求知欲视角下西方哲学传统中必然和偶然概念的反思

Reflections on the Conceptions of Necessity and Contingency in Traditional Western Philosophy from the Perspective of Desire for Knowledge

从古希腊起,西方哲学传统就依据“是否一定如此”的区分标准,把“必然”和“偶然”说成是事实自身的两个特征,并首先将它们定位在存在论而非认识论领域,结果造成了一系列扭曲。然而,深入分析求知欲的确定性诉求会发现,这对概念是指人们的认知在描述事实时呈现的“确定”和“不确定”状态。理解它们的这种认知性原初语义,有助于我们说明认知能力有限的人们如何能够如实描述事实真相的内在机制。

Since ancient Greece,traditional western philosophy has regarded“necessity”and“contingency”as two different features of the fact itself according to the criterion of“whether it must be so”.Therefore,both of them are first positioned in the field of ontology rather than of epistemology,resulting in a series of theoretical distortions.However,an in-depth analysis of the demand for certainty of desire for knowledge will show that this pair of concepts actually refers to the two different states of“certainty”and“uncertainty”that people’s cognition presents when describing facts.Only by understanding their original cognitive semantics can we explain the internal mechanism of how people with limited cognitive ability can describe the truth.