墨笛

§2. The Objective pull; or, E Pluribus Unum

§2. 客观的拉力；或，合众为一

 

(小结：奎因从语言学习的角度考察了‘Ouch’， ‘Red’和‘square’这三个一词句，以此表明客观性是语言的生存价值。这三个词的客观性是依次递增的。‘Ouch’客观性最差，所以只能在语言中处于边缘地位。‘Red’就要强多了，因为别人可以很容易地检验说话者是不是真的看到了红色。‘square’的客观性最强，因为它适用的各种场合对人的刺激的差异性最大，学习者一开始就得适应社会的用法。奎因进一步指出，达到语言的客观性用法的途径是因人而异的，这些途径从语言的社会功能方面看是无关紧要的。)

‘Ouch’ is a one-word sentence which a man may volunteer from time to time by way of laconic comment on the passing show. The correct occasions of its use are those attended by painful stimulation. Such use of the word, like the correct use of language generally, is inculcated in the individual by training on the part of society; and society achieves this despite not sharing the individual’s pain. Society’s method is in principle that of rewarding the utterance of ‘Ouch’ when the speaker shows some further evidence of sudden discomfort, say a wince, or is actually seen to suffer violence, and of penalizing the utterance of ‘Ouch’ when the speaker is visibly untouched and his countenance unruffled.

‘Ouch’（“哎哟”）是个一词句，人们会时不时地用它来对当下的情况进行简短的评论。正确的使用场合是那些伴随有疼痛刺激的场合。这一用法，和一般情况下的语言的正确用法一样，是社会通过培训灌输给个人的；社会虽然并不分享个人的疼痛，但还是成功地灌输了正确的用法。社会的方法从原则上讲是这样的：当说话者表现了不适的进一步的证据（比如，畏缩），或被实际上看到遭受暴力，就奖励他说‘Ouch’；当说话者明明没有被碰到，而且他的面容也很平静时，就惩罚他说‘Ouch’。

 

For the man who has learned his language lesson, some of the stimuli evocative of ‘Ouch’ may be publicly visible blows and slashes, while others are hidden from the public eye in the depths of his bowels. Society, acting solely on overt manifestations, has been able to train the individual to say the socially proper thing in response even to socially undetectable stimulations. The trick has depended on prior concomitances between covert stimulation and overt behavior, notably the wincing instinct.

对于学会语言的人来说，引起‘Ouch’的一些刺激是公开的拳打脚踢，另一些刺激则隐藏在公共视线之外的脏器中。社会虽然只能对公开的表现作出反应，仍能培训个人对即使社会无法检测的刺激作出社会认可的适当的反应。这里的奥妙在于，在隐含的刺激和公开的行为之间有一种伴随关系，这方面的一个明显的例子是，人们在感到疼痛时，身体会本能地畏缩。

 

We can imagine a primitive use of ‘Red’ as a one-word sentence somewhat on a par with ‘Ouch’. Just as ‘Ouch’ is the appropriate remark on the occasion of painful stimulation, so ‘Red’, under the usage which I am now imagining, is the appropriate remark on the occasion of those distinctive photochemical effects which are wrought in one’s retina by the impact of red light. This time society’s method of training consists in rewarding the utterance of ‘Red’ when the individual is seen looking at something red, and penalizing it when he is seen looking at something else.

我们可以想像‘Red’（“红”）的一种原始的用法，在这方面它与‘Ouch’相似，也被当作一词句。正像‘Ouch’是对疼痛刺激的适当评论一样，‘Red’——在我们想像的用法中——则是对红光作用于人的视网膜产生的独特的光化学效应的适当评论。这一回社会的培训方法是：当个人被看到正看着红色的东西时，就奖励他说出‘Red’，当他被看见看着别的东西时，就惩罚他说出‘Red’。

 

Actually, the uses of ‘Red’ are less simple. Commonly ‘red’, unlike ‘ouch’, turns up as a fragment of longer sentences. Moreover, even when ‘Red’ is used by itself as a one-word sentence, what evokes it is usually not the mere apprehension of something red; more commonly there has been a verbal stimulus, in the form of a question. But let us keep for a moment to the fictitious usage described in the preceding paragraph; for it, by its similarity to ‘Ouch’, will help to bring out also a certain contrast.

实际上，‘Red’的用法并没有这样简单。通常‘red’都是作为较长的句子中的一部分而出现的，在这方面它并不像‘ouch’。而且，即使‘Red’自身被用作一词句，引起它的通常并不只是对红色的东西的感觉；为了引起它，往往需要一个以问句形式出现的言语刺激。但是，让我们暂时留驻于上一段中所描述的那种虚构的用法；这种用法因为与‘Ouch’的用法相似，会有助于我们同时做出某种对比。

 

The critic, society’s agent, approves the subject’s utterance of ‘Red’ by observing the subject and his viewed object and finding the latter red. In part, therefore, the critic’s cue is red irradiation of his own retina. A partial symmetry obtains between the subject’s cue for utterance and the critic’s cue for approval in the case of ‘Red’, which, happily for the critic, was lacking in the case of ‘Ouch’. The partial symmetry in the one case, and the lack of it in the other, suggest a certain superficial sense in which ‘Ouch’ may be spoken of as more subjective in reference than ‘Red’; ‘Red’ more objective than ‘Ouch’.

作为社会代表的教师，他会同时看着学生和他所注视的对象，如果后者确实是红的，他就会赞同学生所发出的‘Red’。因此，教师作出评判的部分线索是他自己的视网膜所接受到的红光照射。在‘Red’的情形中，学生发出声音所根据的线索和教师同意学生发声的线索，这两者之间有着部分的对称性，而这种对称性在‘Ouch’的情形中是没有的（因为很庆幸，老师在同意学生发声时无需自己有疼痛的刺激）。一种情形中有部分对称性，一种则没有，这解释了为什么我们会觉得‘Ouch’的主观意味要强于‘Red’， ‘Red’比‘Ouch’客观。

 

Exceptions are possible on either side. If the critic and the subject are fighting a fire and are scorched by the same sudden gust, then the critic’s approval of the subject’s ‘Ouch’ does not differ significantly from the imagined case of ‘Red’. Conversely, a critic may approve a subject’s ‘Red’ on indirect evidence, failing to glimpse the object himself. If we call ‘Ouch’ more subjective than ‘Red’, we must be taken as alluding thereby only to the most characteristic learning situations. In the case of ‘Red’, typically one’s mentor or critic sees red; in the case of ‘Ouch’, typically he does not get hurt.

这两种情形都可能出现例外。如果教师和学生在一起救火并同时被灼伤，那么教师对学生发出的‘Ouch’的赞同便与想像的‘Red’情形没有什么实质的不同。另外一方面，教师可能并没有看到红色，而只是根据间接的证据赞同学生发出的‘Red’。所以，当我们说‘Ouch’比‘Red’更主观时，我们是就一般的学习情形而论的。在‘Red’的情形中，教师自己通常是看到红色的；而在‘Ouch’的情形中，教师自己通常并没有受伤。

 

‘Ouch’ is not independent of social training: one has only to prick a foreigner to appreciate that it is an English word. But in its subjectivity it is a little unusual. Words being social tools, objectivity counts toward their survival. When a word has considerable currency despite the subjective twist, it may be expected, like the pronouns ‘I’ and ‘you’, to have a valuable social function of some exceptional sort. The survival value of ‘Ouch’, from a social point of view, is as a distress signal. And the word is of only marginal linguistic status, after all, being incapable of integration into longer sentences.

‘Ouch’并不独立于社会培训：你只要戳一下一个外国人，便会知道这是英语词。它的不寻常之处在于它的主观性。语词作为社会工具，客观性才是其生存价值。如果一个词，尽管主观性很强，但仍有相当大的使用频率，那么我们就会想，它可能与“我”、“你”这样的代词一样，有着某种特别有价值的社会功能。从社会的观点看，‘Ouch’的生存价值在于它可以用作遇险的信号。但这个词在语言中只占有一个边缘的席位，毕竟它不能融入到较长的句子中。

 

The usual premium on objectivity is well illustrated by ‘square’. Each of a party of observers glances at a tile from his own vantage point and calls it square; and each of them has, as his retinal projection of the tile, a scalene quadrilateral which is geometrically dissimilar to everyone else’s. the learner of ‘square’ has to take his chances with the rest of society, and he ends up using the word to suit. Association of ‘square’ with just the situation in which the retinal projection is square would be simpler to learn, but the more objective usage is, by its very intersubjectivity, what we tend to be exposed to and encouraged in.

对客观性的一般重视可以用‘square’（“正方形”）很好地说明。一群人中的每一个人都从自己的角度看一块瓷砖，并一律称它为正方形；这块瓷砖在他们视网膜中的投影都是不等边四边形，且彼此之间在几何上都不相似。‘square’的学习者必须设法适应社会，最终形成与社会一致的用法。如果‘square’只与视网膜上的投影是正方形的情况相联系，那么这个词将是比较容易学会的，但更加客观的用法，由于其主体间性，才是我们往往会碰到并被鼓励学会的用法。

 

In general, if a term is to be learned by induction from observed instances where it is applied, the instances have to resemble one another in two ways: they have to be enough alike from the learner’s point of view, from occasion to occasion, to afford him a basis of similarity to generalize upon, and they have to be enough alike from simultaneous distinct points of view to enable the teacher and learner to share the appropriate occasions. A term restricted to squares normal to the line of sight would meet the first requirement only; a term applying to physical squares in all their scalene projections meets both. And it meets both in the same way, in that the points of view available to the learner from occasion to occasion are likewise the points of view available to teacher and learner on simultaneous occasions. Such is the way with terms for observable physical objects generally; and thus it is that such objects are focal to reference and thought.

一般说来，如果某个词是通过对观察到的例子进行概括而学会的，那么这些例子之间必须以下面两种方式彼此相似：不同场合的例子从学生的角度看必须足够相似，从而为他提供一个进行概括的相似性的基础；同一场合下的例子从学生和教师的不同角度看也必须足够相似，从而能使师生分享适当的场合。如果‘square’被限定运用于视线下的正方形投影，这只能满足第一个要求；但如果它运用于具有各种不等边的投影的物理的正方形，那就能同时满足两个要求。它满足这两个要求的方式是一样的：不同场合下学生可以有的角度也就是同一场合下老师和学生可以有的角度。表示可观察的物理对象的语词大致说来都是以这种方式学会的，因此，也正是这些对象处于指称和思想的焦点地位。

 

‘Red’, unlike ‘square’, is a happy case where a nearly uniform stimulatory condition is shared by simultaneous observers. All the assembled retinas are irradiated by substantially the same red light, whereas no two of them receive geometrically similar projections of the square. The pull toward objectivity is thus a strong pull away from the subjectively simplest rule of association in the case of ‘square’, and much less so in the case of ‘red’. Hence our readiness to think of color as more subjective than physical shape. But some pull of the same kind occurs even in the case of ‘red’, insofar as reflections from the environment cause the red object to cast somewhat different tints to different points of view. The objective pull will regiment all the responses still as ‘red’, by activating myriad corrective cues. These corrective cues are used unconsciously, such is the perfection of our socialization; a painter has even to school himself to set them aside when he tries to reproduce his true retinal intake.

‘red’的情形比起‘square’的情形是比较幸运的，因为同时在场的观察者享有几乎一样的刺激条件。他们的视网膜受到实质上一样的红光的照射，而在‘square’的情形下，它们接受到的正方形投影在几何上并不相似。所以，在‘square’的情形下，客观性的拉力是一股远离主观上最简单的联想规则的强大的拉力，而在‘red’的情形下，这股力就要弱得多。这就是我们为什么认为颜色比起物理形状是一种更为主观的性质的原因。但是，同一种强大的拉力甚至也可以在‘red’的情形下起作用，如果红色物体反射的周围光线从不同的角度看色调多少有些不同。受制于客观的拉力，人们通过激活各种各样的校正性的线索，仍会以‘red’作出一律的反应。这些校正性线索的使用是不知不觉的，这正是我们的社会化过程臻于完善的标志；画家为了重现他的视网膜摄入的真实映像，甚至得通过训练才能把这些校正性线索抛开。

 

The uniformity that unites us in communication and belief is a uniformity of resultant patterns overlying a chaotic subjective diversity of connections between words and experience. Uniformity comes where it matters socially; hence rather in point of intersubjectivity conspicuous circumstances of utterance than in point of privately conspicuous ones. For an extreme illustration of the point, consider two men one of whom has normal color vision and the other of whom is color-blinded as between red and green. Society has trained both men by the method noted earlier: rewarding the utterance ‘red’ when the speaker is seen fixating something red, and penalizing it in the contrary case. Moreover the gross socially observable results are about alike: both men are pretty good about attributing ‘red’ to just the red things. But the private mechanisms by which the two men achieve these similar results are very different. The one man has learned ‘red’ in association with the regulation photochemical effect. The other man has painfully learned to be stimulated to ‘red’ by light in various wavelengths (red and green) in company with elaborate special combinations of supplementary conditions of intensity, saturation, shape, and setting, calculated e.g. to admit fire and sunsets and to exclude grass; to admit blossoms and exclude leaves; and to admit lobsters only after boiling.

在交流和信念中把我们联系起来的一致性是终端模式的一致性；在一致性的背后是语词和经验之间主观联系方式的混乱的杂多性。一致性出现于有社会重要性的地方，这样的地方只能是主体间显眼的场合，而不是纯私人的显眼场合。我们来举一个极端的例子说明这一点。假定有两个人，一个人色觉正常，另一个红绿色盲。社会对这两个人的培训方法已如前述：当他们眼睛盯着某个红色的东西，就鼓励他们说出‘red’，反之就惩罚他们说出‘red’。进一步地，社会可以观察到的培训结果大体上也是一样的：两个人都能很熟练地将‘red’正好应用于红色的事物。但是，这两个人获得这些结果的内在机制却是大不一样的。其中一个人只消将‘red’与一定范围内的光化学效应相联系就能学会这个词。而另一个人则比较麻烦，他必须在不同波长的光（红和绿）的刺激这一线索以外，寻求额外的线索，如强度、饱和度、形状、背景，才能学会适当地使用这个词：火和落日是红的，青草不算；花是红的，叶子不算；虾只有在煮熟后才能算作红。

 

Different persons growing up in the same language are like different bushes trimmed and trained to take the shape of identical elephants. The anatomical details of twigs and branches will fulfill the elephantine form differently from bush to bush, but the overall outward results are alike.

成长于同样语言环境中的不同的人，就像被修剪成同样的大象形状的不同的灌木一样。完成大象形状的各个灌木的枝杈的具体形状纷乱杂陈，但整体的外观却是一样的。

此文于2009年5月23日星期六4:32 am发表于“奎因”分类下。您可以通过RSS 2.0 feed来跟踪此文的所有评论。您可以留言，或者从您自己的网站trackback。