推理主义:逻辑与意义理论

Inferentialism:Logic and Theory of Meaning

很多人习惯于自下而上从词项之意义出发去理解语句进而把握推理,推理主义者则倒过来由推理去解释语句和词项,认为语言表达式的意义决定于它们在人类推理中所扮演的角色,因而我们在理解他人主张或掌握某些概念时应重点关注它们如何充当某一类推理的前提和结论(或是其中的一部分)。当这种革新观念的理论效应正在当代认识论、语言哲学等领域持续发酵和释放时,不应忘记它的逻辑学根底和渊源。然而,推理主义并非简单地抬高现代逻辑的价值,毋宁说,它让我们有机会重新理解逻辑学的本性及地位,尤其是逻辑与当代哲学的内在相关性。哲学家们在把肇始于逻辑学领域的推理主义路径发展成为全域性的语义推理主义的同时,也在整理和重塑现代逻辑的基本观念,从而使得我们对“何谓逻辑”“逻辑的认识论”“逻辑与理性的关系”等根本性逻辑哲学问题的回答,呈现出新的面向和复杂性。作为逻辑与哲学深层互动的最好例证之一,推理主义的诞生及其在当前哲学界的影响力表明,逻辑学并未失去它曾在20世纪哲学研究中所享有的“引擎”地位。

Whereas one tends to understand sentences and inferences by words and their combinations in a bottom-up approach,inferentialists from the top down explain the meaning of sentences and words in terms of some rules of inference,especially their roles as premises or conclusion(or parts of premise or conclusion)of correct inferences.As the theoretical applications of inferentialism in contemporary epistemology and philosophy of language are increasing and multiplying,it should not be forgotten that its main ideas come originally form logic.However,it can’t be suggested that inferentialism has promoted greatly the status of modern logic in philosophy.The point is that it gives us a chance to review the nature of modern logic and the relevance of logic to contemporary philosophy from a brand-new perspective.Semantic inferentialism as a global inferentialism,not only stretches beyond the reach of logical inferentialism,but also clarifies and rebuilds our conception of logic,thereby calling for a different solution to fundamental problems such as“what is logic?”“the epistemology of logic”,and“the relation of logicality and rationality”.All these disputes motivated by inferentialism attest to the role of logic as an engine of philosophical investigations in the 21th century.