Although Western Philosophy has long provided theoretical bases for linguistic schools at every stage, the latter has also made lots of contributions to the former. For instance, Saussure's Structuralist Linguistic Theory and Chomsky's Transformational Generative Grammar have offered many fresh ideas to Western Philosophy(including many other subjects). Cognitive Linguistics (CL), already being the mainstream in contemporary linguistics circles, has absorbed Embodied Philosophy on the one hand and also performed a fundamental role in the construction of Embodied Philosophy itself on the other hand. Meanwhile, CL has also supplied Western Philosophy(especially Philosophy of Language and Postmodernist Philosophy)with lots of theoretical nutrition, new ideas and methods, such as follows: 1. Cognitive Theory of Metaphor has offered strong theoretical basis to the ″irrationalism″ of Post-modernism, with a focus on the fact that philosophical texts are also filled with metaphors, the ″unreal utterance″ being inevitable. It criticizes the mistakes of metaphysics with denunciation of metaphor, which helps to understand better why Lakoff and Johnson used the title ″Metaphors We Live By″ for their book in 1980. 2. Schema Category Theory, based on the criticism of ″the Classical Category Theory″ and ″the Prototype Category Theory″ in Western philosophy, is more powerful in explaining the formation of category, concept and language, with more allowance of dynamic expressions. 3. SOS Understanding Model by CL rethinks the shortages of one-way view(from object to subject, or from subject to object) and two-way view(interaction between subject and object|or intersubjectivity, i.e. interaction between subject and subject) in Western philosophy, thus proposing ″Subject-Object-Subject″ multiple interactionismas a new understanding model, which will cover more linguistic and philosophical issues. 4. Event-domain Cognitive Model (ECM), criticizing the inadequacies of several present theoretical models, emphasizes the fact that people recognize the world, restore knowledge and organize language mainly by means of ″Event.″ ECM has more explanatory power for not only linguistic expressions but also philosophical discussions. 5. Construal View raised by CL has made up the shortage to some extent of those philosophers, although they admit that people have subjective initiative, are lacking in theoretical frameworks to explain it. The five dimensions of ″construal″ put forward by cognitive linguist Langacker can be regarded as a gap-filling for the discussion of human subjectivity. 6. Conceptual Blending Theory can be extended from language level to the origin of ″human creativity,″ thus making it more significant on the level of philosophy. While two input spaces are integrated into one blending space, there will surely be some new information emerging from the process, which can be used to explain how people invent or create new ideas and technologies. 7. Analyzing Cognitive Process can reveal how ″material determines thought,″ which is the principle by materialism, but lacks in the explanation of its process. So, the analysis of cognition-formation process by CL can at least supply one of the approaches. The above-mentioned ideas and methods by CL have greatly enriched the statements concerned by Western philosophers with many new views and theories, which will obviously push forward the further development of Western philosophy to a certain degree. It is worthwhile for us to dig out deeply and think carefully.
TRENDMD:
引用本文:
王天翼王寅. 认知语言学对西方哲学的贡献[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2015, 1(4): 52-62.
Wang TianyiWang Yin. The Contributions of Cognitive Linguistics to Western Philosophy. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2015, 1(4): 52-62.