奎因哲学词条：指称、实体化

（《奎因短文集：一本不拘泥于分类学标准的哲学词典》，译者：翟玉章）

【说某类对象存在，就是说把它们实体化，就是说相应的词项有指称。指示和指定分别作为概括词项和单独词项的指称。变项作为指称的基本手段。实体化（量化、变项）的作用：可以用来构造复杂谓词（以关系从句的形式出现），可以提供更紧凑的逻辑结构。指称和实体化对科学只有结构性的贡献，但与语句的真理性是无关的。】

本文提到的词条：指称、实数、变项、实体化、类和性质、共相、预言、事物。

Reference, Reification

指称、实体化

It is convenient that these words come in alphabetical succession, for the two topics are not easily separated.

这两个词条在字母顺序上是紧挨着的，而且它们的内容也不容易分开，因此我把它们放在一起来谈。

Terms, some of them, refer to objects of one sort or another—stones, people, or abstract ones such as numbers. To declare there to be objects of a given sort, for purposes of one’s theory, is to reify them. Zoologists reify wombats and not unicorns, thereby reckoning the term ‘wombat’ as referring and ‘unicorn’ as not.

有些词项指称这样那样的对象，如石头、人，甚至还可以是像数这样的抽象对象。一个人为达到他的理论目的而主张某类对象存在，就是将它们实体化。动物学家实体化了袋熊，而没有将独角兽实体化；换一个说法就是，他认为词项‘袋熊’有所指，而“独角兽”没有所指。

Reference by general terms—common nouns, adjectives, intransitive verbs—is denotation. ‘Wombat’ denotes each wombat. Reference by a singular term or a proper name is designation, singling out one object. The real numbers are all denoted by ‘real number’, but we saw under REAL NUMBERS that they cannot all be designated. A third species of reference is the taking of values by VARIABES, q.v.; a variable refers to its values. The variable has its literary prototype in the relative pronoun and its subsidiary pronouns.

概括词项——普通名词、形容词、不及物动词——的指称被称为指示。‘袋熊’指示每一个袋熊。单独词项或专有名词的指称被称为指定，所指定的是某一个对象。所有实数都为‘实数’所指示，但我们在实数中看到，并不是所有的实数都能被指定。第三种指称手段是通过变项来取值；变项指称它的值。变项在日常语言中的原型是关系代词及其附属代词。

We say, or I anyway, that there are wombats, numbers, and classes, but no unicorns and no properties (see CLASSES VERSUS PROPERTIES). I Reify those and not these. What this distinction come to? I conclude under UNIVERSALS that the key is the variable. What we reify are what we reckon as admissible values of ‘x’ in ‘object x such that’; in other words, what can be referred to by the ‘which’ and ‘it’ of relative clauses.

我们认为（至少我本人认为），袋熊、数、类是存在的，而独角兽和性质（见类和性质）并不存在。这个区别到底意味着什么呢？我在共相中指出，这里的关键是变项。我们所实体化的东西，就是短语‘如此这般的对象x：’中的‘x’的被我们允许取的值，也即关系从句中的‘which’（那个对象）和‘it’（它）被我们允许取的值。

What I want now to look into is the role of reification in science: what is contributed to scientific theory by sweeping one or another multitude of putative objects into the range of variables, or, for that matter, what is contributed by the variables and their pronominal prototypes at all.

现在我想讨论的是实体化在科学中的作用：将这一群或那一群假定的对象算在变项的取值范围内这一做法，对科学理论究竟做出了什么样的贡献？换言之，变项以及它们的代词原型到底对科学有什么贡献？

In the piece onVARIABLES we see that they and the pronouns are for marking and linking up various positions in a sentence, so as to extract from the sentence a complex predicate for use elsewhere. The node or pivot of the extracted predicate, the x of the ‘such that’ clause, is contributed by reification. What may usefully be reified for this purpose depends on what complex predicates may usefully be extracted.

在变项中，我们看到，变项和它们的原型代词可用于标记和联系一个语句中的不同位置，以便从这个语句中提取出一个可以用于别处的复杂谓词。被提取的复杂谓词中的纽结，即从句‘如此这般的x：…x…’中的x，是实体化的贡献。哪些对象可以有效地被实体化，从而占据这样的纽结，取决于哪些复杂谓词可以被有效地提取。

Another contribution that reification confers is an indispensable tightening of links between scientific theory and the observations that supports it. To appreciate this we must begin by reflecting on the nature of that support.

实体化的另一个贡献是，对强化科学理论和支持它的观察结果之间的联系发挥着不可或缺的作用。要弄懂这一点，我们必须首先弄清楚观察是如何支持理论的。

Under PREDICTIONI depict the rudimentary repository of scientific lore as the observation categorical. It is formed of two observation sentences, as I call them, such as 'The sun is rising' and 'Birds are singing', each of which has come to be associated directly with some range of stimulation of the speaker's sensory receptors. He has learned, whether through direct conditioning or in more devious ways, to assent to 'The sun is rising' whenever queried while observing the sunrise, and to assent to 'Birds are singing' when hearing them sing. It is just these sentences as seamless wholes, without regard thus far to reification of birds, sun, or songs, that are associated with the stimulatory situations. Reification of objects for the component terms to denote or designate may or may not have originally helped him to associate these sentences with the situations; but it is just these associations themselves, however acquired, that are the first link in the chain from sensory stimulation to scientific theory.

在预言中，我把最初级的科学知识描述为观察直言句。观察直言句是由两个我所谓的观察句（例如“太阳在升起”和“鸟儿在歌唱”）复合而成的。每个观察句都与说话者感觉接受器的一定范围内的刺激有着直接的联系。他已经通过直接的条件作用或某种间接的方法学会了看到日出时同意“太阳在升起”，以及听到鸟儿在唱歌时同意“鸟儿在歌唱”。与感官刺激相联系的是作为无缝整体的观察句，这种联系是与对鸟儿、太阳和歌曲的实体化无关的。说话者最初建立这种联系时，可能借助了也可能没有借助实体化（即让观察句的组成词项指示或指定对象）。不管这种联系是如何被建立起来的，它都是感官刺激通向科学理论的链条中的第一环。

Scientific theory, finally, connects with the observation sentences by implying observation categoricals; such, as noted under PREDICTION, is the observational support of science. What is now to be noted is that it is a matter of sentences first and last: observation sentences here, theoretical sentences there. Terms, variables, and reference enter only in an auxiliary role, contributing somehow to the elaborate network of implications that connect the sentences at the one extreme with the sentences at the other.

最后，科学理论通过蕴涵观察直言句而与观察句发生了联系；这，正如在预言中所指出的，就是观察对科学的支持。现在要注意的是，这个支持关系的开端和终端都是语句：开端是观察句，终端是理论句。至于词项、变项，以及指称，它们仅仅担任辅助的角色：它们对精心设计的旨在联结两端语句的蕴涵网络做出了某种贡献。

They do so by tightening the links by which sentences are joined to form compound sentences. Thus consider two sentences joined in conjunction by 'and'. It is a loose connection; the compound is true provided merely that both components are true, however irrelevant one to the other. A quantified conjunction, of the form 'Something xis such that Fx and Gx', affords a tighter connection. Again alternation, 'or', is a loose connection. Quantification tightens it: 'Everything x is such that Fx or Gx.'

它们的贡献在于为复合句提供其成分句之间更紧密的联系方式。先来看两个语句通过“而且”而形成的合取句。这种联系方式是松散的；只要两个成分句是真的，哪怕两者之间没有什么关系，合取句都是真的。而量化合取句，即形如“有些事物是如此这般的x：x既是F又是G”的语句，所提供的联系就更加紧密。同样地，析取联结词“或者”所提供的也是一种松散的联系，而量化析取句“每个事物都是如此这般的x：x或者是F或者是G”提供的联系则更紧密。

Thus it is that quantification helps to knit up the logical fabric of sentences that connects theory with evidence; and it is quantification, with its variables, that embodies reification.

可见，量化这种复合方式可以用来编织语句的更紧凑的逻辑结构，以便使理论与证据之间更容易地发生联系。而量化及其中的变项，正是实体化寄居的地方。

It is startling to reflect that this contribution is purely structural. Other objects would have served the purpose as well as ours, as long as they were in one-to-one correlation with them. No evidence, therefore, could be adduced for reification of the one lot rather than the other.

令人惊讶的是，实体化的这种贡献纯粹是结构性的。另外一批对象也能起到我们自己的对象一样的作用，只要这两者之间是一一对应的。如果是这样，没有任何证据可以表明，另外一批对象和我们自己的对象之间有一批是更优的。

It is not to be wondered, still, that we start reifying where we do: reifying middle-sized bodies in the middle distance. They contrast with their background in color and movement. Here we get our start in the primitive equivalent of quantification and variables. Developing further theory little by little, we impute endurance and recurrence to these bodies; see THINGS. Need of further links in the evolving theory prompts reification of invisible analogues of bodies, and eventually even abstract objects such as numbers. We talk of discovering objects, and discovery indeed there is; but ultimately it is discovery of a need of further nodes in the developing structure. What the theory is ultimately answerable to, early and late, are sensory stimulations and the observation sentences that are keyed to them without benefit of reference and reification.

但尽管如此，我们的实体化还是会开始于中等距离处的中等大小的物体，就像实际上我们也是这样做的一样。这一点是用不着惊讶的，因为这些物体在色彩和变化上与背景形成了鲜明对比。正是在这些物体这里，我们的量化和变项的最早的前身有了用武之地。随着理论的不断发展，我们把持续性和重现性赋予了这些物体，见事物。后来，理论的发展又产生了对新的联系方式的需求，于是人们又实体化了物体的不可见的类比物，最后甚至还实体化了数这样的抽象对象。我们会谈到发现对象。确实有发现，但所发现的，归根到底说来，是不断发展的结构对新纽结的需求。无论什么时候，理论最终都需要对感官刺激以及与之联系的与指称和实体化无关的观察句负责。

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