语言哲学视角下的时间问题

Problems of time in the philosophy of language

关于时间存在的基本单位、时间的量化、时间的变化以及时间范畴的界定等问题的争论对语言哲学理论的建构和发展影响深远。本文从麦克塔加对时间真实性的质疑出发,探讨语言哲学研究中有关时间的论题。研究发现,将事件作为时间的基本单位来佐证时间的真实性促成了戴维森语义学的提出和新戴维森语义学的发展;时间的量化在语言中通过蒙太格语法得以实现,并在后续的研究中以逻辑算子和参数的形式不断发展和完善;时间的变化反映到语言的词汇和句法层面,分别表现为倾向性词语和条件句;时间范畴的界定突出使用者的作用,既涉及其所处语境,也涉及其认识论承诺、社会文化等非语言背景。

Debates over the basic unit,quantification,change and categorization of time have deeply influenced the theorization and development of the philosophy of language.Based on McTaggart’s questions concerning the unreality of time,this paper discusses the problems of time from a language-philosophical perspective.The study finds that event as the basic unit of time has been used to verify the reality of time and promoted the emergence of Davidsonian semantics and the development of Neo-Davidsonian semantics;the quantification of time has been realized by Montague Grammar in languages and continued to develop and improve in the forms of logical operators and parameters in the subsequent research;the change of time has been represented by dispositional vocabulary and conditional sentences at both the lexical and syntactic levels;the definition of time has emphasized the role of language users,including the contexts of their language use as well as the non-linguistic epistemological commitment and socio-cultural contexts in which their language use occurs.