香港作家董啟章的長篇小說《自然史三部曲》是一項規模龐大的寫作計畫。此計畫採取「自然史」的形式，旨在跨越文明史觀轉向一切事物的源頭追索。進而，這一系列創作主要是透過多聲部的對位和應答去營造，小說的時間與速度、情感與思考皆呈現出繁複而動態的效果。就內容言，自然史意在廣納物質與語言的創造、時空與情感的迸生、身體與性愛的顯露，以及人類作為物種的誕生與成長（Bildung）等包羅萬有的主題。藉此，自然史試圖重新思索一個人與自我、他人以至世界的複雜關係，並且在不返回基礎形上學的前提下再度探問人類的存有與行動之條件。 　　在方法上，本研究首先沿著董啟章的小說創作軌跡去勾勒自然史的孕生過程和主題結構，接著引發巴赫金（Mikhail Bakhtin）與董啟章在小說理論上的差異對話，從而針對三部曲的敘事形式和內容進行文本詮釋。我們重點強調巴赫金的時空體（chronotope）範疇與對話性（dialogicality）思想，以及他對歌德與杜斯妥也夫斯基的詮釋將會是董啟章與巴赫金之間的潛在理論戰場。此外，本論文亦將反身地探問董啟章的小說本體論，並提出「自然寫實主義」的概念來描述其小說風格。具體而言，自然寫實主義將從兩個面向鋪陳論證，亦即三部曲中的自然即是歷史性以及寫實主義超越客觀性的非傳統意涵。 　　首部曲《天工開物‧栩栩如真》展開作者與主角的美學倫理問題，繼而在自我意識的分裂對話中遭遇可能的想像他者。這部曲的原創之處在於重新納入自然的假設，凸顯自然與人為彼此延伸或開放的關鍵在於想像的再造，位處人之盡頭的嶄新思考（時間）和語言（生命）。第二部《時間繁史‧啞瓷之光》積極破除作者自我的迷障，回應生活中的具體他人。這部曲除了以時空體的迸生理解對話性的成長，更特別透過諸般藝術形象作為純粹符號，一方面證明自我與他人的對話總有超越語言溝通的可能，另方面暗指自然正是要透過準自然的文物揭櫫，在眾多主體性抵消的零和之處浮現。第三部《物種源始‧貝貝重生之學習年代》的人物返回觀點外在化、立場公共化的新古典精神。這部曲凸顯了作者自我的退隱同時也是多重作者再次進場的契機。發展至此，大寫作者的回歸已不再意涵辯證綜合的某個絕對精神，而比較是某種實證集合的自然人存有體。於是，人類透過書寫的行動與身體的經驗重新獲得了學習和成長的潛能。 　　最後，本研究將論證，董啟章的自然寫實主義創新地結合歌德的自然科學觀和杜斯妥也夫斯基穿透主體的寫實主義，意即在巴赫金的小說理論基礎上進行了雙重跨越。與此同時，董啟章的自然史三部曲激進地超越了片面的政治、經濟和社會史觀。他針對小說文類的創造性實驗冒險地催生出一種後歷史的人類科學，也許甚至是一部未來性的人類史詩。 / Hong Kong novelist Dung Kai-Cheung’s Natural History Trilogy is a writing project on the grand-scale. This project is presented in the form of “natural history”, a form of traversing the entire history of civilization to inquire into the source of all things. The series of fictional works mainly utilize a multi-vocal device of counterpoints or mutual responses to create an effect of moving labyrinths in the novel with regards to its narrative time and speed, affect and idea. In terms of content, natural history intends to accommodate a wide variety of themes such as the creation of materiality and language, the emergence of time-spaces and affects, the manifestation of the human body and sexuality, as well as the birth and growth (Bildung) of the human species. As such, natural history seeks to reconsider the complex relationships a single human being may enter with him/herself, with others, and with the world. As a result, natural history reexplores the conditions of being in the world and human action without lapsing into fundamental metaphysics. On the methodological level, this thesis first of all outlines the preparatory phases and thematic structures of natural history along the trajectory of Dung Kai-Cheung’s early writings, and thereafter initiates an alternative dialogue about the theory of the novel between Mikhail Bakhtin and Dung Kai-Cheung with and aim to conduct textual interpretations of the trilogy’s narrative forms and plot contents. We will foreground Bakhtin’s conception of chronotope and dialogicality as well as his interpretation of Goethe and Dostoevsky as the potential theoretical battlegrounds between Bakhtin and Dung. Additionally, this thesis will reflexively search after Dung Kai-Cheung’s ontology of the novel, thereby putting forward a notion called “natural realism” to describe the style of his trilogy. Specifically speaking, we will elaborate on the idea of natural realism in two respects, namely the unconventional implications of nature as historicity and realism as supra-objectivity. The first episode Works and Creations poses a question of aesthetic ethics regarding the author-hero relationship in which the possibility of encounters with fantastic others can be created through an internal dialogue of divided self-consciousnesses. The originality of this episode resides in staging a hypothetical return of nature for the sake of showcasing that the mutual openness and extension between natural and artificial facts depend on remaking of imagination, and resides in a new horizon of thought and language at the end of man. The second episode Histories of Time further engages in lifting the barrier of the authorial self, after which a living response to actual others may be recovered. This episode not only understands dialogical Bildung through the prism of chronotopic emergence but also envisages a variety of artistic figures as pure signs. This literary device is designed to demonstrate that dialogues between the self and others could always surpass the linguistic form of communication, and also intimate that nature is manifested through these cultural relics of quasi-nature and reemerged in the extermination of multiple subjectivities at the end of a zero-sum game. The third episode The Age of Learning brings the characters back to the neo-classical spirit in which each viewpoint gains a notable voice and all standpoints are rendered public. This episode lays emphasis on the retreat of the authorial self as a simultaneous chance for the return of multiple authorship. As of now, the return of the Author no longer implies the dialectical synthesis of some absolute spirit, but rather a certain positive assembly of natural human beings. Henceforth, the human species regains the potentialities of learning and growth through the action of writing and bodily experience. Eventually speaking, the thesis will argue that Dung Kai-Cheung’s natural realism is the fruitful result of an innovative integration of Goethe’s idea of natural science and Dostoevsky’s subject-penetrating realism, a result based upon striding across Bakhtin’s interpretations of both literary giants. In the meantime, Dung Kai-Cheung’s trilogy of natural history opens up a frontier radically transcend any one-sided view of history in favor of politics, economics and/or society. His creative experiment with the novel genre ventures to deliver a post-historical human science, perhaps even a future-oriented human epic.

Dans cette thèse, je propose une lecture renouvelée de l’itinéraire philosophique d’Hilary Putnam concernant la problématique du réalisme. Mon propos consiste essentiellement à défendre l’idée selon laquelle il y aurait beaucoup plus de continuité, voir une certaine permanence, dans la manière dont Putnam a envisagé la question du réalisme tout au long de sa carrière. Pour arriver à une telle interprétation de son oeuvre, j’ai essentiellement suivi deux filons. D’abord, dans un ouvrage du début des années 2000, Ethics without Ontology (2004), Putnam établit un parallèle entre sa conception de l’objectivité en philosophie des mathématiques et en éthique. Le deuxième filon vient d’une remarque qu’il fait, dans l’introduction du premier volume de ses Philosophical Papers (1975), affirmant que la forme de réalisme qu’il présupposait dans ses travaux des années 1960-1970 était la même que celle qu’il défendait en philosophie des mathématiques et qu’il souhaitait défendre ultérieurement en éthique. En suivant le premier filon, il est possible de mieux cerner la conception générale que se fait Putnam de l’objectivité, mais pour comprendre en quel sens une telle conception de l’objectivité n’est pas propre aux mathématiques, mais constitue en réalité une conception générale de l’objectivité, il faut suivre le second filon, selon lequel Putnam aurait endossé, durant les années 1960-1970, le même type de réalisme en philosophie des sciences et en éthique qu’en philosophie des mathématiques. Suivant cette voie, on se rend compte qu’il existe une similarité structurelle très forte entre le premier réalisme de Putnam et son réalisme interne. Après avoir établi la parenté entre le premier et le second réalisme de Putnam, je montre, en m’inspirant de commentaires du philosophe ainsi qu’en comparant le discours du réalisme interne au discours de son réalisme actuel (le réalisme naturel du commun des mortels), que, contrairement à l’interprétation répandue, il existe une grande unité au sein de sa conception du réalisme depuis les années 1960 à nos jours. Je termine la thèse en montrant comment mon interprétation renouvelée de l’itinéraire philosophique de Putnam permet de jeter un certain éclairage sur la forme de réalisme que Putnam souhaite défendre en éthique. / In this dissertation I propose a new reading of the philosophical itinerary of Hilary Putnam on the matter of realism. In essence, my purpose is to argue that there is much more continuity than is normally understood, and even a degree of permanence, in the way in which Putnam has viewed the question of realism throughout his career. To arrive at this interpretation of Putnam I essentially followed two veins in his work. First, in a volume published in the early 2000s entitled Ethics without Ontology (2004), Putnam establishes a parallel between his conception of objectivity in the philosophy of mathematics and in ethics. The second vein comes from a comment he made in the introduction to the first volume of his Philosophical Papers (1975) to the effect that the kind of realism he presupposed in his work of the 1960s and 70s was the same that he upheld in the philosophy of mathematics and wished to argue for at a later date in ethics. Following the first vein makes it possible to better grasp Putnam’s general conception of objectivity, but in order to understand how such a conception of objectivity is not unique to mathematics but is instead a general conception of objectivity one must follow the second vein. There, in the 1960s and 70s, Putnam adopted the same kind of realism in the philosophy of science and in ethics as he had in the philosophy of mathematics. Following this path, one realises that there exists a very strong structural similarity between Putnam’s first realism and his internal realism. After establishing this connection between Putnam’s first and second realism, I draw on Putnam’s remarks and compare the internal realism discourse to his current realism (the natural realism of ordinary people) to demonstrate, contrary to the prevalent interpretation, that there has been a great deal of consistency in his conception of realism from the 1960s to the present day. I conclude the dissertation by demonstrating how my new interpretation of Putnam’s philosophical itinerary makes it possible to shed light on the kind of realism he wishes to champion in ethics.