从经验到社会:论杜威的语言哲学

From Experience to Community: on Dewey's Philosophy of Language

杜威极其强调语言的重要性。他认为语言产生于经验,这些经验包括生物在进化过程中对自然的有模式的反应。从后果论的角度看,这些反应模式有助于保存生命,因而是有着隐晦意义的模式。在杜威看来,推论就是一项人类活动,那些生物性反应的模式中也有着隐晦的推论。通过有着共同目标的人际协作,隐晦的意义被清晰化,在这一过程中语言逐步形成。在成熟的语言形成之后,语言可以用来使得那些隐晦的意义和推论进一步清晰化为规则或规范。杜威的语言观也为克服当代哲学中自然主义和推论主义之间的裂隙提供了一条有益思路。

Language is highly stressed by Dewey. He thinks language arises from experience,which includes creatures’ patterned reactions to nature in the process of evolution. These patterned reactions help reserving life. From the consequential point of view,they are thus implicitly meaningful. According to Dewey,inference is a kind of human activity,and those physical patterned reactions are also inferences-involved. It’s through interactive cooperation to accomplish a common goal that implicit meanings are made explicit,in the process of which,language comes into existence. Mature language is used furtherly to make rules or norms out of implicit meanings and inferences. Dewey’s philosophy also provides us a beneficial line of thought of overcoming the logical gap between contemporary naturalism and inferentialism.