概念变更与指称

Conceptual Change and Reference

模态逻辑的量化从其诞生之日起就饱受争议,支持者有卡尔纳普、丘奇等人,而蒯因是最著名的反对者之一,后者从同一性替换原则出发,论证了量化模态逻辑会导致模态区别的消解。然而,卡尔纳普等人的进路在蒯因的论证面前基本是站不住脚的,主要原因在于他们的语义学及相关的强本质主义立场;如引入弱本质主义和一种"双层语义学",则可以避免模态区别被消解的下场,并让量化模态逻辑变得可行。这种双层语义学把单称词项与普遍词项分开来,并赋予它们两种不同的语义学。在普遍词项那里,涵义是首要的,而在单称词项那里,重要的是指称。由此可以解决对象的识别问题,并使得量化模态逻辑成为可能。

Quantified modal logic is a controversial topic even since its date of birth,while proponents such as Carnap,Church had developed different approaches to it;one of the famous opponents is Quine,who argued that quantified modal logic will lead to a collapse of modal distinctions because of the substitutivity of identity.Followed Quine,this paper also viewed these appropaches as untenable because of their problematic semantics and strong notions of essentialism,but on the other side,by introducing a weak notion of essentialism and a'two-sorted semantics',the collapse of modal distinctions could be prevented,and quantification could become feasible.Unlike most popular semantics,the 'two-sorted semantics'divides singular terms and general terms into two different groups with two different semantics,while sense is primary in the case of general terms;reference is what matters in the case of singular terms.The identification of objects accomplished by this view of reference will contribute to make sense of quantified modal logic.