随着人工智能技术的飞速发展，我们正站在一个新时代的十字路口。在这样的背景下，人文学科的价值和文科生的未来成为社会各界关注的焦点。
2024年9月，普林斯顿大学校长克里斯托弗·L·艾斯格鲁伯（Christopher L. Eisgruber）在新生开学典礼上发表了一次深刻的演讲，探讨了在AI时代博雅教育的重要性以及文科生如何找到自己的定位。
艾斯格鲁伯校长指出，长久以来，社会上存在一种误解，认为文科是虚的，而理科才是真本事。然而，这种观念忽略了人文学科在培养全面发展的人才中的独特价值。他强调，博雅教育不仅仅是为了培养一个成功的人，甚至也不是为了培养一个有公民素养的人，而是为了造就一个完整的人。
以下为中英文对照的演讲稿：
照片来源：普林斯顿大学官网
Please let me begin by saying again what a pleasure it is to welcome you to Princeton.
首先，请允许我再说一次，热烈欢迎你们来到普林斯顿大学。
I'm delighted to greet all of you who gather here today as you begin your Princeton journeys.
我很高兴向今天聚集在这里的各位表示欢迎，你们即将开始普林斯顿之旅。
The vibrant weeks at the beginning of each new academic year invigorate all of us, and they are especially memorable for newcomers to campus.
每个新学年的前几周让我们所有人都充满活力，对于刚到校园的新生来说尤其令人难忘。
I guarantee that there will be sights and conversations from this week, moments of surprise or wonder or newfound friendship that you will recall vividly for many decades.
我保证，本周的景象、交谈、惊喜、惊奇的时刻或新建立的友谊将会让你们在几十年后仍记忆犹新。
Fei-Fei Li, with whom we will talk later today, recounts in this year's pre-read impressions of Princeton that have stayed with her since her graduation 25 years ago.
我们将在今天晚些时候采访李飞飞，在今年的预读中，她回忆起了自25年前毕业以来，始终留在她心中的普林斯顿印象。
She talks about pale cement paths that slice green lawns into polygonal fragments and walls of brown brick pockmarked by centuries of history.
她谈到了将绿色草坪切成多边形碎片的浅色水泥小路，以及布满数百年历史痕迹的棕色砖墙。
She might well be referring to this lawn here in front of NASA Hall, where we gather now.
她指的很可能就是我们现在聚集的 NASA 大厅前面的这片草坪。
Professor Li also says that Princeton's libraries captured her heart.
李教授还说，普林斯顿大学的图书馆深深地吸引了她。
Because the collections made her feel that she was in the presence of something transcendent.
因为这些藏书让她感到自己正处于某种超凡脱俗的事物之中。
I love that idea of something transcendent because I think it expresses a profound insight about this place and the education that happens here.
我喜欢这种超越常理的想法，因为我认为它表达了对这个地方以及这里的教育的深刻见解。
You probably know that Princeton is famous for its deep commitment to liberal arts education.
你们可能知道，普林斯顿大学因其对文科教育的高度重视而闻名。
And one aim of liberal arts education is to connect you with a sense of the transcendent.
文科教育的一个目的就是让你体会超越的感觉。
I want to reflect for a while on that phrase, the liberal arts.
我想解释一下“文科”这个词。
Apparently, many people no longer understand what it means.
显然，许多人没有理解它的含义。
A public opinion pollster once told me that universities should stop talking about the liberal arts.
一位民意调查员曾经告诉我，大学应该停止谈论文科。
He said that people think that liberal means left wing, and arts are impractical.
他说，人们认为自由主义意味着左翼，而艺术是不切实际的。
So combining the two terms is, in his words, and I quote, a branding disaster.
因此，用他的话来说，将这两个术语结合起来是一场大型灾难。
He said that he personally favored liberal arts education, but that colleges needed to rebrand it. Rebrand liberal arts education.他说，他个人赞成文科教育，但大学需要重新定义它。重塑文科教育。
It's possible, I suppose.
我想这可能需要。
What would we call it?
我们该怎么称呼它？
Perhaps we could call it future-oriented leadership education.
或许我们可以称之为面向未来的领导力教育。
That sounds exciting, practical, and cutting-edge, don't you think?
这听起来令人兴奋、实用且前沿，不是吗？
One aim of liberal arts education is to equip you, not just with knowledge or skills that you need for your first job, but with ways of knowing that will enable you to tackle questions and challenges that nobody has yet imagined.
文科教育的目的是不仅为你提供第一份工作所需的知识或技能，还能让你应对尚未有人想象过的问题和挑战。
Professor Li's career provides an example.
李教授的职业生涯就是一个例子。
Her undergraduate studies exemplified the breadth that we expect from a liberal arts education at Princeton, where that concept encompasses the natural sciences, the social sciences, and engineering, along with the humanities.
她的本科学习体现了我们对普林斯顿大学文科教育的广度的期望，这一概念涵盖了自然科学、社会科学、工程学和人文学科。
Dr. Li majored in physics at Princeton, and she also took electives in art history.
李博士在普林斯顿大学主修物理学，同时还选修了艺术史课程。
She became a leader in the field of computer science by posing novel questions about how the human mind categorizes images, questions that drew inspiration from art, psychology, and neuroscience, among other fields.
她提出了关于人类思维如何对图像进行分类的新颖问题，从而成为计算机科学领域的领军人物，这些问题是从艺术、心理学和神经科学等领域汲取灵感。
Now, she's investigating ethical issues about human-centered artificial intelligence, issues that would have been hard for anyone to formulate when she graduated 25 years ago.
现在， 她正在研究以人为本的人工智能的伦理问题，这些问题在 25 年前她毕业时没有人会想到。
I'm reluctant, though, to reduce liberal arts education to preparation for leadership or professional success.
然而，我不愿意将文科教育简化为领导力或职业成功所作的准备。
Even of a lofty sort, we at Princeton want you to study art history and physics and many other subjects for reasons that go beyond their value to your careers.
即使你们目标更高远，但普林斯顿大学希望你们学习艺术史、物理学和许多其他学科，其原因不仅仅在于它们对你们的职业价值。
My friend Michael Gordon, Princeton's new dean of the college, is a passionate advocate for liberal arts education, as was his predecessor, Jill Dolan.
我的朋友、普林斯顿大学新任（本科学院）院长迈克尔·戈登 (Michael Gordon)和前任院长吉尔·多兰一样，是文科教育的热情倡导者。
Dean Dolan occasionally talked about education for citizenship.
多兰院长偶尔会谈到公民教育。
Perhaps that's a better way to rebrand the liberal arts.
或许这是重塑文科教育的更好方法。
Education for citizenship has the advantage of connecting closely to the original meaning of liberal arts.
公民教育的优点在于与文科的本义紧密契合。
Liberal referred to freedom as in the word liberty, not to left-wing politics.
自由派所指的自由是指“自由”本身这个词，而不是指左翼政治。
And arts referred to disciplines or studies rather than to the creative arts as we understand them today, though of course the creative arts are a part of a liberal arts education.
这里所说的“艺术” 指的是学科或研究， 而不是我们今天所理解的创造性艺术，尽管创造性艺术是文科教育的一部分。
Liberal arts thus meant an education worthy of a free person.
因此，文科意味着适合任何人接受的教育。
So education for citizenship is a decent update or translation of the original idea.
因此，公民教育是对原始理念的适当更新或翻译。
The phrase education for citizenship illuminates another important part of what we want a liberal arts education to do.
公民教育一词阐明了我们推崇文科教育的另一个重要原因。
We want it to enable you to participate fully in all facets of public and private life.
我们希望它能使你们充分参与到公共和私人生活的各个方面。
We believe, for example, that to be a fully flourishing citizen in the age of artificial intelligence, engineers must comprehend human culture and ethicists must understand technology.
例如，我们认为，要在人工智能时代成为一个全面发展的公民，因此人工智能工程师必须理解人类文化， 伦理学家必须了解人工智能技术。
For me, though, and I'm pretty sure that both Dean Gordon and Dean Dolan would agree, even the idea of education for citizenship is a bit too narrow, too instrumental to capture all of what we mean by liberal arts education.
对我， 还有我相信戈登院长和多兰院长都会同意这一点，即使是公民教育的想法还尚且过于狭隘，太过工具化， 无法完全涵盖我们所说的文科教育。
That education is not just for success or for citizenship, it is also valuable for its own sake.
教育不只是为了成功或拥有公民身份，它本身也具有价值。
Liberal arts education includes a commitment to the idea that learning and research are among the activities that enable the human spirit to soar.
文科教育包含着这样一种理念：学习和研究是让人类精神得以升华的方式之一。
We want you to feel the thrill of discovery, to get carried away by ideas, and to get lost in thought.
我们希望你们能感受到发现的快感，沉醉于创意之中，沉浸在思考中。
We hope that amidst the books, experiments, artworks, and equations, that you will sometimes feel, as Fei-Fei Li did, that you are in the presence of something transcendent.
我们希望，在书籍、实验、艺术品和方程式之中，像李飞飞一样感受到自己正处于某种超越的存在之中。
We hope that these moments and experiences will give you joy and kindle a lifelong love of learning.
我们希望这些时刻和经历能给你们带来快乐，激发你们对学习终生的热爱。
Maybe I can rebrand liberal arts education as something transcendent.
也许我可以将文科教育重新定位为一种超越。
I expect, though, that the pollsters would tell me that transcendence sounds impractical.
不过，我预计民意调查人员会告诉我超越听起来不切实际。
They are wrong, I think.
但我认为他们错了。
Transcendent education is truly practical in the best and most important way because it helps us to be fully human.
超越教育最重要的意义是真正实用，因为它帮助我们成为完整的人。
Perhaps one of you will come up with a better rebranding.
也许你们中的一个人会想出对其重塑更好的方案。
Until then, though, I will just keep talking about liberal arts education, regardless of what pollsters say.
不过，在此之前，无论民意调查人员怎么说，我都会继续谈论文科教育。
Fortunately, Princeton's brand seems to be doing just fine.
幸运的是，普林斯顿的这块招牌似乎表现不错。
We proudly declare on our admissions website that we provide a liberal arts education and we explain what that means and as you know lots of people want to come here.
我们在招生网站上自豪地宣布我们提供文科教育，解释了它的意义，正如你所知，很多人都想来这里。
I am so glad that you wanted to come here.
我很高兴你曾梦想来到这里。
I am so glad that you are here.
也很高兴你们现在站在这里。
I look forward to getting to know you in the years ahead as you explore the wonder and the mysteries of this place where I hope that in your classrooms, in the libraries, and throughout this campus you will encounter something transcendent.
我期待在未来的岁月里与你们相识，在你们探索这个地方的奇迹和奥秘时，我希望在你们的教室、图书馆和整个校园里，遇到一些超凡脱俗的东西。
To Princeton's great class of 2028, to our incoming transfer students, to our new graduate students, and to everyone who joins or returns to this beautiful campus as we begin a new academic year, I say welcome to Princeton and best wishes for the year ahead.
对于普林斯顿大学 2028 届的优秀毕业生、即将入学的转校生、新研究生以及在新学年开始时加入或返回这个美丽校园的每一个人，我要说欢迎来到普林斯顿，祝愿你们在新的一年里一切顺利。
Welcome to Princeton.
欢迎来到普林斯顿。
