布拉德雷倒退与统一体难题

Bradley's Regress and the Problem of Unity

统一体是指由其部分组成的结构性实体,如句子、命题、事实等;由于布拉德雷倒退,这样的结构性实体面临着是如何可能的这一严峻的挑战。从20世纪之交开始,哲学家们为回应布拉德雷倒退投入了巨大的精力,他们大致提出了两种回应策略:其一是否认这一倒退是恶性倒退,其二,如弗雷格所做的,通过区分概念与对象,并把概念看作是不饱和的,从而将统一体的源泉归结到概念上。通过对两种策略的详细梳理,本文试图论证,它们都不成功。但是,一种保持第二种策略之精神的新的回应策略是可能的,而且这种策略可以得到弗雷格语境原则的支持。简单而言,该策略认为,无论是概念还是对象都是不饱和的,而这是解决统一体问题的关键。最后,通过借助于薄的个体与厚的个体之区分,尝试从本体论上解释对象(也即个体)为什么是不饱和的。

Since Bradley advanced his arguments （known as Bradley＇s Regress） against unities which composed of constituents, such as sentences, propositions and facts, the how a unity could be possible became a serious problem. Philosophers have mainly developed two strategies to answer Bradley＇s challenge. The first is to admit that there is a regress but deny the regress is vicious. The second, following Gottlob Frege, is to distinguish between concepts and objects, and ascribe the source of unity to unsaturated concepts. In this paper, I try to demonstrate that none of these two strategies will succeed. However, it is possible to develop a program based on the sprint of the second strategy and this program will also get its support from Frege＇s context principle. In simple terms, this program believes that both concepts and objects are unsaturated and this is the key to the problem of unity. In the end of this paper, I try to explain why objects （thin particulars） are unsaturated by distinguishing between thin particular and thick particular..