艾伦·卡尔松论功能不确定性与转化问题

Allen Carlson on the Problems of Indeterminacy and Translation

艾伦·卡尔松在其环境美学新著《功能之美》中提出了功能不确定性与转化问题。他拓展了"选择效果理论"用以解决前者,提倡"功能之美现象学"用以解决后者。本文认为,自然对象根本不存在功能不确定性问题,因为自然对象所有现存之有效功能均为恰当功能。对于人造物的功能不确定性问题,卡尔松的"选择效果理论"仅能部分地解决,需重新围绕特性、语境与意图三端分别建立不同的方案以解决之。对于功能转化问题,卡尔松仅仅总结了功能之美的数种特征,并未从认识论角度真正解决此问题,而正面提出审美直觉观念很可能是解决功能转化问题的有效途径。

Allen Carlson investigates the problems of indeterminacy and translation in his Functional Beauty, in which, he develops ＂selected effects theory of function＂ to deal with the former problem while he suggests settling the latter with ＂phenomenology of functional beauty＂. This paper will show that there is no such problem of indeterminacy for natural objects because all of present-existing functions are appropriate ones in nature. For man-made objects, Carlson＇s new version of ＂selected effects theory of function＂ only partly works, and it＇s necessary to develop different solutions centered on property, context and intention for a comprehensive settlement to the problem of indeterminacy of man-made objects. For the problem of translation, what Carlson does is to sum- marize characters of functional beauty but he fails to veritably solve the problem from the perspective of epistemology. In the author＇ s opinion, the concept of aesthetic intuition may be helpful for the settlement of the problem of translation.