Методологические аспекты упорядочения понятий научных областей знания

MOKSLO KALBOS KULTŪROS IR TERMINOLOGIJOS PROBLEMOS LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXIV(1985) VIKTOR FILIPPOVICH ZHURAVLEV METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF ORDERING THE CONCEPTS OF SCIENTIFIC FIELDS OF KNOWLEDGE Recently, the term terminology ordering has become widespread, denoting normative activity in the field of terminology for a particular area of knowledge. The aim of terminology ordering is to eliminate such shortcomings as polysemy, synonymy, and others. In practice, terminology is ordered by compiling systematic dictionaries, understood as collections of recommended terms and terminological standards. The principal position of Soviet and foreign schools of terminology is that, in ordering the terminology of an area of knowledge, the formation of its system of concepts is of decisive importance. The term concept ordering is proposed to denote activities aimed at developing a system of concepts. Concept ordering entails conducting research such as identifying concepts specific to the area of knowledge, forming and clarifying them, formulating conceptual expressions, and establishing relations among concepts. Concept ordering results in the creation of a conceptual representation of the projection of objective reality investigated in the given scientific field. Constructing a system of concepts contributes to successfully resolving issues involved in ordering terminology: making a reasoned choice of recommended (standardized) terms, identifying non-recommended (unacceptable) terms and synonyms acceptable at the present time, and adopting equivalent foreign-language terms. It is easy to see that, unlike the term terminology ordering, the term concept ordering is oriented not so much toward linguistics as toward substantive scientific and logical-methodological concerns, pointing to the comprehensive nature of research related to terminology ordering. Evidently, the most important condition for concept ordering is the objectively significant recording of the specific scientific content of concepts, in keeping with the current level of development of the area of knowledge. Fulfilling this condition requires addressing questions concerning the substantive scientific support for concept ordering. 59 In addition, the scientific character of concept ordering is achieved by using methods from a number of other disciplines, such as lexicology, lexicography, and the study of the language of scientific and technical literature. This makes it possible to formulate conceptual expressions in accordance with the norms of the general literary language and the language of the area of knowledge under consideration. The general methodological basis for carrying out concept ordering is dialectical materialism, the Marxist-Leninist theory of knowledge. For example, grouping concepts into categories is used as one way of systematizing them. Categories of dialectical materialism such as object, property, relation, process, function, quantity, and others are applied. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account research findings in various areas of modern logic: the theory of signs and meaning, logical semantics, and theories of classification and definition. Modern concept theory is of greatest value for the methodological support of developing systems of concepts in scientific fields of knowledge. Some issues in concept theory will be briefly considered below: the epistemological nature of the conceptual form of cognition; the definition of the concept of a concept itself; clarification of the logical structure and content of a concept; analysis of types of concepts that differ in logical form, and of logical relations among concepts. Research into the epistemological nature of the concept aims to identify features that distinguish it from such forms of cognition as judgment and representation, and to determine its role in the process of cognition and in the formation and functioning of language. To distinguish a concept from a judgment, it is useful to compare representations of a given science in the form of a set of judgments and in the form of a set of concepts. It is well known that each area of knowledge deals with a particular fragment of objective reality, characterized by its objects of study. In the course of studying these objects, essential properties and relations are identified, by means of which the regularities of that fragment of the real world are established. From a logical point of view, the laws of science are judgments that reflect this level of knowledge of objective regularities and make it possible to explain and predict the behavior of the objects of study. In the language of the given area of knowledge, these judgments are expressed by means of sentences of a particular type. Analysis of such sentences makes it possible to identify their descriptive and logical components. Among the descriptive components, in turn, terms are distinguished, that is, words or phrases representing classes of objects generalized on the basis of certain features. For example, the first law of thermodynamics (in one of its formulations) is expressed as follows 60 the following proposition: The heat supplied to a thermodynamic system is equal to the sum of the increase in internal energy and the work performed by that system against external forces1. This proposition expresses one of the fundamental judgments of thermodynamics, reflecting the fundamental regularities of the material world. The following terms specific to thermodynamics occur in this proposition: heat, thermodynamic system, internal energy, work, expressing some of the basic concepts of thermodynamics. If the purpose of a judgment is to assert a particular relation between objects or the presence of a property in an object, a concept makes no assertion and serves as a representative of objects of a particular class in human consciousness. In this respect, unlike such a sensory-concrete form of cognition as a mental representation, concepts distinguish objects by the presence of essential features. The method of abstraction used in forming a concept differs from that by which the relation between a proper name and an individual object is established. In the latter case, different states and stages of an individual object are identified, whereas in forming a concept, objects are identified by their essential features, but their differences in other features are not ignored. Thus, the concept thermodynamic system corresponds to an arbitrary system from the class of systems whose essential feature is the ability to exchange energy and/or matter. At the same time, according to other features, thermodynamic systems are distinguished as open, closed, isolated, adiabatic, heterogeneous, homogeneous, and multicomponent. However, in the concept thermodynamic system, these features are not actualized. On the basis of this brief consideration of the epistemological nature of a concept, the following definition may be adopted: A concept is a form of cognition by means of which objects of study are represented in a generalized way and distinguished by their essential features. A modern interpretation of the structure of a concept is particularly important for ordering concepts. It is achieved by applying the language of predicate calculus. E. K. Voishvillo was the first to propose such an application2. The central concept of predicate calculus is that of a predicate, which is a form of asserting the presence of a property in an object or a relation between objects. In general, the structure of a concept can be represented by the following expression of extended predicate calculus: εΦ(ε), where ε is an individual or predicate variable, and Φ(ε) is a constant predicate. 1 Физический энциклопедический словарь.— М.: Сов. энциклопедия, 1963, т. 3, с. 602. 2 Войшвилло Е. К. Понятие.— М.: Изд-во МГУ, 1967. 61 As an example of this kind of analysis of a concept's structure, let us consider the concept of an open thermodynamic system: A thermodynamic system that can exchange matter with other systems3. Here, the term thermodynamic system serves as the individual variable, while the predicate is expressed by the defining subordinate clause that can exchange matter with other systems. Expressing the content of concepts by means of predicates (simple or complex) makes it possible to identify all logically possible kinds of concepts, i.e., those that differ in logical form. The following, for example, may be given as such kinds of concepts: — non-relational concepts, in which the properties (qualities, states) of objects serve as the basis for generalizing objects: xA(x), where x is an individual variable; A(x) is a predicate asserting that an object from the class represented by variable x possesses property A. For example, x is even (x), where x is a natural number, which in ordinary language would be expressed as follows: the natural number x that is even; — relational concepts, which distinguish a class of n-tuples of objects on the basis of relations among these objects: x₁, …, xₙR(x₁, …, xₙ), where x₁, …, xₙ are an n-tuple of objects; R is a relation among objects x₁, …, xₙ. For example, x₁, x₂ greater than (x₁, x₂), that is: a pair of numbers, the first of which is greater than the second; — relative concepts, which generalize objects on the basis of a property derived from a relation: the first case is xR(x, a), where a is a particular object. For example, x is greater than (x, 3); the second case is x∃yR (x, y), where ∃ is the existential quantifier binding the individual variable y. The following concept, for example, has this logical form: a thermodynamic system capable of exchanging matter with other systems; the third case is x∀yR(x, y), where ∀ is the universal quantifier binding the individual variable y, and “¬” is the negation sign. For example, a thermodynamic system that cannot exchange matter with other systems; — concepts of properties (relations), representing a class of properties (relations) distinguished on the basis of those properties (relations) possessing a particular common property: RΦ(R). For example, the concept R is reflexive (R) represents in general terms the class of relations R possessing the property expressed by the predicate ∀ xR(x, x). In this case, R is no longer a particular, fixed relation, but a predicate variable representing a class of relations. 3 Термодинамика. Терминология. Проект. — М.: Наука, 1982. 62 The advantage of using the predicate form to express the content of concepts is that it is possible to establish a relation of derivability between the content of certain concepts, which serves as a means of ordering concepts. The more complex the content of the concepts, the more relevant the practical application of predicate calculus formalism is to ordering them. Complex predicates can be used to express concepts with complex content, i.e., predicates containing such logical constants as disjunction, conjunction, and implication.