回到生活世界:一种探索语义的人文策略

Lebenswelt Redux:A Humanistic Approach to Meaning

20世纪哲学出现了语言转向,分析哲学活动大行其道。分析活动表面看来似乎是借助于对日常语言和语法的分析廓清语义,从而消除哲学意义的模糊,找到解决哲学争论的门径。其实,分析活动背后深层的原因还是借助于语言分析寻求科学范式,找到确证的知识和真理。那么,基于语言的哲学或者语言哲学能否成为表征自然或者自在的世界的镜子呢?本文从语言和语义学理的角度说明:(1)语言学领域所谓的科学范式不能解决生活世界语言和意义问题;(2)语言哲学领域的许多逻辑和科学尝试都不能解决生活世界的语言和意义问题;(3)语言和言语有生成的语境,有生成的历史和历史性,言语事件的偶然性更不可能被所谓的普遍语言准则所涵盖。要研究语言和意义,必须回到生活世界和人本身。

Meaning has been brought into focus of attention by philosophers of language in the 20^th century for it has been taken as a window into mind and reality. This paper examines various approaches to meaning, in particular the so-called nomothetic or scientific one, arguing that language should not play its outsize role in understanding meaning and that meaning of language, man and society are inextricably linked and evolve in parallel and any treatment of meaning should not divorce it from man sui generis and the lebensweh in which meaning is grounded. This paper also claims that as an alternative, the humanistic approach merits further exploration and that the real function played by the philosophy of langauge resides in provoking pundits to think the relationship between langauge and reality twice, not its ability to come up with an ultimate solution to the study of of meaning.