如何定义“定义”? 第1页

应董毓老师的邀请，我最近正在和胡老师等朋友一起翻译David Hitchcock的一本书：《定义：建构和评价词语定义的实用性指南》。大家可以在《批判性思维与创新教育通讯》这个电子刊物中找到完整的译文（还没有译完，会分期连载。）

下面引用一些David Hitchcock的看法，他是批判性思维、非形式逻辑这个领域的优秀学者。

The book’s theoretical framework is a distinction, due to Robert H. Ennis (1962, 101-106; 1996, 320-363; 2016; 2019), of three dimensions of definitions: the act of the definer, the content of the definition, and its form. The act of a definer is what the definer does in defining a term; the book distinguishes, following Ennis, three basic acts of defining: reporting, stipulating, and advocating. The content of a definition is in one sense the information that the definition conveys and in another sense the words in its defining part. The form of a definition is the way it is expressed, for example as a definition by genus and differentia.

在前言中，Hitchcock根据Ennis的洞见，区分了定义的三个维度：定义者的行为，定义的内容，定义的形式。从这三个维度出发，我们可以更全面地了解“定义”究竟是怎么一回事，或者是什么样的一个东西。

然后，在本书的开头部分，Hitchcock展示了一个定义的示例，也就是对于term这个词的定义，如下：

The word ‘term’ in this essay means any word or phrase of general application that is short of a full sentence. Individual words like ‘hockey’ or ‘if’ or ‘pellucid’ or ‘grow’ are terms. So are phrases like ‘major bleeding’ or ‘in the vicinity’ or ‘very carefully’ or ‘well disposed’ or ‘proof beyond a reasonable doubt’ or ‘legal system’. Definite descriptions like ‘the tallest woman in the room’ are borderline cases. Names of individuals, such as ‘Napoleon Bonaparte’, are not terms. Nor are strings of linguistic signs that do not form a syntactic unit, such as ‘clock always’ or ‘guidelines are neither’. Nor are sentences like the one you are now reading. Nor are stretches of text or discourse that include several sentences. In sum, terms are elementary signs or sub-sentential syntactic units of general application. They may be written, spoken, signed, gestured, or otherwise communicated.

从这个示例可以看出，当我们定义任何一个词，比如X时，我们的终极目标就是告诉我们的听众或读者，X这个词指代什么对象，不指代什么对象。Hitchcock在这个示例中表明，当他说term时，他指代这样这样的东西，而不是那样那样的东西。

接下来，从定义者的行为这个层面，Hitchcock区分了三种行为：

The word ‘definition’ is used both of an activity and of the result of the activity. To define a term is to indicate what it means or should be taken to mean or should mean. I call these activities ‘reporting’, ‘stipulating’ and ‘advocating’. To report a meaning is to indicate, correctly or incorrectly, what a term means in a supposed pre-existing use. To stipulate a meaning is to indicate how a term is to be interpreted or used in a specified context. To advocate by means of a definition is to take a position on an issue. These acts are not mutually exclusive. For example, making a vague term precise combines reporting and stipulating (or advocating). Insisting that marriage is by definition a union between a man and a woman may be both reporting and advocating. The basic act of reporting or stipulating or advocating is the definer’s immediate purpose in defining a term. Typically, the definer will have less immediate purposes for constructing a definition. For example, the immediate purpose in composing a definition in a monolingual dictionary is to report a meaning. But, if the dictionary is a learner’s dictionary, the author may have the indirect purpose of giving good guidance on the contexts in which people use the term. The basic definitional act of this author is reporting; a derivative (non-basic) act is giving guidance on the contexts in which people use the term.

三种行为分别是reporting，stipulatin以及advocating。我们分别译作了报告，规定和倡导。这些都是定义者的行为，都是defining。而由defining这个行为产生的结果，就是definition，也就是定义。在汉语中，defining和definition都翻译作“定义”，这可能会产生一些误解。前者其实是“给出定义”或“下定义”的意思，后者是“给出的定义”的意思。

接下来，Hitchcock介绍了定义的内容，也就是一个definition中所传递的信息：

The content of a definition is in one sense the information that it conveys (Atkins and Rundell 2008, 407). It may provide a full account of a term’s meaning or a mere hint. It may or may not describe characteristics of the term’s referent (e.g. what tigers are like, in a definition of the term ‘tiger’), and it may or may not give examples of the term’s use in a sentence. In another sense, the content of a definition is the words used in it. With respect to this dimension, one might, among other things, consider how long a definition should be, whether it is in the same language as the term being defined (and what difference that makes), what kinds of terms one can or should use in one’s definition, and when if ever it is legitimate to use a term in its own definition.

以及定义的形式，也就是这个definition的结构，通常就是定义的方法。最常见的方法比如是属加种差方法，或者科学家们常用的操作性定义法：

The form of a definition is its structure. Historically, writers on definition privileged what is traditionally called a definition by genus and differentia (to be explained later, in section 4.4). But there are other forms of definition, such as definitions by synonym or extended synonym, contextual definitions, and range definitions. One can also explain a term’s meaning by giving examples of things that are correctly labeled by the term and of things that are not correctly labeled by the term, or by pointing to instances, or by using the term in a sentence.

如果把这本书当成一篇特别长的论文，那么以上这部分就算是摘要了。具体细节，大家可以去阅读正文。

本书的篇幅不是很长，内容上，如果你只是以学习的目的，想要掌握“定义”这个重要的思考技能，那么只看正文部分即可，不读脚注的话，不算特别难懂。用心的话，一周内就能读完。

如果你打算深入钻研“定义”，那么这本书也是一个很好的研究型文献，你可以从脚注中找到大量信息，供你完成学位论文或者别的研究。

另外，本书英文版可以在网上免费下载到。

网址是：Windsor Studies in Argumentation