私人感觉、私人语言与第三人称知识

Private Sensations,Private Language and Third-Person Knowledge

感觉经验的私人性似乎在逻辑上同时蕴涵不可说性和不可知性。本文在浅析几种关于私人性哲学观点的基础上,认为私人感觉虽然在某种弱式的意义上来说是现象不可说的,但我们不仅可以对其合法地宣称第一人称知识,而且也可以对其合法地宣称第三人称知识。这同时表明,我们没有必要也不可能构建所谓的私人语言来言说私人感觉的现象内容。

It seems that the concept of the privacy of sensory experience logically entails its ineffability and unknowability.The present paper,based upon a tentative analysis of certain philosophical views on the concept of privacy,argues that we can legitimately make third-person knowledge claims,as well as first-person knowledge claims,about so-called private sensations,which are phenomenally ineffable in an attenuated sense.This also suggests that it is neither necessary nor possible to construct an alleged private language to talk about the phenomenal content of private sensations.