否定真理与不可满足性——解决莫尔纳问题的新尝试

Negative Truth and Unsatisfiabilities: A New Attempt to Solve Molnar’s Problem

莫尔纳问题使得否定真理以及相关主题再次成为了学界的争议焦点。从哲学史的角度来看,它并非一个全新的问题,罗素在逻辑原子主义时期就思考过类似的问题。尽管哲学家对莫尔纳问题从各个角度做出了回应,但是这些回应都有一些不足之处。从逻辑形式来看,否定真理主要可分为两类,一类是断言虚构或者主观创造的对象不存在的命题,另一类是断言某个实存对象不具有某种属性或者两个实存对象不具有某种关系的命题。前者断定了现实世界中的任何对象对于某个谓词合取表达式的不可满足性,后者断定了某些对象对于某个具体谓词表达式的不可满足性。客观存在的不可满足性可构成莫尔纳问题的一种新解答。

Molnar’s problem makes negative truth and related topicsv the focus of debate in contemporary metaphysics.From the perspective of history of philosophy,it is not a completely new problem.Russell had considered a similar problem during the period of logical atomism.Although philosophers have responded to the Molnar’s problem,these responses have been deemed problematic in some respects.In fact,negative truth can be mainly divided into two categories.One category is negative existential propositions which deny existence of fictional objects and they are also universal propositions;the other category is negative non-existential propositions which state that a real object does not have certain properties or two real objects do not have a certain relation.A negative existential proposition asserts the unsatisfiability of a conjunction of predicate in terms of any real objects,while a negative non-existential proposition asserts the unsatisfiability of a certain predicate in terms of a certain real object.The objective unsatisfiabilities can constitute a new solution to Molnar’s problem.