“思维读解”是认知心理学术语,用来描述我们将人类行为解释成其思想、情感、信仰和欲望等的能力。比如,“露丝伸手去拿巧克力,因为她想吃甜食”,再如,“彼得·沃尔什声音颤抖,因为再次见到克拉丽莎他很激动”。认知心理学也把这种能力称为我们的“思维理论”(Theory of Mind, ToM)。本文不区分这两个术语。
不断涌现的新奇术语让我们愈加急迫地使用“思维读解”或“思维理论”这个新概念来解释我们习以为常的现象。我们有能力将真实生活中的人—以及文学人物[3]—的行为解释为其隐含的思想状态,这是何等自然,因此我们不愿意使用一些新奇的术语来神化它,更不愿意将它抬高到一个特殊研究对象的地位。的确,“思维理论”在近20年一直受到认知心理学家的关注,其主要原因是他们遇到了很多病人,这些病人“从身体看思维”(Brook and Ross: 81)的能力被极大地损害了,也就是说,他们是“自闭症”患者。通过研究自闭症和众多相关的认知缺陷(比如亚斯柏格综合症),认知科学家和思维哲学家们开始将我们的思维读解能力视为一种特殊的认知能力,间接构建了我们的日常交流和文化身份的表征。
其次,对感兴趣于认知方法的文学研究者而言,与诸如文化历史主义或者女性主义进行对话并非可有可无。认知能力(如“思维理论”)不是脱离于人类及其具体历史文化表现的悬浮之物,而是像帕特里克·C·霍根(Patrick C. Hogan)归纳的“文学普遍性”那样,“千差万别地存在于具体的情景之中”(226)[17]。我们对伍尔夫了解的一切,包括她的生存际遇,或者《达罗卫夫人》创作的文学、文化和社会历史背景都非常有助于我们理解这个特定的女作家,在特定的历史时刻,在与一套特定文学传统的同谋与叛逆中,为什么要将其读者的认知“舒服区”边界推向极限(即超过四个意向层)。
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[3] 文学认知研究方法的一个重要观念,用Paul Hernadi的话来讲就是,“文学和非文学的表意过程没有明显差异…..文学体验并不是发生在认知或情感真空里:现代读者、听众、观众在心里处理虚构人物的来来往往,好像可以将他们比作实际发生的事件”(60,62)。相关讨论见Mark Turner, The Literary Mind.
[4] 关于非人类的其他灵长类动物的社会习性,参见Byrne and Whiten, Machiavellian Intelligence 及“The Emergence of Metarepresentation”; Gomez, “Visual Behavior”; Premack and Masser, “Perceptual Origins.”
[5] 关于“思维理论”之外的其他选择的讨论,参见Dennett, The Intentional Stance.
[6] Leo Kanner在1943年首次描述了自闭症。其后20年里,自闭症“被错误地认为是由冷淡的家庭氛围诱发的”。1977年,“一项标志性的研究成果表明,自闭症的发生受基因因素的极大影响”,之后“众多其他研究证实了自闭症是一种具有高度遗传性的紊乱症”(Hughes and Plomin 48)。
[21] George Butte引人注目的最新专著,I Know That You Know That I Know: Narrative Subjects from Moll Flanders to Marnie, 提出非常有趣的视角来观察作家建构一个“现在时刻”来“联系”不同人物主体的兴趣。Butte将Maurice Merleau-Ponty对连锁意识的研究用来考察众多18世纪和19世纪的小说,以及Hitchcock, Hawks及Woody Allen的电影,令人信服地提出,在Jane Austen写作的时代,叙事对人物意识的再现方式发生了变化:作家能够再现人物的“深层主体间性”,人物互相知道其他人物对自己的感受,并能通过其他人物能够观察到的身体语言来对这些感受做出反应,从而引发更多相互感受和反应。虽然Butte在书中没有提及认知科学或者“思维理论”,但他的论述在很多方面与使用认知科学或“思维理论”的文学批评是一致的。