“红”与黑——论颜色语词的意义与指称

“Red” and Black:On the Meaning and Reference of Color Words

视觉经验的私密性使得与之关联的词语具有隐匿的复杂意义。民间观点默认具体颜色语词的意义是客体和主体间的客观指称。近现代的讨论逐步放弃乃至最终完全背离了民间观点。原因在于,学者们相信颜色经验是主观感觉,颠倒光谱可能是真实的,而且根据维特根斯坦式的公共语言论,无论颠倒光谱现象是否是真实的,具体颜色语词也只具有关系意义,没有现象上的指称。事实上,民间客观主义大概率为假,但在大多数情况下,颠倒光谱现象不一定真实,至少可以证明黑色现象是个例外,因此现有理论多少都有些不尽人意,除关系意义之外,具体颜色语词的意义还可能包含公共的现象指称,而且即便它为真,也不能根据公共语言论认为具体颜色语词的意义不包含现象指称。民间观点不见得完全错误。

The privacy of visual experience makes the words associated with it have hidden and complex meanings.The folk view defaults that the meaning of specific color words is the objective reference between object and inter-subject.In modern times,the discussion gradually abandoned and eventually completely departed from the folk view.The reason is that scholars believe that color experience are subjective feelings,and “spectrum inversion” may be real,and according to Wittgensteinian “public language theory”,no matter whether the phenomenon of spectrum inversion is real or not,the specific color words only have relational meaning,without phenomenological reference.In fact,folk objectivism is likely to be false,but in most cases,the phenomenon of spectrum inversion is not necessarily true,at least the black phenomenon can be proved to be an exception,so the existing theory is somewhat unsatisfactory,in addition to the relational meaning,the meaning of concrete color words may also contain a common phenomenon reference,and even if it is true,nor can we hold that the meaning of specific color words does not involve phenomenal reference according to the “public language theory”.Folk opinion is not entirely wrong.