第21句見：Day21
《哲學(xué)的故事》的第22句：序言中的第2段第9句。

Some ungentle reader will check us here by informing us that philosophy is as useless as chess, as obscure as ignorance, and as stagnant as content. "There is nothing so absurd," said Cicero, "but that it may be found in the books of the philosophers." Doubtless some philosophers have had all sorts of wisdom except common sense; and many a philosophic flight has been due to the elevating power of thin air. Let us resolve, on this voyage of ours, to put in only at the ports of light, to keep out of the muddy streams of metaphysics and the "many-sounding seas" of theological dispute. But is philosophy stagnant? Science seems always to advance, while philosophy seems always to lose ground. Yet this is only because philosophy accepts the hard and hazardous task of dealing with problems not yet open to the methods of science--problems like good and evil, beauty and ugliness, order and freedom, life and death; so soon as a field of inquiry yields knowledge susceptible of exact formulation it is called science. Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement. Philosophy is a hypothetical interpretation of the unknown (as in metaphysics), or of the inexactly known (as in ethics or political philosophy); it is the front trench in the siege of truth. Science is the captured territory; and behind it are those secure regions in which knowledge and art build our imperfect and marvelous world. Philosophy seems to stand still, perplexed; but only because she leaves the fruits of victory to her daughters the sciences, and herself passes on, divinely discontent, to the uncertain and unexplored.
浙江大學(xué)版本：哲學(xué)是對未知（譬如形而上學(xué)）或不盡知（譬如道德論或政治哲學(xué)）的臆想式詮釋，站在以圍堵策略獲取真理的最前沿。

解析

這句話細化了哲學(xué)的科學(xué)的探索范圍，并強調(diào)了其在追求真理過程中的重要性。句子畫面感十足，想像我們在與真理作戰(zhàn)，哲學(xué)是排頭兵，處于最前線。
1、Philosophy is a hypothetical interpretation of the unknown (as in metaphysics),…”哲學(xué)對未知的事物進行假設(shè)性解釋。

2、”...or of the inexactly known (as in ethics or political philosophy) ;…”哲學(xué)的另一個研究對象：不完全已知。在倫理學(xué)和政治哲學(xué)等領(lǐng)域，哲學(xué)處理的就是部分了解或是了解不夠精確的問題。
"the inexactly known”
在短語 "the inexactly known" 中，"inexactly" 仍然是作為副詞使用，用來修飾動詞 "known"（知道）。不過，這里的 "known" 是用作一個過去分詞，與 "the" 一起構(gòu)成名詞短語，表示一類事物。整個短語 "the inexactly known" 可以翻譯為“不完全知曉的事物”或“不確切已知的事物”。

3、”...it is the front trench in the siege of truth." 這里使用軍事比喻來描述哲學(xué)的探索性。trench與siege都是軍事用語，
trench: a long, narrow hole that is dug in the ground : ditch 壕溝；溝
The first port of call was to create a trench all the way around the skeleton.要做的第一件事就是圍著骨架旁邊挖一個壕溝。
siege：a situation in which soldiers or police officers surround a city, building, etc., in order to try to take control of it包圍圈
They called family around the world, including in America, begging for help to escape the siege.他們呼求世界各地的親人，包括美國的親人們，祈求他們的幫助，以逃離這種被圍攻的日子。

哲學(xué)是對未知事物（如在形而上學(xué)中）或不完全知曉的事物（如在倫理學(xué)或政治哲學(xué)中）進行的假設(shè)性演繹。在對追求真理的攻堅戰(zhàn)中，它是前線戰(zhàn)壕。