such “eternal truths” but also the distinction itself.
卡住了？死去的不只是“真理在哪里”，而是二分本身
作者在说什么
被宣告死亡的，不只是把永恒真理安置在某个超感性领域的做法；连“感性／超感性”这条区分本身也失效了。
第一层死亡
the of eternal truths
localization = “给……确定位置／所在领域”。
把真理放置在超感性世界。
更深一层
not only …
the distinction itself 强调不是搬动边界，而是边界本身消失。
连支撑定位的二分也死去。
推进关系：not only location / the distinction itself。
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“死去”的不仅是把这些“永恒真理”安置在某处的做法，还有这一区分本身。
75Meanwhile, in increasingly strident voices the few defenders of metaphysics have warned us of the danger of nihilism inherent in this development; and although they themselves seldom invoke it, they have an important argument in their favor: it is indeed true that once the suprasensory realm is discarded, its opposite, the world of appearances as understood for so many centuries, is also annihilated.
77No one knew this better than Nietzsche, who, with his poetic and metaphoric description of the assassination of God,¹⁵ has caused so much confusion in these matters.
引用The Twilight of the Idols — 尼采在“‘真实世界’如何最终变成寓言”一节追踪并取消形而上学的真实／表象二分。
79It was merely a symbol for the suprasensory realm as understood by metaphysics; he now uses, instead of “God,” the expression “true world” and says: “We have abolished the true world. What has remained? The apparent one perhaps? Oh no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent one.”¹⁶
80This insight of Nietzsche’s, namely, that “the elimination of the suprasensory also eliminates the merely sensory and thereby the difference between them” (Heidegger),¹⁷ is actually so obvious that it defies every attempt to date it historically; all thinking in terms of two worlds implies that these two are inseparably connected with each other.
81Thus, all the elaborate modern arguments against positivism are anticipated by the unsurpassed simplicity of Democritus’ little dialogue between the mind, the organ for the suprasensory, and the senses.
82Sense perceptions are illusions, says the mind; they change according to the conditions of our body; sweet, bitter, color, and so on exist only nomō, by convention among men, and not physei, according to true nature behind the appearances.
83Whereupon the senses answer: “Wretched mind! Do you overthrow us while you take from us your evidence [pisteis, everything you can trust]? Our overthrow will be your downfall.”¹⁸
84In other words, once the always precarious balance between the two worlds is lost, no matter whether the “true world” abolishes the “apparent one” or vice versa, the whole framework of reference in which our thinking was accustomed to orient itself breaks down.
85In these terms, nothing seems to make much sense any more.
卡住了？旧坐标失效后，旧概念中的一切都难再成立
作者在说什么
在“真实／表象”这套旧术语中，一旦二分框架崩塌，任何东西都不再显得很有意义。
限定框架
in these terms = “用这些概念／按照这套说法”。
在上述两世界概念中。
结果
nothing seems to
make sense = “有意义／讲得通”；any more = “不再”。
旧语言中的意义全面失灵。
短句总结：framework gone → its terms stop making sense。
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按照这些概念，似乎一切都不再有多少意义。
86These modern “deaths”—of God, metaphysics, philosophy, and, by implication, positivism—have become events of considerable historical consequence, since, with the beginning of our century, they have ceased to be the exclusive concern of an intellectual elite and instead are not so much the concern as the common unexamined assumption of nearly everybody.
87With this political aspect of the matter we are not concerned here.
卡住了？她暂时把政治权威问题放在书外
作者在说什么
这些共同假定如何成为社会和政治权威的问题，并不是此处的研究对象；她要把注意力收回到思考能力本身。
排除范围
we are with the political aspect
be concerned with = “研究／处理”，不是“担心”。
此处不处理政治层面。
这是范围声明：political aspect outside this inquiry。
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我们在这里不讨论这件事的政治层面。
88In our context, it may even be better to leave the issue, which actually is one of political authority, outside our considerations, and to insist, rather, on the simple fact that, however seriously our ways of thinking may be involved in this crisis, our ability to think is not at stake; we are what men always have been—thinking beings.
89By this I mean no more than that men have an inclination, perhaps a need, to think beyond the limitations of knowledge, to do more with this ability than use it as an instrument for knowing and doing.
90To talk about nihilism in this context is perhaps just unwillingness to part company with concepts and thought-trains that actually died quite some time ago, though their demise has been publicly acknowledged only recently.
91If only, one would like to imagine, we could do in this situation what the modern age did in its early stage, that is, treat each and every subject “as though no one had touched the matter before me” (as Descartes proposes in his introductory remarks to “Les Passions de l’âme”)!
引用Descartes: begin anew — 笛卡尔式的开端要求暂时搁置既有意见，从主体自身重新奠定可靠知识。
92This has become impossible, partly because of our enormously enlarged historical consciousness, but primarily because the only record we possess of what thinking as an activity meant to those who had chosen it as a way of life is what we would call today the “metaphysical fallacies.”
93None of the systems, none of the doctrines transmitted to us by the great thinkers may be convincing or even plausible to modern readers; but none of them, I shall try to argue here, is arbitrary and none can be simply dismissed as sheer nonsense.
94On the contrary, the metaphysical fallacies contain the only clues we have to what thinking means to those who engage in it—something of great importance today and about which, oddly enough, there exist few direct utterances.
96It would permit us to look on the past with new eyes, unburdened and unguided by any traditions, and thus to dispose of a tremendous wealth of raw experiences without being bound by any prescriptions as to how to deal with these treasures.
98The advantage would be even greater had it not been accompanied, almost inevitably, by a growing inability to move, on no matter what level, in the realm of the invisible; or, to put it another way, had it not been accompanied by the disrepute into which everything that is not visible, tangible, palpable has fallen, so that we are in danger of losing the past itself together with our traditions.