从公孙龙子看中国语言哲学的困境

Revealing the Dilemma of Chinese Language Philosophy from Gongsun Longzi

公孙龙子是中国古代思想史上唯一的一位认真关注语言哲学、提出过诸多语言悖论并留下了系统的论证过程的哲学家。他的三篇有代表性的作品中,《白马论》触及了殊相和共相的矛盾关系,《指物论》展示了能指和所指的指谓关系,《名实论》则讨论了作为"正名"方法的名实关系。在其中,他以敏锐的眼光暴露了所有这些问题内部所隐藏的但不可回避的"自否定"结构,但却由于他自身的逻辑训练不够到位而无法自圆其说,出现了一系列的逻辑漏洞和诡辩,表明中国哲学中先天性的"反语言学倾向"导致这位中国古代最机智的语言哲学家陷入了无法解脱的困境。

Gongsun Longzi,as the only philosopher in the history of ancient Chinese thought who paid serious attention to the philosophy of language,proposed many linguistic paradoxes,and left a systematic process of argumentation.Among his three classic works,"On the White Horse"touches on the paradoxical relationship between the particular and the universal,"On the Referring of Things"demonstrates the predicative relationship between the signifier and the signified(reference),and"On Name and Reality" discusses the relationship between name and reality as a method of"rectification of names".In his arguments,he exposed the inescapable"self-negation"structure hidden within all these issues with a keen insight,but he was unable to explain himself consistently due to his own inadequacy of logical training.Thus,a series of logical gaps and sophistry emerged,and indicated the innate"anti-linguistic tendency"in Chinese philosophy.This shows that the innate tendency has led this most resourceful ancient Chinese philosopher of language into a dilemma from which he cannot escape.