指称论、指称论证与指称测试

Theory of Reference, Argument from Reference and Reference Test

在分析哲学中,指称论扮演着相当重要的作用,它本身是语言哲学最为核心的问题。以弗雷格、罗素为代表的描述理论和以克里普克、普特南为代表的因果历史之间的争论构成了语言哲学的主要版图。从上个世界七十年代以来,一些哲学家将指称论的结论应用到其它领域(科学哲学、心灵哲学),一个语义学的结论对形而上学乃至伦理学产生了实质的影响,这导致另外一批学者开始注意到各种论证中都假设了某种特定的指称理论,试图反驳这一指称预设,双方都同意从语义学到本体论的论证,这种论证是为指称论证。这进一步说明指称论本身是否普遍必然为真不再是语言哲学内部的争论,而是具有普遍的哲学意涵。因此一些哲学家对指称理论进行经验检测,是为指称测试。从早期语言哲学中的指称论到本体论中的指称论证,一直到最近的实验哲学中的指称测试,都是为了回答一个根本的哲学问题:语言和世界的关系问题。

In the history of analytic philosophy,the theory of reference plays a very important role,which itself is the core field of philosophy of language.The debate between description theory(Frege and Russell)and causal history theory(Kripke and Putnam)constitutes the main territory of philosophy of language.Since the 1970s,some philosophers have applied the conclusions of theory of reference to other fields(philosophy of science,philosophy of mind),and a semantic conclusion has had a substantial impact on metaphysics and even ethics,which has led to another batch of scholars began to notice that a certain theory of reference was assumed in various arguments,and tried to refute this presupposition of this approach.Both sides agreed that the argument from semantics to ontology was called an argument of reference.This further shows that whether the theory of reference itself is universally and necessarily true is no longer an internal debate within philosophy of language,but has general philosophical implications.Some philosophers therefore conduct empirical tests of referential theories,known as referential tests.From the perspective of the history of analytic philosophy,from the theory of reference in the early philosophy of language,to the debate on the reference argument in ontology,and at last to the reference test in the recent experimental philosophy all aim to answer a fundamental philosophical question:what is the relationship between language and the world.