具体描述
In 1962 a mimeographed sheet of paper fell into my possession. It had been prepared by Ernest Adams of the Philosophy Department at Berkeley as a handout for a colloquim. Headed 'SOME FALLACIES OF FORMAL LOGIC' it simply listed eleven little pieces of reasoning, all in ordinary English, and all absurd. I still have the sheet, and quote a couple of the arguments here to give the idea. • If you throw switch S and switch T, the motor will start. There fore, either if you throw switch S the motor will start, or, if you throw switch T the motor will start . • It is not the case that if John passes history he will graduate. Therefore, John will pass history. The disconcerting thing about these inferences is, of course, that under the customary truth-functional interpretation of and, or, not, and if-then, they are supposed to be valid. What, if anything, is wrong? At first I was not disturbed by the examples. Having at that time consider able personal commitment to rationality in general and formal logic in par ticular, I felt it my duty and found myself easily able (or so I thought) to explain away most of them. But on reflection I had to admit that my expla nations had an ad hoc character, varying suspiciously from example to example.
作者简介
目录信息
1.1 Aims 1
1.2 Beyond Syntax 2
1.3 Bloomfield's Dilemma 3
1.4 The Research Strategy of the Isolable Subsystem 6
1.5 Theories of Language vs. Language Analysis 7
1.6 Theories of Logic 9
1.7 Logico-Linguistics 11
2. INFORMATION AND LANGUAGE 13
2.1 Information States l3
2.2 Input and Output 14
2.3 Information Automata 17
2.4 Language Automata 20
2.5 Black-Box Methodology 27
2.6 The What-Do-You-Know? Game 29
2.7 The Behavior-Analytic Interpretation of Language Automata 32
2.8 The linguistic Priority of the Language Automaton 39
2.9 Languages 42
2.10 Summary 45
3. ON DESCRIBING LANGUAGES 47
3.1 Descriptive Strategies 47
3.2 Descriptive Equivalence 51
3.3 Language Descriptions as Scientific Theories 51
3.4 Basic Evidence Propeties 56
3.5 The Evidence-Gathering Process 62
4. LANGUAGE AND DEDUCTIVE LOGIC 68
4.1 Idealizations 68
4.2 Logical Relationships 73
4.3 Properties of the Logical Relationships 75
4.4 Logics 77
4.5 Infonnative Languages have Incomplete Logics 79
4.6 Quasi-logical Relationships 82
4.7 Quasi-logical Relationships are often Logical 83
4.8 Logic in the Evidence-Gathering Process 86
5 SEMANTICS, AXIOMA TICS 90
5.1 Semantically Structuralizable Languages 90
5.2 Examples of Artifical Semantically Structuralizable Languages 98
5.3 A Fragment of English 105
5.4 Semantics and Deductive Logic 115
5.5 Axiomatic Language Descriptions 117
5.6 Other Language Families 119
5.7 Logic as a Branch of Linguistics 121
5.8 Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics 122
6. MEANING 124
6.1 Purports and Imports 124
6.2 Purport-Import Glossaries 127
6.3 Specialized Glossaries 128
6.4 Synonymy 129
7. LANGUAGE AND INDUCTIVE LOGIC 132
7.1 Credibility Weights 132
7.2 Probability Weights 134
7.3 Deductive Logic in Probability-Weighted Languages 138
7.4 The Semantics of Probability-Weighted Languages 142
7.5 Plausible Inference 148
7.6 Statistical Inference 151
7.7 Inductive Reasoning 155
7.8 Extended Semantics 156
8. 'IF-THEN': A CASE STUDY IN LOGICO-LlNGUISTlC ANALYSIS 158
8.1 Preliminary Statement of Hypotheses to be Tested 158
8.2 History of Hypothesis A 159
8.3 History of Hypothesis B 161
8.4 History of Other Hypotheses 163
8.5 Delineation of Constructions of Interest 163
8.6 The Working Hypothesis of Extended Semantic Structural-
izability 166
8.7 Exact Statement of Hypothesis A 167
8.8 Exact Statement of Hypothesis B 168
8.9 Remarks on Hypothesis B 171
8.10 Contraposition 178
8.11 Methodological Review 180
8.12 The Hypothetical Syllogism 183
8.13 Further Inference Patterns 185
8.14 The Paradoxes of Material Implication 187
8.15 The Second Paradox Re-examined Dynamically 188
8.16 Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens 190
8.17 Order of Premises 191
8.18 Incompatible Conditionals 192
8.19 Self-Contradictory Conditionals 193
8.20 Aristo1e's Slip 194
8.21 Incompleteness of the Rules Governing Conditionals 196
8.22. Logically Disjunct Conditionals 196
8.23 Negations of Conditionals 197
8.24 Conjunctions of Conditionals 199
8.25 Conditionals Containing Other Conditionals 201
8.26 Lewis Carroll's Barbershop Paradox 204
8.27 DiSjunctions of Conditionals 206
8.28 Conclusions about If-then 209
8.29 Further Case Studies 211
8.30 Concluding Remark 211
9. PROBLEM AREAS AND COMPUTER APPLICA TIONS 212
9.1 Choice of Linguistic Unit 212
9.2 Ambiguity 214
9.3 Context-Dependence 219
9.4 Linguistic Incompleteness 223
9.5 Non-declarative Sentences 226
9.6 Physical Realizability 228
9.7 Automatic Question-Answering 230
9.8 Enthymemes, Analyticity 232
9.9 Further Computer Applications 236
9.10 Artificial Intelligence 239
9.11 The Future 241
· · · · · · (收起)
读后感
用户评价
这本书的叙事风格非常独特,它更像是两位顶尖学者之间一场跨越时空的激烈辩论,而不是单向的知识灌输。作者频繁地引用并批判前辈学者的观点,这种“对话式”的结构让阅读过程充满了张力。你会清晰地感受到作者在捍锁他自己提出的核心论点时,那种坚不可摧的决心。他对于“内指”和“循环定义”问题的处理,尤其引人注目,那种层层递进,步步紧逼的论证方式,让人拍案叫绝。我最欣赏的一点是,尽管理论深度极高,但作者从未完全抛弃对实际语言现象的关怀。他总能找到一个看似晦涩的逻辑悖论,然后将其与日常的误解联系起来,这种理论与实践的桥接,是很多纯理论著作所欠缺的。读完后,我发现自己看新闻、听演讲时,潜意识里都在用这本书里学到的框架去“解析”对方的言辞,这无疑是对作者努力最好的回报。
这本书让我开始重新审视“清晰”这个词的含义。在阅读过程中,我意识到我们日常所追求的“清晰表达”,很多时候只是在逻辑的边缘打转,真正的清晰需要一种近乎数学上的确定性。作者对“不确定性”的讨论,没有采取回避的态度,而是将其纳入模型之中,试图在概率和确定性之间找到一个动态的平衡点。这本书的章节之间过渡看似生硬,实则暗藏玄机,每一个概念的引入都是为了解决前一章遗留的逻辑缺口。阅读体验是累积性的,第一遍可能只是抓住了表面结构,但回过头去重读某个关键的定理证明时,你会发现自己对整个体系的理解又上了一个台阶。对于那些寻求真正理解语言运作深层机制的学者而言,这本书是不可逾越的一座高峰,它提供了一种看待世界的全新且极度严苛的视角。
坦白讲,这本书的排版和索引系统是其结构严谨性的一个侧面体现。那些繁复的脚注和交叉引用,清晰地勾勒出了整个理论体系的脉络。我很少见到哪本学术著作能将如此大量的概念进行如此精妙的层级划分。它不仅仅是在讨论语言,它是在描绘一个关于“意义如何被构造和传递”的宏大蓝图。我花了大量时间在研究其中关于“语义表征”的模型上,这些模型试图量化那些我们通常认为是主观的情感和意图。虽然这些模型的完全实现可能仍是未来的课题,但作者提供的这套理论工具箱,已经足以让人对符号的魔力感到敬畏。这本书无疑为后续的符号学和认知科学研究设立了一个极高的标杆,它的影响将是深远且持续的。
读完这本大部头,我有一种深刻的体会:我们对“交流”的理解,可能远远比想象中要肤浅和草率。作者仿佛拿着一把手术刀,精准地切开了日常对话的表层,露出了下面那些冰冷、严谨的逻辑结构。书里对模态逻辑在自然语言中的应用进行了极其详尽的阐述,特别是关于“可能性”和“必然性”的边界模糊地带。我得承认,有些数学化的表述初期让我有点望而却步,但一旦适应了那种表达方式,你会发现它带来的精确性是任何自然语言的描述都无法比拟的。它强迫你放弃模糊的直觉判断,转而依赖清晰的推导。我常常在阅读时需要备着笔记本,记录下那些关键的定义和定理,因为稍有不慎就会在复杂的引用和反例中迷失方向。这本书的价值不在于提供现成的答案,而在于构建了一个严密的框架,让你能够自己去审视和挑战现有的语言观。它极大地提升了我对论证有效性的敏感度。
这本书,天哪,简直是一场思维的风暴!我花了整整一个下午,沉浸在那些错综复杂的符号和理论结构中,感觉自己的大脑被彻底拉伸和重塑。作者对语言的本质似乎有着一种近乎偏执的深入洞察力。他并没有满足于停留在表面现象的描述,而是像一个精密的工程师,试图解构构成意义的底层逻辑骨架。我尤其欣赏他对“真值条件”和“语境依赖性”之间张力的探讨。那种深入到最微小语义单位的剖析,让我不得不停下来,反复咀嚼每一个论断。那种感觉就像是第一次被教导如何看清世界背后的代码,一切变得既清晰又令人不安。有些章节的推理链条极其绵长,需要极高的专注力去跟随,但一旦跟上了,那种豁然开朗的体验是无与伦比的。这本书不是那种可以轻松翻阅的读物,它要求读者投入时间和心力,进行一场严肃的智力冒险。它更像是一本工具书,一本关于如何思考和组织思想的范本,而不是一本轻松愉快的消遣之作。